Top 30 Queer Movies of the Last 100 Years
Pride Month is thirty days long, and even in a year that has been particularly fraught in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, that means you should have plenty of time to watch a few movies when you’re not throwing bricks, being harassed at Target, or Suspended from Kylie Minogue’s new single. While the number of queer people on screen has definitely increased in recent years, films remind us that queer people (and queer films) didn’t just come on the scene – they’ve been here since the beginning. Below, I’ve highlighted 30 great personalities of the last century, not so much to prove that each of them broke new ground after graduation (although many did), but to illustrate that queer talent was on display both before and after. back camera from the early days of the medium.
Instead of listing all the great films with LGBTQ+ themes and characters, I decided to focus on some of the less popular films that are just as good (or even better) than the more famous favorites.
Michael (1924)
Carl Theodor Dreyer, best known for his 1928 masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc , brought a similar visual ingenuity to his earlier Michael , the story of a love triangle between a sculptor, his model (named Michael) and the sculptor’s longtime love. suffering friend. It’s a doomed romance, but not because of some moralizing about M4M’s love. This is a story about not being able to see what is right in front of you.
Digital rental: Kino Now
Madchen in uniform (1931)
The story of a troubled schoolgirl, Manuela (Gert Thiele), who quickly becomes a teacher at her all-girls school, Mädchen in uniform, takes place at a turning point in German history: Paragraph 175, which bans homosexuality, was repealed a couple of years earlier. and what would later be seen as the “decadent” Weimar era was in full swing. With queer women behind the camera and lots of on-screen lesbian angst and kissing, the film was a hit in much of Europe, and lobbying from no less than Eleanor Roosevelt ensured the American audience saw the film (a detail I adore). . This is a beautifully realized film about a romantic pursuit that never turns into a melodrama; it also invites us to imagine what kinds of female-centric films we might have if there were more women behind the camera in the golden age of Hollywood.
Where to stream: Plex Rent digitally: Kino Now
Queen Christina (1933)
However, we choose to define Greta Garbo’s sex and sexuality in real life: some say that a bisexual is closest to the truth, others say that she is a lesbian; she called herself male most of the time and signed letters “Harry” so there are a lot of layers – there’s no doubt her gender-fluid portrayal on screen in roles that were at least bisexual made her a huge box-office hit. draw. in a completely different era. She plays an unconventional bisexual Swedish queen involved not only in government affairs but also in romances with co-stars John Gilbert and Elizabeth Young. On top of everything else, this is a beautiful historical novel about a powerful, complex woman with a killer (and oft mentioned) final shot.
Where to stream: Follow Max
Our Best (1933)
This relatively early film by George Cukor isn’t too weird, though its satirical tale of a woman who sets off for sexual freedom when she discovers her husband has no interest in keeping their marriage vows certainly predates The Code . It’s funny and quirky, but stands out with supporting character Ernest (Tyrell Davis). He is in every sense a traditional comedic pansy, except that he is also the most poignant character in the movie, the one everyone else on screen is obsessed with. When the two main characters reconcile in the last act, he even puts a button on the plot with a comment about how much he enjoys watching society ladies kiss.
Where to stream: Internet Archive
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
While I’m trying to avoid queer coding in favor of films with overt queer characters and content, doing so has become increasingly difficult in the so-called golden age of Hollywood, when the rules explicitly forbade such things. However, there are too many gay people in Bride of Frankenstein to ignore. The plot revolves around the superbly flamboyant Dr. Septimus Praetorius (Ernest Thesiger), Victor Frankenstein’s mentor from his school days, who breaks in on the eve of Victor’s wedding night to drag him away (only mild persuasion is required) so they can run some experiments to determine if they can live together. With a storyline like this and a queer rep on and off the camera , this is a true gay fever dream.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Redbox , Vudu
Rope (1948)
Although Hitchcock’s adaptation of the play of the same name does not explicitly refer to the sexuality of the main characters (which was unacceptable at the time), the director was never afraid to push the homosexual overtones to the very edge, and the viewer should be protected enough to see the prim, fastidious killers of Brandon and Phillip ( John Dall and Farley Granger) are just roommates. The limited setting and experimental filming style didn’t quite sit well with Hitchcock, but the claustrophobic atmosphere and poignant dialogue add to the tension.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Redbox , Vudu
Song of Love (1950)
Two prisoners are tormented by a prison guard’s voyeur in a Jean Genet short film full of homoerotic imagery that may be less shocking in 2023 but no less effective. The two never touch except in a fantasy sequence, but the two men sharing some of the smoke from the same cigarette remains one of the hottest images in cinema. You can also find a movie called Song of Love .
