Kicked out by his parents, a gay teenager leaves small-town Indiana for New York's Greenwich Village, where growing discrimination against the gay community leads to riots on June 28, 1969.
Stonewall is a movie about a pivotal moment in LGBT history as filtered through the perspective of a fictional hunk of Wonder Bread named Danny who steps off a bus from Indiana and right into a central role in the Christopher Street scene.
– Alison Willmore,
BuzzFeed News,
10 Nov 2015
rotten:
The Stonewall Riots were a triumph for a marginalized community, but Emmerich fails to convey the significance of the event in any meaningful fashion. The subject matter deserves better, and so do we.
– Maya Stanton,
Entertainment Weekly,
28 Sep 2015
rotten:
It's a self-financed passion project, from a man who might be the most financially successful out gay filmmaker ever. We should be celebrating this, but man, oh man, does he make it difficult.
– Bilge Ebiri,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
25 Sep 2015
rotten:
Although handsomely crafted, well-acted and made with transparently noble intentions, Roland Emmerich's "Stonewall" is a movie that seems destined to please almost no one.
– Godfrey Cheshire,
RogerEbert.com,
25 Sep 2015
rotten:
Danny isn't all that interesting. And the sadder fact is that the filmmakers seem to know that, but worry an audience won't identify with a more flamboyant character. So they present this safer, paler alternative.