Mala Noche (1988)

Gus Van Sant is the director of many popular movies, such as Good Will Hunting (1997) and Elephant (2003). Good Will Hunting follows a young man who works as a janitor at a prestigious college who discovers that he possesses an extraordinary talent for mathematics. In contrast, Elephant explores the lives of two deeply troubled young men who are planning a school shooting. Van Sant also played a pivotal role in the New Queer Cinema movement, which focuses on queer-themed independent movies and was first coined by B. Ruby Rich in the 1990s. Being a part of the queer community himself, he contributed works like Mala Noche (1985) and My Own Private Idaho (1991). The latter film tells the story of a young male sex worker with narcolepsy who embarks on a journey across the globe to find his estranged mother. While the plots of these films are drastically different, they share many similarities from both a theatrical and cinematic standpoint.