Best movies like Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend

In the aftermath of Stonewall, a newly politicized Vito Russo found his voice as a gay activist and critic of LGBTQ+ representation in the media. He went on to write "The Celluloid Closet", the first book to critique Hollywood's portrayals of gays on screen. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Vito became a passionate advocate for justice via the newly formed ACT UP, before his death in 1990.

A young Muslim man, Rami, who is engaged to a young woman named Sara. We soon discover that Sam is also involved on the side with a young male artist named Lee.

An aspiring Jewish actor moves out of his parents' Brooklyn apartment to seek his fortune in the bohemian life of Greenwich Village in 1953.

A pregnant New York social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.

Queer Duck and his partner of 18 months (a lifetime in gay years), Stephen Arlo "Openly" Gator, hit a relationship crisis when the fey fowl is wooed by a brassy Broadway broad. Queer Duck wonders if he'd be happier being straight, while Gator the waiter spills his problems to a compassionate Conan O'Brien.

At age 73, writer and melancholy master of the bon mot, Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), became an Englishman in New York. Nossiter's camera follows Crisp about the streets of Manhattan, where Crisp seems very much at home, wearing eye shadow, appearing on a makeshift stage, making and repeating wry observations, talking to John Hurt (who played Crisp in the autobiographical TV movie, "The Naked Civil Servant"), and dining with friends. Others who know Crisp comment on him, on his life as an openly gay man with an effeminate manner, and on his place in the history of gays' social struggle. The portrait that emerges is of one wit and of suffering.

Jeffrey, a gay man living in New York City with an overwhelming fear of contracting AIDS, concludes that being celibate is the only option to protect himself. As fate would have it, shortly after his declaration of a sex-free existence, he meets the handsome Steve Howard, his dream man -- except for his HIV-positive status. Facing this dilemma, Jeffrey turns to his best friend and an outrageous priest for guidance.

When he discovers his girlfriend having sex with his brother, Frankie decides to head to Manhattan, leaving his Bronx pizza shop forever for the fame and fortune of show business. But before stardom, he needs a place to stay. Looking in the personals, he notices GWM. And thinking it "Guy with Money," he heads to the Village and the apartment of gay actor Warren, who's in desperate need of this month's rent.

Set during a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.

A witty, perceptive and devastating look at the personal agendas and suppressed revelations swirling among a group of gay men in Manhattan. Harold is celebrating a birthday, and his friend Michael has drafted some other friends to help commemorate the event. As the evening progresses, the alcohol flows, the knives come out, and Michael's demand that the group participate in a devious telephone game, unleashing dormant and unspoken emotions.

A drama that looks back on the Harlem Renaissance from the perspective of an elderly, black writer who meets a gay teenager in a New York homeless shelter.

Daisy Kenyon is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant and overbearing but successful lawyer named Dan O'Mara. O'Mara is married and has children. Daisy meets a single man, a war veteran named Peter Lapham, and after a brief and hesitant courtship decides to marry him, although she is still in love with Dan.

Manhattanites Bruce and Prudence are each looking for a meaningful romantic relationship and have been encouraged by their psychiatrists to find someone through the personal ads. Their first meeting is disastrous, but they begin to hit it off during their second date. However, Bruce's bisexual, live-in lover does not want to share Bruce and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep him to himself.

Police detective Joe Leland investigates the murder of a gay man.

What makes a voice “gay”? A breakup with his boyfriend sets journalist David Thorpe on a quest to unravel a linguistic mystery.

A macho sex doll triggers the belated discovery of an older man's hidden inner self.

Jo is a neglected 16-year-old girl whose promiscuous mother marries a dandy. Jo gets pregnant after a tryst with a black cook, who leaves her over his impending responsibilities of fatherhood, and she only finds support in a gay male friend.

In a rapidly changing New York of the 1980s, a Russian Jewish teenager wrestles with his identity, faith, and sexuality, all of which seem irreconcilable until he befriends two closeted men in his grandfather's senior housing complex.

