Showing love for the LGBTQIA+ community isn’t a once a year thing, and these movies should become part of your lineup long after Pride Month. If you’re not into joining the crowds partying in the streets or in da club, that’s okay, you can celebrate right from your couch. Enter the queer-themed movie marathon.
At a time when trans rights are more fragile than ever and the queer community is under attack, we need stories that show the humanity, resilience, strength, vulnerability, joy, and everything in between of queer folks.
The films on this list unravel the broad categorization of a community that is so much more than stereotypes and an acronym by telling the stories of LGBTQ+ individuals. They depict aging lovers who’ve weathered decades together; activists fighting for change in their communities; kids on the cusp of self-discovery; men trapped in unhappy marriages; long-time partners getting hitched at last, and more.
Each of these movies is merely a drop in the bucket of stories worth sharing and celebrating.
This film by Hayley Kiyoko is in theaters June 19. Based on writer/director Kiyoko’s hit single and best-selling novel of the same name, GIRLS LIKE GIRLS is a heartfelt coming-of-age story set over the course of one sun-drenched summer, where new-girl-in-town Coley falls in love for the first time while learning to accept herself along the way.
was one of the best movies of 2024, and it depicts the trans experience through a horror lens. The film follows Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven) as they become entranced by a TV show called The Pink Opaque. Director and writer Jane Shoebrun started writing I Saw The TV Glow during her transition.
In Bottoms, Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott star in one of the best satirical teen comedies we’ve seen in years. It follows two unpopular queer high school friends who form a fight club to get closer to their crushes, who just happen to be cheerleaders.
The Parenting is a meet-the-parents comedy crossed with a haunted house horror film. When Rohan (Nik Dodani) and Josh (Brandon Flynn) introduce their parents during a country getaway, they discover their rental is haunted by a poltergeist. Rohan and Josh realise they need to unite their parents, Sharon (Edie Falco), Frank (Brian Cox), Liddy (Lisa Kudrow) and Cliff (Dean Norris) to survive the bizarre situation.
The Wedding Banquet is a remake of the 1993 film of the same name, directed by Andrew Anh. A gay couple offer to pay for IVF treatments for their lesbian friends, in exchange for a green-card marriage. Starring Kelly Marie Tran, Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone and Han Gi-Chan, this dramedy perfectly balances emotion with comedy.
This heartwarming film touches on themes of family, culture and acceptance. It follows Indian man Naveen (Karan Soni), who brings his white fiancé Jay (Jonathan Groff) back to meet his traditional family. Chaos ensues, including a hard-to-watch scene involving a marijuana pen in a bathroom. It follows the rom-com formula to a tee, but it’s cosy and a must-watch.
While Everything Everywhere All At Once is a sci-fi, timey-wimey comedy about universe hopping, what makes it shine is the way that it tackles intergenerational trauma. It shows how queerness can sometimes strain familial relationships and has you tearing up thanks to its beauty (and also its silliness).
Inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Fire Island follows a group of queer besties who get together in Fire Island Pines for their annual week of loooooove. But a sudden change of events might make this their last summer in gay paradise.
This period drama follows a female painter who is commissioned to paint a portrait of a young aristocratic woman. Soon, their slow burn of a friendship transforms into a passionate love affair.
The second feature from Emma Seligman (Bottoms) and Rachel Sennott (also Bottoms), Shiva Baby follows a queer college student as she runs into both her sugar daddy and her ex-girlfriend at a shiva. It’s ridiculously funny and messy, and you’ll be nervous laughing from start to finish.
From South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Old Boy, Decision To Leave) comes the historical erotic psychological thriller (yes, all of those), The Handmaiden. It follows a Japanese woman who hires a handmaiden, unaware that her employee is trying to cheat her out of her wealth. In the queer department, the film shows a forbidden romance between the heiress and the peasant maid.
In three parts, this Best Picture winner directed by Barry Jenkins looks at Chiron’s journey to self-discovery from boyhood (Alex Hibbert) through puberty (Ashton Sanders) and adulthood (Trevante Rhodes). Keep the tissues close.
Alike (Adepero Oduye) knows that she’s a lesbian. But she’s not ready to assert her identity amid the dynamics of her family. Her parents, police officer Arthur (Charles Parnell) and pious stay-at-home-mom Audrey (Kim Wayans), have suspected their daughter was queer, but choose to let the subject fester, unacknowledged. Alike is tired of hiding — especially since she met a girl she likes. “I am not broken. I am free,” she reads in a poem, summing up the spirit of this coming of age story.
