I'm a bit late in coming in on this, but I count Boys Don't Cry as among one of my favorite films. It is raw, powerful, disturbing and heartwrenching. Hilary Swank was amazing and totally deserved the Oscar! The supporting cast was great as well, from Chloe Sevigny as the just-as-confused lover of Brandon to Peter Sarsgaard as sociopathic killer John Lotter. The first time I saw it I wasn't too sure, but after watching it a few more times, I really got into the story. The fact I used to live just over an hour from where the real Teena Brandon was murdered (I now live in Omaha) hit close to home. Seeing the movie helped me become, well, obsessed with the real case. I've been to Falls City, I've seen the house Brandon was murdered in, I've been to her grave in Lincoln, it just blows your mind that something like this happened in America in 1993! The story is more along the lines of a racial lynching in the South in the 1920s, but it is real, it happened right under our noses in late 1993 as we were sitting in theaters, stunned and watching Schindler's List. Yes, this movie might be very uncomfortable for many to watch, but it's such an important film for the time we live in. If you can't handle it, then you must have a problem with reality. It's not freaky stuff that goes on in the film- Teena Brandon really DID dress as a man, DID date women and have sex with them, DID get her pants pulled down and she WAS raped and murdered for no good reason! You can't make that kind of stuff up, folks. People just need to open their hearts and minds a little bit to realize there are still people in this country to this very day who are harassed, beaten and even killed because of who they are. Does the name Matthew Sheppard ring a bell with anyone? He and Teena Brandon will go down in history as tragic martyrs of the gay/transsexual rights movement.