Hedwig and the Angry Inch
A glam-rock musical about a botched surgery and a stolen songbook.
The best original songs of anything on this list, by a distance.
- 2001
- 95 min
- 92% on Rotten Tomatoes
- 7.7 on IMDb
- #nostalgic
- #drama
- #trans
Our take
John Cameron Mitchell adapts his own stage show about an East German genderqueer rock singer touring American seafood restaurants while stalking the protégé who stole her music. It is funny, loud, angry, and structured around some of the best songs written for any film musical — "The Origin of Love" alone.
Its politics around gender are of their moment and worth watching with that in mind; Hedwig is not a straightforward trans narrative and was never really trying to be one. What it nails is the fury of being made into someone else’s idea of a person, and the wig comes off in the last act for a reason.
Where to watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Rent
Amazon Video
Apple TV Store
Google Play Movies
YouTube
Fandango At Home
Spectrum On Demand
Buy
- Amazon Video
- Apple TV Store
- Google Play Movies
- YouTube
- Fandango At Home
Streaming availability data provided by JustWatch. Availability changes often and is checked daily — confirm on the provider before paying for anything.
Scores
Ours
- Jibbi Score — 4.5 out of 5 rainbows. The best original songs of anything on this list, by a distance.
Everyone else’s
- Rotten Tomatoes — 92%, via OMDb.
- IMDb — 7.7 out of 10 from 38,305 votes, via OMDb.
- Metacritic — 85 out of 100, via OMDb.
- TMDB — 7.4 out of 10 from 434 votes, refreshed daily.
The plot, officially
Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an 'internationally ignored' but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a 'beautiful gender of one'.
Synopsis and poster via TMDB.