The Boys in the Band

2020

121 mins

Directed by Joe Mantello
85%
74%
Drama

A group of gay friends in 1968 New York City reunite for a birthday celebration, only to have the good... More

A group of gay friends in 1968 New York City reunite for a birthday celebration, only to have the good times upended when a potentially closeted roommate shows up uninvited. Based on the award-winning play by Mart Crowley, with stage director Joe Mantello handling this film adaptation and starring Golden Globe winners Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) and Matt Bomer (Magic Mike XXL) alongside Emmy nominee Zachary Quinto (Star Trek).

In 1968 New York City – when being gay was still considered to be best kept behind closed doors – a group of friends gather for a raucous birthday party hosted by Michael (Parsons), a screenwriter who spends and drinks too much, in honor of the sharp-dressed and sharp-tongued Harold (Quinto). Other partygoers include Donald (Bomer), Michael’s former flame, now mired in self-analysis; Larry (Andrew Rannells), a randy commercial artist living with Hank (Tuc Watkins), a school teacher who has just left his wife; Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington), a librarian tiptoeing around fraught codes of friendship alongside Emory (Robin de Jesús), a decorator who never holds back; and a guileless hustler (Charlie Carver), hired to be Harold’s gift for the night. What begins as an evening of drinks and laughs gets upended when Alan (Brian Hutchison), Michael’s straight-laced college roommate, shows up unexpectedly and each man is challenged to confront long-buried truths that threaten the foundation of the group’s tight bond.

Less

Where to watch The Boys in the Band

The Boys in the Band is available to stream in... More Australia now on Netflix.

There is no screening information for this title.

The Boys in the Band | Ratings & Reviews

85_%101 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes® rating
74_%434 reviews
Audience score rating

"This new Boys in the Band is a Matryoshka doll of period piecery, a flashback of a flashback of a flashback."

—

Slant Magazine

"What holds the movie together, apart from Quinto’s dreamy geek mystique and delectable delivery of every line, is the tormented passion that Jim Parsons brings to it."

—

Variety

"The Boys in the Band in many ways is dated and formulaic. But it's also very much alive, an invaluable record of the destructive force of societal rejection, even in a bastion of liberal acceptance like New York City."

—

Hollywood Reporter

"Mantello is the first to tell people he hasn’t had a lot of experience directing movies (his last feature was the 1997 adaptation of his Broadway hit Love! Valour! Compassion!), yet his version of Boys fights its stage roots far more than Friedkin’s film."

—

A.V. Club

"It is all unexpectedly potent, particularly in the absurdity and petulance and pain that Parsons crams into his performance. It’s a strange, compelling dose of unhappiness."

—

The Guardian

"Strongly acted and effectively staged, The Boys In The Band has lost little of its impact in the five decades since its first debut, and is a fitting tribute to its creator Mart Crowley, who died in March."

—

Empire Magazine

"The result is a sophisticated, tart-tongued revival, and a gayed-up “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” that surmounts the challenges faced by stage-to-screen adaptations, specifically the utter confinement to a single space."

—