And the Band Played On is a 1993 American television film docudrama

Docudrama

In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....

 directed by Roger Spottiswoode

Roger Spottiswoode

Roger Spottiswoode is a Canadian-born film director and writer, who began his career as an editor in the 1970s. He was born in Ottawa, Ontario. He has directed a number of notable films and television productions, including Under Fire and the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies starring...

. The teleplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Arnold Schulman

Arnold Schulman

Arnold Schulman is an American playwright, screenwriter, producer, a songwriter and novelist. He was a stage actor long associated with the American Theatre Wing and the Actors Studio....

 is based on the best-selling 1987 non-fiction book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

Randy Shilts

Randy Shilts was a pioneering gay American journalist and author. He worked as a freelance reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations....

.

The film premiered at the Montreal Film Festival before being broadcast by HBO on September 11, 1993. It later was released theatrically in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Plot

In a prologue set in 1976, American epidemiologist Don Francis

Don Francis

Donald Pinkston Francis is an American epidemiologist who worked on the Ebola outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s, and researched on HIV and AIDS. He retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1992, after 21 years of service. According to him, the White House wanted him fired, but in order to...

 arrives in a village on the banks of the Ebola River

Ebola River

The Ebola River in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo is the headstream of the Mongala River, a tributary of the Congo River.Ebola virus and the taxonomic ranks associated with it and its relatives are named...

 in Zaire

Zaire

The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

 and discovers many of the residents and the doctor working with them have died from a mysterious illness later identified as Ebola hemorrhagic fever

Ebola

Ebola virus disease is the name for the human disease which may be caused by any of the four known ebolaviruses. These four viruses are: Bundibugyo virus , Ebola virus , Sudan virus , and Taï Forest virus...

. It is his first exposure to such an epidemic

Epidemic

In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...

, and the images of the dead he helps cremate

Cremation

Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

 will haunt him when he later becomes involved with HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

 and AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...

.

In 1981, Francis becomes aware of a growing number of deaths from unexplained sources among gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 men in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and San Francisco, and is prompted to begin an in-depth investigation of the possible causes. Working with no money, limited space, and outdated equipment, he comes in contact with politicians and numerous members of the medical community, many of whom resent his involvement because of their personal agendas, and gay leaders. Of the latter, some—such as Bill Kraus

Bill Kraus

William James "Bill" Kraus was an American gay rights and AIDS activist and congressional aide who served as a liaison between the San Francisco gay community and Congress in the 1980s....

—support him, while others express resentment at what they see as unwanted interference in their lifestyles, especially his attempts to close the local bathhouses

Gay bathhouse

Gay bathhouses, also known as gay saunas or steam baths, are commercial bathhouses for men to have sex with other men. In gay slang in some regions these venues are also known colloquially as "the baths" or "the tubs," and should not be confused with public bathing.Not all men who visit gay...

. While Francis pursues his theory that AIDS is caused by a sexually transmitted virus

Sexually transmitted disease

Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...

 on the model of feline leukemia, he finds his efforts are stonewalled by, among others, the CDC, which is loath to prove the disease is transmitted through blood, and competing French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 scientists, particularly Dr. Robert Gallo

Robert Gallo

Robert Charles Gallo is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his role in the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus , the infectious agent responsible for the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome , and he has been a major contributor to subsequent HIV research.Gallo is the...

, who squabble about who should receive credit for discovering the virus. Meanwhile, the death toll climbs rapidly.

Principal cast

• Matthew Modine
  Matthew Modine
  Matthew Avery Modine is an award-winning American actor. His film roles include Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the title character in Alan Parker's Birdy, high school wrestler Louden Swain in Vision Quest, football star turned spy Alec McCall in Funky Monkey and the...
  
   ..... Dr. Don Francis
  Don Francis
  Donald Pinkston Francis is an American epidemiologist who worked on the Ebola outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s, and researched on HIV and AIDS. He retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1992, after 21 years of service. According to him, the White House wanted him fired, but in order to...
  
  
• Alan Alda
  Alan Alda
  Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H...
  
   ..... Dr. Robert Gallo
  Robert Gallo
  Robert Charles Gallo is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his role in the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus , the infectious agent responsible for the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome , and he has been a major contributor to subsequent HIV research.Gallo is the...
  