Where to stream: Subscribe to Mubi
Olivia (1951)
Unavailable for decades, Olivia is almost shockingly straightforward: in a nutshell, the premise involves an all-girls school divided into cliques whose loyalties are vying for those of the lesbian couple who run everything. The student-teacher angle worries modern people, but it’s not exactly a lewd film, despite the setting. This is a coming-of-age story that cleverly tells the story of how we have to choose the person we want to be despite being constantly pulled in different directions.
Digital rental: Apple TV+
Tea and Sympathy (1956)
Dealing with the same issues of masculinity as other films of the era (think Rebel Without a Cause ), Tea and Sympathy is a clumsy, gripping look at 1950s homosexual ideas. Tom Robinson Lee (John Kerr) is the new kid at an all-boys prep school filled with gay overtones (think of how other boys like to rough-and-tumble and idolize their coach – it’s so blunt it seems very, very gay). Tom is a shy and fake reader, a homosexual who is bullied by his more outspoken male classmates, who strikes up a friendship with the headmaster’s wife who becomes romantic. It’s all fascinating, even if it doesn’t stand up to rigorous analysis, and director Vincente Minelli definitely knows how to make a compelling film.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu
Suddenly Last Summer (1959)
This crazy southern gothic mystery (from a play by Tennessee Williams) tells the story of a young man, the son of the famous Katharine Hepburn Violet Venable, who dies under mysterious circumstances while on holiday in Spain. Although Violet was happy to be his partner, helping him meet other men for sexual encounters, she is less interested in letting the world know exactly how he died. She’s perfectly happy to lobotomize one of her son’s good friends, just to make sure; it’s a wild time, all the way to an unforgettable finale.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu
Taste of Honey (1961)
When 17-year-old Jo (Rita Tushingham) becomes pregnant by a sailor (he’s long gone by the time she realizes this), she can’t turn to her needy alcoholic mother for comfort. Instead, she finds herself in the arms of Jeff (the great Murray Melvin), a gay textile student and the most helpful character in the entire movie. It was shocking at the time, not only for having a gay character in it, but also for its gritty realism, which made it a brilliant taste of what was to come.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max , Subscribe to The Criterion channel
Victim (1961)
Not only does Dirk Bogarde (then secretive) play one of the first bisexual characters in film, he is also the hero of the story, and completely sympathetic (if the victim , as the title suggests). Bogarde, a successful London lawyer (sorry: barrister ) who is being blackmailed for his casual sexual encounters with a male friend. It’s a milestone in the treatment of queer characters, but just as important, it’s intense and compelling neo-noir, energetically directed by veteran Basil Dearden.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max , Subscribe to The Criterion channel
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
At the height of the Japanese New Wave, writer and director Toshio Matsumoto created this classic, which combines ultra-realism with mesmerizingly beautiful, sometimes psychedelic imagery. The plot takes inspiration from the story of Oedipus Rex and inverts it, seamlessly blending the mythical with the mundane, following Eddie (Shinnosuke Ikehata) and other transgender women in swinging 1960s Tokyo.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Night Flight Plus
Boys in the Band (1970)
William Friedkin ( The French Connections , The Exorcist ) is directing a film adaptation of a controversial off-Broadway play that is controversial due to every character being gay or bisexual and controversial among queer audiences due to the fact that its characters are often portrayed as self-hating and self-hating. – regret. It’s not exactly an uplifting portrait of a gay man in America, but it captures something real, though not always pretty. The performance is almost always great, and if it plays the part of the pre-liberation period, there are many other aspects that still seem, unfortunately, relevant. (The play is still staged, and just a couple of years ago , Netflix released a new version .)
