Movies Similar to Playback

The Circle(2014)

A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.

6.5

Garden of Des Moines

Garden of Des Moines is an intimate interview-style short film that follows drag performers in Iowa as they navigate the challenges of being queer in a conservative state. Through personal stories, the film explores the difficulties they face, from political pushback to societal pressures, while highlighting the joy, resilience, and freedom they find in drag. Set against Iowa's landscape, the film captures the vibrant, defiant beauty of queer expression flourishing in unexpected places

10.0

Glee: Keep on Believin'(2012)

A Biography documentary going behind the scenes of the hit show 'Glee,' featuring interviews with creators and a handful of cast members as well as never-before-told stories from its conceptual beginning through the casting process.

10.0

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Pfui, Rosa!(2002)

German iconoclast filmmaker and gay-rights activist Rosa vonPraunheim examines his own life and career in the documentary Phooey Rosa! With a quickly paced editing style, the film is a mix of personal banter, candid interviews, and clips from his filmography. It also includes footage from his early film Bed Sausage to his later work Neurosia. At the age of 60, vonPraunheim reveals intimate details about his past relationships and his childhood growing up after WWII. He also implicates some of his friends and inspirations, including Luzi Kryn and Rainer Kranach.

0.0

Games You Can't Win(2016)

Games You Can’t Win explores “empathy” gaming, a new video game movement in which developers are sharing some of their most intimate or traumatic personal experiences through artful, documentary-style video games. Using a combination of intimate verité footage and video capture from the games, the short film tells the stories of three developer and the personal experiences that inspired their game.

0.0

Quearborn & Perversion: An Early History of Lesbian & Gay Chicago(2007)

Quearborn & Perversion: An Early History of Lesbian & Gay Chicago (2009, 109 min) is a documentary on LGBTQ life in Chicago from 1934 to 1974. Moving from the speakeasys and Henry Gerber’s founding of the Society for Human Rights in the 1930s, to the underground social structure of the 1940s and 1950s, to the dawn of consciousness-raising entities such as the Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine Midwest in the 1960’s, and concluding with the emergence of the gay liberation movement with the first Pride March and opening of the first community center in the early 1970s.

0.0

Fabulous(2019)

Ninja is famous around the world for her fierce ballroom performances, but she is not as well-known in her native country of French Guyana. But a trip home to teach a workshop might change that.

6.5

Workhorse Queen(2021)

After an unlikely casting onto a reality television show, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960’s era housewife Mrs. Kasha Davis.

5.6

Paper Dolls(2006)

Paper Dolls follows the lives of transgender migrant workers from the Philippines who work as health care providers for elderly Orthodox Jewish men and perform as drag queens during their spare time. It also delves into the lives of societal outcasts who search for freedom and acceptance.

6.2

Mariela Castro's March: Cuba's LGBT Revolution(2016)

A rare look inside Cuba’s LGBT community, this compelling film follows the efforts of Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, as she champions LGBT social reforms and acceptance of diversity.

4.3

Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story(2014)

A former U.S. Navy Seal seeks life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness living life as a transgender woman.

4.9

Gender Under Attack(2018)

This documentary portrays the way in which attacks against a twisted concept of “gender ideology” in four countries are being used to gain political power by right-wing conservative politicians supported by conservatives in the Catholic and evangelical churches.

6.0

Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End(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.

1.0

Artistes en zones troublés(2023)

Daily spleen, drunkenness among friends, conversations and the passage of time: the video diaries composed by Lionel Soukaz chronicle the early 1990s, the comet tail of those never-ending winter years and the nightmare of the AIDS years. But edited thirty years later with Stéphane Gérard, they are also a tribute to Hervé Couergou, the beloved partner at the center of all the filmed scenes. Slowly, in conversations between couples and friends, the dandy spirit and intimate confession overlap. What emerges is a portrait of a way of dealing with the times and their pain, which, beneath the act of commemoration, seeks to inscribe a living presence.

0.0

Two Spirits(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.

4.3

Queen of New York(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.

9.0

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed(2022)

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

7.2

Sex Positive(2009)

Sex Positive explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M hustler turned AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has never been aptly credited. Mr. Berkowitz emerged from the epicenter of the epidemic demanding a solution to the problem before the outside world would take heed. Now destitute and alone, Mr. Berkowitz tells his story to a world who never wanted to listen.

4.9

Mr. Gay Syria(2018)

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

4.8

La memoria homosexual(2020)

A documentary that uncovers a forgotten chapter of recent Spanish history, giving voice to those persecuted for their LGTBIQ+ identities under the Franco regime. Through personal testimonies, it reveals how individuals were criminalized, labeled as “deviant” or “ill,” and subjected to imprisonment, psychiatric internment, and exile. Filmed across cities like Seville, Málaga, Huelva, Torremolinos, Madrid, and Barcelona—including the notorious Modelo prison—the film traces the resilience and courage of those who resisted repression, highlighting the struggle for visibility, dignity, and the right to love freely.

0.0