Gay Auteurs

List creator: JGerow Created on: March 23, 2004 - 4:14 PM PST Description: The best gay directors and recommended rentals

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	movie title	related list	average rating	MPAA rating	watch	rent	buy
	Tabu (1931)			Not Rated
The great F.W. Murnau's last film is a work of pure beauty, an erotic story of paradise lost.
	Que Viva Mexico! (1932)			Not Rated
This uncompleted work is Soviet montage master Sergei Eisenstein's most homoerotic film.
	The River (1997)			Not Rated
This masterpiece by the great formalist Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang features a truly disturbing father-son incest scene.
	In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's tragic story of a transsexual's unrequited love was inspired by the suicide of Fassbinder's lover, and shows the director's usual formal brilliance. Less well known than Fox and His Friends, this is one of his best.
	Rocco & His Brothers (1960)			Not Rated
Luchino Visconti directed the young Alain Delon at his most gorgeous in an epic drama of a family's disintegration.
	The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)			Not Rated
Pier Paolo Pasolini directed the stunning Enrique Irazoqui as Jesus in this Marxist/atheist/Christian story of the Gospel. Its stark black and white cinematography is memorable.
	The Blood of a Poet (Criterion Collection) (1930)
French playwright/poet/artist/director Jean Cocteau made this avant-garde classic in 1930. It introduces the themes that will be played out in his later Orpheus films, and features his spellbinding voice as the narrator of the film's mysterious events.
	Wild Reeds (1994)
Andre Techine's subtle coming-of-age story is superbly shot and features a great ensemble cast of beautiful actors.
	See the Sea (1997)			Not Rated
All of prolific director Francois Ozon's films are worth seeing, especially Water Drops on Burning Rocks and Under the Sand, but this disc, in addition to the bizarre See the Sea, offers the very gay gender-bending short, The Summer Dress.
	Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998)			Not Rated
Patrice Chereau's omnisexual film about a diverse group of friends, family and lovers traveling to attend a man's funeral freely shifts time and place to piece together a complex life.
	Elephant (2003)
Gus van Sant has managed to balance Hollywood and independent film throughout his career. This film inspired by the Columbine shootings draws the viewer into its characters' world through brilliant overlapping long takes.
	Far From Heaven (2002)
Todd Haynes' fascinating remake/hommage to Douglas Sirk's melodrama, All That Heaven Allows, adds race and sexual orientation to Sirk's focus on issues of class and conformity. Rent the original, too, and enjoy Sirk's ironic yet heartfelt love story.
	Jubilee (Criterion Collection) (1978)			Not Rated
Derek Jarman was the great British queer punk indie filmmaker of his time. His scathing attack on British genteel tradition from the height of the punk era is outrageously in-your-face. Not on DVD but worth seeking out are Edward II and Wittgenstein.
	The Sleepy Time Gal (2001)
Independent director Christopher Munch made this moving story of a woman dying of cancer and the people in her life, including her gay son.
	Female Trouble (1975)
Trashmeister John Waters directed the amazing Divine in perhaps his/her best performance as Dawn Davenport. This one includes the cha-cha heels Christmas scene, Divine on a trampoline, and even Divine as a man raping himself as a woman.
	The House of Mirth (2000)
Terence Davies directed this exquisite turn-of-the-century tragedy based on Edith Wharton's novel. Davies' masterpiece, The Long Day Closes, is not on DVD but is well worth looking for.
	The Night of the Hunter (Criterion) (1955)			Not Rated
The closeted actor Charles Laughton, in the only film he directed, made a masterpiece blending film noir and D.W. Griffith Americana. Stanley Cortez's stunning cinematography highlights Robert Mitchum's indelible performance.
	The Marrying Kind (1952)			Not Rated
George Cukor directed countless great Hollywood films, including the best Tracy/Hepburn comedies, but this lesser-known comedy-drama about a marriage features a superb Garson Kanin-Ruth Gordon script and great performances by Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray.
	The Old Dark House (1932)			Not Rated
James Whale directed this horror-comedy classic whose title tells it all. Boris Karloff stars in this purely enjoyable movie which Whale made between the original Frankenstein and the delirious Bride of Frankenstein.
	The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)			Not Rated
One of the best films about filmmaking, this is the first of Minnelli's great 50s melodramas and has an all-star MGM cast.