30 excellent LGBTQ+ films you need to see
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30 excellent LGBTQ+ films you need to see
There’s a reason why “representation matters” has long been a rallying cry for the LGBTQ community: from books to movies to television, the stories we consume have the power to shape how we see other people—and ourselves. So when a film comes along that manages to really nail the queer experience, well, suffice it to say, we as a community hold on tight to our favourites. Here are 30 of the most beloved LGBTQ movies of all time, ranging from subtle and quiet to political and groundbreaking.
Weinstein Co/Fade To Black/Kobal/Shutterstock - 2/31
'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' (2019)
From Casablanca to Titanic, the epic, star-crossed romantic drama has been a Hollywood staple for as long as Hollywood has been in existence. In Céline Sciamma’s breathtaking 2019 film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the genre meets its match in Héloïse, an aristocratic bride-to-be in an arranged marriage, and Marianne, an artist commissioned to paint Héloïse’s wedding portrait. Over the course of their time together, what starts as an antagonistic mutual fascination transforms into a love affair for the ages.
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'Paris Is Burning' (1990)
Before Pose and RuPaul’s Drag Race, there was Paris Is Burning. Shot during the late 1980s, Jennie Livingston’s documentary is the definitive record of golden-age New York City drag ball culture, featuring interviews with house founders such as Willi Ninja, Angie Xtravaganza, Dorian Corey, and other fixtures of the ballroom scene. To this day, the film remains an enduring record of what it was like to be Black, Latinx, or queer in New York City during the height of the AIDS crisis.
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'Saving Face' (2004)
These days, director Alice Wu is probably best known for her sweet Netflix coming-of-age film, The Half of It. Nearly 20 years before that, though, she directed Saving Face, a defining entry in the lesbian film canon. The first Hollywood movie to centre on Chinese-Americans since The Joy Luck Club some 11 years before it, Saving Face tells the story of a closeted Chinese-American woman falling in love for the first time and struggling to reconcile the relationship with her and her girlfriend’s traditional (read: homophobic), close-knit New York City community.
Johansen Krause/Forensic/Greenestreet/Overbrook/Kobal/Shutterstock - 5/31
'The Watermelon Woman' (1996)
The first feature film directed by an out Black lesbian, The Watermelon Woman remains a landmark title in the history of queer cinema. Director Cheryl Dunye plays Cheryl, a Black lesbian filmmaker who decides to make a documentary about a Black actress from Hollywood’s Golden Age who is known only as the Watermelon Woman.
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'Blue Is the Warmest Colour' (2013)
Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 queer coming-of-age drama has come under fire many times: for being a lesbian film directed by a straight man, for Kechiche’s reportedly abusive behaviour as a director, for its inclusion of a largely gratuitous—and extremely explicit—lesbian sex scene between the two leads. Nevertheless, Blue Is the Warmest Colour, which follows its protagonist, Adele, over the course of her first serious relationship with a woman, remains a landmark depiction of sexuality and first love.
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'Call Me by Your Name' (2017)
What list of queer classics would be complete without Call Me by Your Name? Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s lush, sensuous adaptation of the André Aciman novel follows 17-year-old Elio as he falls in love with Oliver, Elio’s father’s 24-year-old graduate student assistant, in 1980s northern Italy. The romantic drama features dreamy original compositions from Sufjan Stevens and a notable cameo by an overripe peach.
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'The Handmaiden' (2016)
Though Oldboy director Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of Sarah Waters’s lesbian novel Fingersmith transposes the action from Victorian-era Britain to Japanese-occupied Korea, The Handmaiden has established itself as the definitive film version of its source material. A psychological thriller about an heiress, a con man planning to steal her fortune, and the pickpocket hired by the con man to become the heiress’s maid, The Handmaiden is a Russian nesting doll of a film in which nothing is quite as it seems.
