Milk is a
2008 American biographical film on the life of
gay rights activist and politician
Harvey Milk, who was elected to the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Directed by
Gus Van Sant and written by
Dustin Lance Black, the film stars
Sean Penn as Milk and
Josh Brolin as
Dan White. The film was released to much acclaim and earned numerous accolades from film critics and guilds. Ultimately, it received eight
Academy Award nominations, including
Best Picture, winning two for
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Penn and
Best Original Screenplay for Black.
Attempts to put Milk's life to film followed a 1984 Oscar-winning documentary of his life and the aftermath of
his assassination, titled
The Times of Harvey Milk, which was loosely based upon
Randy Shilts's biography,
The Mayor of Castro Street. Various scripts were considered in the early 1990s, but projects fell through for different reasons, until 2007. Much of
Milk was filmed on
Castro Street and other locations in
San Francisco, including Milk's former storefront,
Castro Camera.
Milk begins on Harvey Milk's 40th birthday, when he was living in
New York City and had not yet settled in San Francisco. It chronicles his foray into city politics, and the various battles he waged in the Castro neighborhood as well as throughout the city, and political campaigns to limit the rights of gay people in 1977 and 1978 run by
Anita Bryant and
John Briggs. His romantic and political relationships are also addressed, as is his tenuous affiliation with troubled Supervisor Dan White; the film ends with White's double murder of Milk and Mayor
George Moscone. The film's release was tied to the 2008 California voter referendum on gay marriage,
Proposition 8, when it made its premiere at the
Castro Theatre two weeks before election day.