The Boys in the Band

Details

2026 Subscribers: this is NOT included in your Subscription. If you'd like to purchase it, you will need to login to view your special 50% off SRP pricing.

This special limited edition J-card MediaBook slipcase (designed by Court Normandin) is limited to 5,000 units and is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them. (Note: this Limited Edition includes a 60 page booklet)

Note: this release is available to be purchased on its own, or in the following two bundles:

• Limited Edition Slipcase + the paperback book The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley (book details can be seen below). Limited to 100 units. (Sold Out)
• Limited Edition Slipcase + This Is Cinématographe: A Journal of American Cinema - Spring 2026

Taking its name from the Lumière Brothers invention of the same name, Cinématographe is a new sub-label from Vinegar Syndrome that seeks to fill gaps in the canon of American cinema. Offering a mix of auteur driven studio films produced during the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and 70s all the way through the indie boom of the 1980s and 90s, Cinématographe will explore the wide breadth of American moviemaking, spanning numerous genres and scales of production. Curated and produced by Vinegar Syndrome's Justin LaLiberty, each limited edition release will be housed in a specially designed, cloth-bound, media book with embossed foil titles and custom molded disc trays accompanied by a slipcase featuring newly commissioned art and an individually numbered J-card.

Harold (Leonard Fray, Fiddler on the Roof) is turning 32 and his friend Michael (Kenneth Nelson, Off-Broadway’s The Fantasticks) is hosting a party for him in his Upper East Side apartment in New York City. The party guests—Emory (Cliff Gorman, All That Jazz), Donald (Frederick Combs), Bernard (Reuben Greene, Mikey and Nicky), Hank (Laurence Luckinbill, Such Good Friends), Larry (Keith Prentice, Cruising) and “Cowboy Tex” (Robert La Tourneaux), who is also Harold’s gift from Michael—all arrive to Michael’s apartment. Like Harold and Michael, the party guests are all gay men. That is, until Michael’s straight friend Alan (Peter White, TV’s All My Children) unexpectedly crashes the party. As the night gets longer, and the guests get more inebriated, the festivities turn darker and raw emotions surface.

Adapted for the screen by Mart Crowley, from his groundbreaking play of the same name, The Boys In the Band is a pivotal film in the early career of director William Friedkin, released just a year shy of The French Connection, which would award him an Oscar for Best Director. The ensemble cast of the controversial Off-Broadway play reprised their roles on screen, many acting on camera for the first time. The Boys In the Band is often regarded as one of the first films from a major studio to explicitly feature openly gay characters, with Crowley’s colorful language fueled text offering profanities that many moviegoers hadn’t heard in a film prior. Cinématographe is proud to bring this essential landmark of queer cinema to 4K UHD for the first time in the world, from a brand new 4K restoration of its original camera negatives.

directed by: William Friedkin
starring: Kenneth Nelson, Leonard Frey, Peter White, Cliff Gorman, Frederick Combs, Reuben Greene, Laurence Luckinbill, Keith Prentice, Robert La Tourneaux
1970 / 120 min / 1.85:1 / English DTS-HD MA 1.0

Additional info:

• 2-Disc Set: 4K Ultra HD + Region A Blu-ray
• 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
• Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
• New audio commentary with writer and professor Farrah Freibert
• Archival audio commentary with director William Friedkin
• Your Place In the World - a new video interview with actor, and original Boys In the Band cast member, Laurence Luckinbill
• Something Important to Say - a new video interview with film historian Mark Harris
• Take It or Leave It - a new video interview with entertainment journalist Michael Musto
• Who Is She? Who Was She? Who Does She Hope To Be? The Boys In the Band Past Present and Future - a new video essay by film historian Daniel Kremer
• Friedkin Uncut - a feature length documentary from 2018, covering Friedkin's career
• Turner Classic Movies introduction to the film by Ben Mankiewicz and Mario Cantone
• New text essays by film critic Alonso Duralde, author of Hollywood Pride; film critic Caden Mark Gardner, co-author of Corpses, Fools, Monsters; film journalist Nat Segaloff, author of Hurricane Billy: The Stormy Life and Films of William Friedkin; and writer Kyle Turner, author of The Queer Film Guide
• English SDH subtitles

The Boys in the Band - Paperback Book

By Mart Crowley

This seminal work of the Off-Broadway movement premiered in 1968 and was a long-running hit onstage later filmed with the original cast. In 2010 the play made a triumphant return to New York City in an highly praised production produced by Drama Desk and Obie Award winning Transport Group.

222 pages
8" x 5"