Milk

Academy Award winner Sean Penn takes the title role in Gus Van Sant's biopic tracing the last eight years in the life of Harvey Milk, the ill-fated politician and gay activist whose life changed history, and whose courage still inspires people. When Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of ...more

Playing Harvey Milk, the first openly-gay individual elected to public office, Sean Penn is a bleeding heart. He is self-effacing, unabashedly flawed, inappropriate, and earnest. Above all he is charming as hell, even when, in one of the film’s first scenes, moaning about his pathetic failure to have accomplished anything of consequence at 40. This mid-life regret is short-lived, as he relocates to the foggy safe haven of San Francisco with his partner, Scottie (James Franco), in search of a ...more

As the first openly gay man to hold elected office in California, Harvey Milk served as the spokesperson for the gay rights movement in the '70s, in San Francisco, and by extension, the United States. Practically from the moment of his assassination in 1978, people have been trying to get Milk's remarkable life story onto the screen, and thanks to Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn, it was worth the wait. The movie follows the final years of Milk's life, starting when he leaves New York with his ...more

Milk
Nominee - 81st Oscars®:
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Sean Penn
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Josh Brolin
Achievement in Costume Design
Achievement in Directing
Achievement in Film Editing
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Original Screenplay