In this Gus Van Sant movie, not a cult classic, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves play teenage prostitutes who bond with each other on a trip from Idaho to Italy. Phoenix’s Mike Waters is poor and narcoleptic, whereas Reeves’s Scott Favor is more privileged — he turns to hustling in an act of rebellion from his rich Portland family. No matter what feelings brew between then, Scott insists he only sleeps with men for the money. The movie is brimming with desire that can’t, or won’t, be acted on.
The film starring Search Party’s Alia Shawkat is about the extremest of intimacy tests. After meeting at a club, two women decide to have sex every hour on the hour for a full 24 hours.
Marina (Daniela Vega) and Orlando (Francisco Reyes), Marina’s senior by 30 years, are very happy together. Tragically, Orlando falls ill and passes away suddenly. When Marina meets Orlando’s family, they’re fixated on her identity as a trans woman. She’s shut out from mourning her lover alongside his family. After her tremendous performance, you will not be forgetting Daniela Vega anytime soon.
There’s a reason why everyone is talking incessantly about Call Me By Your Name. It’s a transportive, moving story about the kind of pure and profound relationship we spend our lives hoping we experience at some point. You will be hoping Elio (Timothée Chalemet) and Oliver’s (Armie Hammer) summer in Northern Italy lasts forever, for their sake.
When drag-queen Anthony (Hugo Weaving) is offered to take his show to Alice Springs, a town in the middle of the Outback, he persuades his two best friends and fellow performers to come along. Together, the three set forth on their journey in a bus they call “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” What Adam (Guy Pearce) and Bernadette (Terence Stamp) don’t know is that Anthony was offered the role by his estranged ex-wife. Once the tour bus gets to Alice Springs, Anthony will be faced with the family he left behind.
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the late Michelle Trachtenberg and Brady Corbet, Mysterious Skin is one of Gregg Araki’s best of new queer cinema. It follows a kid who becomes enamoured with UFOs, while another becomes a sex worker in the years following a shared childhood trauma. Warning: this one is a devastating watch.
Rarely does a documentary provide such a fascinating, holistic lens into a counterculture. Filmmaker Jennie Livingston followed the queer people of color and trans people who formed the back bone of New York’s drag balls in the ’80s and ’90s. While the scenes of voguing are great, so are the documentary’s ruthless critique of class, gender, and capitalism, that still hold up almost three decades later.
In a rough neighborhood of London, Omar (Gordon Warnecke) inherits a laundromat from his uncle. Then, a gang of racist punks assault Omar. One gang happens to be Omar’s ex-lover, Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis), whose life had gone awry after their breakup. They rekindle their relationship and get the laundromat fixed up — it’s Johnny and Omar against the world. This gem of a film also features the best ear lick in cinematic history.
Based on the book of the same name, Red, White and Royal Blue is perfect if you’re after a feel-good queer film. It follows Alex, the first son of the United States and Henry, the Prince of England, who, despite their differences, fall in love. However, the two of them need to juggle their high-profile lives and keep their relationship a secret.
You may not think that gay rights activists and coal miners go hand-in-hand, especially considering today’s political climate.
But in 1984, a group of English gays and lesbians realized they shared a common enemy with striking coal miners: Thatcher, the conservative press, and the police. So, a group of LGBT Londoners travels to Whales and lends their aid to the miners — who, at first, are reluctant to have them. Uplifting, heartwarming, and bursting with your favorite British actors, Pride depicts the initial founding of a movement that would go on to have real political reverberations in the U.K.
After 20 years as a couple, Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening) have one of those quirky, wonderful households bursting with warmth. But when their two teenage kids get the bright idea to contact their birth donor and invite him over, their family will be tested and redefined.
Bros tells the love story of Bobby and Aaron. Bobby (Billy Eichner) is a 40-something slightly neurotic New York-based podcast host who’s never been in a serious relationship. On a night out, he meets the hunky, Garth Brooks-loving lawyer Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) and the two enter a complicated relationship. As well as representing queer love, Bros also has an all-LGBTQI cast. It’s so refreshing to see a queer relationship be depicted on screen by queer people.
In 1963, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) learn that a lot can happen between two cowboys during the long, cold months on the range. Their love for each other runs deep — deep enough to endure 20 years of unhappy marriages, sporadic encounters, and constant longing. Meet the most tear-jerking, epic love story since Titanic.
Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) finds her little life greatly expanded when, one day, rich housewife Carol (Cate Blanchett) bursts into the department store where Therese works. Amidst 1950s rigid notions of conventionality, Carol and Therese act upon their instant chemistry. And though you came for the love story, you’ll stay for the exquisite sets and artistry of the film itself.
