''Angels in America'' is a 2003 American

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...

directed by

Mike Nichols Mike Nichols (born Igor Mikhail Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was an American film and theatre director and comedian. He worked across a range of genres and had an aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of ...

and based on the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

–winning 1991 play of the same name by

Tony Kushner Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Among his stage work, he is most known for ''Angels in America'', which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, as well as its subsequent acclaime ...

. Set in 1985, the film revolves around six New Yorkers whose lives intersect. At its core, it is the fantastical story of Prior Walter, a gay man living with

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

who is visited by an angel. The film explores a wide variety of themes, including Reagan era politics, the spreading

AIDS epidemic The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2023, HIV/AIDS ...

, and a rapidly changing social and political climate. HBO broadcast the film in various formats: two three-hour chunks that correspond to ''Millennium Approaches'' and ''Perestroika'', further divided into six one-hour "chapters" that roughly correspond to an act or two of each of these plays; the first three chapters ("Bad News", "In Vitro", and "The Messenger") were initially broadcast on December 7, 2003, to international acclaim, with the final three chapters ("Stop Moving!", "Beyond Nelly", and "Heaven, I'm in Heaven") following. ''Angels in America'' was the most-watched made-for-cable film in 2003, and earned much critical acclaim and numerous accolades: at the 56th Primetime Emmy Awards, it became the first of only three programs in Emmy history (along with ''

Schitt's Creek ''Schitt's Creek'' (stylized as ''Schitt$ Creek'') is a Canadian television sitcom created by Dan Levy (Canadian actor), Dan Levy and his father, Eugene Levy, that aired on CBC Television from 2015 to 2020. It consists of 80 episodes spread ove ...

'' in 2020, and ''

The Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

'' in 2021) to sweep every major eligible category, and won all four acting categories. It also won in all five eligible categories at the

61st Golden Globe Awards The 61st Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television for 2003, were held on January 25, 2004, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The nominations were announced on December 18, 2003. ''The Lord of the Rin ...

. In 2006, ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...

'' listed the series among "Best of the filmed AIDS portrayals" on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of

Plot

''Millennium Approaches''

It is 1985,

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

is in the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

, and

is causing mass death in the Americas. In

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, Prior Walter tells Louis, his lover of four years, that he has AIDS; Louis, unable to handle it, leaves him. As disease and loneliness ravage Prior, guilt invades Louis. Joe Pitt, a Mormon and Republican attorney, is pushed by

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

fixer Roy Cohn toward a job at the

US Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equ ...

. Both Pitt and Cohn are in

the closet ''Closeted'' and ''in the closet'' are metaphors for LGBTQ people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior. This metaphor is associated and sometimes ...

: Pitt out of shame and religious turmoil, Cohn to preserve his power and image. Pitt's wife Harper is strung out on Valium, causing her to hallucinate constantly (sometimes jointly with Prior during his fever dreams) and she longs to escape from her

sexless marriage Sexless marriage or platonic marriage is a marital union that occurs between spouses in which there is little or no sexual activity involved in their relationship. Taking into account what is defined as any form of sexual activities by the resp ...

. An angel with ulterior motives commands Prior to become a prophet.

''Perestroika''

Prior is helped in his decision by Joe's mother, Hannah, and Belize, a close friend and

drag queen A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses Drag (entertainment), drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate Femininity, female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have ...

. Joe leaves his wife and goes to live with Louis, but the relationship does not work out because of ideological differences. Roy is diagnosed with AIDS early on and, as his life comes to a close, he is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. As the film continues, the lost souls come together to create bonds of love, loss, and loneliness and, in the end, discover forgiveness and overcome abandonment.

Cast

Al Pacino Alfredo James Pacino ( ; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Known for his intense performances on stage and screen, Pacino is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. His career spans more than five decades, duri ...

as Roy Cohn *

Meryl Streep Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career ...

as Hannah Pitt / Ethel Rosenberg / Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz / The Angel Australia *

Patrick Wilson Patrick Joseph Wilson (born July 3, 1973) is an American actor. He began his career in 1995, starring in Broadway theatre, Broadway musicals. He received nominations for two Tony Awards for his roles in ''The Full Monty (musical), The Full Mont ...

as Joe Pitt * Mary-Louise Parker as Harper Pitt *

Emma Thompson Dame Emma Thompson (born 15 April 1959) is a British actress and screenwriter. Emma Thompson on screen and stage, Her work spans over four decades of screen and stage, and List of awards and nominations received by Emma Thompson, her accola ...

as Nurse Emily / Homeless woman / The Angel America * Justin Kirk as Prior Walter / Leatherman in park * Jeffrey Wright as Mr. Lies / Norman "Belize" Arriaga / Homeless man / The Angel Europa *

Ben Shenkman Ben Shenkman (born September 26, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the comedy-drama series '' Royal Pains'' and the acclaimed HBO miniseries ''Angels in America'', which earned him both Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe ...

as Louis Ironson / The Angel Oceania * Brian Markinson as Martin Heller * James Cromwell as Henry, Roy's doctor *

Michael Gambon Sir Michael John Gambon (; 19 October 1940 – 27 September 2023) was an Irish-English actor. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivier as one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Over his six-decade-long career ...

as Prior Walter Ancestor No. 1 *

Simon Callow Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFT ...

as Prior Walter Ancestor No. 2 * Robin Weigert as Mormon Mother

Soundtrack

The

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

of the series by

Thomas Newman Thomas Montgomery Newman (born October 20, 1955) is an American composer, conductor and orchestrator. He is best known for his film scores, earning accolades of six Grammy Award, Grammy Awards, an Emmy Awards, Emmy Award, two British Academy F ...

was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Production

Cary Brokaw,

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...

of the series, worked for over ten years to bring the 1991 stage production to television, having first read it in 1989, before its first production. In 1993,

committed to playing the role of Roy Cohn. In the meantime, a number of directors, including

Robert Altman Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer, producer. He is considered an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era, known for directing subversive and sat ...