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'A Fantastic Woman' (2017)
When transgender nightclub singer Marina’s older boyfriend, Orlando, unexpectedly dies, she faces an uphill battle to have her role in Orlando’s life recognised by his ex-wife and kids. Featuring a tour-de-force performance from Daniela Vega as Marina, the film won the 2018 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and then went on to play an important role in accelerating the Chilean trans rights movement.
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'The Birdcage', 1996
The only English-language film adaptation of the play (and later musical) La Cage aux Folles, The Birdcage is a camp classic. The film stars Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as Armand and Albert, domestic partners who own and operate a drag club in Miami Beach. When their son, Val, announces that he intends to marry his girlfriend, Barbara, Armand and Albert must “play straight” to impress Barbara’s parents—an ultraconservative Republican senator and his wife. Disaster predictably ensues.
Lorey Sebastian/United Artists/Kobal/Shutterstock - 11/31
'Gun Hill Road' (2011)
Ex-con Enrique returns home after a stint in prison, only to find that home is different from how he left it: his wife, Angela, has had an affair, and his child, who has recently come out as a trans woman, is navigating the process of transitioning. Director Rashaad Ernesto Green’s self-assured 2011 debut is especially notable for featuring a trans lead character played by an actual trans woman—something that shouldn’t be notable but unfortunately is. The actress, Harmony Santana, was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance, making her the first openly transgender actress ever nominated.
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But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Camp is typically considered the province of gay men and drag queens, but the genre’s roots in the lesbian community run just as deep. Nowhere is this on greater display than in Jamie Babbit’s But I’m a Cheerleader, the movie that launched Natasha Lyonne’s and Clea DuVall’s careers, and gave us the vision that is RuPaul Charles playing an “ex-gay” conversion therapy counsellor in baby-blue booty shorts. In this queer classic, Lyonne plays a cheerleader whose conservative parents suspect she is a lesbian. They ship her off to conversion therapy, where she falls for DuVall’s enigmatic outsider.
Michael Ochs Archives - Getty Images - 13/31
'My Beautiful Laundrette' (1985)
Homosexuality is only one element of Stephen Frear’s potent social comedy. The film, which centers around business-minded Pakistani man Omar, also tackles racism and socioeconomic disparity in Thatcher-era London. But all that takes a temporary backseat when Omar rekindles a romance with Johnny (a young Daniel Day-Lewis, still four years away from the first of three Oscar wins). The film handles their relationship delicately but casually, offering it up as a choice. In My Beautiful Laundrette, you can live within the confines of class or sexuality—or you can open your life to other possibilities.
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'My Own Private Idaho' (1991)
My Own Private Idaho stands as one of Gus Van Sant’s most conceptual films: it has an unconventional narrative structure, not to mention a central character who suffers from narcolepsy, which lends additional surrealism to the film’s disjointed architecture. But River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves anchor the film as Mike and Scott, two rent boys bonded by their estrangement from society. For a film with sex at its centre, My Own Private Idaho is less concerned with sexuality than with love and comfort—something made especially clear in its famous campfire scene. It’s a masterclass in acting—a radical statement in a film already full of them.
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'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' (1994)
In a post-RuPaul’s Drag Race world, it’s easy to forget how subversive Stephan Elliot’s film was for its time. But the sequined gaudiness and over-the-top production of The Adventures of Priscilla represented something of a watershed moment when it first came out. This scrappy spectacular, centered on two drag queens and a transwoman journeying through Australia, not only reached cult status; it eventually opened cinema up to more positive and mainstream representations of the LGBT community.
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'Beautiful Thing' (1996)
As far as gay coming-of-age stories go, Beautiful Thing is rather straightforward. An adaptation of the Jonathan Harvey play of the same name, the film follows two teenage boys as they gradually discover their homosexuality—and mutual feelings for each other—in a London council estate. Theirs is a relatively uncomplicated love story, nearly eclipsed by the messiness of the other characters in their orbit. But that’s part of the fantasy—sometimes, falling in love really is as simple as that.