Three friends form a bond over the year, Johnathan is gay, Clare is straight and Bobby is neither, instead he loves the people he loves. As their lives go on there is tension and tears which culminate in a strong yet fragile friendship between the three.

A gay-oriented adult film about a young man with a sexual obsession for Christ. This film is presumably lost.

Paul, a 20 year old midwesterner, arrives at the central bus station and quickly catches eyes with Wye, a 22 year old girl voguing on the sidewalk. After Paul seeks her out in secret, an intense love between them blossoms. But when Paul discovers Wye is trans, he is forced to confront his own identity and what it means to belong.

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

On Manhattan's gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.

The movie follows Joe, a heroin addict, throughout his quest to score more drugs. The episodic plot occurs over a single day and centers on Joe's problematic relationship with his on-off, sexually frustrated girlfriend. During the course of the day, Joe overdoses in front of an upper-class couple, attempts to fool Welfare into approving his methadone treatment by having Holly fake a pregnancy, and frustrates the women in his life with his drug-induced impotence.

Gabriel is a young, aspiring musical composer whose life seems stuck in the First Act. When his new musical number gets a critical reception, a theatre colleague, Perry, tells Gabriel that he needs to get a life before he can write about one – so he heads straight for his local gay bar.

In this purely fictional story, Paul McCartney drops by The Dakota to visit John Lennon in 1976. Paul is still on top of the music world, reaching #1 with his new band, Wings. John, however, has retired from public life, choosing to raise his son, Sean. Rumors are rampant that The Beatles are going to reunite to play a concert. Paul, the consummate entertainer, is intrigued by the possibilities. But John, still fighting his inner demons, is content keeping Beatlemania a thing of the past. But even though the two men are still at odds over the band, they rediscover that they still have bonds from the past that will never go away.

Adam and Marklin’s 5-year relationship has gone from a passionate flame to a simmer, forcing them to reconcile with each other’s shortcomings while their friends endlessly search for love in New York City.

Rhonda, a big-haired bankteller from Brooklyn, encounters Travis, naked, suicidal and about to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Mistaking him for her perfect man, she stalks him all the way to Danton, Texas. Along the way she slowly comes to realize he is gay and is despondent over the AIDS-related death of his former lover. An alliance, and eventually true friendship, is formed between this extremely odd couple as they embark upon a 'treasure hunt' - with clues provided from beyond the grave.

In his early twenties, Sam Cagnina, oldest son of a Mafia hit man, meets Steven, a handsome 19-year old college student and they fall in love. Then, after a few years Sam offers Steven a "visionary" idea. What if they could find a woman who would fall in love with both of them and agree to live in a "trio" relationship? They spend the next 7 years dating and looking for that special woman. Finally, they meet Samantha, a young, struggling actress. THREE OF HEARTS explores this very unique trio union as they negotiate their living arangements, fall in love and open one of the hottest wellness centres in New York City. Everyone who comes in contact with them is never quite sure how the relationship works. But the one thing which seems certain is their love for each other.

In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.

Chris & Don chronicles the lifelong relationship between author Christopher Isherwood and his much younger lover, artist Don Bachardy, and it combines present-day interviews, archival footage shot by the couple from the 1950s, excerpts from Isherwood's diaries, and playful animations to recount their romance.

William is constantly shooting video journals of his life to have as souvenirs for himself. Feeling the end of his relationship with Médéric, his young lover, William spends two days camping with him, taking advantage of the situation by filming the trip and their time spent with another young gay couple. The camera never stops shooting, even when Médéric decides to get it on with another guy in a tent. As Canada's first Dogme95 film, the story is shot on location, with natural lighting and live sound, the camera is hand-held and all superficial elements are forbidden. Yet somehow, in spite of these harsh restrictions during the filmmaking process, the result is warm and beautiful.

Four years into his first stable relationship, a man finds out that he is pregnant with his partner's baby.

The story centers on a religiously conservative, married southern woman who receives a message from God instructing her to act as a surrogate mother and carry a child for two married gay men who live in Boston - a Jewish doctor and and African-American dance choreographer. All Hell breaks loose when the African American man comes to her home down south to micro-manage her pregnancy, and he won't leave.

