Movies like Kiki (2016)
The best movies like Kiki (2016) are Bear Nation (2010), The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) and Paris Is Burning (1991). If Kiki hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedParis Is Burning (1991)8.0/10 from 578 votes
- NewestStudio One Forever (2024)Released 2024
Bear Nation (2010)
Filmmaker Malcolm Ingram takes you on a fascinating journey inside a fast growing segment of the gay community where what was once a perceived negative is now redefining the definition of what it looks like to be gay.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)
Describing herself as a 'street queen,' Johnson was a legendary fixture in New York City’s gay ghetto and a tireless voice for LGBT pride since the days of Stonewall, who along with fellow trans icon Sylvia Rivera, founded Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), a trans activist group based in the heart of NYC’s Greenwich Village. Her death in 1992 was declared a suicide by the NYPD, but friends never accepted that version of events. Structured as a whodunit, with activist Victoria Cruz cast as detective and audience surrogate, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson celebrates the lasting political legacy of Johnson, while seeking to finally solve the mystery of her unexplained death.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisParis Is Burning (1991)
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisP.S. Burn This Letter Please (2020)
A box found in an abandoned storage unit unearths a time capsule of correspondences from a forgotten era: the underground drag scene in 1950s New York City. Firsthand accounts and newly discovered footage help cast a long overdue spotlight on the unsung pioneers of drag.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Disclosure (2020)
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Stroll (2023)
The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Wig (2019)
Spotlighting the art of drag, and centered on the New York staple Wigstock, this documentary showcases the personalities and performances that inform the ways we understand queerness, art and identity today.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Shinjuku Boys (1995)
This documentary is set in the New Marilyn night club in Tokyo, Japan - where the hosts are transgender men. They can only make their living as hosts in a nightclub with other wannabes like them. The young women who come there often have relationships with them but the underlying fear is whether such a relationship can withstand the pressures on a girl to get married and have children. All three boys deal with this in different ways. These three hosts, the Shinjuku Boys, take us into their lives.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Studio One Forever (2024)
A documentary film about Studio One which, from 1974 to 1994, was the center of queer nightlife in West Hollywood as well as the staging ground for the rise of the LGBTQ rights movement and fight against the AIDS crisis.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Queens and Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo (2014)
A feature film that chronicles a complete season of the International Gay Rodeo Association. Roping and riding across north America for the past 30 years, the IGRA's courageous cowboys and cowgirls brave challenges both in and out of the arena on their quest to qualify for the World Finals at the end of the season. And along the way, they'll bust every stereotype in the book.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
We Were Here (2011)
A reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of the crisis.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisQueer Japan (2020)
Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Call Me Kuchu (2012)
In Uganda, a new bill threatens to make homosexuality punishable by death. David Kato - Uganda's first openly gay man - and his fellow activists work against the clock to defeat the legislation while combating vicious persecution in their daily lives. But no one, not even the filmmakers, is prepared for the brutal murder that shakes the movement to its core and sends shock waves around the world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
The Aggressives (2005)
This acclaimed documentary – made by one of the fashion world's most sought after casting directors – picks up where "Paris Is Burning" left off, focusing on a group of six NYC lesbians who dress and identify as men, blurring the lines between butch dyke and trans-male identities.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Welcome to Chechnya (2020)
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMala Mala (2015)
In a celebration of the trans community in Puerto Rico, the fissure between internal and external is an ever-present battle. A unique exploration of self-discovery and activism, featuring a diverse collection of subjects that include LGBTQ advocates, business owners, sex workers, and a boisterous group of drag performers who call themselves The Doll House, Mala Mala portrays a fight for personal and community acceptance paved with triumphant highs and devastating lows.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Check It (2016)
Fed up with being pushed around, a group of gay and trans teens of color form a gang and fight back on the brutal streets of Washington D.C. They call their gang ‘Check it’ and this group of one-time victims of bullying, rape and abuse have turned the tables on anyone trying to hurt them. The group formed to provide its members safety in numbers and let people know that if they jump a queer kid in D.C., they may get beaten into a coma. This raw and intimate portrait follows three childhood friends as they struggle to survive and claw their way out of gang life through an unlikely avenue: fashion.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
