Happy Pride Month! Hollywood.com will be celebrating all month long with special Pride Month coverage of your favorite Hollywood movies, celebrities, and more. We’re kicking off Pride Month with a look at Pride Month quotes from our favorite Hollywood movies and TV shows that amplify the stories of the LGBTQIA community.
First of all, what is Pride Month, and when is Pride Month?
Pride Month is celebrated each year during the month of June in cities and towns around the world in support of the LGBTQIA community. According to GLAAD, “the majority of Pride events are held in June to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City on June 28, 1969, which most historians consider to be the birth of the modern LGBT movement.”
Here’s a look at some Hollywood movies and TV shows to watch during Pride Month.
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
The film was a catalyst for the LGBTQIA movement as a beautiful romance between two married men who fall in love. The cinematography is amazing and the story is an emotional roller coaster as the audience feels the main characters’ pain and longing for one another. Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams all give spectacular performances.
The movie does a great job of capturing the sexual passion and complicated emotional relationship between cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). Their relationship unfolds against the backdrop of the American West, from the ‘60s through the early ‘80s.
in honor of it almost being pride month let me bring back this press conference interview of heath ledger shutting down homophobic criticism towards brokeback mountain… i love him so much pic.twitter.com/NT2E4snJWe
— ? (@rivsvirgo) May 30, 2021
Pride Month Quotes: Brokeback Mountain
Ennis Del Mar: “Bottom line is — we’re around each other, and this thing — it grabs hold of us again at the wrong place, at the wrong time — and we’re dead.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Moonlight (2016)
Moonlight tells the story of a young black man named Chiron as he grows up in Miami and grapples with his sexual identity. Vulture says:
“you can’t pin Moonlight down as a gay-awakening film — or a fear-of-coming-out film or anything centering on sex or love. It’s deeper than that. The title alludes to an idea about the moon: that in its light you realize that only you (not the gods, not other people) can decide who you want to be.”
happy pride month ? pic.twitter.com/uQZFeeYSok
— chu (@chuuzus) June 1, 2021
Pride Month Quotes: Moonlight
Juan: “At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gonna be. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Pose (2018-2019)
MJ Rodriguez, Billy Porter, Dominique Jackson star in this Netflix original series inspired by the LGBTQIA ball scene in New York City during the ‘80s and ‘90s. According to The Hollywood Reporter, season one made history when it cast five transgender actors in regular series roles, reportedly a record for a scripted television series. The three-season show follows a wide cast of characters, including Blanca (MJ Rodriguez), who decides to start her own house and becomes a mother to a gifted dancer and a sex worker in love with a yuppie client.
The drag of the century. #PoseFX pic.twitter.com/UI3EJvUZlG
— PoseFX (@PoseOnFX) May 26, 2021
Pride Month Quotes: Pose
Pray Tell: “They’ll never know that feeling, what it’s like to love without worrying that you’re gonna die, or worse yet, that you’re gonna kill somebody. I don’t know what’s shittier having that freedom taken away or never having had it to begin with.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: The Birdcage (1996)
The Birdcage is a remake of the 1978 French comedy film La Cage aux Folles. Armand Goldman (Robin Williams) owns The Bird Cage, a drag club in South Beach Miami. He and his partner Albert (Nathan Lane) live above the club in an apartment. Worlds collide when Armand’s son Val comes home to announce he is engaged to a right-wing politician’s daughter and that the two diametrically opposed families must meet before the wedding.
An Empire review says “If it weren’t so darned ‘sincere’ this would be an unmitigated bird-brained delight, but it undoubtedly remains a genial crowd pleaser. If the dress fits, wear it.”
Nobody encapsulates my gender better than Robin Williams in the atrocious movie The Birdcage pic.twitter.com/B5EghdnciP
— Lilyanne Kane (@CrumbPrince) November 24, 2020
Pride Month Quotes: The Birdcage
Armand Goldman: “There’s only one place in the world I call home and it’s because you’re there. So take it. What difference does it make if I say you can stay or you say I can stay? It’s ours.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
This comedy is pure delight! The all-star cast includes Patrick Swayze as Vida, Wesley Snipes as Noxeema, and John Leguizamo as Chi-Chi. The drag queens set off on a cross-country road trip from New York City to Hollywood for a beauty pageant. When their car breaks down in a small town in the midwest, they meet and befriend the townspeople, making efforts to improve their lives. Stockard Channing, Arliss Howard, RuPaul Charles, and Blythe Danner also star and Robin Williams has a cameo role.
