THE CELLULOID CLOSET is a documentary film based on Vito Russo's 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. The film was given a limited release in select theaters in 1996 and then shown on cable channel tv.

The film interviews various individuals connected to Hollywood to survey various screen depictions of LGBT characters and the attitudes behind them throughout the history of North American film, as well as their own personal experiences. From the sissy characters to the censorship of the Hollywood Production Code, from the coded gay characters and cruel stereotypes to the changes made in the early 1990s, as marches and protests against homosexual representation in film and television grew.