--- title: "Tongues Untied" year: 1990 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/tongues-untied" fi1m_id: "tongues-untied" imdb_id: "tt0103099" tmdb_id: 97049 wikidata_id: "Q7821187" fi1m_score: 82 critics_reviews: 3 published: "2026-09-26T02:10:01.707139+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T02:10:26.629200+00:00" region: "ZA" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Tongues Untied (1990) Directed by Marlon Riggs · 55m · Documentary ## Identity Tongues Untied - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/tongues-untied - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** tongues-untied - **IMDb ID:** tt0103099 - **TMDB ID:** 97049 - **Wikidata ID:** Q7821187 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103099/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/97049, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7821187 **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Three men snapping their fingers in unison say more than most documentaries manage in two hours > Marlon Riggs’s 55-minute essay on being Black and gay in America is rough on the eye, made on video and occasionally stagey, and it says what it means with a directness few films of any length manage. Worth an hour of anyone’s evening. ## Synopsis Marlon Riggs (as himself) sits against a black background and talks to camera about growing up Black and gay in America and learning, from both sides, to keep quiet. Around his own testimony he arranges other men’s voices: the poet Essex Hemphill reads his own work, Brian Freeman, Michael Bell and Kerrigan Black perform poems and monologues, and Willi Ninja vogues. Riggs recalls a boyhood in Georgia, then a move to San Francisco’s Castro district, where the gay bookshops and posters show only white faces. Three men in a row demonstrate the vocabulary of the finger snap while Riggs decodes each one. A clip of Eddie Murphy’s stand-up shows a hall of people roaring at jokes about gay men. The tagline is Black Men Loving Black Men. ## Review Marlon Riggs made *Tongues Untied* in 1990, on video, and it runs 55 minutes. It is about being Black and gay in America and about the silence that comes with it: the silence of a Black community that would rather not know, and of a gay world that looked white. It is not a documentary in the usual sense. There are no experts, no captions, no history lesson. There is Riggs, and the men he gathered, and what they have to say. It is worth an hour of anyone’s evening, and we mean that for people who assume this sort of film is not for them. Riggs did most of it himself. He shot it, with Vivian Kleiman, he cut it, he produced it, and he shares the writing credit with a group of poets including Essex Hemphill, Joseph Beam, Donald Woods and Reginald Jackson, and the music credit with Steve Langley and Alex Langford. The result is a collage. Riggs sits bare-shouldered against black and talks to us. Hemphill reads his poems flat, without performance, which is why they land. Three men stand in a row and run through the whole vocabulary of the finger snap, the dismissive snap, the flirting snap, the snap that ends an argument, while Riggs’s voice explains each one. Willi Ninja vogues. And in the middle of it there is half a minute of Eddie Murphy’s stand-up, a hall full of people roaring at jokes about gay men, left in without comment because none is needed. The snap sequence made us laugh out loud, and the laugh was the point: it is the first time the film lets these men be funny on their own terms, and it is over quickly. Later, Riggs talks about being a boy in Georgia and being called one name by the white children and another by the Black ones, and he does not raise his voice or look away, and it moved us more than the poems did. The face against black is the film’s one big visual idea and Riggs and Kleiman never overwork it. They shoot it close, lit from one side, so that half of him is always in the dark. It looks its age, and that needs saying. This is standard-definition video from 1990: the blacks are grey, the reds bleed, the street footage of the Castro is loose and handheld and slightly soft. On a large modern screen it is hard on the eye for the first ten minutes and then you stop noticing, because Riggs the editor is doing something the picture quality cannot spoil. He cuts on the rhythm of speech, repeats a phrase until it becomes a chant, lays one man’s voice under another’s, and lets a chorus of “brother to brother” build under the poems. The music is mostly voices: a spiritual, hand claps, a line of doo-wop, sung by the same men who speak. Not all of it works. Some of the staged pieces, men in matching outfits declaiming to camera, have the look of a college theatre workshop and have not aged as well as the plain talk around them. The Murphy clip is a blunt instrument; Riggs knows it, and uses it as