Been thinking a lot about what representation looked like for Black queer kids growing up in the nineties. (THREAD) pic.twitter.com/tZcksx04Pw
— C.S.R. Calloway (@ChanceCalloway) April 24, 2020
Pride Month Quotes: To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar
Vida: “You will start off a mere boy in a dress, but by the time we are done with this crusade your Auntie Vida and your Auntie Noxee will give you the outrageous outlook and indomitable spirit that it will take to make you a full-fledged Drag Queen.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: The Crying Game (1992)
The Crying Game had everyone talking in the early 1990s for its believable chemistry between the main characters, surprising moments, and unexpected plot twists. The film’s iconic cast includes Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson, and Irish actor Stephen Rea. The song “I know all there is to know about the crying game” by Boy George was the perfect accompaniment to the movie.
Film: The Crying Game (1992) by Neil Jordan. An unforgettable experience. pic.twitter.com/sy5mBByxiW
— . (@MXS543) March 31, 2018
Pride Month quotes: The Crying Game
Deveroux: “Does Pat have a tart?”
Fergus: “She’s not a tart.”
Deveroux: “No, of course not. She’s a lady.”
Fergus: “No, she’s not that either.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Philadelphia (1993)
Stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington give exceptional performances that put gay rights front and center in our country. Directed by Jonathan Demme, the movie is set in the city of Philadelphia and tells the story of attorney Andrew Beckett as he deals with his AIDS diagnosis and experiences workplace discrimination.
Smithsonian Magazine credits Philadelphia as the first major studio film to tackle the AIDS crisis. Demme’s direction showcases the experience of homophobia, workplace discrimination, political ignorance, and highlights firebrand activism that can change everything for a later generation. It also brings people inside the suffering and wrenching disintegration of an AIDS patient.
Pride Month Quotes: Philadelphia
Denzel Washington as Joe Miller: “This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
Boys Don’t Cry is a biographical film based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank’s debut). This young transgender man, born Teena Renae Brandon, moves to rural Nebraska to find love but falls victim to a hate crime.
Directed by Kimberly Peirce, Boys Don’t Cry was the first mainstream movie to tell the story of a transgender man, but the movie is polarizing for trans viewers. If Boys Don’t Cry were made in 2021, a trans actor would play a trans role.
A 2019 New York Times article explains how “For trans people, Boys Don’t Cry was simultaneously an opportunity for much-needed representation and an unavoidable illumination of a societal blind spot.”
In the same article, transgender activist and author Kate Bornstein explains, “You’re seeing a movie about yourself and then yourself is murdered, why would you want to go see that? Why?”
Day 9 – someone changes their name in a movie / Boys Don’t Cry (1999) Teena Brandon • Brandon Teena #Bales2021FilmChallenge pic.twitter.com/kLkhVxzNme
— ??? (@blondewave_) April 8, 2021
Pride Month Quotes: Boys Don’t Cry
Brandon: “So, what’s your name?”
Candace: “Candace. I hate it though. I’m thinking of changing it.”
Brandon: “Sometimes that helps. I’m Brandon.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, this Hollywood movie stars Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Garner. Dallas Buyers Club tells the story of Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey), a homophobic and fast-talking cowboy in Dallas who takes matters into his own hands when he is diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 by starting a black market business with drugs smuggled from Mexico after the drug AZT worsens his condition.
Rayon (Jared Leto) is a trans woman who is drug-addicted and HIV-positive. They call their business the Dallas Buyers Club. Their improbable friendship is the heart of this movie, and Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto deliver award-winning performances.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
dir. Jean-Marc Vallée pic.twitter.com/SneO1hMhob— ??????? ????? (@king_marciel) May 30, 2021
Pride Month Quotes: Dallas Buyers Club
Rayon’s Father: “I suppose I should thank you for wearing men’s clothes and not embarrassing me.”
Rayon: “Are you ashamed of me? ‘Cause I hadn’t realized that.”
Rayon’s Father: “God help me.”
Rayon: “He is helping you. I have AIDS.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Named for the band Queen’s famous song from 1975 of the same name, this Rockumentary is the backstory of the famous British band leading up to its iconic performance at the Live Aid benefit concert in 1985. Starring Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, the movie was nominated for 16 Academy Awards in 2019 and took home nine Oscars including Best Actor (Rami Malek), and Best Picture.
