The right to love, the fight for equality: streaming picks for MLK Day weekend

Welcome to your weekend streaming recommendations, a.k.a. the Weekend Watch, a handy guide to the queerest film and TV content that’s just a click away!

This coming Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national day to remember and celebrate civil rights in the United States. This week’s streaming picks include films about civil rights, gay rights, and the heroes—both known and unsung—who fight for them.

Read on for streaming picks about civil rights below.

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Rustin

This critically acclaimed biopic—directed by George C. Wolfe, written by Dustin Lance Black and Julian Breece—tells the story of Bayard Rustin (played by Colman Domingo), the gay civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington despite facing opposition from both the United States government and his own community. Rustin features a career-defining star turn by Domingo, as well as sharp performances by Aml Ameen as Martin Luther King Jr., Chris Rock as Roy Wilkins, CCH Pounder as Anna Hedgeman, Audra McDonald as Ella Baker and many others.

Now streaming on Netflix.

Loving

Jeff Nichols’ stirring 2016 drama, starring Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as Mildred and Richard Loving, tells the true story of Loving v. Virginia, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that validated interracial marriage in every state. In 1967, Mildred and Richard just wanted to be legally allowed to marry and enjoy their family—but Virginia state law prohibited that Mildred, a Black woman, can marry Richard, a white man. This moving film explores the United States’ ongoing reckoning with the freedom to love who you love, and LGBTQ+ people will relate to simple but powerful moments like Mildred and Richard summoning up the courage to even hold hands in public.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Available to rent digitally on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Story, DirecTV and Spectrum.

Screaming Queens: The Riot At Compton’s Cafeteria

Before the Stonewall riots in New York, there was San Francisco’s Compton’s Cafeteria in 1966. This documentary about the lesser-known riot recounts the fateful incident, in which cops descended on SF’s Tenderloin district for a common raid on Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, an all-night hot spot for trans women. When they fought back, one of the first LGBTQ uprisings occurred. This film tells the stories of the unsung heroes of the gay rights movement.

Watch Screaming Queens: The Riot At Compton’s Cafeteria in its entirety above.

The Case Against 8

This documentary, directed by Ben Cotner and Ryan White, chronicles the fight against Proposition 8, which would have banned same-sex marriage. It focuses on couples Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, and Jeffrey Zarrillo and Paul Katami, as they fight for their right to be legally recognized as married. In a time when civil liberties—be it racial or LGBTQ+—are constantly in contention in the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s shocking to see how recently we were compelled to fight for simple rights.

Now streaming on Max and DirecTV.

The Kicker…

In 2015, director Roland Emmerich—the genius blockbuster filmmaker behind Independence Day—released Stonewall, a critically panned, whitewashed dramatization of the Stonewall riots. The offensive movie imagines a Stonewall riot that was instigated by a handsome, blonde white boy and not one of the many trans heroes of color. In this video, queer folks react to the insanity that is Stonewall.