Documentary
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
Hold on Tight
Queen of New York
Doctors, Liars, and Women: AIDS Activists Say No to Cosmo
Stiff Sheets
No Regret
History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige
Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End
Two Spirits
Saving Marriage
The Pigeon People
Rap's Most Wanted
Are You Proud?
Out of the Closet, Off the Screen: The Life of William Haines
Teatro Amazonas
Earth: The Power of the Planet
Methadonia
A Suitable Girl
Life May Be
The Future of Food
Born to Be
SIMILAR MOVIES
Hold on Tight
IMDB 4.7 | Jul , 2011
A short documentary exploring the ways LGBT couples show affection, and how small interactions like holding hands in public can carry, not only huge personal significance, but also the power to create social change.Queen of New York
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2023
Welcome to a different kind of drag race! As NYC emerges from the chaos of 2020, Marti Cummings (they/them), an audacious and big-hearted drag queen, goes all out in a historic bid to become a City Councilperson. It’s one of the most hotly contested Council races in years, and Marti’s strongest competitor is Shaun Abreu, a tenants’ lawyer with deep roots in the district’s Latinx community. As these first-timers race to do the most good for their Upper Manhattan neighbors, they offer very different visions for Democratic politics – one in a suit and tie, the other in combat boots and floral print. As this immersive documentary reveals, Marti’s passion inspires queer activists and allies to change the political system. Their campaign becomes a community of its own, especially for Marti’s non-binary peers who have never before seen themselves represented.Doctors, Liars, and Women: AIDS Activists Say No to Cosmo
IMDB 0 | Jan , 1988
Outraged by the controversial January, 1988 article in Cosmopolitan magazine, the women in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, (Act Up, New York), organized the first AIDS demonstration focused on women. Doctors, Liars and Women:AIDS Activists Say No To Cosmo not only documents the efforts of the Women's Committee to organize this protest, it also serves as a how-to-guide for direct action.Stiff Sheets
IMDB 0 | Jan , 1989
Stiff Sheets indicts public health officials and politicians for the lack of adequate and humane care for people with AIDS in Los Angeles, this time documenting a mock fashion show staged by ACT UP activists.No Regret
IMDB 5.4 | Jun , 1993
Five gay Black men who are HIV-positive discuss how they are battling the double stigmas surrounding their infection and homosexuality.History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige
IMDB 0 | Apr , 1991
This film is a poetic composition of recorded history and non-recorded memory. Filmmaker Rea Tajiri’s family was among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And like so many who were in the camps, Tajiri’s family wrapped their memories of that experience in a shroud of silence and forgetting. This film raises questions about collective history – questions that prompt Tajiri to daringly re-imagine and re-create what has been stolen and what has been lost.Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End
IMDB 1 | Jan , 1997
Narrated by Linda Hunt, this documentary examines the life of the late author and gay rights activist Paul Monette. Born in 1945 to a well-off Massachusetts family, Monette grows up unable to accept his homosexuality, for years hiding it from his loved ones while struggling to develop as a writer. In 1978, Monette publishes his first novel, which allows him to come out to his parents. After losing one lover to AIDS in 1986, he becomes a ferocious advocate for awareness of the disease.Two Spirits
IMDB 4.8 | Jun , 2009
Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.Saving Marriage
IMDB 5.9 | Jun , 2006
A landmark court decision in Massachusetts allows gay people in that state to marry - forcing activists, legislators, and ordinary people to reconsider how they view same-sex relationships.The Pigeon People
IMDB 10 | Jun , 2025
Directed by Patrick Gramm, 'The Pigeon People' (2023) takes you deep into Arizona's underground pigeon racing scene as racing rivals prepare for and compete in the Grand Canyon Classic - a 350-mile pigeon race from Utah to Arizona that crosses over the Grand Canyon.Rap's Most Wanted
IMDB 0 | Sep , 1991
Documentery from 1991 where The 2 Live Crew, Chuck D (Public Enemy), Too Short, Ice-T, Geto Boys, H.W.A. drop real talk on different topics.Are You Proud?
IMDB 2.5 | Jul , 2019
Are You Proud? is a vivid and engaged docu-celebration of the LGBT rights movement from the partial victory of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to Stonewall, the Gay Liberation Front , the AIDS crisis, Legal Marriage and finally the 2016 Pulse night club shooting. The film gives an extensive history of the course of LGBT rights campaigning, but it also shows how much more work there is to be done.Out of the Closet, Off the Screen: The Life of William Haines
IMDB 5.8 | Jun , 2001
Chronicles the life of William Haines, Hollywood's first openly gay movie star, who sacrificed his career to live openly with his lover.Teatro Amazonas
IMDB 8 | Jan , 1999
Teatro Amazonas is an elaborate, intriguing formalist experiment investigating the cinematic gaze and cultural exchange, and offering an unconventional ethnographic record of its Amazonian subjects engaged (and disengaged) in the act of spectatorship.Earth: The Power of the Planet
IMDB 8 | Nov , 2007
Dr Iain Stewart tells the story of how Earth works and how, over the course of 4.6 billion years, it came to be the remarkable place it is today.Methadonia
IMDB 4.8 | Oct , 2005
Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).A Suitable Girl
IMDB 6.9 | Apr , 2017
A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.Life May Be
IMDB 5.5 | Jun , 2014
An epistolary feature film: a cinematic discourse between a British director Mark Cousins, and an Iranian actress and director Mania Akbari which extends the concept of "essay film" with startling confrontations in the arenas of cultural issues, gender politics and differing artistic sensibilities. A unique journey into the minds of two exceptional filmmakers which becomes a love affair on film.The Future of Food
IMDB 7.5 | May , 2004
Before compiling your next grocery list, you might want to watch filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia's eye-opening documentary, which sheds light on a shadowy relationship between agriculture, big business and government. By examining the effects of biotechnology on the nation's smallest farmers, the film reveals the unappetizing truth about genetically modified foods: You could unknowingly be serving them for dinner.Born to Be
IMDB 3 | Sep , 2019
Soon after New York state passed a 2015 law that health insurance should cover transgender-related care and services, director Tania Cypriano and producer Michelle Hayashi began bringing their cameras behind the scenes at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, where this remarkable documentary captures the emotional and physical journey of surgical transitioning. Lending equal narrative weight to the experiences of the center’s groundbreaking surgeon Dr. Jess Ting and those of his diverse group of patients, BORN TO BE perfectly balances compassionate personal storytelling and fly-on-the-wall vérité. It’s a film of astonishing access—most importantly into the lives, joys, and fears of the people at its center.