Set on Christmas Eve , the story follows a transgender sex worker who discovers her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her. The film was shot with three iPhone 5S smartphones.
Tangerine premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, It had a limited release on July 10, , through Magnolia Pictures. Transgender sex worker Sin-Dee Rella, who has just finished a day jail sentence, meets her friend Alexandra, another trans sex worker, at a donut shop in Hollywood on Christmas Eve. Alexandra reveals that Sin-Dee's boyfriend and pimp Chester has been cheating on her with a cisgender woman.
Sin-Dee storms out to search the neighborhood for Chester and the woman. Alexandra hands out flyers for her musical performance that evening and argues with a client who refuses to pay; their argument is broken up by the police.
Razmik, an Armenian cab driver, picks up a prostitute, but ejects her from his cab when he discovers she is not transgender. He meets Alexandra and fellates her in a car wash, then goes home to eat Christmas Eve dinner with his family. Alexandra goes to the bar for her performance, but no customers have arrived. Sin-Dee finds the woman she is looking for, Dinah, at a brothel in a motel. She hauls her onto a bus to find Chester. Dinah taunts her for believing she is Chester's only girlfriend.
Sin-Dee realizes she is late for Alexandra's performance and drags Dinah there instead. She reconciles with Dinah as they smoke crystal meth in the bar bathroom, and Sin-Dee applies Dinah's make-up. Alexandra performs to a mostly empty bar. Razmik leaves his family to attend Alexandra's performance, saying he has to work, but discovers he is too late and searches for Sin-Dee. Suspicious, his mother-in-law, Ashken, hails another Armenian cab driver, Karo.
