Taxi zum Klo (Taxi to the John)

It's been 30 years since Frank Ripploh shocked the world with this semi-autobiographical depiction of the reality of being gay in 1980s West Berlin. It remains a sobering reflection of what was only a generation ago. Ripploh struggles to balance things as a straight-laced teacher with an active sex life in Berlin's gay scene. Filmed with a grotty kitchen sink brutality, it's perfectly frank about how he lives his life. Which might be too much for some. Particularly since he's a check-list of every negative gay cliché there is, and your parents' worst nightmare.

He's a serial cheater, spends much of his time in gents' toilets looking for new lovers and is completely unreliable. Quite remarkable in its honesty and its willingness to show absolutely everything, there's still a sense we don't see the full story. While Ripploh is an amusing, if faintly despicable lead it's mainly worth seeing just to note how far the world has moved on [Scotty McKellar]