Award-winning documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz takes another fascinating deep dive into our shared queer history with Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders. The film explores the controversy surrounding William Friedkin’s Cruising, its complicated legacy, and the shocking real-life murder that helped inspire the notorious 1980 film. Schwarz revisits the underground world of New York’s leather and gay S&M scene, the legendary Mineshaft club, and a moment when queer visibility, fear, sexuality, and violence collided.

Neither a salacious true-crime documentary nor a breezy nostalgic trip through the past, Mineshaft offers a compelling and nuanced look at a complicated chapter in LGBTQ+ history—and the lasting questions surrounding a film that remains provocative more than four decades later. To get the full picture, stick around as we screen Friedkin’s Cruising directly following Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders, giving audiences the rare opportunity to experience the documentary and the controversial film at the center of its story back-to-back.