50 Fun Facts About LGBTQ Movies

Which film about a boy growing up in Miami won Best Picture after La La Land was announced by mistake?

Moonlight became the first LGBTQ film to win Best Picture, moments after the presenters read out the wrong title from a duplicate Best Actress envelope.

Which actor played ranch hand Ennis Del Mar opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in the cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain?

Heath Ledger wanted the taciturn Ennis rather than Jack from the start, saying the character's lack of words was what made the role enjoyable.

Which actor won an Oscar playing Andrew Beckett, a lawyer fired for having AIDS, in Philadelphia?

Tom Hanks won Best Actor for one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to address HIV/AIDS and homophobia directly and to show gay people in a positive light.

Which comedy stars Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a couple who run a South Beach drag club?

The Birdcage is the name of the club itself, and Elaine May's screenplay reworked the French-Italian hit La Cage aux Folles for an American audience.

Which actor won an Oscar for playing Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody?

Rami Malek took Best Actor as the film collected four Oscars, more than any other title at that ceremony.

Which actor won an Oscar as Harvey Milk, the San Francisco politician at the centre of Milk?

Sean Penn won Best Actor, and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay also won for its portrait of the first openly gay man elected to public office in California.

Which actor played the mad scientist Frank-N-Furter in the cult midnight musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Tim Curry made his film debut in the role, and audience-participation screenings turned a film critics had ignored into the longest-running theatrical release in history.

Sean Baker shot Tangerine, about two trans friends crossing Hollywood on Christmas Eve, on what device?

An iPhone 5s, three of them in fact, fitted with anamorphic lens adapters and a Steadicam rig to give the film its widescreen look.

Which codebreaker, convicted of gross indecency in 1952, does Benedict Cumberbatch play in The Imitation Game?

Alan Turing devised new ways to decrypt German messages in the Second World War, and the film ends with his conviction and chemical castration.

Which actress won an Oscar playing Brandon Teena, a young trans man in Nebraska, in Boys Don't Cry?

Hilary Swank landed the lead after a three-year casting search, and her co-star Chloë Sevigny was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Which drama about racial tension in Los Angeles beat Brokeback Mountain to the Best Picture Oscar?

Crash won, and some critics accused the Academy of homophobia, though Roger Ebert defended the choice and argued that the better film had taken the prize.

Which romance set in 1980s northern Italy stars Timothée Chalamet as Elio and Armie Hammer as Oliver?

Call Me by Your Name earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won Best Adapted Screenplay for James Ivory.

Which film stars Cate Blanchett as a 1950s New York wife who falls for shop worker Therese?

Carol was shot on Super 16 mm film for a muted, period look, and the novel behind it first appeared in 1952 under a pseudonym.

In the Australian road movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, what exactly is Priscilla?

A tour bus, christened by the youngest of the three performers who ride it across the Outback; their wardrobe won the film the Oscar for Best Costume Design.

Which fashion designer made his directing debut with A Single Man, starring Colin Firth as a bereaved professor?

Tom Ford's first film brought Colin Firth an Oscar nomination and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival.

Which actress won an Oscar as Queen Anne, caught between two rival courtiers, in The Favourite?

Olivia Colman won Best Actress, while her co-stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz were both nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Which jukebox musical stars Taron Egerton as Elton John and Jamie Bell as lyricist Bernie Taupin?

Rocketman won the Oscar for Best Original Song, for a new number that John and Taupin wrote for the film.

Which teen comedy, based on a Becky Albertalli novel, was the first major-studio film about a gay teenage romance?

Love, Simon follows a teenager who falls for an anonymous classmate online, and Albertalli herself has a cameo in a cafeteria scene.

Which actor won an Oscar as Rayon, a trans woman with HIV, in Dallas Buyers Club?

Jared Leto took Best Supporting Actor and co-star Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor; Rayon was a composite built from interviews with trans AIDS patients.

In which US state do Ennis and Jack meet while herding sheep in the summer of 1963 in Brokeback Mountain?

Wyoming is the setting, but the film was shot almost entirely in the Canadian Rockies of southern Alberta, a choice made on cost.

Which documentary by Jennie Livingston chronicles the New York drag ball scene where voguing took shape?

Paris Is Burning was filmed over seven years and won the Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at Sundance; the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2016.

Which French director made Portrait of a Lady on Fire, about a painter and her reluctant subject in Brittany?

Céline Sciamma won Best Screenplay at Cannes, where her film also became the first directed by a woman to take the Queer Palm.

Which French-language drama's Palme d'Or was shared by its director and both lead actresses?

Blue Is the Warmest Colour won by a unanimous jury vote, with Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos honoured alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche.

Which comedy-drama stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as mothers whose teenagers track down their sperm donor?

The Kids Are All Right won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy and was among the first mainstream films to show a same-sex couple raising teenagers.

Which satirical comedy sends Natasha Lyonne's character to a conversion therapy camp called True Directions?

But I'm a Cheerleader also gave RuPaul a rare part out of drag, as a camp counsellor who claims to be ex-gay.

Which filmmaking siblings made their debut with the noir thriller Bound, starring Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly?

The Wachowskis set out to tell a noir story about two women who scheme to steal $2 million of Mafia money, then went on to make The Matrix.

