Film
Tangerine
Shot guerrilla-style on iPhones in Los Angeles, Tangerine follows Sin-Dee, fresh out of a 28-day stint, tearing across Hollywood on Christmas Eve to confront the girl her pimp boyfriend cheated with, best friend Alexandra in tow. It's fast, funny, sun-bleached and tender underneath the chaos — a screwball comedy that happens to be about two trans sex workers nobody usually lets be this loud, this alive, this funny.
If you liked this
The Florida Project2017
Same director, same instinct for finding riotous joy and real tenderness in people society looks straight through — this time a single mom and her daughter squatting near Disney World.
But Slower and sadder than Tangerine's sprint; the ending lands like a gut-punch rather than a laugh.

Red Rocket2021no page yet
Sean Baker again, this time with a washed-up porn star talking his way back into a small Texas town — same manic energy, same eye for hustlers who are also, somehow, likeable.
But Its charm is deliberately repellent by the end; some viewers find the protagonist too slick to root for.
Paris Is Burning1991
The documentary that gave the vocabulary — ballroom culture, houses, mothers — to the world Tangerine's characters inherited. Funny, devastating, essential.
But It's a nonfiction record, not a plot, and several of its subjects' stories end in real tragedy.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Klute1971
Both put a sex worker's interior life — not her rescue or punishment — at the dead centre of the frame, just forty-four years and one entire tonal universe apart.
Jane Fonda's Oscar-winning turn as a New York call girl caught in a murder investigation is the genre's foundational text — measured, watchful, decades before Tangerine's sprint through the same profession.
But It's a slow-burn 70s thriller with none of Tangerine's speed or humour; patience required.

More like this (8)
Weekend2011
A quieter, aching British counterpart — two men falling for each other over 48 hours, shot with the same intimate, handheld urgency and total lack of sentimentality.
But Very talky and slow-paced compared to Tangerine's sprint; nothing much 'happens' in the plot sense.

Go1999no page yet
A ricocheting, drug-fuelled, one-crazy-night comedy told from overlapping perspectives, with the same restless love for LA's night-shift underclass.
But Glossier and more plot-mechanical than Tangerine — it's structure showing off rather than character.
After Hours1985
Scorsese's nightmare-comedy about one man's disastrous night in downtown Manhattan runs on the exact same fuel as Tangerine: bad luck, worse timing, and a city that won't let you go home.
But Colder and more paranoid — there's no warmth or friendship at its centre the way there is in Tangerine.

Do the Right Thing1989
One scorching day in a Brooklyn neighbourhood, comedy curdling into something much darker by nightfall — the same structural trick of letting heat and time turn a block into a pressure cooker.
But Its politics are blunt and its ending punishing; this is not the same kind of comfort watch.

Moonlight2016
A far more hushed, painterly film, but it shares Tangerine's refusal to make its queer characters symbols instead of people, full of contradiction and tenderness.
But Meditative and slow where Tangerine is breathless — almost a tonal opposite despite the kinship.

Pariah2011
A quieter indie about a Brooklyn teenager coming into her queer identity against her family's wishes — smaller in scale, but with the same unflinching honesty about bodies and belonging.
But Modest budget and pace; it's a character study, not the rollicking odyssey Tangerine fans might expect.

Kiki: Love to Love2016
Where Tangerine dramatises found family and survival with a script and a camera trick, Kiki shows the same mutual aid and self-invention as lived, unscripted fact.
An intimate documentary following NYC's contemporary ballroom scene, following queer and trans youth of colour building chosen family and performance spaces of their own.
But It's observational and unhurried, a portrait rather than a story with a plot to follow.

Boys Don't Cry1999
Same fundamental subject — being trans in an America that isn't built for you — but rendered as grief instead of farce, the tonal mirror-image of everything Tangerine chooses to laugh through.
Hilary Swank's devastating, Oscar-winning performance as a trans man in small-town Nebraska, based on a true story that ends in violence rather than a punchline.
But This is unrelenting tragedy with no comic relief; it will sit heavy for days, not a fun watch by any measure.

People
Cast
Kitana Kiki RodriguezSin-Dee Rella
Mya TaylorAlexandra
Karren KaragulianRazmik
Mickey O'HaganDinah
Alla TumanianAshken
James RansoneChester
Luiza NersisyanYeva
Arsen GrigoryanKaro
Ian EdwardsNash
Scott KrinskyParsimonious John
Clu GulagerThe Cherokee
Ana FoxxxSelena
Directing
- Tsou Shih-chingContinuity
- Sean BakerDirector
- Julie CummingsFirst Assistant Director
Writing
- Chris BergochWriter
- Sean BakerWriter
Production
- Julie CummingsAssociate Producer
- Karren KaragulianAssociate Producer
- Chris BergochCasting
- Sean BakerCasting
- Sean BakerCasting Director
- Chris BergochCo-Producer
- Francesca SilvestriCo-Producer
- Kevin ChinoyCo-Producer
- Radium CheungCo-Producer
- Jay DuplassExecutive Producer
- Mark DuplassExecutive Producer
- Mel EslynExecutive Producer
- Darren DeanProducer
- Karrie CoxProducer
- Marcus CoxProducer
- Sean BakerProducer
- Tsou Shih-chingProducer
- Julie CummingsUnit Production Manager
Recommended by
Paris Is Burning, Moonlight, The Florida Project, Anora, Disclosure, A Fantastic Woman