Throughout the 1950s, Tab Hunter reigned as Hollywood’s ultimate male heartthrob. But throughout his years of stardom, Tab had a secret. Tab Hunter was gay, and spent his Hollywood years in a precarious closet that repeatedly threatened to implode and destroy him. Tab Hunter himself shares first hand, for the first time, what it was like to be a studio manufactured movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood and the consequences of being someone totally different from his studio manufactured image.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Queens (2019)
This documentary chronicles over two years in the heels of four of the world’s most famous drag queens including former RuPaul’s Drag Race winners Jinkx Monsoon and Sharon Needles, former All Stars champion Alaska Thunderf*ck and season 7 and All Stars 2 contestant Katya Zamolodchikova. From performing across world stages to winning (and losing) Drag Race or dealing with major tragedies, The Queens lifts the lace front, giving an insight into one of the most fascinating and quickly ascending entertainment artforms.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Camp Beaverton: Meet the Beavers (2013)
Camp Beaverton is the Home for Wayward Girls, the only queer, all women, trans-inclusive, sex positive theme camp set within Burning Man, an 8-day experimental art festival that encourages radical self expression found deep within the Nevada desert. The Beavers create a safe space to explore their boundaries while they build a community of friendship, trust, and lifelong relationships.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later (2023)
Follows the lives of four queer masculine-presenting BIPOC – all assigned female at birth – as they challenge conceptions of gender identity while navigating life’s hardships and triumphs.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Pray Away (2021)
In the 1970s, five men struggling with being gay in their Evangelical church started a bible study to help each other leave the "homosexual lifestyle." They quickly received over 25,000 letters from people asking for help and formalized as Exodus International, the largest and most controversial conversion therapy organization in the world. But leaders struggled with a secret: their own “same-sex attractions” never went away. After years as Christian superstars in the religious right, many of these men and women have come out as LGBTQ, disavowing the very movement they helped start. Focusing on the dramatic journeys of former conversion therapy leaders, current members, and a survivor, PRAY AWAY chronicles the “ex gay" movement’s rise to power, persistent influence, and the profound harm it causes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trans List (2016)
A documentary that explores the range of experiences lived by transgender Americans.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Hunted: The War Against Gays in Russia (2014)
A shocking look at how a recent anti-gay amendment to a Russian propaganda law has led to increased assaults on gay men and women. In modern-day Russia, where it is estimated that just 1% of the LGBT population lives completely openly, a recent anti-gay amendment to a “propaganda” law has been followed by a rising number of assaults on gay men and women by vigilantes who, more often than not, go unpunished for their crimes.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Starz Inside: Ladies or Gentlemen (2008)
Why do movie audiences find men in skirts and women in pants anything but a drag? Discover the playful history of the most daring cross-sexual performances in Hollywood history, from Some Like it Hot to Big Momma's House.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Out in the Night (2014)
Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a 'Gang of Killer Lesbians'.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Believer (2017)
Imagine Dragons’ Mormon frontman Dan Reynolds is taking on a new mission to explore how the church treats its LGBTQ members. With the rising suicide rate amongst teens in the state of Utah, his concern with the church’s policies sends him on an unexpected path for acceptance and change.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Kokomo City (2023)
Four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City break down the walls of their profession.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Bixa Travesty (2019)
A portrait of transgender musician and artist Linn da Quebrada, who uses her body and performances as weapons to fight sexism, homophobia, and racism.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
Before Stonewall (1984)
New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Kiki?
The closest matches to Kiki are Bear Nation (2010), The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) and Paris Is Burning (1991). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Kiki?
People who watched Kiki most often go on to Bear Nation (2010), The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) and Paris Is Burning (1991).
What is the highest-rated movie like Kiki?
Paris Is Burning (1991), rated 8.0/10 by 578 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Kiki?
Studio One Forever (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Kiki?
Yes: Bear Nation (2010), The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) and Paris Is Burning (1991).
How are movies similar to Kiki chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Kiki, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.