Staff-Picked LGBTQ+ Films
The LGBTQ+ film canon is educational, intimate, provocative, and influential in ways unlike any other. As a traditionally underground genre only now burgeoning in mainstream cinema, LGBTQ+ film has a peculiar duality in which some of its best titles are critically acclaimed, while some others are entirely unknown. It can then prove difficult to not only navigate this treasure trove of films but to encounter them in the first place. So, in honor of this celebratory month and the historic events of this very day 52 years ago, we have selected our favorite LGBTQ+ films to share with you. We believe they should be watched, cherished, and celebrated not only this month, but year round. Happy Pride and happy viewing!
1. Paris is Burning (1990)
A staple in queer/QPOC cinema studies as well as documentary filmmaking, Paris is Burning is an eye-opening, entertaining, and heart-wrenching open door to a world unbeknownst to most of us. Captured throughout the late 1980s in New York City, the film rightfully humanizes a group violently marginalized and misunderstood. They are not just a bunch of gregarious queens, they are people — some even children — who want love, acceptance, success and security just like everyone else.
2. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
If you still don’t understand what “camp” is after the 2019 Met Gala, watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch, then you’ll get it. This hilariously tragic camp rock musical (no not the DCOM with Demi Lovato) about an East Berlin emigrant on the most pathetic tour of the U.S. is so sharp, you might cut yourself. Seriously, the humor is impeccably timed and the songs surprisingly poetic, all set within a paradoxical mise-en-scène of fantastical realism. Big shout out to my musical film professor for putting it on our syllabus and thus bringing my attention to this gem of a film. Also many kudos to John Cameron Mitchell of whom Hedwig is entirely a product of his own creative genius.
3. A Single Man (2009)
The directorial debut of designer Tom Ford is essentially a mid-century modern dream. However, beyond its aesthetic beauty, the performance of Colin Firth captures the painstaking isolation of loss, heightened by a depth of love invisible to everyone else, even those closest to you. A Single Man makes known the distinction between human interaction and human connection. This is what love is truly founded in; attraction occurs between souls first, and bodies second.
Bonuses that really resonated with me included the cheek of George’s (Ford’s) sartorial detail, Charley’s eye makeup, and her love for gin — Tanqueray to be specific.
4. Before Stonewall (1984)
The riots at Stonewall Inn on the fateful night of June 27, 1969 were a watershed moment in gay liberation, but that is not to say gay life and activism did not exist prior to it. The LGBTQ+ community has had an enduring existence in history in all places. Before Stonewall shares an incredible collection of archival footage ranging from interviews to home videos which allow a multi-perspective understanding of the gay community’s struggle for existence and individual journeys of identity before the more conspicuous activism galvanized by Stonewall.
5. The Celluloid Closet (1995)
And one more, final documentary a bit more on the lighthearted side is The Celluloid Closet. Rob Epstein is arguably the foremost director of gay film, especially documentary (The Times of Harvey Milk, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, and Paragraph 175 to name a few) so it is unsurprising that he is that man behind this thoroughly enjoyable film. Anyone like myself who is a huge fan of early cinema will revel in the dissection of sexuality in Hollywood narratives with insights by notable actors including Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Tony Curtis, and Shirley MacLaine.
1. Paris is Burning (1990)
Callie already listed this but when she’s right she’s right! I second her.
2. But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
If you think Kafka is funny, laughed out loud during Harold and Maude, enjoyed the aesthetic of Edward Scissorhands, and have always wanted to see RuPaul teach boys how to conform to gender norms by working on a car or chopping wood, then this is the movie for you. Natasha Lyonne shines as Megan, a girl who’s interest in vegetarianism and her follow cheerleaders combined with her distinct lack of interesting in kissing her boyfriend, lead her friends and family to suspect that she is a lesbian. This sparks her parents, with none other than Bud Cort as her dad, to arrange an intervention that results in a her send off to conversion camp so she might be cured of her homosexuality. The movie follows Megan and her fellow “campers’’ as they grapple with the absurdity of social construction, gender norms, and the idea of “converting” to a different identity. While the dark reality of conversion therapy is often harrowing and traumatic, as we’ve seen in recent films like Boy Erased, any authority it may hold is made impotent by But I’m a Cheerleader’s candy-colored satire deployed with razor-sharp precision. Pointed and laugh out loud funny, there’s a reason why this movie is a cult classic. You just have to watch it.
3. Rent (2005)
For so many people like me, Christopher Columbus’s 2005 cinematic adaptation of the musical Rent is the only reason I know how many minutes there are in a year and that the East Village was once the capital of La Vie Boheme. Through some incessantly catchy refrains, Rent was able to show young suburbanite kids like me that there was an entirely different world, path, what have you, that existed beyond the borders of the strip mall on Rt. 202. Having an introduction to that world is what ultimately led me, and my friends, to look and engage with other content. It’s baby’s first Paris is Burning and a gateway musical gateway for theater kids everywhere.
