This Friday sees the release of Dallas Buyers Club (review HERE), with a lot of Oscar talk around the leading performances. One of those performances is from Jared Leto, playing a HIV positive cross-dresser named Rayon, and Leto went through a total physical transformation for the role. Not just in terms of the clothing and make-up, but an entire body shape overhaul. Which got us thinking to other cross-dressing characters in movies, be they transgender, transsexual, or temporarily switching gender identity for the sake of an end-goal, you'll find the ten best cinema examples below:

THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT

Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving play three drag entertainers, driving their caravan – which they've named Priscilla – across the Australian desert, bringing colour and life wherever they go.

ALBERT NOBBS

A labour of love for Glenn Close, who worked on getting this film made for 20 years. She plays a woman posing as a man, who fears that her new-found love for another woman may bring about her eventual “outing” that she has been hiding from the public for decades.

THE BIRDCAGE

When politican Gene Hackman needs to escape from gay-bar The Birdcage in the middle of Miami, with outside surrounded by photo-hungry journalists, Robin Williams dresses him up in so much make-up, and such a horrendous wig and dress, that never even his own mother would recognise him.

BOYS DON'T CRY

Hilary Swank plays the female born Teena, who grows up to become the male identity of Brandon. But living in a small-minded small town in Nebraska, Brandon finds it difficult to properly express himself, or to find true love, hidden beneath so many secrets.

BREAKFAST ON PLUTO

Cillian Murphy plays the all-too-pretty transvestite, and Breakfast On Pluto follows pretty much his entire life, from the first time he ever tried on his mother's lipstick and clothes, right on true to being reunited with his estranged father, played by Liam Neeson.

ED WOOD

Director Tim Burton brings us the story of director Ed Wood, notoriously one of the worst movie directors of all time (who also happens to be a cross-dresser, here played by Johnny Depp, and Wood would go on to direct a movie about cross-dressing. Unfortunately it was the terrible Glen Or Glenda, so it was all in despair, really.

KINKY BOOTS

12 Years A Slave star Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as the drag-queen who helps give Joel Edgarton some inspiration when it comes to developing a new line in boots by his soon-to-be-bankrupt shoe-making factory.

TOOTSIE

Dustin Hoffman plays an actor who simply cannot get hired for any job, so he undergoes a massive aesthetical transformation, quickly becoming one of the biggest new actresses in Hollywood. Unfortunately, right around the same time, he meets the potential love of his life. Problems!

TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR

90s hard-men Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze, as well as well-known character actor John Leguizamo, play three drag queens travelling across the country, and then their car breaks down and they are stranded in a small town, which they both broaden their horizons, and turn completely on its head.

TRANSAMERICA

A bit of a different one this, as Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman is a woman (obviously), but here she's playing a man who wants to become a woman. And on the eve of her final, gender-changing surgery, she finds out that she has a son, played by Kevin Zegers.

SPECIAL MENTION:

- MRS. DOUBTFIRE: Robin Williams (again), becomes an old Scottish lady in order to get closer to his kids. Played more for laughs than most of anything in the list above, but mentioned here because it's actually a pretty funny movie.
- PSYCHO: Spoilers!
- SHE'S THE MAN: Currently out of her mind Amanda Bynes stars in this (very) loose remake of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, as Bynes playing a girl pretending to a boy so she can play on a soccer team, and falls in love with her teammate Channing Tatum, who finds his/her longing glances more than a little off-putting.

SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL

- BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE: Martin Lawrence in a fat suit. No.
- NORBIT: Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. No.
- WHITE CHICKS: The Wayan Brothers doing reverse black-face in blonde wigs and high-heels is one of the most horrifically scary things to have happened in modern cinema.