Category is… “whatever you want to be, you be.” Before the reading challenge on Drag Race, before Madonna’s “Vogue,” there was ballroom. Paris Is Burning shines a light on the late-80s ballroom culture of New York City, emerging from Black, Latin, and Trans communities.

Turning its participants into legendary LGBTQ+ icons and offering a dictionary of slang and one-liners that remain a crucial part of the queer lexicon, these ballroom superstars — including Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja, Venux Xtravaganza, Dorian Corey, Octavia St. Laurent, to name a few — deconstruct race, class, and identity politics through intimate interviews, winding monologues, and sickening performances. Winner of the Audience Award at Frameline14 and still as vital, entertaining, and moving 35 years later, Jennie Livingston’s essential 1990 documentary is a profound record of the experiences, ambitions, and talent of an underrepresented yet commercialized culture — who have achieved cinema immortality thanks to this unforgettable masterpiece.