List of films featuring gay bathhouses
Inclusion criteria[edit]
This is an annotated list of films by year that are notable for featuring, or including scenes of, Gay bathhouses or gay themes set in bathhouses. Films link to an associated Wikipedia page or, if unavailable, the associated listing on IMDb. Films with no gay context will not be included.
The purpose of this list is to illustrate the often taboo subject of gay bathhouse culture and its influence.
Film list[edit]
| Year | Film Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1973 | The Day of the Jackal | The Jackal knows all Parisian hotels are being watched by police. He enters a bathhouse and is approached by another man, who picks him up. They go to the man's apartment. Later the man sees a television in a shop window, recognizing the Jackal's face but not knowing why. As he mentions this to the Jackal, the television in the apartment has a newsflash that Lundquist is wanted for the murder of Madame de Montpellier. The Jackal kills the man off-screen in his kitchen, then switches off the television.[1] |
| 1975 | Saturday Night at the Baths at IMDb | A musician from Montana finds work and other things at The Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in New York City. |
| 1976 | The Ritz | The farce is set in a gay bathhouse in Manhattan, where an unsuspecting Cleveland businessman has taken refuge from his homicidal mobster brother-in-law. A number of characters feature, including a rabid chubby chaser, go-go boys, a squeaky-voiced detective, and a third-rate Puerto Rican entertainer with visions of Broadway glory who mistakes him for a famous producer and whom he mistakes for a man in drag. |
| 1993 | And the Band Played On | HBO adaptation of Randy Shilts's journalistic history of the AIDS epidemic. |
| 1993 | Zero Patience | Canadian film directed by John Greyson which refutes the patient zero theory of HIV's introduction to North America which was promulgated in Shiltz's book. A time-displaced Sir Richard Francis Burton visits a gay bathhouse in the course of his research. |
| 1997 | Hamam (in Italian) | Film featuring a derelict hamam (Turkish bath) where the leading character decides to refurbish it and gradually becomes attracted to the son of the family he is staying with. |
| 1997 | The River (in Chinese) | The River contains a sequence in which the leading character visits a gay bathhouse and has sex in a totally dark room with his father, who slaps him brutally when the light goes on. |
| 2004 | Cachorro (Bear Cub) (in Spanish) | A bearish gay man who ends up looking after his nephew while his sister goes away to India. He develops a fatherly bond with the boy and has to alter his lifestyle. Scenes of the leading character's gay sex life include picking up men at a bathhouse (filmed at the gay Sauna Principe, Madrid). |
| 2005 | Bathhouse at IMDb (in Tagalog) | A group of gay friends experience bathhouse culture and one manages to find love. The entire film is set in a gay bathhouse. |
| 2007 | Chuecatown at IMDb (Boys Town) (in Spanish) | A black comedy featuring a couple of gay bears. The final chase sequence and shoot-out take place in a gay bathhouse. |
| 2008 | Kiss Me Deadly at IMDb | Thriller whose principal character is a gay man. Features a gay bathhouse in Rome. |
| 2008 | Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild | Comedy that features a gay bathhouse and naked gay zombies in a dream sequence. |
References[edit]
- ^ Russo, Vito (1981), The celluloid closet: homosexuality in the movies, Harper & Row, p. 214, ISBN 978-0-06-090871-3