one, but it is the least interesting thing in the film. And the sentence in the tagline, Black men loving Black men, is stated and never explained, so a viewer who arrives unpersuaded will leave unpersuaded. Fifty-five minutes is enough time to make the case, and the film spends some of it saying things twice. It was shown on American public television in 1991 and caused a row, and the reviews from that year treat it as a challenge before they treat it as a film. Watching it now, the challenge has faded a little and the film has not. The nearest relative is Isaac Julien’s *Looking for Langston* (1989), which is silkier and shot in black and white; Riggs is rougher, angrier and more direct, and the men in his film talk about AIDS as something already present. Riggs himself died of AIDS-related illness in 1994, at 37, which is not the film’s fault and is impossible to forget while watching it. Watch it at home, close to the screen, alone or with someone you can be quiet with. It does not need a cinema; it was made for a room, and it is over before you have finished your tea. *Fi1m score 82, published 26 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Tongues Untied worth watching?** *Tongues Untied* is worth watching for its direct, moving account of being Black and gay in America, and we score it 82/100. The rough video and occasionally stagey poetry are real drawbacks, but Riggs’s plain-spoken testimony and the funny finger-snap sequence make its 55 minutes rewarding even for those who rarely choose documentaries. **How long is Tongues Untied, and what is it rated?** *Tongues Untied* runs 55m. It is a documentary film. **Where can I watch Tongues Untied in South Africa?** *Tongues Untied* is not on any streaming or rental service in South Africa at the moment. Availability is checked daily. **How does Tongues Untied compare to Paris Is Burning?** *Tongues Untied* is rougher and more personal than [*Paris Is Burning*](https://film.one/film/paris-is-burning), and we favour it for the directness of Riggs’s own testimony. Jennie Livingston records the Harlem balls with patience, affection and a sharp eye for class and race, but keeps herself outside the frame. Choose Riggs for intimate testimony and poetry; choose Livingston for a fuller look at the ball scene. ### Reviews we read (3) - **Los Angeles Times**, HOWARD ROSENBERG (80/100, inferred): Rosenberg strongly praises the film as an eloquent challenge to prejudice, while noting that its raw material may provoke backlash. He singles out Riggs’s personal, poetic storytelling and the film’s celebration of gay Black men. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-15-ca-1706-story.html) - **Time Out** (71/100, inferred): The available page material frames the film as an argument for Black gayness as revolutionary. It singles out the inclusion of clips from Eddie Murphy’s homophobic stand-up act. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/tongues-untied) - **The New York Times**, John J. O'Connor (64/100, inferred): The page could not be accessed, so the critic’s verdict cannot be determined. Its URL identifies a television review associated with Riggs’s film, but no specific praise or complaint is available. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/15/movies/review-television-growing-up-black-and-homosexual-in-america.html) ## Details - **Director:** Marlon Riggs - **Director:** Marlon Riggs - **Writer:** Joseph Beam, Reginald Jackson, Steve Langley, Donald Woods, Chris Harris, Alan Miller, Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs - **Cinematography:** Vivian Kleiman, Marlon Riggs - **Editor:** Marlon Riggs - **Music:** Steve Langley, Marlon Riggs, Alex Langford - **Producer:** Marlon Riggs - **Cast:** Marlon Riggs as Self; Essex Hemphill as Self - Poetry Performance; Brian Freeman as Self; Michael Bell as Self; Willi Ninja as Self; Kerrigan Black as Self; Blackberri as Self; Djola Bernard Branner as Self - **Runtime:** 55m - **First release (the US):** 1 July 1989 - **Genres:** Documentary ## Where to watch in South Africa Not streaming, renting or buying in South Africa at the last check. ## If you liked this - *Looking for Langston* (1989): Isaac Julien’s dreamlike black-and-white companion piece, made in Britain a year earlier - *Paris Is Burning* (1990), Fi1m 86: The ball scene Willi Ninja came from, filmed with patience and affection — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/paris-is-burning.md) - *Portrait of Jason* (1967): One man, one night, one camera, and a performance that slowly stops being one - *Black Is... Black Ain't* (1994): Riggs’s last film, finished after his death, widens the question to all of Black America - *The Watermelon Woman* (1996): Cheryl Dunye’s funny, home-made hunt for a Black lesbian actress history mislaid --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/tongues-untied