"In the grand tradition of PARIS IS BURNING, the library is open!" While RuPaul might have brought the idea of reading into the mainstream, the fact that she continues to cite Jennie Livingston's PARIS IS BURNING in the annual reading challenge on RuPaul's Drag Race speaks to the film's seminal place in queer culture. A portrait of New York's drag ball scene of the 1980s, and its importance in the gay community of the time - specifically the black and latinx queer community, PARIS IS BURNING was released in 1990 in a country still running on the fumes of the Reagan era and the AIDS crisis was still very much an every day reality. The film is is at once hopeful and tragic, a look behind the sequined curtain of a culture that was still very much hidden in the shadows, and the profound effect it had on the men and women who adorned its halls, wearing everything from nightgowns to suits - serving "realness" nightly while the straight world moved along around them unaware.

Haunted by the specter of AIDS and the murder of Venus Xtravaganza, PARIS IS BURNING is both an exuberant portrait of gay culture and queer…

It's almost incredible watching John Cameron Mitchell's scorching debut film, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, today. How could something that still feels so prescient, transgressive, and forward-thinking be over 20 years old? Even by modern standards, this modern classic of queer cinema feels at once subversive and progressive, offering a bold vision of gender fluidity and identity that paints a much more complex portrait of masculinity and femininity than we are often given on Twitter. That's because Hedwig (Mitchell), the victim of a botched back-alley gender-reassignment surgery in East (undergone at the behest of an American GI who discovers that he can only marry young Hansel and take him back to America if he's a woman), is neither full transgender or cisgender. True, she undergoes gender-reassignment, but since she didn't really want it, can she truly be called trans? Or is she in reality a cisgender gay man? Hedwig is unclassifiable, and that's what makes her so emblematic of the core of human sexuality - it's impossible to put Hedwig in a box.

This is a film about discovering oneself in the margins of society's rigid gender definitions - a theme it hits on in its poignant centerpiece number,…

The lonely landscape of the English countryside provides the backdrop for GOD'S OWN COUNTRY, the directorial debut of British actor, Francis Lee. It also becomes the catalyst for a budding relationship between two men; Johnny (Josh O'Connor) an inarticulate farmer predisposed to anonymous, casual sex, and Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) a Romanian immigrant hired by Johnny's father facing prejudice and mistrust. At first, the two seem natural enemies. Johnny is withdrawn, rebellious, and suspicious of any outsiders. He would much rather have a quick encounter in a bathroom than carry on a conversation with a partner. Gheorghe is much more settled in who he is. He's more assertive, having faced many hardships in the past, and refuses to tolerate Johnny's casual racism.

Alone on the moors with their sheep, what begins as horseplay quickly turns sexual as carnal instincts take hold. Yet Gheorghe refuses to consent to Johnny's brand of quick and meaningless sex. Instead, he introduces him to intimacy, in the process teaching Johnny that there is more to love that just carnal pleasures. The two quickly become something Johnny never expected, but overcoming his old ways may prove impossible.

Lee has made an astonishing debut behind the camera. It…

It's hard to do justice to the exquisite longing that courses through the veins of Todd Haynes' CAROL. Haynes makes films that must be felt on a gut level, the kinds of films that causes chills that start in your very core and radiate out to the tips of your fingers. As he did in FAR FROM HEAVEN, Haynes takes the staid structures of the 1950s "women's pictures" and explores the unspoken emotional truths coursing beneath the surface. While Haynes isn't recreating the work of Douglas Sirk here, that same DNA runs deep in CAROL, as he explores the forbidden Eisenhower-era romance between an upper middle class housewife (Cate Blanchett) and a younger shop clerk (Rooney Mara).

Like those "women's pictures" that were so popular in the 1950s, Haynes' films are often filled with surface pleasures - immaculate period design, a haunting, Philip Glass-like score by Carter Burwell, but like Sirk before him, Haynes always takes it one step further, examining the deeper emotions emotions beneath the seemingly flawless veneer. Blanchett and Mara are both absolute perfection, channeling the deep, repressed emotion of two women whose true feelings can't be adequately expressed in the language of the time. It's a…

Looking back on cinema's great romances - GONE WITH THE WIND, DR. ZHIVAGO, SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, you'll be hard-pressed to find one as uniquely tragic as Serge Gainsbourg's unconventional and completely uncompromising JE T'AIME MOI NON PLUS (1976).

Its romantic leads are gay truck driver, Krassky (Joe Dallesandro), and tomboyish truck stop waitress, Johnny (Jane Birkin), whose chance encounter leads to an unusual and unexpected romance that defies gender and sexuality, even as it arouses the jealousy of Krassky's partner, Padovan (Hugues Quester). At the initial meeting, Krassky mistakes Johnny's slight, tank top-clad frame for a man's, but is taken aback when he discovers that she is, in fact, a woman. Yet he can't help but be drawn to her boyish masculinity, and the two embark on something that is at once new and frightening for them both, as Krassky finds himself unable to perform sexually unless he takes Johnny from behind, a source of both frustration and comedy-by-repitition.

What makes the film so remarkably ahead of its time is the way it critiques the very idea of gender and deconstructs sexuality into something thoroughly modern and forward thinking. In Gainsbourg's sweltering, deeply horny vision,…

A man walks out on his boyfriend behind in Paris and heads off to the French countryside with only the gay hookup app, Grindr, for guidance in Jérôme Reybaud's captivating film, 4 DAYS IN . We know nothing about why Pierre (Pascal Cervo) leaves his boyfriend, Paul (Arthur Igual) asleep in their bed, with only a few possessions in a duffel bag and his trusty cellphone, but the reason, it turns out, doesn't really matter that much.

