The film follows a romantic deadbeat with a wayward crush on a handsome Mexican immigrant in a world of transient workers, dead-end day-shifters, and bars or seedy apartments bathed in a profound nighttime. A fascinating time capsule from a time and place that continues to haunt its director’s work.

In the 80s, American cinema entered a grungy Golden Age, as a generation of indie films blossomed from modest origins. Made for $25,000 on 16mm, this debut from Gus Van Sant (Elephant, Milk) is a quintessentially American classic, as well as a vital precursor of the New Queer Cinema movement.