The 21 Queerest Rock Movies EVER!

As our way of celebrating and paying homage to the genre, we here at Newnownext, have compiled, for your reading pleasure, an extensive list of our favorite gayest, most rockin’ movies spanning, oh, the last thirty years or so.  This coincides with the occasion of the network premiere of Velvet Goldmine (our #3 pick!) on Logo, this Sunday, July 22nd.  We hemmed and hawed over the exact entries on the list for quite a while, enlisting help from our siblings at AfterEllen and AfterElton.  We decided to err more on the side of rock than camp (oh don’t worry, there’s some camp, see #10 Xanadu) and found the gay where some might not.  We fully expect to receive your expert feedback on our final choices.  So without further ado, I give you our queer rock movies, starting at #21 and moving up towards #1.  I’ll give you a shiny new nickel if you can guess #1 without looking.

#21 -  HAIR (1979)

The musical Hair may not have made for a great film, but it was a pretty seminal event. A song called “Sodomy” celebrating sexual freedom? Button-downed military recruiters chiming in with hippie girls to sing the praises of “Black Boys,” and correspondingly, black officers smiling and cooing, “White boys give me goosebumps!” While Nell Carter sings along, even the film’s straight-boy protagonist declares, “I wouldn’t kick Mick Jagger outta bed.” Queer much?

Check this out if you’re doubting me...

Oh, the 1970s…

P.S.  Back in the ’90s, the Lemonheads (with dreamy lead singer Evan Dando) did a cover of Hair’s sweetest ballad, “Frank Mills,” and in keeping with the show’s queer spirit, Dando sang of his sweet boy love for Frank. Awwww…
- John

#20 –  THE ROSE (1979)

Bette Midler is fabulous -- we all knew that already. But when she channels Janis Joplin in The Rose, she goes right past fabulous and ascends into queer rock heaven. The blues! The booze! The breakdowns! It's enough drama to fill a stadium. Oh, and there's a gleeful drag show, too, not to mention a bathhouse (this is Bette we're talking about, after all). By the time you get to the kissy reunion with an old female "friend," you understand why some say love, it is a flower, never queerer than The Rose.
-Scribegrrrl

If you stop reading now, your Netflix queue will remain pitifully empty and heterosexual and devoid of danger.

#19 -  MONDO NEW YORK (1988)

Mondo New York is essential viewing for anyone interested in the (very queer) downtown arts scene in New York in the 80's.  It's not a narrative film, but rather a series of documented performances (yep, it's arty!) The film follows a nameless female character who doesn't talk, but roams the city traveling from one venue to the next. In one scene, the ever-fantastic (drag) performer Joey Arias delivers a spot-on cover of the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night" as Billie Holiday, complete with an over-sized plastic gardenia behind his ear. In another scene, Karen Finley delivers one of her trademark rants in which she takes off her clothes and covers herself with food and glitter. Another scene features some S&M flogging and yet another scene shows an Afro-Caribbean religious ceremony involving live chickens. The film also includes work by Ann Magnuson, Kid Creole & The Coconuts and (one of my personal faves) John Sex. Oh how I wish I had gone to the Mudd Club... 
-Jon Mallow

#18 -  THE APPLE (1980)

Spectacularly bad and insidiously fascinating, The Apple ranks right up there with Xanaduas one of the most gloriously wretched musicals ever made. Beginning at a futuristic version of the Eurovision Song Contest and ending with God himself flying down from heaven in a car to save the heroes, this movie is filled with one bad choice after another. Evil record producer Mr. Boogaloo -- a slim snipe of a queen with a flaming sidekick -- is so much more interesting than the ultra-bland leads that you almost root for him and his nefarious Bim company to take over the world with their awful techno and leave the loving folk singers in a ditch somewhere. Tasteless, tacky, and garish to the extreme -- what's not to love?
-Brian Juergens

#17 –  FLASH GORDON (1980)

I remember being a kid and sneaking over to my neighbor Charles Fugate’s house to watch the Queen-music filled, insanely garish 1980 film take on the classic comic hero, Flash Gordon. The Fugates had HBO at their house, which was scandalous enough. But watching Sam J. Jones (a former Playgirl model) charge around in tight white pants and a snug shirt as Freddie Mercury bellowed out deliciously theatrical rock histrionics is pretty delightfully gay.

