Frank Simon’s classic documentary follows the run-up to a 1967 New York drag pageant, featuring a barnstorming appearance by the legendary Crystal LaBeija.

24-year-old drag queen Flawless Sabrina is our guide as we are immersed in the activities of the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest, a pageant at the New York Town Hall. It’s a major occasion, with celebrity judges and fierce competitors. Despite the glitz and glamour, this is an illegal event – when The Queen was made, drag was forbidden in New York State.

The Queen is packed with memorable characters, including Sabrina’s protégé Rachel Harlow and the soon-to-be-iconic Dorian Corey, later immortalised in Paris is Burning (1990). It saves the best for last, when legendary queen Crystal LaBeija launches a furious and, many may feel, justified diatribe about the biases of the competition, a speech later sampled by musician Frank Ocean.