The Film Society of Lincoln Center is debuting "An Early Clue to the New Direction: Queer Cinema Before Stonewall," a movie series celebrating LGBT films from the dawn of moviemaking to the late 1960s.

Running April 22 to May 1, the fest includes 23 features and 24 shorts covering more than a half-century—the earliest film dating back to 1895—and incorporating silents, major Hollywood productions, foreign films and indie movies.

“The subject of early queer cinema has long fascinated me; this survey has, in a sense, been in the works for over a decade,” says programmer Thomas Beard, who hopes to demonstrate how the "the terrain [of queer cinema] is far vaster and more varied than received histories might suggest."

Audiences will have a chance to revisit classics like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope , and Vincent Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy, indies including Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason and Andy Warhol’s My Hustler, and rare treasures like Jacqueline Audry’s lesbian drama Olivia from 1951 and Gregory Markopoulos' experimental Twice a Man from 1964.