While Bohemian Rhapsody was well-received, it has also received valid critiques that it perpetuates queerphobia and queer erasure in cinema. Vox says “The movie reduces queer identity to a series of promiscuous sexual encounters, which it consistently frames as sordid, shameful, illicit, and corrupting.”
Never stop believing in yourself, darlings. #BohemianRhapsody pic.twitter.com/dRhReNJVPw
— Bohemian Rhapsody (@BoRhapMovie) February 26, 2019
Pride Month Quotes: Bohemian Rhapsody
Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury: “Tell you what it is, Mr. Reid. Now we’re four misfits who don’t belong together, we’re playing for the other misfits. They’re the outcasts, right at the back of the room. We’re pretty sure they don’t belong either. We belong to them.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: The Prom (2020)
Netflix tapped director Ryan Murphy to helm this 2020 movie-musical comedy, an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway show of the same name. The Prom boasts a star-studded cast: Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannels star as narcissistic Broadway actors who travel to a small Indiana town when they discover a controversy surrounding whether high school student Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman) should be allowed to attend the school’s prom with her girlfriend.
The Broadway actors initially only rush to Emma’s aide to boost their own public profiles, providing for comedic antics and some sharp satire when rich, liberally-minded actors clash with the residents of a small, conservative town.
The Prom received mixed reviews from critics, with much derision placed on James Corden’s casting as a gay character. IndieWire news editor Zack Sharf called James Corden’s performance “painful,” noting that the character was originally portrayed by Brooks Ashmankas (an out gay man) on Broadway. The cast also includes Kerry Washington, Keegan-Michael Key, and Arianna DeBose in supporting roles.
THE PROM:
• “Unruly Heart” movie clip
• Featuring #JoEllenPellman & cast
? @promnetflix pic.twitter.com/vTQG5z7jXD— BroadwayTube (@BroadwayTube) February 17, 2021
Pride Month quotes: The Prom
Alyssa Greene: “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to be me.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Billy Elliot (2000)
Directed by Stephen Daldry, this British drama film is about a miner’s son who discovers a passion for ballet. The film stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, Gary Lewis as his father Jackie, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher Sandra Wilkinson. When Billy sees a ballet class, he is instantly drawn to it. He’s gifted at ballet but struggles against stereotypes and prejudice—his father and older brother Tony are miners on strike in 1984 northern England.
Fortunately, his dance teacher encourages him and sets him on the path to the Royal Ballet School in London. At an audition, Billy describes the feeling of dancing as being “like electricity.” That’s what this movie feels like. In an iconic moment, dance and the appreciation of dance come together in one expression.
billy elliot is a movie about, above all things, mirrors pic.twitter.com/SyzMYWRMry
— g (@wholegrainne) December 5, 2020
Pride Month Quotes: Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot: “Just because I like ballet doesn’t mean I’m a poof, you know.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present)
RuPaul’s Drag Race Is an Emmy-winning reality television series where drag queens compete to become the next Drag Superstar. RuPaul Andre Charles, known by most as simply RuPaul, is an American drag queen who became popular in the 1990s as a singer-songwriter with his debut album Supermodel of the World featuring his smash hit “Supermodel (You Better Work).”
As host of the show, RuPaul presents a series of entertaining challenges to contestants and from there, the magic happens. While RuPaul’s Drag Race is in production, contestants are essentially isolated in their hotel rooms and cut off from the outside world, with no cell phones or computers.
Pride Month Quotes: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 12
RuPaul: “My fellow Americans, the time has come for America’s first drag queen president!”
SCARLETT JOHANSSON ON RU PAUL’S DRAG RACE WAS FINALLY OUT pic.twitter.com/BJtgpdGskG https://t.co/7v95aPmtkW
— elo ⧗ scarxnat hoe (@doraemaynat) April 2, 2021
Pride Month movies and TV shows: And the Band Played On (2003)
This HBO docudrama does an exceptional job of chronicling the events surrounding the early discovery and rapid spread of the AIDs virus. The ensemble cast includes Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Richard Gere, Lily Tomlin, Angelica Huston, Phil Collins, and Ian McKellan. The story covers the timeline of events in the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and serves as a heartbreaking reminder of how many lives were lost to the disease before its origins and pathology were understood.