  
• Ian McKellen
  Ian McKellen
  Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
  
   ..... Bill Kraus
  Bill Kraus
  William James "Bill" Kraus was an American gay rights and AIDS activist and congressional aide who served as a liaison between the San Francisco gay community and Congress in the 1980s....
  
  
• Glenne Headly
  Glenne Headly
  Glenne Aimee Headly is an American actress of film, stage and television.-Early life:Glenne Headly was born in New London, Connecticut and her first years were spent living under the care of her mother in San Francisco and her maternal grandmother in Pennsylvania...
  
   ..... Dr. Mary Guinan
  Mary Guinan
  Dr. Mary Guinan is the acting Nevada State Public Health Officer and Dean of Community Health Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas . Dr...
  
  
• Richard Masur
  Richard Masur
  Richard Masur is an American actor who has appeared in more than 80 movies during his career. From 1995-1999, he served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild . Masur sits on the Corporate Board of the Motion Picture & Television Fund.-Biography:Masur was born in New York City to a...
  
   ..... William Darrow
  William Darrow
  William "Bill" Darrow is a Professor of Public Health at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.Before accepting a position at FIU in August, 1994, Darrow served as Chief of the Behavioral and Prevention Research Branch, Division of STD/HIV Prevention, at the National Center for...
  
  
• Saul Rubinek
  Saul Rubinek
  Saul Rubinek is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Dr. Jim Curran
• Lily Tomlin
  Lily Tomlin
  Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an American actress, comedienne, writer, and producer. Tomlin has been a major force in American comedy since the late 1960's when she began a career as a stand up comedian and became a featured performer on television's Laugh-in...
  
   ..... Dr. Selma Dritz
  Selma Dritz
  Dr. Selma Kaderman Dritz was an American physician and epidemiologist who worked in San Francisco, where she began tracking the first known cases of AIDS in the early 1980s....
  
  
• Jeffrey Nordling
  Jeffrey Nordling
  Jeffrey Richard Nordling is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Jake Manning in Once and Again, Larry Moss in 24, and Nick Bolen in Desperate Housewives; and in the following films: And the Band Played On, Flight 93, Pirates of Silicon Valley, and the film D3: The Mighty Ducks.-Early...
  
   ..... Gaëtan Dugas
  Gaëtan Dugas
  Gaëtan Dugas was a Canadian who worked for Air Canada as a flight attendant. Dugas became notorious as the alleged patient zero for AIDS, though he is now more accurately regarded as one of many highly sexually active men who spread AIDS widely before the disease was identified.-Patient Zero...
  
  
• Donal Logue
  Donal Logue
  Donal Francis Logue is an Canadian actor perhaps most famous for his role as Sean Finnerty in Grounded for Life.-Personal life:...
  
   ..... Bobbi Campbell
  Bobbi Campbell
  Bobbi Campbell was an early United States AIDS activist. In September 1981, Campbell became the 16th person in San Francisco to be diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma. He was the first to come out publicly as a person living with the then unnamed disease...
  
  
• B.D. Wong
  B.D. Wong
  Bradley Darryl "BD" Wong is an American actor, best-known for his roles as Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as Father Ray Mukada on HBO's Oz, Henry Wu in the movie Jurassic Park, and for his starring role as Song Liling in the Broadway production of M...
  
   ..... Kico Govantes
• Patrick Bauchau
  Patrick Bauchau
  Patrick Nicolas Jean Sixte Ghislain Bauchau is a Belgian actor.-Early life:Bauchau was born in Brussels, the son of Mary , a Russian-born school administrator and publisher, and Henry Bauchau, a school administrator, publisher, writer, and psychoanalyst who served as an officer in the Belgian...
  
   ..... Dr. Luc Montagnier
  Luc Montagnier
  Luc Antoine Montagnier is a French virologist and joint recipient with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus...
  
  
• Nathalie Baye
  Nathalie Baye
  Nathalie Marie Andrée Baye is a French film, television, and stage actress. After having dance and dramatic education, Baye began acting in 1970. She has appeared in more than 70 films. She won four César Awards for Sauve qui peut , Une étrange affaire , La Balance , and Le Petit Lieutenant...
  
