Search - Boys Don't Cry on DVD


Boys Don't Cry
Boys Don't Cry
Actors: Hilary Swank, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III, Alicia Goranson
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Genres: Drama, Mystery & Suspense
R     2009     1hr 58min

A true story about hope, fear, and the courage it takes to be yourself, "Boys Don't Cry" is "One of the 10 best films of 1999" (National Board of Review). Critically acclaimed and nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, thi...  more »

     

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Movie Details

Actors: Hilary Swank, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III, Alicia Goranson
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Creators: Kimberly Peirce, Bradford Simpson, Caroline Kaplan, Christine Vachon, Eva Kolodner, Jeff Sharp, Andy Bienen
Genres: Drama, Mystery & Suspense
Sub-Genres: Love & Romance, Mystery & Suspense
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Format: DVD - Color,Widescreen - Closed-captioned,Subtitled
DVD Release Date: 10/13/2009
Original Release Date: 01/01/1999
Theatrical Release Date: 01/01/1999
Release Year: 2009
Run Time: 1hr 58min
Screens: Color,Widescreen
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaDVD Credits: 1
Total Copies: 0
Members Wishing: 0
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
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Member Movie Reviews

Sharon F. (Shar) from AVON PARK, FL
Reviewed on 3/15/2023...
Very well done Hilary Swank. I think she is such an underrated actress! With no makeup and short hair, she really does pass as a "boy." With good intentions and misguidance, one can't help but feel sorry for her.
1 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Movie Reviews

The bluest eyes in texas are holding him tonight
thomas angelo zunich | long beach, ca USA | 04/20/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Not only were all the performances in Boys Don't Cry fantastic, so was the directing by Kimberely Pierce. She directed the film in a modern light, giving Boys Don't Cry and almost "underground" aestectic quality. She used dark midwestern landscapes and splashed them with strikingly bright colours of a city's neon lights. Nebraska never looked so alternative.Oscar winner Hillary Swank and nominee Chloe Sevigny both give standout performances, humanizing their characters making us believe we are watching a real life situation unfolding. The girl from the tv show "Roseanne" also gives a great performance, along with the actress who played the mother. The 2 guys in the film who played the white trash thugs give me the creeps. That's how good this movie is, it honestly makes you love and hate the characters with passionate intensity.As for the reviewer who only saw the film as "teena brandon hanging out in bars looking for lesbian sex", well you obviously missed the point of the movie. It's not a trivial "feel-good date movie". It has a deeper, more important theme. Boys Dont Cry is a story about a lost soul searching for his/her identity. While her search is battling against a world with little campassion or understanding of her needs and feelings as a human being. The strident voice of middle American intolerance is Brandon's ill fated downfall in life. He only wanted love, because everybody needs love."
Sometimes they do
Dennis Littrell | SoCal | 10/11/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This movie really made me think about sexual differences and what it means to have a sex change or to want one, or to be trapped in a gender you don't want. It was very effective to have us see Hilary Swank (who plays Brandon Teena/Teena Brandon) with short hair and male facial expressions and gestures without giving us a glimpse of her as Teena. (Actually we did get a brief glimpse in a photo.) Swank looks like a boy, acts like a boy, in fact works hard to be a boy; indeed that is (sadly) part of what this movie is about, what it means to be a boy in middle America as opposed to being a girl. And then when we have the scene with the tampons and the breast wrapping and we see her legs, the effect is startling, an effect possibly lost on those who knew that the person playing Brandon was a woman. It was when I saw her legs and could tell at a glance that she was a woman with a woman's legs that I realized just how subtle, but unmistakable are the anatomical sexual differences, and how convincing Swank's portrayal was.

I was reminded as I watched this of being a young person, of being a teenager and going through all the rituals and rites, unspoken, unplanned, without social sanction, that we all go through to prove our identity, because that is what Brandon was so eager to do, to prove his identity as a boy. I thought, ah such an advantage he has with the girls because he knows what they like and what they want. He can be smooth, and how pretty he looks. It was strange. I actually knew some guys in my youth who had such talent, and the girls did love them.

The direction by Kimberly Peirce is nicely paced and the forebodings of horror to come are sprinkled lightly throughout so that we don't really think about the resolution perhaps until the campfire scene in which John Lotter shows his self-inflicted scars and tosses the knife to Brandon. Then we know for sure that something bad is going to happen.

Hilary Swank is very convincing. Her performance is stunning, and she deserved the Academy Award she won for Best Actress. She is the type of tomboy/girl so beloved of the French cinema, tomboyish, but obvious a girl like, for example, Zouzou as seen in Chloe in the Afternoon (1972) or Elodie Bouchez in the The Dreamlife of Angels (1998), or many others. Indeed, one is even reminded of Juliette Binoche, who of course can play anything, or going way back, Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958). Chloe Signvey, who plays Lana Tisdel, the girl Brandon loves, whom I first saw in Palmetto (1998), where she stole a scene or two from Woody Harrelson and Elisabeth Shue, really comes off ironically as butch to Swank, yet manages a sexy, blue collar girl next door femininity. She also does a great job. Peter Sarsgaard is perfect as John Lotter, trailer trash car thief and homophobic redneck degenerate.

Very disturbing is the ending. If you know the story, you know the ending. Just how true this was to the real life story it is based on is really irrelevant. I knew nothing about the story, but I know that film makers always take license to tell it the way they think it will play best, and so it's best to just experience the film as the film, independent of the real story, which, like all real stories, can never be totally told.

Obviously this is not for the kiddies and comes as close to an "X" rating as any "R" movie you'll ever see. It will
make most viewers uncomfortable, but it is the kind of story that needs to be told."
Not Masquerading and Not about sexual orientation
Rainn MacPhail | US | 03/05/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an excellent film, however the subject is heart wrenching. The film isn't about a girl masquerading as a man or about a confused lesbian. These terms have unfortunately been equated with the film and are inaccurate. Brandon was an FTM, a transgendered person/transexual who was pre-op. The film does deal with Brandon's affirmation of his (yes--editors-HIS)true SELF (read Jung). Chloe Sevigny portrays a young woman who is able to see beyond the physical and into Brandon's true SELF. Unfortuately, 2 disturbed men, who have many issues in themselves, in their limited vision and supposed masculinity are challenged by Brandon's transgenderness. They project their own insecurities out on Brandon--brutally raping and murdering Brandon, a young mother, and an African American (not shown in the film). Warning: this film is emotionally upsetting and demonstrates the issue of violence on many levels--all folks can relate. In many respects, this film ranks on the levels of Schlinder's List and Platoon. Please make sure you see the film with someone so you can talk afterwords. Trust me, I conducted a panel after a showing of the film for an audience of 40-50 individuals. Let the pain in and feel it. It's the only way you can truly understand the film.It's too bad that Kimberly Peirce was not nominated for an Academy Award for her direction. The film is EXCELLENT!"