Film

Kinky Boots

Name: Kinky Boots
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Released: 2005
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sarah-Jane Potts, Nick Frost, Linda Bassett

A struggling Northampton shoe factory finds an unlikely lifeline in fetish boots for drag performers, thanks to a chance meeting between the reluctant new owner and the flamboyant Lola. It's warm, broadly comic, and unembarrassed about its message: that saving a business and saving yourself can be the same job. Easy company for a feel-good evening, if you don't mind the lessons arriving underlined.

TMDb rating

6.7

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The Full Monty1997

Sheffield steelworkers turn to stripping to survive, and the film finds the same trick Kinky Boots does: comedy built from real economic desperation, landing on a genuinely triumphant final scene.

But The full-frontal finale gets more attention than the film's quieter, sadder scenes about unemployment and shame.

Pride2014

A Welsh mining village and a London gay rights group join forces during the 1984 strike - the same collision of unlikely communities, same insistence that solidarity beats prejudice, played with real historical weight.

But It's more overtly political than Kinky Boots, and the true story means the ending is bittersweet rather than a clean fairy tale.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert1994

Three drag queens cross the Australian outback in a battered bus, facing hostility and glitter in equal measure - louder, campier, and even more unapologetic about the joy of performance.

But Broader and bawdier than Kinky Boots' gentler charm, with less interest in redemption arcs and more in spectacle.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Paris Is Burning1991

Kinky Boots borrows drag's glitter for a comedy; this shows where that glitter actually comes from, and what it cost the people who invented it.

The real ballroom culture that drag borrows its glamour and vocabulary from - voguing, houses, mothers, categories - filmed with unbearable tenderness for people the world outside had already discarded.

But It's a documentary with no plot momentum, and its subjects' struggles are real and often devastating, not softened for a feel-good arc.

Billy Elliot2000

A working-class British kid defies his community's expectations to do something considered unmanly - ballet instead of boxing - with the same tension between tradition and self-expression that drives Charlie and Lola.

But It's set against the miners' strike, so the stakes and sadness run deeper than Kinky Boots' factory-floor comedy.

Made in Dagenham2010

Another British factory in crisis, another unlikely uprising - this time women machinists fighting for equal pay. Same warmth, same feel-good underdog energy, same faith that ordinary workers can change everything.

But It trades drag glamour for union politics, so if the boots and cabaret numbers were the draw, this plays it much straighter.

Brassed Off1996

A colliery brass band plays on as the pit closes around them - proof the 'save the workplace' formula existed long before Kinky Boots, with more melancholy and a similarly stirring finale.

But It's sadder and angrier than Kinky Boots, with less optimism about whether decency actually saves anything.

The Birdcage1996no page yet

Robin Williams and Nathan Lane run a drag club and pretend to be a 'normal' family for one disastrous dinner - pure farce, but built on the same tenderness toward performance and disguise.

But It's a straight-up comedy with none of Kinky Boots' factory-floor stakes or bittersweet undertones.

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar1995no page yet

Three drag queens stranded in a small conservative town charm the locals into acceptance - broader, sillier, and unashamedly sentimental about the same idea that difference can win people over.

But It's thinner and more predictable than Kinky Boots, closer to a road-trip sitcom than a character study.

Hairspray2007

A big, bright musical about outsiders storming the mainstream - different decade, different city, same insistence that flamboyance and self-acceptance can shake up a whole community, plus songs you'll be humming for days.

But It's a full-blown musical rather than a drama with musical numbers, so tonally it's candy-colored where Kinky Boots stays grounded.

Some Like It Hot1959

Same engine - comedy generated by putting men in women's clothes and watching assumptions collapse - built decades before Charlie ever met Lola.

Two musicians dress as women to escape gangsters and stumble into gender-bending farce decades before it was fashionable - still one of the funniest films ever made, with Marilyn Monroe at her best.

But It's black-and-white studio-era comedy with none of Kinky Boots' emotional core; the drag here is a plot device, not an identity.

Boys Don't Cry1999

Strip away the cabaret numbers and the happy ending, and this is the same story of gender performance meeting a hostile, unglamorous world - told as tragedy instead of comedy.

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But It's based on a true tragedy and ends in real violence; nothing here is played for laughs, and it will sit with you uncomfortably.