The Queer Film Guide by Kyle Turner highlights the 100 greatest and most important LGBTQ+ films throughout the history of cinema and one of them is 1989’s Tongues Untied – a controversial and groundbreaking documentary by Marlon Riggs about Black queer love and sexuality. In Tongues Untied, Riggs burrows into his past and its connection to the social, cultural, and political past of Blackness and queerness, from its erasure by white institutions to its survival within Black and queer communities. Tongues Untied feels especially wrought with intensity as it explores HIV/AIDS and Riggs’ life as a person living with HIV. When the documentary came out, it ignited considerable homophobic and racist backlash, including from politicians such as Pat Buchanan, but producers at POV and PBS defended the choice to broadcast Riggs’ work.