Too shy to make a proper introduction, a recent college grad devises to shoot a documentary about the NYC nightlife scene in order to meet the go-go guy he’s cyber-obsessed with.

Jane is young, French, pregnant and unmarried. Bucking convention, she is uninterested in settling with her baby's father or getting an abortion. After renting a room in a dingy London boarding house, Jane befriends the odd group of inhabitants and starts an affair with one boarder, Toby. As Jane's pregnancy threatens her new relationship, and the reality of single motherhood approaches, she is forced to decide what to do about both her baby and her budding romance.

Six people in New York are adrift. Zeke and Luke work in a sex shop: Zeke takes gay liberation seriously, Luke likes to sparkle and takes nothing seriously. He's offended when Stephen calls him a gay cliché, then, surprisingly, they find each other attractive and interesting. Stephen, it turns out, has a great apartment, trust fund, and artwork he's painted on his walls. Meanwhile, Peter, a neat-freak, and Derek, nice to everyone, move in together. Peter's compulsiveness threatens the relationship. Last, newly-engaged Marilyn, a recovering alcoholic stuck at step 2, can't stop obsessing about wedding details. Can these folks sort out civilization and its discontents?

Two stages of a Dominican-American's life; first as a boy trying to bond with his young mother, then a 21-year-old looking for love in New York City.

CHOOSING CHILDREN is a pioneering film about parenting in non-traditional families and helped to open dialogue about the meaning and reality of the "modern family." This film takes an intimate look at the issues faced by lesbians and gay men who decide to become parents after coming out.

Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and private lives, from his seemingly cavalier response to the outbreak of AIDS to his tender relationship with his friend Patrick Angus and his own response to growing old.

The Continental Baths, a favorite hangout of New York homosexuals, provides the background of this socially conscious comedy drama that tries to examine the relationships between gay and heterosexual people. The story centers around a macho, heterosexual piano player who gets a job at the notorious nightclub and must therefore reconsider his attitudes. His girl friend helps him too. In the end, he winds up becoming sure of his sexuality when he tries to sleep with a gay man.

Conrad is a gay man living in NYC. He's also CEO of an ad agency and by nature a control freak. Although Conrad is still in love with Martin (his ex), he hires a young Aussie hustler named Tyler, first for a night and then to work for his company. Things get increasingly complicated as Conrad tries to rekindle things with Martin. Meanwhile Tyler (who's daytime name is Ian) falls for Michael his new supervisor

David is a reclusive artist living in the Florida keys. His private and tortured life is changed forever when Justin comes for a visit. What begins as a casual hook-up quickly turns dark as both men share their secrets and engage in a psychological tug-of-war for dominance.

Nico is a famous actor in Argentina, but in New York, nobody takes notice. He needs to juggle bartending, babysitting and odd jobs to keep himself afloat. But when old friends from Buenos Aires come to visit, he needs to juggle the image of his old life with the reality of the struggling actor in New York City.

A young hustler tries to get drug money by selling a boy to a middle-aged man; his plans are disrupted when the kid dies.

A gay man in Soho looking for a new roommate tries to come to terms with a new reality after 9/11.

The story of a young gay man's search to find himself. David is a young, gay aspiring documentary filmmaker and takes his first tentative steps towards his adult life. His roommate, Gwen, after ending a mysterious marriage, is looking for stability. Together they try to manoeuvre their way through New York on a search for happiness. Instead, they find bad dates, worse job interviews and bizarre sexual encounters.

Jessica and David Clausen are an upstart couple who come face to face with the Supernatural after inheriting a beautiful townhouse in New York City's West Village District.

In Texas, a closeted lawyer/husband returns home with a surprise for his lonely, sex-starved wife - a cowboy hunk to serve as their handyman (and other things). She at first doesn't realize that there's more to their man-to-man relationship than employer-employee, but neither do the two men realize they share a past incident which links them tightly together