   ..... Dr. Françoise Barre
  Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
  Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a French virologist and director of the Unité de Régulation des Infections Rétrovirales at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. Born in Paris, France, Barré-Sinoussi performed some of the fundamental work in the identification of the human immunodeficiency virus as...
  
  
• Phil Collins
  Phil Collins
  Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
  
   ..... Eddie Papasano
• Steve Martin
  Steve Martin
  Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
  
   ..... Brother of AIDS patient
• Richard Gere
  Richard Gere
  Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
  
   ..... Choreographer
• David Marshall Grant
  David Marshall Grant
  David Marshall Grant is an American actor and playwright.-Life and career:Grant was born in Westport, Connecticut, to physician parents...
  
   ..... Dennis Seeley
• Ronald Guttman
  Ronald Guttman
  Ronald Guttman is a Belgian actor, theatrical producer and film producer.Guttman was born in Uccle. He has appeared in TV shows such as Lost, Lipstick Jungle, Heroes, The West Wing, and Sex and the City. He had a recurring role as Alexander Cambias, Sr...
  
   ..... Dr. Jean-Claude Chermann
• Anjelica Huston
  Anjelica Huston
  Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
  
   ..... Dr. Betsy Reisz
• Ken Jenkins
  Ken Jenkins
  Ken Jenkins is an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso, the Chief of Medicine on the American comedy Scrubs....
  
   ..... Dr. Dennis Donohue
• Richard Jenkins
  Richard Jenkins
  Richard Dale Jenkins is an American stage, film, and television actor. After beginning his career in theatre, Jenkins made his film debut in 1974, and appeared in supporting roles in numerous film productions in the 1980s and the 1990s. His breakthrough came in the 2000s for playing the deceased...
  
   ..... Dr. Marc Conant
• Tchéky Karyo
  Tchéky Karyo
  -Early life:Karyo was born in Istanbul to a Greek mother and Sephardic-Jewish father and raised in Paris, France. He studied drama at the Cyrano Theatre and later became a member of the Daniel Sorano Company, playing many classical roles.-Career:...
  
   ..... Dr. Willy Rozenbaum
  Willy Rozenbaum
  Willy Rozenbaum is a French physician.A co-discoverer of the human immunodeficiency virus with Jean-Claude Chermann of Luc Montagnier's team, he has since held the chair of France's "conseil national du SIDA" and before that had since 1989 practiced in the infectious and tropical diseases...
  
  
• Peter McRobbie
  Peter McRobbie
  Peter McRobbie is a Scottish-born, American-based character actor.-Career:McRobbie has more than 60 movies and television series to his credit. The movies include Spider-Man 2, World Trade Center, Sleepers, and Bullets over Broadway...
  
   ..... Dr. Max Essex
  Max Essex
  Max Essex, DVM, PhD, is the Mary Woodard Lasker Professor of Health Sciences at Harvard University, Chair of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative , and Chair of the in Gaborone, Botswana...
  
  
• Charles Martin Smith
  Charles Martin Smith
  Charles Martin Smith is an American film actor, writer, and director.-Early life:Smith was born in Van Nuys, California. His father, Frank Smith, was a film cartoonist and animator, while his uncle Paul J. Smith was an animator as well as a director for the Walter Lantz Studios...
  
   ..... Dr. Harold Jaffe
• David Clennon
  David Clennon
  David Clennon is an American actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of Miles Drentel in the ABC series Thirtysomething, a role he reprised on Once and Again....
  
   ..... Mr. Johnstone
• Swoosie Kurtz
  Swoosie Kurtz
  Swoosie Kurtz is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television project was her role on the 1990s NBC drama Sisters...
  
   ..... Mrs. Johnstone
• Lawrence Monoson
  Lawrence Monoson
  Lawrence Monoson is an American film and television actor.His first film was the 1982 comedy The Last American Virgin, in which he starred as Gary. His other well known film roles are in the 1984 horror movie Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter as Ted, and the 1985 hit drama movie Mask as Ben...
  
   ..... Chip

Closing montage

The film closes with footage of a candlelight vigil and march in San Francisco, followed by a montage of images of persons with HIV, accompanied by Elton John singing his "The Last Song

The Last Song (Elton John song)

"The Last Song" is the second single by Elton John from the album The One. The song was composed by John, with the lyrics by Bernie Taupin....

