Torch Song Trilogy

Torch Song Trilogy (1988) is Paul Bogart's dramedy, ready to watch online on iFILM. In 1970s New York, Arnold Beckoff earns his living as a drag performer in a cabaret, and what he wants most is plain enough — a love he doesn't have to hide and someone who'll actually stay.

Harvey Fierstein wrote both the screenplay and the lead role, adapting his own Broadway play. Arnold drifts through a romance with a bisexual man who leaves him for a woman, then meets a younger admirer, dreams of adoption and a real family, and finally squares off against his mother (Anne Bancroft), who has never accepted how her son lives. Matthew Broderick turns up as one of his loves.

Because Fierstein brought his own Tony-winning stage work to the screen, the film keeps its sharp wit braided right into the heartbreak. It was among the first Hollywood pictures to show gay life with neither pity nor shame. Stream Torch Song Trilogy (1988) online on iFILM.