Based on author Randy Shilts’ non-fiction book of the same name, about “the politics, people and the AIDS epidemic,” the film showcases the conflicting attitudes and opinions that accompanied the early conversations and discoveries surrounding the virus. One year after the film’s release, Shilts died of complications from AIDS.
Pride Month Quotes: And the Band Played On
Roger Gail Lyon: “This is not a political issue. This is a health issue. This is not a gay issue. This is a human issue. And I do not intend to be defeated by it. I came here today in the hope that my epitaph would not read that I died of red tape.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Becoming Halston (2021)
Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Dayan, and David Pittu star in this Netflix original series described as “the untold story of the meteoric rise and fall of the first American celebrity fashion designer.” The five-episode miniseries, based on the book Simply Halston, tells the riveting story of Halston’s place in the fashion world in the 1970s at the height of his success and his subsequent spiraling out of control after some poor business decisions and a lot of drugs. The casting and the costumes are spot-on.
Pride Month Quotes: Becoming Halston
Ewan McGregor as Halston: “I have a vision. I am going to change the face of American fashion. I’ve been an outsider my whole life, ‘til one day I just stopped giving a flying f**k.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: How to Survive a Plague (2012)
This Oscar-nominated documentary is considered the definitive movie depicting AIDS activism. It uses over 700 hours of archived footage and stars Larry Kramer himself. The director/journalist David France says many of the activists featured knew they would die and felt the historic significance of their fight.
France dedicated the documentary to his partner Doug Gould, who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1992. The heat and light of the now-famous activist groups ACT UP and TAG are on display in this movie. You’re on the front lines of demonstrations and confrontations. You see the outrage directed at the government and the pharmaceutical industry, the time capsule purity of news footage, and the heroism that burns bright with a cry from the past.
Pride Month Quotes: How to Survive a Plague
Larry Kramer: “Plague! We are in the middle of a plague! Forty million infected people is a plague!”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Studio 54 (2018)
This Netflix documentary opens the door for viewers to experience Studio 54, a New York City nightclub that launched in 1977 and ran until 1986. The club became world-famous for its frequent celebrity guests and reputation as a go-to spot for drinking, drugging and partying to excess in Midtown Manhattan.
Well-received by audiences, Studio 54 tells the story of the famous disco club from the viewpoint of co-owner Ian Schrager. Archive footage of Steve Rubell is featured throughout the documentary. The storytelling is shocking and intriguing and draws you in immediately; the music is like another character in the movie and draws you in so you’re part of the story.
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Stonewall Uprising (2010)
Stonewall Uprising is an excellent documentary by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner that features eyewitness accounts and archival footage from the turning point in the gay rights movement: the Stonewall riots.
In 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City causing patrons and neighbors to fight back once the police became violent; the demonstrations that followed sparked the gay civil rights movement that still continues today.
Pride Month Quotes: Stonewall Uprising
Unnamed NYPD Officer: “There were no instructions except, put them out of business. The first police officer that came in with our group said the place is under arrest. When you exit, have some identification and it’ll be over in a short time. This time they said: We’re not going! That’s it. We’re not going.”
Pride Month movies and TV shows: Mare of Easttown (2021)
Starring Kate Winslet, Jean Smart, Julianne Nicholson, and Angourie Rice, this is a fantastic whodunit story with complex, well-developed characters living in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Daughter Siobhan (Angourie Rice) is a very interesting character as a girl in high school who has been through a difficult and traumatizing experience; eventually, she breaks up with her girlfriend for a college girl who encourages her to go to Berkeley College in California. Her mother is a detective investigating a homicide and two missing girls. The mystery of who murdered or kidnapped three different teenage girls from this small town, and the cliffhanger at the end of each episode is enough to keep you binging all 7 episodes in the series in a single day.
Pride Month Quotes: Mare of Easttown
Kate Winslet as Mare Sheehan: “Someone posted a video of the fight online, Siobhan. All right? I saw you going over to Erin. How do you think it makes me look when my own daughter is one of the last people to be seen with a girl who ends up murdered, and I don’t f*cking know about it?”
I love how MARE OF EASTTOWN tricked the public into thinking it was the next TRUE DETECTIVE when it’s actually a sad but healing melodrama on motherhood, grief, trauma and the complex bonds between people in pain. Winslet is extraordinary. I loved nearly every minute. pic.twitter.com/jIyhduA9sl
— Brendan Hodges (@metaplexmovies) May 31, 2021
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