Ah award season, when Hollywood gathers together every other week to celebrate the best films of the year… and also some of the worst. While sometimes consensus forms — hard to find someone who’d now pick Crash over Brokeback Mountain — part of the fun is audiences rarely agree on when these awards get things right.
But with Emilia Pérez winning Best Picture (Musical/Comedy) at the Golden Globes on Sunday, I was reminded that for decades awards have been given to movies about trans people while trans people ourselves continue to face discrimination in the industry and beyond. Some might say Emilia Pérez is a step forward since it stars trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón. Others might say one trans actress does not change the film’s regressive view of trans women and low quality overall.
While the best trans cinema is left out of these award shows, it’s still getting made in the cracks. For every award-winning trans movie made largely by people who don’t know anything about us, there’s a good movie made with an understanding of us or — GASP! — actually made by us.
Here is some counter-programming for trans award winners throughout the decades.
Instead of Emilia Pérez (2024), Watch Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
Let’s start with the latest offender. No, people don’t hate this movie just because it’s directed by a cis man or because its trans character is flawed. It’s possible for someone — even a cis man! — to make a movie about a vindictive, murderous trans woman and have it actually BE GOOD. Just watch Toshio Matsumoto’s trans classic Funeral Parade of Roses.
Instead of Transamerica (2005), Watch Something You Said Last Night (2022)
You want a road trip and complicated family dynamics without Felicity Huffman holding her prosthetic penis? Look no further than Luis De Filippis’ wonderful, lowkey family dramedy Something You Said Last Night.
Instead of The Adventure of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Watch Rūrangi (2020)
Speaking of road trips, The Adventure of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is one of the better trans films from its era, but it’s still exhaustingly tropey compared to a recent film like Rūrangi. Both films deal with the guilt experienced by queer people who leave behind biological family, as well as the chosen family we can find instead.
Instead of The World According to Garp (1982), Watch The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (2022)
John Irving famously didn’t write the screenplay for this adaptation because he wanted to portray its trans character with normalcy and director George Roy Hill wanted to turn her into a joke. (A joke that would get John Lithgow an Oscar nomination!) If you’re looking for a different film about complex maternal relationships with a trans supporting character, watch The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future.
Instead of Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Watch Summer Solstice (2023)
Instead of debating the merits of Boys Don’t Cry, I’d rather tell you to read Chase Joynt and Morgan M Page’s complex book on the subject. I’d also say that if you want to see a film where a trans guy and a cis woman have a complicated relationship, you should watch Noah Schamus’ Summer Solstice. Bonus points that it also contains satire of Hollywood’s trans storytelling.
Instead of The Danish Girl (2016), Watch Holy Trinity (2019)
Art parties, polyamory, and trans romance don’t have to be the fraught ahistorical portrayal of The Danish Girl. Instead, it can be the fun experimentation of Molly Hewitt’s Holy Trinity! Unlike the film’s protagonist, I cannot speak to the dead, but if I could I bet the real Lili Elbe would tell me this is better than her Eddie Redmayne-starring biopic.
Instead of Breakfast on Pluto (2005), Watch Alice Júnior (2019)
While Cillian Murphy makes a very pretty woman, if you want a really good trans girl coming-of-age movie you should watch Brazilian teen comedy Alice Júnior. It’s such a fun movie even though it doesn’t ignore the sometimes painful realities of being trans.
Instead of The Crying Game (1992), Watch Lingua Franca (2019)
The Crying Game is better than its twist, but do you know what’s even better? A trans movie that allows its protagonist to own her sexuality. Isabel Sandoval is a remarkable filmmaker and makes deeply sensual work. She’s someone who I actually think we could see at the Oscars in the near-future.
Instead of Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Watch Stress Positions (2024)
Kind of wild that Dallas Buyers Club straight-washed its main character and just gave him a transsexual sidekick. Gay guys can have transsexual sidekicks too! Or, you know, transsexual friends. John Early and Theda Hammel are both so good in Hammel’s debut feature and it’s better than every single Jared Leto movie.
Instead of Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Watch By Hook or By Crook (2001)
I love Dog Day Afternoon. But I do imagine an alternate history where the trans women who auditioned for it weren’t told they looked too much like women to play the role that eventually went to Chris Sarandon. Alas, we live in this timeline where the decades that followed only had good trans cinema underground and super indie. One such movie is By Hook or By Crook, another film that links transness to criminality and follows well-meaning men in over their heads.
Instead of Ed Wood (1994), Watch Death and Bowling (2021)
I know a lot of people love this film and that’s fine. Personally, I think it contributes to a real flattening of one of 20th century cinema’s few trans auteurs. But love it or hate it, I think you should check out another inventive film about grief and the filmmaking process: Lyle Kash’s wonderful debut Death and Bowling.
Instead of Ma Vie en Rose (1997), Watch L’immensità (2022)
Ma Vie en Rose is easily one of the best films on this list, but it’s still lacking the personal touch of something like L’immensità. You can just feel the difference between work made from a place of humanizing and work made by someone crafting a complete portrait of their own childhood. L’immensità is a really special film and I hope it’s one of many personal films to come from filmmakers about their trans childhoods.
Instead of Port Authority (2019), Watch Adam (2019)
Buzzy Cannes title Port Authority is one of the most baffling movies I’ve ever seen receive praise. Directed by a cis white woman, the film is about a cis straight white guy WHO PRETENDS TO BE AN ICE AGENT IN ORDER TO BREAK INTO PEOPLE’S HOMES AND ROB THEM. This character is then redeemed by falling in love with a Black trans woman and being invited into ballroom spaces. I’m obviously a big defender of Rhys Ernst’s 2019 film Adam. (I spent months of this year writing an oral history for it!) But one thing I’ll never understand is how it became a lightning rod for controversy with its delicately handled romance of deception while Port Authority received no backlash that same year.
Instead of The Silence of the Lambs (1991), watch the films of Alice Maio Mackay and Jane Schoenbrun
I still love The Silence of the Lambs even though it traumatized me, because it’s such a good movie. But I’m also so relieved that trans filmmakers are finally getting to make horror movies of our own. While Hollywood horror is flopping in its attempts at trans-inclusion, filmmakers like Jane Schoenbrun and Alice Maio Mackay are making work that’s not only “inoffensive” but actually interesting in its incorporation of transness into horror. This is the genre I feel most optimistic about. It might not make it to award shows — although with Demi Moore a frontrunner for The Substance you never know! — but there’s going to be a lot more trans horror made in the next decade. I can’t wait.