Queen aside, maybe there’s nothing super rock-and-roll about the movie, but that’s enough for me. Sing along, dammit: “Flash!!! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh… He’ll save every one of us!”

If only…

Check out Queen doing “Flash Gordon”—with some clips from the film—right here:

Queen - Flash Gordon

- John

#16 -  GYPSY 83 (2001)

I worship Stevie Nicks. And so do lots of other gay folks. And this film is a fab road movie in which a sensitive little goth teen and his brassy fag hag bff hit the road to head to NYC to attend the still-raging (I went this year!) and blisteringly queer annual celebration known as “Night of 1,000 Stevies.”

In the movie, you get some gay romance and hook-ups, lots of eyeliner, feathers and shawls, and brilliant coming-of-age heartache. And an Amish lad gets seduced by a Goth boy. Hurrah! Plus, Karen Black, a rest-stop hook-up, tunes from The Cure and the rockin’ “Gold Dust Woman” spirit of Stevie pervades. If only they’d been able to use her tunes…. Hmmmm…

-John

#15 - SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1978)

The movie, not the album. When Robert Stigwood, the brains behind Saturday Night Fever and powerhouse RSO Records, produced a film version of the Beatles’ 1967 magnum opus in 1978, he stepped into a cloud of brand confusion and negativity. Then again, what else should you expect when you voluntarily recreate music from the most influential rock album in the history of the world?

Critics dismissed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Fab Four disliked it, although fans of this now classic cult film today generally insist that, “It’s getting better all the time.” The film, a rock opera told through the Beatles’ songs, follows a band as they wrestle with the music industry and fight evil forces threatening their town of Heartland and stealing their musical instruments. Talent is provided in the form of the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and George Burns. Oh, God!

Despite its shortcomings, and there are a few, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band redeems itself by opening an exquisite window into 1970s pop culture.  The last scene of the film, in fact, imitates the Beatles’ famous Sgt. Pepper album cover – the one with the busy design and all those people– and includes guest appearances from Carol Channing, Heart, Robert Palmer, Chita Rivera, and Tina Turner, among many, many others.

In other words, they got by with a little help from their friends.

Here’s the trailer:

Sgt Pepper's trailer

-Julie Bolcer

#14 -  RENT (2005)

Yes, the Broadway musical is a theatrical landmark. It presented queer characters, gay love lives, drag queens, AIDS, starving artists, a sparring and hot lesbian couple, confused twentysomethings, and NYC’s East Village culture to mainstream culture with unapologetic force and musical impact back when that was still bold. And kids still flock to it.

Sadly, the movie wasn’t so good. In my opinion… But many critics disagreed, and so did die-hard fans. And because it’s got a big heart, big openly gay stories, and some people in it you gotta love (why isn’t Idina Menzel in more movies?), it’s here.

But I really wish some super-creative, visionary director had taken the musical, deconstructed it or revamped it (a la Moulin Rouge?) and really served up something as innovative and gutsy as the musical originally was.

Still the opening notes of that cloying yet powerfully effective tune which begins “525,600 minutes...” do give me goosebumps. Here’s the trailer, y’all…

-John

#13 - PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974)

Predating Rocky Horror by a year (and visually strikingly similar to the far more successful later film), this ghoulish glam-rock retelling of Faust from budding auteur Brian De Palma has just about everything: great music, bizarre production numbers, a hissing, disfigured anti-hero, and Paul Williams himself as a diminutive Svengali bent on controlling the great rock acts of the world. Rock band frontman Beef, a hyper-macho stage presence who in his downtime is a mincing fairy, adds a good deal of camp value and some wacko humor to the proceedings, including one of De Palma's first homages to the shower scene from Psycho (with Beef getting a plunger to the face as a punch-line).
-Brian Juergens

#12 - 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (2002)

Although the title of this 2002 film may describe your life in the months after you came out, or worked at that all-night massage parlor, 24 Hour Party People, like rock music itself, is one of those indirectly gay subjects. The film depicts musical developments that have indelibly influenced queer pop culture, even if they weren’t entirely about us.