Which actor played narcoleptic street hustler Mike Waters opposite Keanu Reeves in My Own Private Idaho?

River Phoenix won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at Venice for Gus Van Sant's film, which borrows part of its story from Shakespeare's Henry IV plays.

Which Catwoman actress is thanked in the title of the drag road comedy starring Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes?

Julie Newmar signed the photo that the three queens carry on their road trip, and she appears as herself to present a crown.

Which rock star won an Oscar for a song written at director Jonathan Demme's request for Philadelphia?

Bruce Springsteen recorded Streets of Philadelphia after Demme told him he wanted a song that would be heard in shopping malls; it also won four Grammys.

Which actress won an Oscar as Berlin nightclub singer Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse's Cabaret?

Liza Minnelli had once been judged too inexperienced to play Sally on Broadway; the film went on to win eight Oscars without taking Best Picture.

Which country won its first foreign-language Oscar with A Fantastic Woman, starring trans actress Daniela Vega?

Chile had never won the category before, and LGBTQ activists there used the victory to speed up debate on a gender identity bill.

Which Spanish director won a foreign-language Oscar for All About My Mother and later made Pain and Glory?

Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother won seven Goya Awards at home, including Best Film and Best Director, plus a Golden Globe and two BAFTAs abroad.

Which actress won an Oscar as painter Gerda Wegener, wife of Lili Elbe, in The Danish Girl?

Alicia Vikander won Best Supporting Actress despite being on screen for about half the running time, which drew criticism that she belonged in the lead category.

Which novelist, played by Nicole Kidman, wrote the book that links the three women of The Hours?

Virginia Woolf is shown writing Mrs Dalloway in 1920s England, the novel that connects her to the characters played by Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

Which actress plays a nobleman who lives for centuries and wakes up as a woman in Sally Potter's Orlando?

Tilda Swinton takes the title role while Quentin Crisp plays Queen Elizabeth I, so the casting crosses gender in both directions.

Which actor and comedian played playwright Oscar Wilde, opposite Jude Law as Lord Alfred Douglas, in Wilde?

Stephen Fry earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, heading a cast that also included Vanessa Redgrave and Michael Sheen.

Which novelist's book Maurice, published only after his death, became a Merchant Ivory film with Hugh Grant?

E. M. Forster wrote the novel in 1913–14 but resisted publishing it in his lifetime because of public and legal attitudes to homosexuality.

Fire Island, a romantic comedy about gay friends on a New York holiday island, reworks a novel by which author?

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice supplied the plot, which writer and star Joel Kim Booster moved to a vacation where classism complicates romance.

In the British comedy-drama Pride, set in 1984, London gay and lesbian activists raise money for which group?

Striking miners in Wales were the cause, after activist Mark Ashton began a bucket collection at London's Gay Pride parade; the film won the Queer Palm at Cannes.

Which Baltimore drag performer starred in John Waters's Pink Flamingos, Polyester and the original Hairspray?

Divine was also an inspiration for Ursula the Sea Witch, the villain of Disney's animated film The Little Mermaid.

In which city is the Hong Kong couple of Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together stranded without money to fly home?

Buenos Aires is where Fai takes a job as a doorman at a tango bar, in the film that won Wong the Best Director prize at Cannes.

Which Neil Jordan thriller about an IRA volunteer was sold with a plea not to reveal its plot twist?

The Crying Game won Jordan the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, helped by an advertising campaign that asked audiences to keep the secret about Dil.

Hedwig, the rock singer of John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, comes from which country?

East Germany is where the young Hansel grows up loving rock music, until marriage to an American sergeant offers a way across to the West.

Which author, shown researching a Kansas murder case, did Philip Seymour Hoffman win a Best Actor Oscar for playing?

Truman Capote is shown travelling to Kansas to research the murders behind In Cold Blood, in a film that earned five Oscar nominations including Best Picture.

Which actor played Frankenstein director James Whale in his final days in Gods and Monsters?

Ian McKellen plays the retired director opposite Brendan Fraser as his gardener, a character invented for the novel the film is based on.

Which comedian co-wrote and starred in Bros, a major-studio gay romcom with an openly LGBTQ principal cast?

Billy Eichner plays a commitment-shy New Yorker opposite Luke Macfarlane in the Universal release, which Judd Apatow helped produce.

The Handmaiden moved Sarah Waters's Victorian novel Fingersmith to which country under Japanese colonial rule?

Korea replaced Victorian Britain, with a local girl hired as maid to a Japanese heiress on a secluded estate, and Waters judged the film faithful to her book.

Which documentary, narrated by Lily Tomlin, traces how Hollywood films portrayed gay and lesbian characters?

The Celluloid Closet grew out of Vito Russo's 1981 book and the film-clip lectures he had been giving since 1972.

Which British director made the romance Weekend and later All of Us Strangers, starring Paul Mescal?

Andrew Haigh's Weekend follows two men who meet the weekend before one of them leaves the country, and it won an audience award at its SXSW premiere.

Which actor won an Oscar as Luis Molina, a gay prisoner in a Brazilian jail, in Kiss of the Spider Woman?

William Hurt also won Best Actor at Cannes and the BAFTA, and the film earned the first Best Picture nomination for a Brazilian production.