, were part of the project. Altman worked on the project in 1993 and 1994, before budget constraints forced him to move out, as few studios could risk producing two successive 150-minute movies at the cost of $40 million. Subsequently, Kushner tried squeezing the play into a feature film, at which he eventually failed, realizing there was "literally too much plot," and settling for the TV

format. While Kushner continued adapting the play until the late 1990s,

HBO Films HBO Films (formerly called HBO Premiere Films and HBO Pictures) is an American production and distribution company, a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. The division produces fiction and non-f ...

stepped in as producer, allocating a budget of $60 million. Canopus vanaf serapium

Brokaw gave

the script while he was working with him on '' Wit'' (2001) starring

, who also co-adapted the play of the same title. The principal cast, including

, Pacino, and Thompson, having recently worked with Nichols, was immediately assembled by him. Though

had previously portrayed Louis in the San Francisco A.C.T.'s production (as well as portraying Roy Cohn in the NYU graduate acting program's workshop of ''Perestroika'' prior to its Broadway opening), Jeffrey Wright was the only original cast member to appear in the Broadway version, having won the 1994

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

for Best Performance by a Featured Actor for his stage performance. The shooting started in May 2002, and after a 137-day schedule, ended in January 2003. Filming was done primarily at

Kaufman Astoria Studios The Kaufman Astoria Studios is a film studio located in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The studio was constructed for Famous Players–Lasky in 1920, since it was close to Manhattan's Theater District. The property was ...

, New York City, with several pivotal scenes being shot on the streets of the city and at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. The Heaven sequence was shot at

Hadrian's Villa Hadrian's Villa (; ) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the ruins and archaeological remains of a large Roman villa, villa complex built around AD 120 by Roman emperor Hadrian near Tivoli, Italy, Tivoli outside Rome. It is the most impos ...

, the Roman archaeological complex at Tivoli, Italy, dating early 2nd century.

Special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...

s in the series were by

Richard Edlund Richard Edlund, (born December 6, 1940) is an American visual effects artist and inventor. He was a founding member of Industrial Light & Magic, having already founded Pignose amplifiers, and later co-founded Boss Film Studios and DuMonde V ...

( ''Star Wars'' trilogy), who created the two important Angel visitation sequences, as well as the opening sequence wherein the angel at the Bethesda Fountain opens its eyes in the end, signifying her "coming to life". Costumer Martin Izquierdo was hired to design functioning wings for Thompson's Angel.

Reception

Review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

gave the series a 92% rating based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 9.5/10. The critical consensus reads: "In ''Angels of America'', writer Tony Kushner and director Mike Nichols imaginatively and artistically deliver heavy, vital subject matter, colorfully imparted by a stellar cast." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote that "Mike Nichols's television version is a work of art in itself." According to a ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' review, "director Mike Nichols, and a magnificent cast led by Meryl Streep have pulled a spellbinding and revelatory TV movie out of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning work" and that he "managed to make ''Angels in America'' thrive onscreen...". '' IndieWire'' ranked the series first on its list of best LGBTQ TV shows of the 21st century.

Awards and nominations

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

, ''Angels in America'' broke the record previously held by ''

Roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusin ...

'' for the most Emmys awarded to a miniseries in a single year by winning 11 awards from 21 nominations. ''Angels in America'' became the first of only three programs (following by ''

'' in comedy at the 72nd Emmy Awards and ''The Crown'' in drama at the 73rd Emmy Awards) to sweep every major category in Emmy history. It also joined '' Caesar's Hour'', in

1957 Events January * January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany. * January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch. * January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be Dismissal (cricke ...

, as the only series to win all four main acting categories in one night. Along with television miniseries ''Eleanor and Franklin'', the series became one of the two most-honored programs in television history. The record was broken four years later by ''

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...

'' at the

60th Primetime Emmy Awards The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 21, 2008, at the newly opened Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California to honor the best in U.S. prime time television. The ceremony was hosted by Tom Bergeron (who was also hostin ...

, which won 13 trophies from 23 nominations.

References

External links

* * *
''Angels in America'': A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
at

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angels In America 2000s American television miniseries 2000s American political television series 2000s American LGBTQ-related drama television series 2003 American television series debuts 2003 American television series endings American fantasy drama television series American political drama television series Angels in television Best Miniseries or Television Movie Golden Globe winners Cultural depictions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg American English-language television shows Films directed by Mike Nichols Films with screenplays by Tony Kushner LGBTQ speculative fiction television series Gay-related television shows GLAAD Media Award–winning shows HBO television dramas HIV/AIDS in television Mormonism in fiction Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries winners Primetime Emmy Award–winning television series Television shows based on plays Television series set in 1985 Reagan Era Works about LGBTQ and Mormonism 2003 LGBTQ-related television