Not about us? How can we as members of the LGBT community stand for that?

24 Hour Party People dramatizes a soiree closer to two decades in duration, launched in Manchester, England, in 1976, with the founding of the legendary Factory Records. The label roared from the punk era through the 80s, and into the famed Manchester scene of the early 90s.

Factory Records was home to bands such as Joy Division, New Order, and the Happy Mondays. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.
-Julie Bolcer

#11 - BROTHERS OF THE HEAD (2005)

One of the weirdest faux-documentary rock films ever made, Brothers of the Head was penned and created by gay filmmakers (who are also a couple) Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. It’s a grimy, well-made story (totally made-up, but told with exacting style) of a pair of conjoined twins who almost inadvertently become culty punk rock stars! And one of them is gay! And they’re played by puppy-dog cute-in-a-gaunt-British-way real-life twins Harry and Luke Treadaway.

And as will happen with gay/straight conjoined twin brothers who are as close as two guys can be (and who are also a messy, shaggy mosh of hormones and attitude), things get a bit frisky. Yep, it’s freaky like that.

This film’s a must if you’re a fan of obscure Brit rock of the ’70s and ’80s. And you’ll wanna spot the cameos by U.K. film stars like Jonathan Pryce, Jane Horrocks (AbFab’s Bubble!) and legendary director Ken Russell, as himself.

Watch the trailer, and add it to your Grit-rock/Brit-rock movie queue:

-John

#10 - XANADU  (1980)

Okay, is it “rock”??? Um, hello? How is a cavalcade of songs by ELO not rock? Is it awful? Sure! Is it amazing? Absolutely. And yes, there’s not any real gay storyline, but any homosexual in the free world can’t help but feel a tingle at the very mention of the world Xanadu, with images of Olivia Newton-John on rollerskates, or how her blow-dried blonde locks float back and forth regally as she breathily purrs, “A place… Where nobody dared to go…” Yep, she went there. Bliss! You can watch the long-ass finale number here…

Sure, I can hardly remember any other bits of the film, except the cute lead boy who was a dead ringer for Andy Gibb, who sort of never did anything else. And yes, I do know that the awfulness of the movie killed the movie musical for a while, and nearly buried Olivia Newton-John. But I also know that as an emerging little gay 11-year-old I raced out and bought a copy of the soundtrack and worshipped it.

Xanadu sort of transcends camp or kitsch and makes up a vocabulary all of its own… “A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star…” What more could any human wish for? Hmmm… Maybe a spoofy Broadway musical version?
-John

#9 - ALL OVER ME (1997)

Sometimes compared to Kids, another film teeming with the dirty, confused scent of CK1 sexuality from the 90s, this debut from sisters Alex and Sylvia Sichel (If These Walls Could Talk 2) offers a gritty take on the lesbian coming of age tale. All Over Me unfolds against the backdrop of the riot grrl music scene in the “seedy” Manhattan neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. Wait. Hell’s Kitchen unsavory? What a difference a decade makes in the gayborhood!

Two high school students, one played by teen angst veteran Alison Folland, careen toward same-sex desire, but summer break and separate paths of self discovery prevent an actual collision. Like any good adolescent drama, a parade of therapeutic supporting players includes Wilson Cruz as the reliably helpful gay friend, and a romantic distraction in the form of a pre-The L Word Leisha Hailey.

Troubled? Go ask Alice. 

If the youngsters onscreen are loaded, even more so is the impressive, and genuinely good, soundtrack to All Over Me. Babes in Toyland, Ani DiFranco, Sleater-Kinney, the Geraldine Fibbers, the Patti Smith Group, and The Amps all contribute, and that’s just the butchier side of the bill.
-Julie Bolcer

#8 - WIGSTOCK  (1995)

Although no film could possibly capture the insane, ribald, musical theatrics and queer madness that is Wigstock—the almost annual dragfest that set NYC afire each summer from the late 1980’s all the way up to 2005, skipping a few years along the way and moving from Tompkins Square Park to the west side and back again—1995’s Wigstock: The Movie does a pretty good job. Most notably it captures for posterity most of New York’s most legendary drag talent from the 1980s and ’90s, including Leigh Bowery, Lady Bunny, Misstress Formika, Lypsinka, RuPaul, Tabbooo, Kevin Aviance, the Dueling Bankheads and legions more. Plus, it follows dragsters Jackie Beat and a pre-trans Alexis Arquette, as they prep for the big fest. And lots of Deee-Lite, still in their heyday.