." The montage includes:

• Bobbi Campbell
  Bobbi Campbell
  Bobbi Campbell was an early United States AIDS activist. In September 1981, Campbell became the 16th person in San Francisco to be diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma. He was the first to come out publicly as a person living with the then unnamed disease...
  
  
• Ryan White
  Ryan White
  Ryan Wayne White was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States, after being expelled from middle school because of his infection. A hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment and, when diagnosed...
  
  
• Michael Jackson
  Michael Jackson
  Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
  
  
• Rock Hudson
  Rock Hudson
  Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
  
  
• Anthony Perkins
  Anthony Perkins
  Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
  
  
• Tina Chow
  Tina Chow
  Tina Chow was an internationally renowned model and a fashion icon in the 1980s. She is also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1985....
  
  
• Rudolf Nureyev
  Rudolf Nureyev
  Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...
  
  
• Arthur Ashe
  Arthur Ashe
  Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. was a professional tennis player, born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. During his career, he won three Grand Slam titles, putting him among the best ever from the United States...
  
  

• Michael Bennett
  Michael Bennett
  Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven....
  
  
• Liberace
  Liberace
  Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
  
  
• Freddie Mercury
  Freddie Mercury
  Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...
  
  
• Elizabeth Glaser
  Elizabeth Glaser
  Elizabeth Glaser, born Elizabeth Meyer, , was a major American AIDS activist and child advocate married to actor and director Paul Michael Glaser. She contracted HIV very early in the modern AIDS epidemic after receiving an HIV-contaminated blood transfusion in 1981 while giving birth...
  
  
• Magic Johnson
  Magic Johnson
  Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers...
  
  
• Larry Kramer
  Larry Kramer
  Larry Kramer is an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love in 1969, earning...
  
  
• Alison Gertz
  Alison Gertz
  Alison Gertz was a prominent AIDS activist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, who died from AIDS related complications in 1992.-Biography:...
  
  

• Max Robinson
  Max Robinson
  Max Robinson was an American broadcast journalist, and ABC News World News Tonight co-anchor. He was the first African American broadcast network news anchor in the United States and one of the first television journalists to die of AIDS...
  
  
• Halston
  Halston
  Roy Halston Frowick, also known as Halston was a clothing designer of the 1970s. His long dresses or copies of his style were popular fashion wear in mid-1970s discotheques.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Willi Smith
  Willi Smith
  Willi Donnell Smith was one of the most successful young African-American fashion designers in fashion history. At the time of his death, his company Williwear Ltd...
  
  
• Perry Ellis
  Perry Ellis
  Perry Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded a sportswear house in the mid-1970s.-The rise of Perry Ellis:...
  
  
• Peter Allen
  Peter Allen
  Peter Allen was an Australian songwriter and entertainer. His songs were made popular by many recording artists, including Elkie Brooks, Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John, with one, Arthur's Theme, winning an Academy Award in 1981...
  
  
• Steve Rubell
  Steve Rubell
  Steve Rubell was an American entrepreneur and co-owner of the New York disco Studio 54.-Early life:Rubell and his brother Don spent their childhoods with their parents in Brooklyn, New York. His father worked for the U.S. Postal Service and later became a tennis pro...
  
  
• Keith Haring
  Keith Haring
  Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
  
  

• Stewart McKinney
• Denholm Elliot
• Brad Davis
  Brad Davis (actor)
  Robert Creel "Brad" Davis was an American actor, known for starring in the 1978 film Midnight Express.-Early life:...
  
  
• Amanda Blake
  Amanda Blake
  Amanda Blake was an American actress known for the role of the red-haired saloon proprietress "Miss Kitty Russell" on the television western Gunsmoke.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Robert Reed
  Robert Reed
  Robert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...
  
  
• Michel Foucault
  Michel Foucault
  Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
  
  
• Tom Waddell
  Tom Waddell
  Dr. Tom Waddell was the gay American sportsman who founded the international sporting event called the Gay Games, which was named such after the United States Olympic Committee sued Dr. Waddell for using the word "Olympic" in the original name "Gay Olympics". The Gay Games are held every four...
  
  

Critical reception

Most reviewers agreed that the filmmakers had a daunting task in adapting Shilts' massive, fact-filled text into a dramatically coherent film. Many critics praised the results. Film review website Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 gives the film a 100% "Fresh" rating based on eight reviews.

