Looking back at ‘Brokeback Mountain’

WSHU | By Glen Weldon,

Bob Mondello

Published October 4, 2025 at 7:25 AM EDT

This year marks 20 years since Brokeback Mountain hit theaters. The film starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two sheep herders who fall in love in a place and time that keeps them apart. Before its release, Hollywood considered it a huge risk. It went on to be a critical and box office success, but it also made a lot of folks so uncomfortable they made cheap jokes about it for years. Today, its legacy is a tough one to untangle.

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Glen Weldon

Glen Weldon is a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. He reviews books, movies, comics and more for the NPR Arts Desk.

See stories by Glen Weldon

Bob Mondello

Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.

See stories by Bob Mondello

Side Hustle

The life of an artist can sound like a dream: long hours spent lost in the craft, reveling in a faraway retreat. In reality, the same people who are writers, DJs, drag queens and emcees are also accountants, scientists, custodians and teachers. But they’re passionate — about their side hustles.