Yet to say nonfiction filmmaking has merely documented the LGBTQ+ community is to sell short the work that some of the seminal documentaries listed below have accomplished. The following list of LGBTQ+ documentaries offers us windows into the past, allowing us glimpses into moments made worthy by their mere documentation. Films like Portrait of Jason and Tongues Untied, for instance, tell contemporary viewers as much about the individual stories about gay Black men presented on screen as about the communities (real and imagined) that their respective filmmakers brought to bear on their finished films. LGBTQ+ documentary films, though, can only ever offer both: portraits of individuals necessarily speak more broadly about the community they come to represent, while chronicles of a group (or a family, or a segment of the population) can only ever do so through individual testimonials and the singular vision of the filmmaker at hand. Queer cinema hinges on stories about the one and the many.
(Photo by ©Off White Productions/ Courtesy: Everett Collection.) 40 Essential LGBTQ+ Documentaries