The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
2017 documentary film by David France
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson is a 2017 American documentary film directed by David France. It chronicles Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, prominent figures in gay liberation and transgender rights movement in New York City from the 1960s to the 1990s and co-founders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The film centers on activist Victoria Cruz's investigation into Johnson's death in 1992, which was initially ruled a suicide by police despite suspicious circumstances. It is France's second film, following How to Survive a Plague (2012).
Release
The film premiered in the documentary competition section at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2017. In June 2017, Netflix acquired worldwide rights to the film. The film was released on the streaming service on October 6, 2017.
Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96%, based on 28 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson uses its belated investigation into an activist's murder as the framework for a sobering look at the ongoing battle for equal rights." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Controversy
On October 7, 2017, transgender filmmaker Tourmaline wrote on Instagram alleging that France appropriated her research from a grant application for her film project (which would become Happy Birthday, Marsha!, a narrative short).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” is 2017 documentary film by David France. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Death, Life and Marsha, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2017 documentary film by David France” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q47458793. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017, 1992 and 2012.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson primary sources, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson archive and Death research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.