Film

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Name: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1995
Cast: Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, John Leguizamo, Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner

Buddy comedy

A glitter-bomb of a road movie: three New York drag queens broken down in a bigoted heartland town, dazzling and disarming everyone they meet. It's broad, sentimental, and unapologetically soft-hearted, more interested in makeovers and group hugs than edge. Swayze, Snipes and Leguizamo commit fully, in wigs and heels, to a fish-out-of-water comedy that wants you to leave feeling better about people. Good comfort viewing, unless you're allergic to schmaltz.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a warm, goofy road movie about outsiders finding family, where the camp is sincere and the heart sneaks up on you through big costumes and bigger personalities.

Skip it if you want a tightly plotted story or a sharp, cynical edge; this one is loose, sentimental in stretches, and leans on broad jokes and a lot of glitter.

What it asks of you: Roughly an hour and forty-five minutes of easygoing episodes that drift between slapstick and tenderness, with little demand beyond letting its exuberant tone wash over you.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert1994

The obvious cousin: two drag queens and a trans woman crossing the Australian outback in a battered bus, encountering hostility and grace in equal measure. Funnier, sadder, and more visually spectacular than Wong Foo, with a killer ABBA-heavy soundtrack.

But It's darker and more melancholic underneath the sequins — the laughs come with real sting attached.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert poster

The Birdcage1996

Robin Williams and Nathan Lane run a Miami drag club and must play it straight for conservative in-laws. Same warmth, same insistence that family is whoever loves you, but tighter, funnier, and quotable start to finish.

But It's stagier and more claustrophobic — one apartment, one dinner party, none of the open-road sprawl.

Kinky Boots2005

A struggling shoe factory is saved by a drag performer's design sense in this gentle British comedy about unlikely alliances and self-acceptance. Chiwetel Ejiofor is magnetic, and the small-town-versus-fabulousness culture clash lands every time.

But It's smaller and more predictable, content to be sweet rather than surprising.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Some Like It Hot1959

Where Vida and Chi-Chi wear their femininity as truth and celebration, Wilder's musicians wear it as desperate camouflage; watching both back to back shows how far the joke, and the meaning, have travelled in thirty-six years.

Two broke musicians disguise themselves as women to escape gangsters and end up falling for the very identities they adopted. Billy Wilder's screwball classic is the ancestor of every drag comedy since, sharper and faster than any of its descendants.

But The drag here is disguise, not identity — played for panic and farce, not pride.

Hairspray2007

A pastel-bright musical about a plus-size teen integrating a Baltimore dance show, brimming with the same conviction that joy and defiance can be the same thing. John Travolta in a fat suit and a dress is pure spectacle.

But The musical numbers might grate if you came for comedy dialogue rather than showstoppers.

Little Miss Sunshine2006

A broken-down VW bus, a dysfunctional family, and a beauty pageant at the end of the road — this indie darling has the same structure of misfits winning hearts town by town, but with sharper teeth.

But It trades sincerity for irony more often, and the ending is bittersweet rather than triumphant.

Thelma & Louise1991

Two women on the run reinvent themselves mile by mile across the American West, discovering freedom and danger in the same small towns Wong Foo's trio charms. Furious, thrilling, and far more dangerous.

But There's no comic relief here — it ends in genuine tragedy, not a group hug.

The Full Monty1997

Unemployed steelworkers turn to stripping to survive in this British comedy about masculinity, humiliation, and finding dignity in performance. Same big heart, same underdog-triumph structure, entirely different costume.

But It's grimmer around the edges — unemployment and depression sit under the jokes.

Waiting for Guffman1997

Christopher Guest's mockumentary about a small town's disastrous community theatre production shares Wong Foo's love of outsiders performing their hearts out for people who don't quite get it. Deadpan instead of broad, but just as affectionate.

But The humour is driest satire — no sentimentality, no big emotional payoff.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure1985

A gleeful, absurd road trip through small-town America, full of oddball encounters and unshakable, campy self-belief. If you loved the parade of eccentrics Vida and co. meet along the highway, this is the granddaddy of that genre.

But It's pure silliness with none of the emotional depth or social commentary.

Paris Is Burning1991

Wong Foo turns drag into crowd-pleasing fantasy for a mainstream audience; this film shows the lived, precarious reality behind it — the same defiant self-invention, but with the stakes left in.

This landmark documentary goes inside the real Harlem drag balls that gave the world 'reading,' 'shade,' and voguing — the actual community and culture Wong Foo borrows its glitter from, filmed with intimacy and heartbreak.

But It's unvarnished and often devastating — poverty, HIV, and violence sit alongside the joy, with none of the road-movie polish.

Boys Don't Cry1999

Both films drop a gender-nonconforming outsider into a hostile small town; Wong Foo imagines that town charmed into kindness, while this one shows, unflinchingly, what happens when it isn't.

Hilary Swank's Oscar-winning performance as Brandon Teena, a trans man navigating small-town Nebraska, sits at the opposite end of the emotional register from Wong Foo — same rural America, same vulnerability to strangers' judgment, but no rescue in sight.

But It's harrowing, based on a true murder, and offers none of Wong Foo's comfort or resolution.