But basically, watch it for the music. The queens rock out, as does house diva Crystal Waters, and there’s even an early appearance by Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnsons fame.

A highlight? Leigh Bowery on film! Lypsinka on film! And Formika’s “Age of Aquarius” is eternal….
-John

#7 - SID AND NANCY (1986)

“Love kills.” That was the tagline for this 1986 biographical account of Sex Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious and his junkie-groupie girlfriend Nancy Spungen, a pair of burnt out rock icons traveling the drug and sex sign-posted road of mutual destruction. But the slogan might actually refer to wayward former Hole singer Courtney Love, who reportedly threatened in a video audition to kill the film’s producers if they did not give her the lead role.

Love received a minor part, and Spungen was played by Chloe Webb, who later appeared as Mona Ramsey in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. Esteemed actor Gary Oldman personified Vicious in his waning, post-Sex Pistols days of squalor, addiction and violence in Manhattan’s Chelsea Hotel.

More disgusting than a mosh pit during a thunderstorm, Sid and Nancy is a cautionary coming out tale for would-be punk rockers, codependents, and anyone who thinks bizarre high-profile murders only began with O.J. Simpson.
-Julie Bolcer

#6 -  CRY-BABY (1990)

Okay so it’s a musical. But it’s a musical about rockin and rollin and whatnot.  Or at least a musical making fun of musicals about that.  And although it is, without a doubt, a John Water’s film, my claims to its gay content are spurious at best.  The camp of this movie centers more around white-trash culture and a Romeo and Juliet – type romance than anything overtly homo.  But I don’t think it’s grasping at straws to find some common ground in a story about social misfits.  This is a movie for all of us out there with an affinity for rockabillies (I swoon for Johnny’s lone front curl).  And looking back on it now, I can’t help but think of Johnny Depp’s recent role as a flaming pirate and take notice of Iggy Pop’s cameo (see Velvet Goldmine).  And let’s face it, Divine would have been in this movie, if it wasn’t for her tragic demise. 
-Ambrose

#5 - PURPLE RAIN (1984)

While queers were barely beyond legal and medical labels naming their “sexual deviance” a criminal pathology, Prince was brazenly flaunting an artful tangle of slut, pervert, aristocrat, street-wise, stage-humping hotness to the tamest mainstream.

Purple Rain is like an elongated version of all the high-healed frilly strutting of his searing masculinity on stage, plus the appalling acting of Apollonia and  the suave pimpin’ tude of Morris Day.  All the characters, in the end, stand in awe of the final culmination on stage of Prince the person and Prince the performer, with none of the brilliance lost. What’s more queer than a brilliant performer who knowingly plays with dimensions of sexuality as thoroughly the musical instruments?
-Ambrose

#4 -  PREY FOR ROCK & ROLL (2003)

It’s appropriate that I would write about this movie, given my recent obsession with all-girl bands.  And, well, I’ve always been obsessed with cynicism and tragedy, which this film has in aces.  The courageous, masculine and rockin’ bravado of these female band members is second to none in the film world.  Plus they’re mostly dykes.  And even if they weren’t, the presence of Gina Gershon and Lori Petty (who have been queer icons since Tank Girl and Bound), would make it so.  And their band is called Clamdandy (awesome!). But really it’s not the lesbian love/sex that does it for me in this movie (though it’s nice that it’s there); it’s Gina Gershon’s pure rock n roll performance.  She is so tough/vulnerable and hot/sad that you can’t help but be entirely in her tattooed grip.
-Ambrose

#3 - VELVET GOLDMINE (1998)

To my mind, Todd Haynes is our strongest queer filmmaker making movies today; and he may be the best all-around filmmaker, period—at least when it comes to weaving intelligence, art, cinematic craft and commentary all into one brilliant package. Films like Far From Heaven and Safe are unique and legendary. And then there’s Velvet Goldmine, which I also think is stunning, raw and sharply insightful—even as it occasionally veers a bit out of control. It’s decadent, garish, a little messy but also splendid and spot-on in capturing the queerly glam, crustily tawdry glitter rock era.

