Director: Luke Gilford
Rural New Mexico rarely gets a queer coming-of-age story on screen, and National Anthem plants its flag right in that overlooked landscape.
What is National Anthem about?
Dylan, a 21-year-old day laborer, spends his hours pouring concrete and scraping together rent money for the trailer he shares with his mother and younger brother. When a construction gig sends him to a ranch on the edge of town, he stumbles onto something he didn't know existed nearby: a loosely organized household of queer rodeo riders, trick performers, and drifters who have built their own version of home. Drawn in first by curiosity and then by an undeniable pull toward one of the ranch's residents, Dylan starts spending his evenings and weekends there, learning to rope, ride, and let his guard down in ways his life back home never allowed. Director Luke Gilford, working from his own background photographing the real-life queer rodeo circuit, frames the ranch as neither a fantasy nor a rescue narrative — it's simply a place where these characters get to exist without apology. The film follows Dylan as he weighs loyalty to his family's fragile stability against the freedom he feels taking shape at the ranch, without rushing him toward a tidy resolution.
Cast & crew
Charlie Plummer anchors the film as Dylan, playing the character's guardedness with a stillness that makes his gradual openness land. Eve Lindley brings warmth and steadiness to the ranch's central relationship, while Rene Rosado and Mason Alexander Park round out the community with performances that feel lived-in rather than performative — several cast members have real ties to the queer rodeo scene the film depicts.
Context & significance
Gilford spent years documenting the National Queer Rodeo Association before turning the material into fiction, and that photographic eye shows in how the film lingers on wide-open Southwestern light and texture. Released in 2024, it arrived at festivals as part of a wave of American independent cinema centering rural queer life outside the usual coastal-city settings.
Where & how to watch
National Anthem is available to stream on K-Time with a free account login — no purchase or trial needed to browse the title. The platform's Farsi-language interface makes it easy for Persian-speaking viewers to find and queue independent titles like this one alongside the rest of the catalog.