Philadelphia is a 1993 American legal drama film directed and produced by Jonathan Demme, written by Ron Nyswaner, and starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.

Philadelphia is notable for being one of the first mainstream Hollywood films not only to explicitly address HIV/AIDS and homophobia, but also to portray gay people in a positive light.

Beckett believes someone deliberately hid the paperwork to give the firm an excuse to fire him and that the termination is a result of his AIDS status and his sexuality.

Seeing parallels in racial discrimination he has experienced, Miller approaches Beckett, reviews the material he has gathered, and agrees to take the case.

As the case goes to trial, the partners of the firm take the stand, each claiming that Beckett was incompetent and that he had deliberately tried to hide his condition.

Another partner, Bob Seidman, confesses that he suspected Beckett had AIDS but never told anyone and refused to let him discuss it, which he deeply regrets.

Bowers was an attorney who, in 1987, sued the law firm Baker McKenzie for wrongful dismissal in one of the first AIDS discrimination cases.

[4] In 1994, shortly after the film's release, Scott Burr, a former attorney with the Philadelphia firm of Kohn, Nast and Graf, sued his previous employer for illegally terminating him upon finding out that he was HIV positive.

Family members asserted that 54 scenes in the movie were so similar to events in Bowers's life that some of them could only have come from their interviews.

[9][13][14] John Leguizamo was offered the role of Miguel Álvarez, but turned it down to play Luigi in the film Super Mario Bros.[15] In an interview with The New York Times in June 2022, Tom Hanks said that the film would not get made nowadays with a straight actor in a gay role, stating audiences wouldn't "accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy".

[16] Hanks added that that was "rightly so", stating "One of the reasons people weren't afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man".

TriStar Pictures initially refused to insure actor Ron Vawter, who was openly HIV-positive at the time, insisting Jonathan Demme recast him.

[20][21] According to a Tom Hanks interview for the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, he was cast in the role due to his non-intimidating screen persona in order to allow for audiences to sympathize with a gay, HIV-positive character.

The site's critical consensus reads: "Philadelphia indulges in some unfortunate clichés in its quest to impart a meaningful message, but its stellar cast and sensitive direction are more than enough to compensate.

"[27] Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

And for moviegoers with an antipathy to AIDS but an enthusiasm for stars like Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, it may help to broaden understanding of the disease.

It's a ground-breaker like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), the first major film about an interracial romance; it uses the chemistry of popular stars in a reliable genre to sidestep what looks like controversy.

"[30] Christopher Matthews from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote "Jonathan Demme's long-awaited Philadelphia is so expertly acted, well-meaning and gutsy that you find yourself constantly pulling for it to be the definitive AIDS movie.

"[31] James Berardinelli from ReelViews wrote "The story is timely and powerful, and the performances of Hanks and Washington assure that the characters will not immediately vanish into obscurity.

Demme decided Young's song would be more appropriate for the ending of the film, so he approached Bruce Springsteen to write an anthem.