And hello? It’s got characters pretty much based on David Bowie and Iggy Pop making out  and messing around, and played (respectively) by the always sexually prurient and horned up Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and the oft-pantsless and besotted Ewan MacGregor. They’re gay or bi or not or both—and damn it’s fun to watch them meltdown. They’re pretty much illustrating that entire early 1970s androgyny and rock and roll queer-boundary pushing thing. And how can you not swoon when junkie Curt Wild (McGregor) says to his boy-crush, Brian Slade (Rhys-Meyers): “...Heroin was my main man, but now I'm on the methadone... You could be my main man.” Awwww...

Plus, with Christian Bale as a little gay rock fan-ster coming of age in 1970’s London and with Toni Collette as the hapless wife whose rocker hubby likes to play with boys, you’ve got an all-star cast of queer captivation.

And here’s a little video mash-up of gayness from the film (with a tune from Air):

Velvet Goldmine - Venus by Air

Final word: It’s glam rock! Which is GAY!
-John

#2 - HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001)

As its title suggests, every inch of this beloved film about a transgender East German rock n’ roll impresario screams with über gayness. Behind its handsome plot layers of a botched sex change operation, Communist kitsch, a failed military marriage, and American trailer park living, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, at its feverish and pulsating queer core, is a tale of dreaming, disillusionment and, ultimately, survival.

Adapted from the ginormously successful 1998 rock theatre musical written by John Cameron Mitchell (Shortbus) and Stephen Trask, who helped score Dreamgirls, the 2001 movie version of Hedwig has already approached the cult status of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Though each film may speak to a different generation, they share the timeless themes of stellar music, in this case 70s glam rock and punk, and an outsider genius propelled and sustained by the impulse to create.

Such is the juice of life, and “The Origin of Love,” as Hedwig might say.

The Origin of Love

-Julie Bolcer

#1 -  THE ROCKY HORROR  PICTURE SHOW (1975)

I am not one of the legions of insatiable fans who have attended so many screenings of the film that they chant the words, wear costumes, hold props and dance along with The Time Warp. “It’s the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane!”  Okay, so I know a few of the lyrics.  But I am not as die hard of a fan as those who have seen the movie over 1300 times (seriously).

But I do love Rocky Horror and I do believe it deserves to be number one on our Queer Rock Movies list.  For one thing, it was 1975, and as you know, at the end of the film, the castle flies back to the planet Transsexual. Many people who have ended up seeing this cult classic in the last 32 years had never even heard of that planet.  But aside from all the queer perviness (not to mention cannibalism and incest), it was the songs and the amazing performances by Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry and the rest of the cast that made this a movie that will never be forgotten.  It’s like they took the idea of a rock n roll musical to the 22nd power.  They went all the way, which could be argued is the whole purpose of entertainment.  We get to live vicariously through the sheer outrageousness of it all. 
-Ambrose

Comments

[pants]

props for 24hr party people at #12!

[Salvatore Sapienza]

Where's 'CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC'? Okay, maybe it's disco and not rock, but how can you leave out the Village People?!

[David Ehrenstein]

Excellent list. But "Under the Cherry Moon" is WAY gayer than "Purple Rain." And you forgot "Zachariah" billed as "the first electric western" whose heroes ride off into the sunset together LONG before "Brokeback Mountain."

[great list!]

love the leisha hailey photo, too :D

[Christie Keith]

HELLO... Times Square?????????

[Christie Keith]

Backbeat? The Hours and Times?

[Sam]

haha I love all of these movies!

[FLower Girl]

Wow so many movies.....I wish i could get time and watch all these.....but i have a very little leisure time which i spent in sleeeping.....:(
anyways nice blog....

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