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu
Women’s Issues (1974)
At the center of John Waters’ so-called Garbage Trilogy trilogy was Women’s Trouble , in which Devine played juvenile delinquent Dawn Davenport, whose quest for cha-cha heels leads her down a path of filth and misery more than worthy of (and highly inspired by) Gorgeous Hollywood melodrama. Pink flamingos may be mentioned more often, but nothing in the work of John Waters compares to the excitement of Dawn on Christmas morning. Women’s Trouble is the best and most complete film of the director’s early twisted era.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Vudu
Dog Afternoon (1975)
Al Pacino and the late great John Cazale (who never made a bad movie) play Sonny and Sal, aspiring bank robbers based on two real-life men . Sonny is desperate for money to pay for his trans wife’s gender reassignment surgery, so he plans a heist with friend Sal, resulting in a brutal fiasco. With an eye on queer liberation, the film tackles the failures of the counterculture while gleefully showing its nose to the cops. It’s a terrific heist movie – one of the best films of its era – and it doesn’t look down on either its protagonist’s bisexuality or his marriage to a trans woman.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max Rent digitally: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu , Redbox
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Despite the fact that most of the cast is straight, Rocky Horror has gone from being a cult classic to a rite of passage for your gays, full of gleeful over-the-top characters who either start out as sex-gender fluid or end up there. It survived because it’s so much fun (even if, or maybe because the plot makes little to no sense) and because it somehow also caught on among regular viewers who want to take a walk on the wild side for a few hours, with Brad and Janet. serve as their capable guides. If they can let their hair down and have some fun with Dr. Frank-N-Furter and the gang, maybe there is hope for this world.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu , Redbox
Desert Hearts (1985)
After the comparatively more progressive 1970s, the 1980s was an era when queer films were either justifiably about HIV/AIDS or all about gay/bisexual serial killers (” Dressed to Kill “, “Cruises “, etc.) . Desert Hearts counters both of these film trends. the best ways. Vivian (Helen Shaver), an English professor facing a divorce, meets Kay (Patricia Charbonneau), an uninhibited sculptor, at a ranch in Reno. While Vivian struggles a bit with unexpected lesbian attraction, the romantic drama eschews tragedy entirely.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max , Subscribe to The Criterion Digital Rentals: Prime Video , Apple TV+
My Beautiful Laundromat (1985)
An early triumph of intersectionality, this adaptation of Hanif Kaueisha’s novel introduces Omar (Gordon Warneke), the new owner of a seedy laundromat, who rekindles a relationship with his Nazi ex-boyfriend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). ). It’s a great film about class and racism that gives a vivid portrait of life in the 1980s of the Thatcher/Reagan era. It’s also a novel that suggests that there is hope for righting the wrongs of the past, while at the same time reminding us that forgiveness is never guaranteed.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max Rent Digitally: Prime Video , Apple TV+
Paris is on fire (1990)
Ball game culture is still very strong among us, both in its purest form in major American cities and as a result of expanding into the mainstream (more or less) thanks to RuPaul’s Drag Race . “Paris Is Burning” captured the joys and sorrows of a certain moment (New York City in the late 1980s) when black and Hispanic gays, transgenders and genderqueers burned the scenes in what appeared to be the golden age of drag queens, even in the face of racism, poverty, violence against transgender people and HIV/AIDS ruined their lives. In some ways, this is a magnificent document from a bygone era; in other respects, good and bad, it seems entirely appropriate in our modern age. When you’re done here, watch 2016’s Kiki , a more recent documentary that updates the history of ballroom culture (what has changed and what hasn’t).
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max , Subscribe to The Criterion Channel Dent Digitally: Apple TV+
Living End (1992)
New Queer Cinema pioneer Gregg Araki’s most famous film is probably Mysterious Skin , but his angry, free-spirited early work Living End is the purest expression of his talent as a director. After surviving a decade in which queer people were demonized (even more than usual) and then ignored when faced with the plague, Araki responded with a primal scream in which a pair of HIV-positive vagrants killed a homophobic cop and flew off on a “fuck”. all” – themed travel.