In his review in Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

, Tony Scott said, "If there are lapses, director Spottiswoode's engrossing, powerful work still accomplishes its mission: Shilts' book, with all its shock, sorrow and anger, has been transferred decisively to the screen." John O'Connor of the New York Times agreed that the adaptation "adds up to tough and uncommonly courageous television. Excessive tinkering has left the pacing of the film sluggish in spots, but the story is never less than compelling." And Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine said that "Shilts' prodigiously researched 600-page book has been boiled down to a fact-filled, dramatically coherent, occasionally moving 2 hours and 20 minutes. At a time when most made-for-TV movies have gone tabloid crazy, here is a rare one that tackles a big subject, raises the right issues, fights the good fight."

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

graded the film B+ and called it an "intriguing, sometimes awkward, always earnest combination of docudrama, medical melodrama, and mystery story . . . The stars lend warmth to a movie necessarily preoccupied with cold research and politics, and they lend prestige: The movie must be important, since actors of this stature agreed to appear. The result of the stars' generosity, however, works against the movie by halting the flow of the drama every time a familiar face pops up on screen . . . The emotions and agony involved in this subject give Band an irresistible power, yet the movie's rhythm is choppy and the dialogue frequently stiff and cliché

Cliché

A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...

d. The best compliment one can pay this TV movie is to say that unlike so many fact-based films, it does not exploit or diminish the tragedy of its subject."

Time Out New York says, "So keen were the makers of this adaptation of Randy Shilts' best-seller to bombard us with the facts and figures of the history of AIDS that they forgot to offer a properly dramatic human framework to make us care fully about the characters." The review also says that the multiple issues the film attempts to cover "make for a disjointed, clichéd narrative." Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 says the film "is stifled by good intentions and a distractingly generous cast of stars in leads and cameos

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

."

Awards and nominations

Emmy Awards

Primetime Emmy Award

The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...

• Outstanding Made for Television Movie (winner)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Casting (winner)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Editing for a Miniseries or a Special - Single Camera Production (winner)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Miniseries or a Special (nominee)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Miniseries or a Special (nominee)
• Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special (Matthew Modine, nominee)
• Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special (Alan Alda, nominee)
• Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special (Richard Gere, nominee)
• Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special (Ian McKellen, nominee)
• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special (Swoosie Kurtz, nominee)
• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special (Lily Tomlin, nominee)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Art Direction for a Miniseries or a Special (nominee)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Miniseries or a Special (nominee)
• Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Miniseries or a Special (nominee)

Golden Globe Award

Golden Globe Award

The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

s

• Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television (nominee)
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television (Matthew Modine, nominee)

CableACE Award

CableACE Award

The CableACE Award was an award that was given from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in American cable television programming...

s

• Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries (Ian McKellen, winner)
• Best Movie or Miniseries (nominee)
• Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries (Richard Gere, nominee)
• Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries (Lawrence Monoson, nominee)
• Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries (Swoosie Kurtz, nominee)
• Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries (Lily Tomlin, nominee)
• Best Make-Up (nominee)

Additional awards

• GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Movie (winner)
• Casting Society of America
  Casting Society of America
  Founded in Los Angeles, California in 1982, the Casting Society of America is a professional society of about 350 casting directors for film, television, and theatre in Australia, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The society is not to be confused with an industry union. The...
  
   Artios Award for Best Casting for TV Movie of the Week (winner)
• American Cinema Editors
  American Cinema Editors
  Founded in 1950, American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of film editors that are voted in based on the qualities of professional achievements, their education of others, and their dedication to editing itself. The society is not to be confused with an industry union, such as the I.A.T.S.E...
  
   Eddie Award for Best Edited Motion Picture for Non-Commercial Television (winner)
• Humanitas Prize
  Humanitas Prize
  The Humanitas Prize is an award for film and television writing intended to promote human dignity, meaning, and freedom. It began in 1974 with Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser — also the founder of Paulist Productions — but is generally not seen as specifically directed toward religious...
  
   (Arnold Schulman, winner)
• Montréal World Film Festival
  Montreal World Film Festival
  The Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...
  
  Special Grand Prize of the Jury (Roger Spottiswoode, winner)

External links