The first few moments of 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' are electrifying. It's 1927 in rural Georgia. Hundreds of people, all of them Black, are lined up at the entrance to a huge tent. Inside, Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues, is singing her heart out.

The opportunity to see Marlene Dietrich in person came 23 years after her U.S. film dbut. In 1953 the Sahara Las Vegas offered her $30,000 per week to perform. And so her career as a cabaret singer was born. The film star later performed in San Francisco.

2020 will go down as a banner year for lesbian-themed films, both in terms of quality and visibility. Four of my picks for best queer movies of 2020 were lesbian-oriented and two others came very close to making the final cut.

LGBT themes in feature and documentary films expanded cinematic depictions this year. Here are half of our baker's dozen favorites.

The filmed version David Pevsner's one-man show, Musical Comedy Whore (Breaking Glass Pictures), is indeed a musical. As for the "whore" part, Pevsner goes into great detail about his sexual exploits, including his time as a male escort.

Ryan Murphy has entered the musical film fray with his big screen version of the 2018 musical 'The Prom,' but stumbles with his well-intentioned adaptation of the story about has-been celebs invading a high school prom to champion a teen lesbian.

Based on a screenplay written by his late father Jack, director David Fincher returns with a retro-infused biopic about 'Citizen Kane' screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz.

The news of Elliot Page's coming out as transgender spread across the internet. At the same time, with less fanfare, actor Viggo Mortensen raised eyebrows with his defense of playing a gay character. Both show how LGBT actors and portrayals are evolving.

In the past few years there has been a quiet revolution in medical treatment and surgery for transgender patients, aided by the Affordable Care Act, giving people an opportunity to have health care services hitherto unavailable to them.

Once again, holiday movies will abound on your TV screens for the Christmas season, but this year there's a bit of a queer twist to the festivities. For the first time, holiday films made especially for queer-inclusive families air this season.

IN 'Uncle Frank,' Alan Ball's second full-length feature, Peter Macdissi plays Walid, the partner of Frank (Paul Bettany). Both warily travel from Manhattan to the deep South for a family funeral. Macdissi discussed his work on the film.

Following the success of his debut feature, 'God's Own Country,' writer/director Francis Lee's 'Ammonite' is definitely worth watching, primarily for the incandescent performances from Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan.

What do you do when your neighbor is a famed local costume designer? If you're Daniel Navarro, you make a film about him. In 'My Neighbor, Miguel,' the life and creations of gay Latino designer Miguel Gutierrez gets a well-deserved intimate portrait.

Actor and straight ally Henry Golding has become one of the most recognizable names and faces on film. In his latest independent feature, 'Monsoon' he plays a gay man returning to Vietnam.