10 Best Films About HIV

‘Dallas Buyers Club’ (2013)

When marketing the 2013 film, “Dallas Buyers Club,” the studio adamantly maintained that the film was not about AIDS or the AIDS crisis. And, in many ways, they’re correct.

“Dallas Buyers Club” depicted the exploits of Ron Woodruff, an HIV-positive cowboy who started trading in non-FDA-approved AIDS remedies and suggested that Woodruff’s contribution was seminal to eventual changes in the FDA’s painfully slow drug approval policies.

The fact is that there were hundreds of buyers’ clubs throughout the United States, and changes to the FDA policy occurred years later, largely due to the public outcry and the work of activist groups like ACT UP.

The official change only came into being in 1992 with the enactment of the Accelerated Approval Program (which helped enable the fast-tracking of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic).

Despite the Hollywoodization of Woodruff’s story, the hell-raising star turn by Matthew McConaughey in the lead role makes it a journey worth taking.