Content Warning: This article contains mention of violence and suicide.
Pride Month is a great time to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community and its history. What started as a riot outside a gay club in 1969 NYC grew over time to what the public now knows as a month-long time to learn and celebrate.
One of the best ways to fully understand Pride is to learn a bit about the long, often violent, and sad history of persecution against members of the LGBTQ+ community. Once audiences look at some of these top ten LGBTQ+ documentaries, it will be easier to understand how the community took that persecution and used it to fuel change.
Gen Silent (Available On Prime Video)
Gen Silent is a 2010 documentary directed by Stu Maddox. The film follows six seniors of the LGBTQ+ community as they navigate their ways through the American Health Care System. Pursuing care leads many LGBTQ+ seniors to deal with discrimination, persecution based on their sexuality, religious prejudices, and even abuse or harassment.
Though the members of this group were all on the front lines of the activism and equality fights that took place starting long before and lasting way past the Stonewall Riots, they now face the choice of risking the above treatment or doing what many members of the community fear the most – going back into the closet to ensure equal care in their old age.
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement (Available On Prime Video & Apple TV)
In 1962, Edie Windsor and Thea Clara Spyer met in the underground and very illegal queer counter-culture that had popped up across New York City. By 1969, the two were engaged. They remained that way until 2007 when they finally flew to Canada to exchange vows. Released in 2009, Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement tells the epic love story, revealing that the two women finally walked down the aisle because Thea, who had been battling Multiple Sclerosis since 1977, was given a year to live. One morning, they woke up, decided they still wanted to be married, and flew to where they could do so legally.
Thea Spyer passed away at their Hampton home on February 5, 2009. The story that happened after it led to The United States vs. Windsor and the takedown of the Defense Of Marriage Act. This film humanizes the woman whose name is forever attached to the major progression of the movement towards marriage equality.
Upstairs Inferno (Available On Prime Video)
On June 24, 1973, a popular New Orleans underground gay nightclub burst into flames. The club was the UpStairs Lounge, and for 43 years, that arson was the worst mass murder perpetrated against the LGBTQ+ community in America, with 32 people dying. That would stand until June 12, 2016, with the mass shooting at Pulse, an Orlando gay nightclub.
Robert L. Camino directed the Upstairs Inferno, releasing it for Pride in June of 2015, one year before the Pulse massacre. Camino wove interviews with survivors, first responders, and witnesses with archival footage to tell the story of how fear and hatred led to a tragedy that would devastate the queer community and leave lasting scars on those left to bear witness.
Paris Is Burning (Available On Prime Video)
Released in 1991, Paris Is Burning is a documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Allowed unprecedented access, Livingston’s documentary follows New York City’s popular drag queens and their “house” or “ball” culture. This is culture-specific to NYC’s drag community, where people who have often been disowned and shunned by everyone they have ever known come together to form their own kinds of families.
They come together in group homes, often referring to themselves as “Children.” Groups from these houses would ultimately compete against one another at the Paris Is Burning annual ball hosted by Paris DuPree, a prominent drag queen of the era. Thus, the documentary really shines a light on the POC drag queens of the 1980s-1990s who were often the invisible people, even in the LGBTQ+ community.
The Death & Life Of Marsha P. Johnson (Available On Netflix)
Marsha P. Johnson was a true pillar of the community, a central figure in the 1969 Stonewall Riots. In 1992, Johnson was still a staple around the West Village and active in fighting for equal rights. Leading up to 1992 Pride in NYC, there was a noticeable ramp up in gay-bashing and crimes against members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Marsha was always at the front of the line and the loudest of the voices crying against injustice and demanding change. One day she was leading a march specifically demanding that the police stop ruling these deaths suicides. A few weeks later, Marsha P. Johnson herself was fished out of the Hudson River in the West Village…her death has quickly ruled a suicide. Marsha’s friends and other leaders throughout the community never believed that it was suicide and continuously spoke out against this ruling.
United In Anger: A History Of ACTUP (Available On Prime Video)
This film is a testament to the founders and members of not only the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACTUP) but also those who lent their time and knowledge to the members of the LGBTQ+ community as they were ravaged by the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the USA during the 1980s.
As the government, healthcare, corporations, and Big Pharma all turned their backs, gay men were disproportionately killed by the then basically untreatable disease. In their frustration, fear, and anger, the community members took it upon themselves to learn how to research, get the drugs they needed, educate people on the disease and the dangers of the AZT cocktail strive for real change. Jim Hubbard melded real footage and interviews with founding members of ACTUP in United In Arms: A History Of ACTUP, highlighting the organization’s own ACTUP Oral History Project.
Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine (Available On Prime Video & Apple TV)
Many feel they know everything about the death of Matthew Shepard – but this documentary will teach audiences about the real Matt Shepard. Made by his friend Michele Josue, the movie takes viewers past the horrible crimes perpetrated against Matt, past the gay panic defense, and right to the heart of a young man who was figuring out who he was and where he fit into the world.
From his family telling their memories with him to the lasting impact Matt left behind, audiences learn the truth behind all the speculation and character assassinations performed by the media in October of 1997. Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine allows the audience to understand the feelings that his murder provoked in a generation of young LGBTQ+ people who watched in horror as all of their deepest fears were brought to the forefront of the nation.
DISCLOSURE (Available On Netflix)
The newest entry on this list, DISCLOSURE, digs into how trans people are portrayed on both big and small screens and the mistakes and progress that have occurred over the past few decades. Directed and produced by Sam Feder, today’s leading trans scholars and creative forces weigh in on exactly how the portrayals have been damaging to the community.
They also delve into why casting cis actors in trans roles is harmful to the community and how perpetuating stereotypes is disrespectful and dangerous to many. The film gets to really talking about how Hollywood has made a lot of progress in the matter, especially recently.
How To Survive A Plague (Available On Prime Video)
How To Survive A Plague is one of the most unwavering documentaries about the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic. In a time when there were a lot of unknowns, a shunned and condemned community stood firm. The film shows many LGBTQ+ and AIDS activists and goes further into how ACTUP and the Treatment Action Group (TAG) took matters into their own hands.
The film shows how LGBTQ+ community members becoming their own advocates, creating buyers’ clubs, smuggling in unapproved drugs, and even bringing the cocktail to the government and showing them all the evidence they needed to approve it.
Before Stonewall (Available On Pride Video)
This beautifully made documentary really brings to life the climate that led to the 1969 June Riots. Made in 1984, Before Stonewall remains one of the most important documentaries about the frustration and anger that led to the creation of Pride.
Patrons of the Stonewall Inn were technically breaking the law. Homosexuality and other aspects that define the LGBTQ+ community were still illegal. If found in one of these bars, a person’s life was ruined. The Mafia knew this, owned the places, and capitalized on it. The cops were violent. The community was fed up. If audiences can watch only one documentary about the history of Pride, this is the one to choose.
