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It's that time of year: Pride Month, which means it's time to celebrate. As always, it's a great time to march, party, and be marketed to. But it's also an opportunity to learn your queer history, and a self-curated LGBTQ film festival is a great way to do that. Let us help.
LGBTQ-centered films are still pretty rare—particularly from major studios, as the buzz around 2022's Bros revealed. But queer characters have come a long way in a relatively short time, from the self-loathing middle-aged men of the 1970s in The Boys in the Band to the headstrong misfits of Fire Island to the love-torn teens in Love, Simon. Queer cinema has evolved, too, from the shoestring brilliance of The Watermelon Woman to the big-budget glitter-fest that is Rocketman. While gay characters tended (until much too recently) to be one-dimensional, white, marginal, and doomed, in 2018 Barry Jenkins won an Oscar by telling the layered and hopeful story of a gay Black man in Moonlight. Since then, even more intersectional films about the queer experience have emerged.
If you're looking for something new to watch this month, let this list be your guide. After all, Pride—real pride—requires self-knowledge, and one of the easiest ways to do that is through art. Representation matters, and these films provide a variety of archetypes, stories, and styles for you to lose and/or find yourself in. Borrow a streaming-service password from family—however you define it!—and enjoy.
50
Love, Simon (2018)
If it feels a bit like a CW version of an after-school special, that's no mistake: Teen-tv super-producer Greg Berlanti makes his feature-film directorial debut here. It's as chaste a love story as you're likely to see in the 21st century—the hunky gardener who makes the title teen question his sexuality is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, for God’s sake—but you know what? The queer kids of the future need their wholesome entertainment, too.
49
Rocketman (2019)
A gay fantasia on Elton themes. An Elton John biopic was never going to be understated, but this glittering jukebox musical goes way over the top and then keeps going. It might be an overcorrection from the straight-washing of the previous year's Bohemian Rhapsody, but when it's this much fun, it's best not to overthink it.
48
Handsome Devil (2016)
A charming Irish movie that answers the question: "What if John Hughes were Irish and gay?" Misfit Ned struggles at a rugby-obsessed boarding school until a mysterious new kid moves in and an unlikely friendship changes them both. Along the way, a rousing performance from Andrew Scott as an inspiring teacher with a secret of his own; a prescient casting choice in Nicholas Galitzine, whose name you just might see in this list a time or two later; and a rugby game set to a Rufus Wainwright song. Just the thing to lift your spirits.
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47
Viva (2015)
The life of Cuba's "transformistas" is captured beautifully in this father-son story about a boy who wants to perform drag and his father, newly released from prison and unable to accept who his son is. It's shot beautifully, with great music and a close look at Havana in all its run-down and colorful glory.
46
Desert Hearts (1985)
The quintessential '80s lesbian romantic drama, Desert Hearts follows an English professor and a young sculptor as they fall in love at a Nevada ranch in the 1950s. Unique for its time, it sets its romance in a warm, affirming environment and lets its leads enjoy their relationship without angst or fear of death.
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44
Other People (2016)
Former SNL head writer and The Other Two cocreator Chris Kelly makes his directorial debut in a semi-autobiographical account of his mother's death from cancer. Molly Shannon gives a devastating performance, the tragic qualities of the Sacramento gay bar are hilariously explored, and the viewer is forced to reevaluate Train's "Drops of Jupiter." Given how much you will cry, this is perhaps a risky watch in a time when tissue paper is scarce. We say pull a full-size bath towel out of the cabinet and dive in.
43
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Cheryl Dunye directs and stars in this micro-budget indie about an African American lesbian searching for an uncredited Black actress from a 1930s film. Along the way, she falls in and out of love and meets the real Camille Paglia.
42
Beach Rats (2017)
Eliza Hittman's dark and moody film plays out a bit like a thriller, one in which a Brooklyn teenager named Frankie (a superb Harris Dickinson, in a nearly wordless performance) spends his idle hours hanging with his delinquent friends, fooling around with his girlfriend, and hooking up with men he meets online. Beach Rats is a provocative look at the personal and secret urges we often fear will come out into the light.
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41
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
40
Rustin (2023)
The story of Bayard Rustin, co-organizer of the March on Washington, has largely been written out of the history he helped create due to his having been an out gay man in the pre-Stonewall '60s. The screenplay does not hold back on the hom*ophobia of the movement and the moment, but out actor Colman Domingo brings Rustin's charisma, confidence, passion, and humor to vivid life.
39
Maurice (1987)
"Don't you know I would have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone?" All the lushness of a Merchant Ivory production, with gay men at its center. Even if this weren't a beautiful, affecting film, Hugh Grant's hair alone would earn it a spot on this list.
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38
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Peter Jackson was journeying through fantasy worlds long before Lord of the Rings—albeit one conjured up by two very real New Zealand schoolgirls (played by then newcomers Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey) who escape their own realities through their imaginations. But their connection turns intense and dangerous when they conspire to commit murder in one of the most notorious true-crime stories of all time.
37
Making Love (1982)
The first wide-release studio film with a hom*osexual relationship at its center (and for decades, the last), Making Love follows Michael Ontkean's Zach, who is married to Claire (Kate Jackson) but exploring his hom*osexuality with Harry Hamlin's Bart. It's not a perfect film, but it took a giant risk and gives us a rare snapshot of Los Angeles's gay life in the moment just before AIDS.
36
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
Long before his groundbreaking Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee directed this sweet, comic tale about a Taiwanese immigrant living in New York with his partner. When he offers to marry a Chinese woman so she can obtain a green card, the marriage of convenience spirals out of control when his parents find out and throw a lavish wedding party.
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35
Beginners (2010)
Mike Mills's sweet 2010 film concerns a Los Angeles artist, played by Ewan McGregor, building a relationship with his newly out father (Christopher Plummer) in the last year of the older man's life. Beginners earned Plummer an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and features a talking Jack Russell terrier. In short, it's pretty much perfect.
34
But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)
When Megan (Natasha Lyonne) shows more interest in vegetarianism and female-fronted folk rock, her parents send her away to have her presumed hom*osexuality cured. Conversion therapy is no joke, but Jamie Babbit's satire perfectly skewers puritanical hom*ophobia—and it has a joyful, happy ending. (Plus, RuPaul!)
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32
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
On a scorching August day, Al Pacino's Sonny attempts to rob a bank in Brooklyn, and … things do not go well. The instant, intense media fame Sonny earns feels more relevant than ever, and things turn surprisingly tender when we learn he plans to use the stolen money for his lover's gender-confirmation surgery.
31
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
A Pakistani Brit and his former lover, who has become a fascist street punk, reunite and run a family laundromat. The characters deal with the materialism and anti-immigrant furor of Thatcher's England—elements that feel just a little bit too relevant at the moment.