Through his phone and the people he meets, Pierre lives solidly in the present, taking each moment as it comes. 4 DAYS IN is a fascinating meditation on the interconnectivity of our lives, how social technology has the power to both increase and decrease the space between people. Pierre is living in the moment, but how much does he actually connect with it, and with the people around him? Tellingly, he manages to leave something behind in the hearts and minds of each person he encounters, and while Reybaud never tells their stories, we can't help but feel that these are people worth knowing more about.

Life is a series of encounters, as we enter and exit from stories we're barely even…

The spirit of Pier Paolo Pasolini hangs over João Pedro Rodrigues' gleefully blasphemous THE ORNITHOLOGIST, which turns religious iconography on its head in a journey of self-discovery and tribulation in the Portuguese wilderness. The film follows an Ornithologist who becomes hopelessly lost after a near-death experience on a river, through a series of harrowing and erotic trials that recall the Stations of the Cross. Kidnapped by Chinese pilgrims who seek to castrate him, the Ornithologist escapes, only to encounter a marauding band of circus performers, a deaf/mute Jesus with whom he has an unexpected sexual encounter, and topless female hunters on horseback resembling centaurs who may either help or hurt him.

It is a strange, erotic odyssey, after which our protagonist (a representation of St. Anthony) is literally and figuratively a different person. As a journey of spiritual self-discovery, it's an often abstract and obfuscating film; but what magic! What depth! As he did in the brilliant TO DIE LIKE A MAN, Rodrigues takes us on a haunting trip through the mind of a man in transition (occasionally played by Rodrigues himself), grappling with issues of sexuality and religion in powerful and deeply personal ways. Rodrigues' intentisn't always clear, but…

Director Patrick Wang stars as Joey, an Asian American gay man from Tennessee in a loving long term partnership with white high school teacher Cody (Trevor St. John). Together they are raising Cody's biological son, Chip. When Cody dies suddenly of an unexpected illness, Joey and Chip find themselves alone for the first time, trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. Things get complicated, however, when Joey discovers that Cody left sole custody of Chip to his sister, Sally, in a six year old will. Devastated, Joey is left to wonder what happened, and as he grows more and more estranged from a family that had once accepted him, he is left with nothing but his memories for company. When he decides to fight for his son, it becomes clear that even the law is against him. In a world that doesn't even recognize his relationship as legitimate, his entire family as he knows it is about to be torn apart.

At nearly three hours long, IN THE FAMILY may seem a bit daunting, and even self-indulgent for a first time writer/director. But the film never once feels like it's as long as it actually is. Wang…

After her son, Esteban (Eloy Azorín), is tragically killed in an accident while trying to get the autograph of one of his favorite actresses, Manuela (Cecilia Roth), heads to Barcelona to start a new life. Once there, she becomes a kind of surrogate mother to a motley band of misfits - a pregnant nun with HIV, a transgender sex worker, and lesbian actress Huma (Marisa Paredes), whose co-dependent relationship with her drug-addicted girlfriend, Nina (Candela Peña), leaves her looking for direction and stability. It is here where Manuela grows closer to her son than ever, recapturing the spirit of what it means to be a mother, and coming to with her own inner trauma.

It is Huma's face that we see emblazoned on a mural, her red lipstick stark against her pale face, Manuela dwarfed and illuminated by her Technicolor grandiosity in a similarly striking red coat. That image has come to define the film in many ways - first of all in Almodóvar's trademark oversaturated Technicolor brilliance and second for its singular sense of melodramatic melancholy. ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER is a melodrama, make no mistake, rooted in classical Hollywood and steeped in references to films such as…

We know just about all we need to know about PARIAH's main character right from the start - the title itself seemingly a one word summation of her entire character. Adepero Oduye's Alike is no victim, however. She is a girl assured of her identity but adrift in a world that isn't ready to accept her, not just as a black teenager, but as a lesbian. Unlike many coming of age dramas, Alike understands and accepts her sexuality. She isn't ashamed of who she is. She frequents gay bars, hits on pretty girls in the school hallway, and walks with a masculine swagger one would expect of a teenage male rather than a teenage girl.

There is something vibrant and immediate about Pariah that is hard to shake. From the pulsing opening to the wrenching poetry reading at its finale, Pariah is never anything less than piercing and incisive. Rees and Oduye are both blazing new talents to watch. So assured is the film and so true is Oduye's performance that it's hard to believe that both director and actor aren't already established artists. This is one of the most raw and powerful depictions of budding teenage sexuality I've ever…

That James Whale managed to make this idiosyncratic masterpiece at a major studio in 1935 remains an impressive feat. It not only manages to deepen the character of Frankenstein's monster, it creates a greater sense of pathos around his inherent tragedy. Karloff's monster is unloved, hated and villainized at every turn. In FRANKENSTEIN, he was a violent creature who did not ask to be brought into the world who doesn't understand the damage he causes. In BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, he is hated and misunderstood due to his monstrous appearance, his violence comes from the reactions of fear with which he is constantly met. It is only when he gets his first taste of kindness from a blind man that he begins to understand his place in the world, and the inherent intolerance of the world at large.

That the bride created for him by Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorious also hates him because of his appearance is the final, most tragic insult. He belongs dead, he should never have existed in the first place - hated, ridiculed, and shunned by the very people who gave him life. It's a portrait of human ugliness more than anything, made by a gay…