If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I don't remember how I came across this film the first time, but I felt like now was a good time to revisit it. THE CELLULOID CLOSET is the feature-length expansion of a groundbreaking work by Vito Russo that explores the portrayal of gays and lesbians throughout cinematic history. It runs the gamut from amusing and funny to tragic and (occasionally) offensive. I'm not LGBT, so I don't exactly have a stake in how those characters are portrayed, but fairness and equality argue for the same treatment that heterosexual characters have received by default for as long as cinema has been around. If anything, it's amazing how much the LGBT community has been represented in film at all, however subtle it has been. This documentary also provided a long list of films I'd be interested in checking out in the future. As a documentary, it provides the usual talking-head interviews and archival film footage one would expect, and all of the interviewees had interesting things to say as well as how all of these films and portrayals affected them and how they saw themselves. All of that to say, that movies are important and how we see ourselves projected on the screen matters a great deal. The only possible fault I find is that it was only limited to the L and G of LGBT. Also, given that this came out over 20 years ago, the subject seems ripe for another revisit in terms of the progress made since then. Bigots and/or people with a "moral" objection to the subject matter probably won't watch this (much less have heard of it), but I highly recommend this to anyone in the LGBT community, or anyone else with an open mind.

The Celluloid Closet is a documentary that offers a comprehensive overview of portrayal of LGBTQ characters in Hollywood, from the time of first motion pictures up to the early 1990s. The documentary explores the various stereotypes that persisted in Hollywood when portraying queer characters and how they gradually gave way to a more realistic portrayal. The Celluloid Closet manages to include a substantial amount of footage from various films, and points out the subtext, for example, in films like Ben-Hur. It was especially interesting to see how, even when censorship was in effect, some film-makers still managed to include subtle hints, encouraging the viewer to see between the lines. The interviews with writers, actors and film-makers help to connect the documentary to the real world and to understand what real people who are closely connected to the industry think about the way the representation of queer characters on screen evolved with time. The Celluloid Closet is a fascinating look at the history of queer film, and it can be a great starting point for someone who is unfamiliar with the subject, as this documentary is both highly entertaining and very informative, with the amount of information not being too overwhelming.

The Celluloid Closet gave an in-depth analysis of the compilation of gay films that also provided a broader identification of how the role of homosexuality has progressed. The initial depiction of homosexuality in film best described the future struggle of gays in both society and media. Beginning with the use of homosexual content as a way of humor, the atmosphere was set for the harsh reality of the portrayal of homosexuals in film. The documentary best portrays the ups and downs of how societal view on homosexuality was clearly influenced by film. The documentary highlighted specific clips from films that gave both an educational and entertainment value toward each claim made. The documentary gave clear themes, ideas and thought provoking questions that best described and in some ways shaped the idea of being or appearing homosexual. While the ideas present a clear and logical time line, the content emphasizes the ever-changing identity and perception of homosexuals by their appearance as feminine, villainous, unhappy or even suicidal. Additionally, the analysis of censored gay films also gave an interesting look on how the need to relate to media influences the way people view a movie. Above all, a great effort and successful effort was made in understanding the progression and highlight of homosexual roles in film.

This is an excellent documentary, narrated by Lily Tomlin, on queer subtext and gays in American cinema from the 1930s to the 1990s, loosely based on Vito Russo's groundbreaking book (1981, revised edition 1987) of the same name. In it, a wide range of thoughtfully-chosen film clips is paired with director, producer and actor interviews (such as Gore Vidal, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Armistead Maupin, Tony Curtis, and Whoopi Goldberg). Beyond containing lots of wonderful behind-the-scenes factoids, major issues to queer filmmaking such as coded language, censorship/ratings, the Hayes Codes, and straight/gay actors playing gay are addressed. The only thing one could wish for is a revised/extended film that would include the important gay films made after 1993 or so.