The first feature documentary made by queer filmmakers about queer life, this landmark film by the Mariposa Film Group captures an essential moment in the gay liberation movement.

One of the most crucial queer documentaries, Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives collects the oral histories of 26 gay Americans, ranging in age from 18 to 77. The Mariposa Film Group (Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown, Rob Epstein, Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver) collectively conducted more than 200 interviews over five years and allowed each participant to speak honestly about their lives with an openness so rarely seen when this work premiered in 1977.

From lesbian poets and ex-military personnel to butch–femme couples, and from lawyers to blue-collar workers and beyond, the film’s participants – including civil rights icon Harry Hay, professor Sally Gearhart and experimental filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky – will steal your heart with their recollections of both prejudice and pride.

“Simultaneously a presentation to the world at large about the lives of gay people and an affirmation, to gay people themselves, that there is a community out there with which they can identify.” – The New Yorker