Popular reviews

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  Review by Matt Neglia ★★★★

  NO ORDINARY MAN tells the story of jazz musician Billy Tipton through the voices of present day trans men. Honestly touches on trans masculine history. Media depiction, inner struggles & a desire for understanding & acceptance are all touched on in this wonderful documentary.

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  Review by girlsgutsgiallo ★★

  More like a Trans 101 than a documentary about this fascinating person. In that goal, it succeeds. But I’m a history gal, and I wanted to hear from historians and archivists, not Amos Mac’s actor friends. Susan Stryker and Kate Bornstein add the most context as brilliant community elders, but I needed more from this. It doesn’t do Billy Tipton’s rich historical legacy enough justice.

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  Review by Theo Rollason ★★★★

  A fantastic meditation on transgender representation in the media and beyond, centred on the story of jazz musician Billy Tipton. Refusing to replicate press sensationalism around Tipton's outing at the time of his death — which focused especially on the reaction of his family, who didn't know he was trans — the filmmakers and their (charismatic + eloquent) interview subjects consider how these kind of stories are told, as well the advantages and problems involved with 'passing' discourse.

  I saw six documentaries at this year's BFI Flare festival, and have to admit I was disheartened by how safe all of them play it in formal terms; the Netflix doc house style is everywhere now, but its blandness feels especially pronounced…

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  Review by Paul Thomas ★★★½

  Billy Tipton was a ground-breaking musician who has all been erased for being a transmasculine male and it being discovered after he passed. The same bigotry that caused him to keep it a secret was proven by the response after he died. Snickering and mockery to his widow and son. The perception that he posed as a man simply to move his career forward (the same bigots saying that ironically created a world where a woman has less success). And a refusal to refer to him by his gender and insisting and calling him a “she”.

  Between younger filmmakers using the power of film and the immense talent Tipton had as a musician, NO ORDINARY MAN does a great job bringing his career and legacy to life. The filmmaking itself is a tad rudimentary, but it conveys everything he gave to earth and everything he had to face

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  Review by Brian Tallerico ★★★★

  One of the best films about trans representation and history that I’ve ever seen. Powerful stuff.

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  Review by 𝕜𝕖𝕟ℙ𝕓𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕤 ★½ 2

  3.5 /10

  
  Marquise Vilsón: "First of all ... I could imagine what this is like for people, present day ... but, '54?
  I could not ... there's no way I could imagine what that would feel like."

  
  It's no secret how much I dislike those Docos which the people associated with either ingratiate themselves into, or worse -
  make it actually about themselves.
  Billy Tipton's life is tokenistically summarised & the end result is about trans representation & marginalisation in 2020.

  It's telling that the more interesting & insightful of the interviewees were the few who challenged themselves to imagine what life (& his issues) would have been like for Billy in the 1930s - like Marquise & Amos.

  However, the majority took this…

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  Review by IndieWire ★★★★

  Review by Jude Dry

  As a historically marginalized group, LGBTQ people must excavate the past in order to find evidence of their existence. But when flying under the radar is a means of survival in a society determined to erase you, stories of queer life are often difficult to find. Every once in awhile, a long lost family member is hiding in plain sight — but it is up to us to reach out and claim them as our own. In the case of Billy Tipton, a successful American jazz musician active from the mid-1930s to ’50s, a familiar tune echoes across decades. Approaching Tipton’s story with the free hand of an improvised jazz set, “No Ordinary Man” is an…

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  Review by Melissa McDowell

  This is a lovely documentary. It’s less a biopic about Billy Tipton and more of an exploration of our basic human need for representation and a sense of history and roots. I was very moved by the variety of trans creatives on this film who spoke so lovingly and empathetically of Tipton as an icon, as proof that trans is not a new identity, that there have always been people born into bodies that don’t feel right. Tipton was outed after his death in a very sensationalist way and it was beautiful seeing his son find these filmmakers and a whole community who didn’t judge his father or make him a joke or a pervert, who instead held him up…

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  Review by Ashton ★★★½

  VIFF 2020: Film #1

  A really vital documentary that rightfully centres trans voices in a loving celebration of the legacy of trans jazz musician Billy Tipton. The doc finds a lot of warmth in the ways it explores the impact that Tipton had on modern trans artists and activists, and offers a diverse range of voices that contribute to the ongoing cultural discourse surrounding the community.

  I particularly appreciated the way in which Billy Tipton's son, Billy Tipton Jr., who was forced to endure the tabloid circuit shortly after his father's death revealed his identity to the world, was given an opportunity to see how much his father meant to a community of people who were able to envision living fulfilled because of him.

  Very moving.

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  Review by Daniel Bayer ★★★★½

  WOW. All talking-head documentaries should strive to have talking heads as well-spoken and interesting to watch as this. It's about so much more than Billy Tipton, the famed jazz musician who shocked the nation when an autopsy revealed that he was a biological woman. This is about the importance of feeling seen, the importance of communities being able to tell their own stories, and how vital and how powerful that is. So powerful, so educational; this should be shown to everyone in America to help them understand the trans experience, which it manages to get at from just about every possible angle. Just stunning. The best documentary I've seen in a long while.

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  Review by Michael Sicinski ★★★½

  [7]

  Occasionally I find myself "grading" documentaries like a writing teacher (which I am), thinking about how they satisfy basic expository requirements. In that regard, No Ordinary Man is an A. That's because it combines research and structure for maximum understanding and impact. In focusing very closely on the specifics of the life of Billy Tipton, the filmmakers are able to open up their purview, using that specificity to ground their wider-reaching concerns of trans history and representation.

  It certainly helps that directors Chase Joynt and Aisling Chin-Yee chose to collaborate with Amos Mac, one of the creators and editors of Original Plumbing, a groundbreaking magazine about the trans-masc experience(s). This provides No Ordinary Man with precisely the cultural-history foundation…

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  Review by Andre ★★★½

  It’s scary when centuries of 
  your survival has been based 
  on not being seen.
  
  188/52