4. Philadelphia (1993)
Philadelphia is truly a landmark piece of cinema, in more ways than one. Maybe it’s because I’m from Philadelphia, but this movie as an experience just hits different when you consider the context of its release. Premiering in December of 1993, literally a year after AIDS becomes the number one cause of death of men 22–44 in the U.S., it is first big-budget Hollywood film to formally recognize homosexuality, homophobia and the HIV/AIDs epidemic. It follows Andy Beckett (Tom Hanks) as he sues his former employer for discrimination when he is fired after exhibiting Kaposi’s sarcoma, a distinctive purple skin blotch and a telltale symptom of AIDS. Debuting only 6 months after his iconic role in Sleepless in Seattle, Tom Hanks is perfectly cast as Beckett, an everyman who defies the typical and biased expectation at the time, ultimately earning Hanks his first Academy Award for Best Actor. But the film’s impact doesn’t stop there. During his Oscar’s acceptance speech, Hanks actually inadvertently outed his high school drama teacher, inspiring another great LBGTQ+ classic, In & Out.
5. We Were Here (2011)
I don’t have a lot to say about this one except that it is one of the most heart wrenching, beautiful and tragic documentaries I have ever watched on the AIDS crisis. It’s hard to imagine this time in American history since it’s discussed so little in contemporary conversations about gay rights, but I often imagine what the world might have been like had the generation of LBGTQA+ kids raised in the aughts had the role models they should have had but who ultimately succumbed to this virus. Through discrimination and government neglect, an entire generation disappeared and another was robbed of any forward momentum they might have had. It’s an important part of our collective history that must not be forgotten by anyone.
1. Beginners (2010)
Looking for a cinematic roadmap for handling the unexpected coming out of someone close to you? Say hi to Mike Mills’ intensely personal dramedy Beginners. Based on Mills’ experiences with his father coming out to him late in life, Beginners is a soulful, deliriously astute warm-fuzzy of a film with heart, wit, and wisdom to burn. It also manages to avoid pulling even a single emotional punch in service of a messagey story that doesn’t feel at all messagey. And as for Christopher Plummer’s heart-rending turn as the elderly, out-and-proud father, it simply cannot be praised enough.
2. Carol (2015)
With titles like Velvet Goldmine and Far From Heaven to his credit, Todd Haynes has long been at the forefront of LBGTQ+ cinema. It’s sort of fitting then that he eventually delivered one of the genre’s legitimate masterpieces in Carol. Make no mistake, with its lavish cinematography, lush original score, and show-stopping performances, this soul-stirring tale of an aspiring young photographer’s (Rooney Mara) burgeoning relationship with an older New York socialite (Cate Blanchett) is the very definition of masterpiece. This is the movie Todd Haynes should’ve won a Best Director Oscar for… if only he’d been nominated.
3. My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Speaking of directors who should’ve won at least one Oscar by now, arthouse icon Gus Van Sant is very much on that list. And he probably should’ve won for his third feature, 1991’s astoundingly assured My Own Private Idaho. That film found Van Sant loosely adapting Shakespeare, and putting star-crossed male hustlers (Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix) front and center for a high-concept road movie about make-shift families and love unrequited steeped in vivid imagery and soul-baring scripting, and fronting arguably the best performances of either Reeves’ or Phoenix’s careers.
4. Bound (1996)
The Wachowski sisters have never shied away from fronting LGBTQ+ characters in their deliriously pulpy cinematic fantasias, and that’s been true since their directorial debut Bound. This hyper-stylish heist flick found the Wachowskis at their pulpy best, pitting Gina Gershon as Corky, a tough ex-con who, along with her new lover Violet (Jennifer Tilly) hatch a plan to boost millions from Violet’s mob-launderer beau (Joe Pantoliano). Funny, sexy, and thrilling in all the right ways, Bound probably should’ve been a mainstream hit for action-forward queer cinema, but has largely lived in the iconic shadow of the Wachowski’s followup, The Matrix.
5. The Birdcage (1996)
I’m not gonna waste time trying to convince you that The Birdcage is not only one of the funniest movies ever made, but a legitimate landmark moment for the representation of gay characters in cinema. If you’ve seen The Birdcage, you know how funny, and heartfelt, and wickedly insightful it is. Circa 1996, it was also likely the first time many mainstream viewers had been so directly exposed to LGBTQ+ characters and culture. That fact alone makes The Birdcage worthy of inclusion on this list. And did I mention how utterly fucking hilarious this movie is?
