Archival footage from locally produced television programs, public service films warning of the "dangers" of homosexuality, an episode of CBS Reports titled "The Homosexuals", and interviews with Stonewall participants and observers Virginia Apuzzo, Martin Boyce, Raymond Castro, Danny Garvin, Jerry Hoose, Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, Dick Leitsch, John O'Brien, New York Police Department deputy inspector Seymour Pine, Yvonne Ritter, Fred Sargeant, Martha Shelley, Howard Smith, Lucian Truscott, and Doric Wilson[4][7] present both a national perspective and a personal one.

The film then shifts to the days immediately preceding the riot and the specific conditions in New York City, including a raid on the Stonewall Inn that had happened days before the raid that triggered the riot, to explain why conditions were ripe for some action to happen.

Archive film from the riots, dramatic re-enactments and eyewitness testimony are presented, along with animation of the streets surrounding the Stonewall Inn showing how rioters were able to evade and outflank responding police.

[9] David Mixner, the author, political strategist, civil rights activist and public affairs advisor, wrote on his blog, Like the movie Milk, this film can have a major impact on the LGBT movement.

[11] The film was released on DVD on April 26, 2011,[12] and the unedited interviews were made accessible in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in 2018.