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'Happy Together' (1997)
Wong Kar-wai’s metaphor for Hong Kong’s handover to China finds a couple adrift in Argentina, caught in the same abusive cycle that prevents either half from letting go. As much a story of codependence as it is a study of rootless and shifting identities, Happy Together both touches upon and sidelines its themes of homosexuality—groundbreaking for Chinese cinema in 1997—and focuses instead on the loss and regret of a relationship that can’t be saved. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time and the restlessness and melancholy that invariably afflicts youth.
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'All About My Mother' (1999)
Pedro Almodóvar’s Oscar-winning love letter to the LGBT community uses a mother’s grief as the jumping-off point for this colourful film. On paper, the plot reads as surreal and potentially melodramatic: after an accident, Manuela dives headfirst into Barcelona’s queer scene in search of the cross-dressing man who unknowingly fathered her late son. But, as is to be expected of Almodóvar, All About My Mother is a thoroughly sensitive work, one that retains its absurdist sense of humour as it celebrates sexuality and otherness.
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'Boys Don't Cry' (1999)
Much has been said about the casting of Hilary Swank, a cisgender actress, in this compassionate biopic of Brandon Teena, a trans man murdered in Nebraska for being himself. But the film itself helped introduce ideas of queerness and female masculinity to mainstream audiences, offering a frank portrayal of trans identity unabashed in its honesty and sensuality. And, for better or worse, Boys Don’t Cry’s effectiveness hinges on Swank’s performance, one still considered among the best of all time.
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'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' (2001)
Unsurprising: a popular stage musical gets turned into a film. Surprising: a popular stage musical gets turned into a good film. Such was the case with director-writer-star John Cameron Mitchell’s electric adaptation about the titular Hedwig, a would-be rock star and botched sex-change operation survivor who masks loneliness in equal parts camp and charisma. But Hedwig and the Angry Inch is more than the sum of its wigs and glam rock; it’s a spiky examination of individualism, and performance as a means of owning and transcending heartbreak.
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'The Hours' (2002)
Themes of depression and mortality seep into the three parts of Stephen Daldry’s existential drama, which seamlessly interweaves the lives of Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), a 1950s housewife (Julianne Moore), and a modern-day Mrs. Dalloway (Meryl Streep) into a single narrative. Beneath all that is a subtle through line of queerness that connects each of the women, one that quietly examines sexuality at odds with their respective heteronormative societies. Kidman (in an Oscar-winning role) is particularly effective as the tormented Woolf, giving depth to the unspoken force that kept the author—and the other women—from feeling totally at peace.
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'Brokeback Mountain' (2005)
Looking back, it’s something of a miracle that Ang Lee’s tender adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story earned eight Oscar nominations in 2005, a full decade before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in the US. Sure, Brokeback Mountain can be something of a punchline in today’s marginally more progressive film landscape—that “I wish I knew how to quit you” line is as meme-worthy as it is iconic—but the misty-eyed love story and delicate performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger keep it near the top of so many all-time lists.
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'Milk' (2008)
Gus Van Sant’s biopic about America’s first openly-gay elected official leans into its genre—1972 San Francisco is recreated to a T and Sean Penn’s performance is both pitch-perfect and Oscar-winning—while also transcending it, using Milk’s mission as a larger statement about a nation’s capacity for change. Unfortunately, the film is as resonant today as it was in 2008, when California voted to uphold a ban on gay marriage. Today, there’s still hard work to be done in the way of basic human rights, and Milk captures the best parts of the American spirit when that work is realised.
Courtesy of Focus Features - 24/31
'A Single Man' (2009)
Some gay love stories focus on the before, lingering on the push and pull of falling in love before finally tripping. A Single Man asks: what happens after? The answer, at least from fashion designer-turned-director Tom Ford, unfurls in this gorgeously realised drama about an English professor who falls into a suicidal depression after the death of his longtime partner. As the titular character, Colin Firth has only a handful of scenes, all flashbacks, with his lover. But the spectre of their romance hangs over everything, and Firth’s shattering performance ultimately elevates this rumination of love lost.
