Welcome to your weekend streaming recommendations, a.k.a. the Weekend Watch, a handy guide to the queerest film and TV content that’s just a click away!
Contemporary documentaries have definitely taken on a true crime flavor in recent years, but there are still so many compelling stories that have been told through the format. These documentaries run the gamut, exploring everything from Hollywood gossip to shocking family secrets—all with a queer bent.
Read on for lesser-known documentaries about LGBTQ+ history to stream this weekend.
Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood
This 2017 documentary, directed by Matt Tyrnauer, explores the life of Scotty Bowers, a self-proclaimed unpaid pimp to the stars who told all in his book, Full Service. Bowers, who passed in 2019, shares sordid and sexy tales of closeted Hollywood A-listers he helped get laid. And when we say A-lister, we mean it—threesomes with Cary Grant! hook-ups with Spencer Tracy!—this story is wild, and a little hard to believe. Still, if you love Old Hollywood and have fantasized about your favorite pin-up, you’ll eat up this fascinating flick.
Now streaming on Hulu, Roku, Kanopy, Tubi, Pluto, Plex and and Dekkoo.
I Am Divine
The late drag legend Divine, born Harris Glenn Milstead, was a longtime collaborator and friend of cult filmmaker John Waters. I Am Divine tells the hilarious, trasngressive, and brilliant diva’s story through interviews with Waters, Milstead’s mother, and other surviving members of the Dreamlanders, Waters’ troupe of performers. For fans of Waters and Divine’s body of work, the archival footage in I Am Divine alone is… well, divine!
Now streaming on Roku, Tuby, Kanopy and Realeyz.
A Secret Love
Imagine keeping your partner a secret. Now imagine keeping your partner a secret for more than 60 years. This was the case for Terry Donahue, a player for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and her lifelong love, Pat Henschel. All is revealed in 2020’s A Secret Love, directed by Chris Bolan, which explores how they kept their relationship from nearly everyone. The documentary also explores the ever-evolving socio-political landscape that contributed to Donahue and Henschel keeping their relationship private. Even cynics will tear up at this one.
Now streaming on Netflix.
Circus Of Books
In Circus of Books, a conservative Jewish couple runs one of West Hollywood’s most beloved gay adult bookstores. In the 2019 documentary, director Rachel Mason delves into her family’s surprising business and why her parents never told her or her siblings about the bookshop. As more and more secrets are revealed—gay adult film legend Jeff Stryker shows up for a surprising plot twist—Mason and her siblings come to see their strict, conventional parents in a new, funky light.
Now streaming on Netflix.
The Kicker…
Michael Jordan (played perfectly by Keegan-Michael Key) can’t shake his competitive side in this hilarious parody of the ESPN docu-series The Last Dance, which chronicled Jordan’s basketball career with the Chicago Bulls.
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Where’s Michael Musto? We could use a bit more of his wit and wisdom these days, Queerty!