Brokeback Mountain set for cinema re-release to mark 20th anniversary
Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal is reflecting on 20 years since the film (Focus Features)
Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal is reflecting on 20 years since the film (Focus Features)
Groundbreaking gay love story Brokeback Mountain is set to be re-released in cinemas to mark the film’s 20th anniversary.
The film’s distributor Focus Features has confirmed that the landmark queer film will return to cinemas for a limited time, beginning with screenings in the US on 22 and 25 June.
The re-release will be accompanied by an updated movie poster, merchandise and “other connected initiatives”.
A heartbreaking Western epic, Brokeback Mountain follows cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) as they meet while working herding sheep on the titular landscape one summer.
After a night of drinking, the pair have sex in a tent, before embarking on an emotional and sexual relationship while working together. When the summer ends, they part ways. Over the following 20 years, they both marry and have children, but attempt to keep their relationship going in secret. Yet Ennis is reluctant to bring their relationship into the open, and their romance is cooled off, before it ends for good with a tragic twist.
Brokeback Mountain became a critical smash when it was released in the US in December 2005, and then internationally in January 2006. It was nominated for eight accolades at the 2006 Oscars, including for Best Picture. It won three, including a Best Director award for director Ang Lee.
While being lauded for its crushing performances and moving plot, Brokeback Mountain is most widely recognised as a seminal piece of work in queer cinema.
The film was adapted from the short story of the same by writer Annie Proulx, which was originally published in The New Yorker in 1997. A slightly extended version was published as part of Proulx’s short story collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories in 2000. In 2023, the novella was turned into a West End show, starring Challengers’ Mike Faist and Boy Erased actor Lucas Hedges.
Tickets for Brokeback Mountain’s cinema re-release are available now.
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