Billy Preston was a genre-bending singer-songwriter whose work climbed the charts, won Grammys, and saw him collaborating with fellow legends like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin & The Beatles (even earning him the nickname "The Fifth Beatle). Yet he was battling a number of demons on-stage & off, including struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, which he'd repressed thanks to a lifetime in the church.
Artist and filmmaker Viv Li was born and raised in Beijing, but has lived abroad for 15 years-a fact that has inspired several of her films, in which she navigates identity politics and belonging. An alumna of the Sundance Institute and Berlinale Talents, her latest film 'Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest' is having its world premiere at the 2026 Berlinale, featured in the Panorama Dokumente section.
Nearly every other month since 2015, Carla Rossi has hosted a movie screening at the Hollywood Theatre that's also a drag show. The event, called Queer Horror, helps explain why The Ring is a "lesbian-coded ode to unwanted queer kids" and contextualizes Hellraiser 's "outrageously horny injection of iconic '80s queer horror." If Rossi's intro alone doesn't forever change your relationship to the night's movie, the on-theme drag performances-burlesque, lip-syncing, acrobatics-certainly will.
The Sundance Film Festival concludes its 2026 edition this weekend, marking its final year in its iconic home of Park City, Utah, before moving on to its new host city in Boulder, Colorado next year. As we continue to look back at the hefty legacy of queer films that premiered there over the years, this week we'll revisit a landmark lesbian drama that put a beloved '80s icon back in the spotlight, and kickstarted the career of one of the most representative filmmakers of the New Queer Cinema wave.
In a small Australian town, two queer kids-Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen)-share furtive glances and intense kisses in an abandoned mill. Oftentimes, violence, like the rough play fighting they often engage in, incites their sexual passions, which they must conceal in their fiercely religious town. Their adolescent passion turns deadly, however, when Naim discovers Ryan cheating on him with the preacher's son; so naturally the jilted teenager spitefully reports his lover's tryst.
Two graveyard shift nurses pray their patients pass overnight simply to cure their boredom. A crazed therapist tries to convince a victim that the perfect coping mechanism is matricide. The government rounds up and ships off the infected to a quarantined archipelago named Hell Gay Land. Forty years on from its release, the first notable feature-length film to tackle the AIDS crisis-dark German comedy A Virus Knows No Morals -undoubtedly remains the most provocative.
It appears that the Golden Globes are as obsessed with Heated Rivalry as the rest of the world. Despite Hollywood's Beverly Hilton hotel brimming with the type of blue-chip talent that could, say, win a Golden Globe - we're talking Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Timothée Chalamet - it was newcomers Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams who stole the show at last night's glitzy awards ceremony. And that's before the pair had even got inside the venue.
In a world that so often feels as though it's stacked against us, queer folk find solace in escapism. Sometimes, that looks like a wild night out in the crevices of some underground queer bar, spilling drinks while watching drag queens lip sync for their lives. Other times, that might be laying at home under the covers, getting lost in the horrors of another world, watching someone bashing brains out in movies, or slay monsters in video games.
"When Tina Romero set out to make a zombie movie, she knew she'd follow some of her father's rules for the undead. First, the zombies would be slow and shuffling, unlike the running ghouls of "28 Days Later" or the fast-moving hordes of "World War Z." Second, to kill them, you'd have to kill their brain. Third, a single bite from a zombie would turn you into one."
Michael Koresky has already had a busy year. In April, the filmmaker and movie critic was promoted to senior curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image, the prestigious institution in Queens, New York; he was previously the museum's editorial director. He still teaches college and works with the Criterion Collection, the much-beloved video label that restores and distributes important films from both the past and present.
The character dynamics in Another Simple Favor delve into profound psychological themes, challenging norms around familial ties with a blend of dark humor and intriguing storytelling.