Welcome to a world where the rules don’t apply. It’s the year 1600, and nobleman Orlando (Tilda Swinton) struts about, asserting his power and masculinity through affairs and adventures. But one fine day in the 1700s, Orlando wakes up transformed into a woman. When Lady Orlando returns home, she’ll struggle to hold onto her ancestral land, just because she’s a woman.
Orlando may sound gimmicky, but before you judge, remember it’s based on a Virginia Woolf novel of the same name. You may be surprised to learn the progressive source material was written in 1928, since both the novel and film playfully explore gender identity with nuance and humor.
This modern-day Cyrano story stars Leah Lewis as Ellie Chu, an introverted teen who agrees to write a love letter for a jock (Daniel Diemer) who, well, doesn’t quite have a way with words — so he can give it to the girl he likes (Alexxis Lemire). However, Chu doesn’t expect to become his friend — or fall for the girl she’s ghostwriting to.
One-night stands aren’t supposed to get serious. But what happens when they do? Maybe if Russell had gone home, instead of going to a gay club and meeting Glen, he wouldn’t have to find out. As it is, Russell has to contend with the fact that something is growing between the two, whether or not they take it seriously.
Most Americans probably hadn’t heard of Harvey Milk before the acclaimed biopic shook up awards season in 2008. Based on a true story, Milk tracks the journey of the first openly gay American elected to public office. At the age of 40, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) move from New York to San Francisco, where he and his lover open a small camera store. With the support of his new activist friends, Milk plunges into the world of politics, where his career (and destiny) will become intertwined with another San Francisco supervisor, Dan White.
Many of the movies on this list are critically beloved indie movies that came out in limited release. In that regard, Love, Simon stands apart from the rest. Love, Simon is the first Hollywood studio movie to focus on a gay teen romance. In the movie, high school senior Simon Spiers (Nick Robinson) tries to find the right time to come out to his friends and family, but a classmate who found out his secret might beat him to it. Meanwhile, Simon and another classmate are wrapped up in an online correspondence about their sexual identity — but neither knows who the other is.
Tangerine initially generated buzz because it was shot entirely on iPhone 5 cameras, but that’s not what garnered the gritty indie amazing reviews. After a 28-day stint in prison, Sin-Dee Rella, a transgender sex worker, discovers that her boyfriend (and pimp) Chester has been cheating on her with a cisgender woman. When Sin-Dee and her friend Alexandra hit the streets of L.A. to find Chester, drama is close behind.
After 40 years together, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) decide to take advantage of the recently passed New York state law legalizing same-sex marriage. Soon after their wedding, the Catholic school where George teaches music fire him, disapproving of his marriage. Without George’s income, the couple is unable to pay for their brand-new apartment, and must split up to live in two different friends’ houses.
Amid the social turmoil of ‘60s and ‘70s Sri Lanka, a young boy discovers his sexuality. His journey to self-acceptance in this Deepa Mehta-directed film based on the 1994 novel of the same name isn’t easy, but thanks to his aunty, he realizes that you can’t mess with a grand diva.
In a remote station on the Lebanese border, Yossi, a commanding officer, begins an affair with Jagger, one of his soldiers. The lovers don’t just have the watchful, suspicious eyes of other soldiers to contend with: When a colonel announces a forthcoming attack, Yossi and Jagger’s bond will be tested by war, too.
For 31 years, Stella and Dot were a rip-roaring, fun-loving couple. Now, well into their 70s, Stella is almost deaf and Dot is legally blind. After Dot’s granddaughter decides to put her in a nursing home, the couple escapes from the home and runs off to Canada to get married so they can stay together. Their trip goes astray when they pick up a hitchhiking drifter running away from problems of his own.
A Netflix documentary produced by Laverne Cox that shows the history of trans representation in film and TV. It’s cliché to say something is “required viewing,” but that’s the best way to sum up Disclosure. This documentary tracks Hollywood’s failure to accurately represent transgender people dating back to the beginning of cinema with racist and transphobic filmmaker D.W. Griffith all the way up to present day’s celebration of transgender and non-binary characters like Jules in Euphoria, Taylor on Billions, and the wonderful cast of Pose.
Honestly, who allowed Beanie Feldstein and Kathryn Dever to be this funny and beautiful? Senior year is donezo and these matching jumpsuit-wearing besties are trying to make up for lost time, that includes Dever’s Amy trying to hook up with her crush. Gotta love a teen movie that includes a realistic same-sex love scene — even when it doesn’t go quite as well as expected.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