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'The Kids Are All Right' (2010)
One of the most noteworthy aspects of Lisa Cholodenko’s 2010 Best Picture nominee—the dream casting of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a couple aside—is how familiar it feels. As a portrait of a family, it hews almost too close to convention in its depiction of midlife crises and a marriage put to the test. But that’s where this comedy-drama finds its twist: Yes, this centres on a two-mom household, but it’s one that stumbles and fractures as much as any other suburban family would. And it’s that casual progressiveness that makes The Kids Are All Right sweetly subversive.
Courtesy of Focus Features - 26/31
'Pariah' (2011)
Adolescence, as cinema portrays it, is a period defined by nostalgia. But director Dee Rees captures that formative period absent of any fantasy in her first feature, which centers on Alike, a Brooklyn teenager assured in her sexual orientation but still exploring what that means. Pariah is a coming-of-age story as well as a vital entry in black American cinema, but, much like its lead, it refuses to confine itself to any one identity. It functions best as a navigation of youthful limbo—an entry point to stories yet untold.
Courtesy of Focus Features - 27/31
'Weekend' (2011)
Before HBO’s Looking, Andrew Haigh had his breakthrough with this intimate debut, one that still serves as a quintessential depiction of modern gay dating. From the main characters’ meet cute at a club to the revealing but realistic conversations that unfold over the next 48 hours, the film’s strength is in its keenly-observed details, painting a naturalistic portrait of what it’s like to fall in love today—gay or not. That authenticity is what makes watching Weekend feel so invasive yet intensely relatable all at once, especially as it crescendos to its achingly bittersweet finale.
Courtesy of Sundance Selects - 28/31
'Pride' (2014)
Compared to other stories about LGBT rights (and really, even miners’ rights), Pride comes off comparatively too upbeat, too sweet. But that’s not a knock against the film, which deftly avoids naiveté or saccharinity. Instead, it uses its sunnier aspects—dildo jokes, lesbian-intrigued grandmothers—to counteract the harsher notes of AIDS, prejudice, and assault that punctuate this true story about the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners organisation in 1984 Britain. The subject of gay rights against the miners’ Thatcher-era marginalisation might feel a little too on the nose, but in today’s persistent landscape of infringed rights and alienated communities, Pride also feels timely.
Courtesy of Pathé - 29/31
'Carol' (2015)
In other hands, Carol could’ve fallen into melodrama. But guided by Todd Haynes’s atmospheric direction and powerhouse performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, this 1950s-set drama about two women dancing around a forbidden romance feels every bit as revolutionary today as its central pairing would have been in their time. Inevitably, Haynes takes one of the film’s main conceits—that you could lock eyes with someone from across the room and fall in love—and grounds it in harsh, period-appropriate reality. But despite the hurt, the movie unfurls with such dreamy abstraction that, much like its characters, you’ve fallen in love before you’ve even noticed.
Courtesy of StudioCanal/The Weinstein Company - 30/31
'Tangerine' (2015)
What’s remarkable about Tangerine isn’t its gender politics or lo-fi production (the film was famously shot entirely on iPhone 5s); instead, it’s that a story centered on two transgender hookers in Los Angeles should dare to be anything other than tragedy. The film is hilarious, and the fact that these characters can inhabit a movie this straightforwardly entertaining without acting as side dressing is radical in and of itself, never mind director Sean Baker’s impressive course correction from the disappointing casting choices made by films such as Transamerica and Dallas Buyers Club. Tangerine is a film about two women in the sun—and what’s best is that it actually feels like it.
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'Moonlight' (2016)
Moonlight fits no simple classification, resisting easy labels that would call it a film simply about being black, poor, or gay. It’s a gentle exploration of identity, a beautiful masterwork that operates as an intimate biography as well as a social document about the America we live in. Through Chiron and three distinct acts in his upbringing, director Barry Jenkins suggests that certain facts of life—drug use, prison sentences—don’t necessarily make up a life. Instead, it’s the choices we make, often alone and in a sliver of nighttime light, that decide who we’re meant to be.
Courtesy of A24