Where to stream: Kanopy Rent digital: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu
Geoffrey (1995)
Although his synopsis is more about finding love and overcoming the fear of death (HIV/AIDS takes center stage), there is something joyful, eccentric about Jeffrey that is understandably lacking in most of the many other films that deal with AIDS. primary topic. It’s a charming (and sex-positive) romantic comedy with likeable leads by Steven Weber and Michael T. Weiss and a gripping cameo by Patrick Stewart.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Peacock Rent digitally: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Vudu
Watermelon Woman (1996)
Cheryl Danier’s low-budget romantic comedy was deserving of a cultural impact as significant as that era’s other independent video store hit, Clerks , but instead had to settle for cult status. Danier plays herself as an aspiring director and a young black lesbian who explores the life of a fictional film mom from the golden age of Hollywood known as the Watermelon Woman. In addition to being really funny and down-to-earth, the movie has a lot of smart things to say and smart questions to ask about queer black people’s lives and experiences.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Paramount+ with Showtime.
Happy Together (1997)
The elliptical storytelling and deliberate pacing may have put some viewers off, but Wong Kar-wai’s candid tale of a gay couple (played by Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) who travel from Hong Kong to Argentina to save even an abusive relationship is a poetic triumph. . Don’t let the title fool you: the two aren’t really supposed to be together, but the performances are mesmerizing and Wong’s style is as beautiful as it is unforgettable.
Where to stream: Follow Max
All About My Mother (1999)
Thanks to the New Queer Cinema movement, the 90s were an absolute golden age for films with LGBTQ+ themes, often with righteous anger at the repressive, almost genocidal 80s as a driving force. On the other hand, Pedro Almodovar’s films do something different: they are colorful and joyful, although they speak of unpleasant truths. Here, grieving mother Manuela embarks on a journey to find her son’s father, Lola, a transgender woman who doesn’t even know she has a son. Along the way, she meets her old friend Agrado, a trans sex worker who, among the film’s many eclectic characters, serves as Manuela’s mainstay and the most fully realized person in the film.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , Redbox
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Instead of describing this movie about a genderqueer German rock singer whose botched sex change operation left them with a titled evil inch, I’ll just sing the entire soundtrack from start to finish. Such is the impact of the film on me and on a huge number of other people.
Digital rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , Redbox
Weekend (2011)
Andrew Hay’s romantic drama about two strangers who spend an titular weekend together is so naturalistic it almost feels like a documentary. It conveys a sense of contemporary relationships (even short-term ones) that still feel fresh even after more than a decade.
Where to stream: Subscribe to The Criterion Channel , Subscribe to AMC+ Digital Rental: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Google Play
Outcast (2011)
De Reese brings a confident style to Pariah , not to mention a stunningly beautiful visual style that makes the film unlike any other film. It’s a vibrant and deeply personal coming-of-age and coming-out story that never feels like a lesbian movie, signaling a new era of more complex storytelling centered on queer characters.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Prime Video Rent digitally: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , Redbox
Mandarin (2015)
This is probably the most hilarious thing you’ll ever get when you watch a girlfriend/buddy/revenge comedy movie about two trans sex workers on the hunt for a man who did wrong to one of them. As sincere and wild as he is, he firmly places us in a cinematic era where more and more complex weirdos make their way to the screens. Shot on a pair of iPhones, director Sean Baker and company celebrate the intimacy and immediacy that modern technology can bring.
Where to stream: Subscribe to Max Rent digitally: Prime Video , Apple TV+ , Google Play , Vudu , Redbox
Knife+Heart (2018)
Bird deeds take place on the set of a French gay erotic film during this ultra-steel, colorful, psychedelic tribute not only to the Italian gielli of the past, but to the golden age of porn in the 1970s.
Where to stream: Subscribe Shudder , Subscribe AMC+ , Tubi , Freevee Digital Rentals: Amazon Prime
Best streaming services to watch movies: