Thanks largely to the inclusive efforts of indie studios, LGBTQ+ cinema has seen some incredible and brilliant original stories that tug at the heartstrings and also give way to some of the most compelling performances. A24 in the last few years alone has been responsible for a large portion of the LGBTQ+ films gracing this list.
Whether it be the genres of comedy, drama, romance, or something more surreal and profoundly deep, there are plenty of excellent LGBTQ+ movies to choose from. A lot of the movies also come with the more sorrowful themes of loss and unrequited love, with a few even being based on true stories told by the movie’s writers and directors.
Where To Stream
Ang Lee
Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini
2005
88%
7.7
VOD
Based on the short story by author Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain is about two Wyoming cowboys who end up falling in love on the titular mountain while together on a shepherding job. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger playcloseted gay coupleJack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, who have a love that continues to grow, despite both men eventually settling down with their wives.
Brokeback Mountain won three Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score, andshould’ve also received Best Picture. The performances are phenomenal by all the actors, and the story is heartbreaking and full of dramatic turns, but also one with plenty of beautiful moments shared between Jack and Ennis.
Jonathan Demme
Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, Jason Robards, Joanne Woodward, Mary Steenburgen
1993
81%
One of the earliest and most important LGBTQ+ movies from Hollywood, Philadelphia, is from the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme. It won Tom Hanks his first Oscar in what was an emotional and gut-wrenching performance as Andrew Beckett, a gay lawyer sick with AIDS, suing his law firm for discrimination and wrongful termination.
Drawing from real-life stories, Philadelphia presents a legal drama that calls attention to the tragic AIDS epidemic while also touching upon the surrounding stigmas. Taking on Beckett’s case is Denzel Washington’s Joe Miller, a homophobic colleague who manages to put aside his differences in pursuit of justice and eventually becomes good friends with Beckett.
Barry Jenkins
Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monáe
2016
98%
7.4
Cinemax
Moonlight is an LGBTQ+ movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Screenplay and isone of the best A24 filmsof all time. It comes from a semi-autobiographical story by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, written and directed by Barry Jenkins, covering the gripping tale of Chiron, a gay Black man struggling with his sexuality through adolescence and adulthood.
The film does an excellent job of showing you the events and people throughout Chiron’s life that influenced him, including an Oscar-winning performance by Mahershala Ali as his drug dealer mentor, Juan, while also examining the societal and cultural expectations placed on masculinity, especially in the Black community.
Andrew Haigh
Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell, and Carter John Grout
2023
96%
7.6
Based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, All of Us Strangers is one of the most creatively different and truly mind-blowing LGBTQ+ films, starring the duo of Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott as Harry and Adam, two neighbors in an apartment complex who fall in love with each other. But there’s more to the story than that.
All of a sudden, Andrew Scott’s character, Adam, begins to see his parents alive again in his childhood home, despite them being dead for 30 years. There are a lot of emotional and tear-jerking moments that happen between Adam and his parents, especially if you’ve lost a loved one, and a very heartbreaking twist to the love story between Adam and Harry.
All of Us Strangers was nominated for six BAFTA awards and won Film of the Year and LGBTQ+ Film of the Year at the Dorian Awards.
Sean Baker
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Mickey O’Hagan, Karren Karagulian, James Ransone
2015
7.1
HBO Max
Oscar-winning filmmaker Sean Baker is one of the most underrated comedic writers. Before Anora, he made 2015’s Tangerine, a movie entirely shot on an iPhone 5S abouta Black transgender sex workerwho is on the hunt for her pimp lover on Christmas Eve in LA after learning he’d been cheating on her with a white cis female sex worker.
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez as Sin-Dee Rella delivers some of the most hilarious moments. Meanwhile, her best friend and fellow trans sex worker, Alexandra, is trying to stay out of Sin-Dee’s way to focus on her upcoming performance. You also have a married Armenian cab driver, Razmik, who seeks out transgender sex workers. And the stories collide in a donut shop.
Céline Sciamma
Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino, Christel Baras, and Armande Boulanger
2019
97%
8.1
Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire isa Neon filmthat tells an 18th-century tale of forbidden love between a young female painter and her soon-to-be-wedded subject. The young women start their bond as close friends, but they eventually evolve into lovers who tragically can’t continue their relationship.
The movie’s ending is reminiscent of Call Me by Your Name, with a powerful delivery by Adèle Haenel in one of the most heartbreaking scenes that will shatter you. Though the overall story moves quite slowly and with very little happening in some scenes, the cinematography isinfluenced by Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, thereby giving the effect of certain shots being like paintings themselves.
2025
100%
6.8
Netflix
Whilean episode from Black Mirror Season 7, Hotel Reverie runs just shy of 80 minutes, and truly feels like the closest achievement to cinema quality from a TV series. This installment highlights a poignant lesbian romance involving an actress being sent into an AI simulation of an old black-and-white movie and falling for her female co-star.
Through technology called ReDream, famous star Brandy Friday will appear in an AI remake of Hotel Reverie, where all the characters feel alive, and you have to stick to the script to make it out. As always, something happens, which allows Brandy to go off-script and discover love with Emma Corrin’s Dorothy. There are multiple layers, and the story keeps you fully engaged.
2017
95%
7.8
Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood. His Oscar-winning Call Me by Your Name is based on the novel by André Aciman, and it’s a coming-of-age romance about a young boy named Elio living in 1983 Italy who slowly develops feelings for Oliver, an older American man briefly visiting to work on an academic project.
At first, Elio and Oliver have a lot of tension between them. You also learn that Elio has a girl he’s seeing named Marzia. However, the two eventually end up reciprocating their feelings for each other and spend every moment they have left together. And it’s the movie’s painful ending where you truly see why Timotheé Chalamet earned his Oscar nomination.
2022
6.7
Paramount+ with Showtime
The Inspection is one of A24’s most underrated and powerful movies about an LGBTQ+ voice in the US military. It tells director Elegance Bratton’s autobiographical narrative as a gay Black man kicked out by his mom for his sexual identity and recruited to the military, where further persecution results in beatings and a near-death hazing.
In the film, Elegance Bratton’s character is Ellis French, portrayed by Jeremy Pope. It shows how isolating and brutal boot camp is for Ellis, especially without the support of his own mother, fellow army recruits, or his ruthless drill sergeant, but also how he has the strength to not let any of it break him. The ending is incredibly emotional and features a beautiful moment.
2024
77%
6.4
While all the hype in 2024 went to Guadagnino’s Challengers, Queer was arguably an even far greater achievement. Adapting the novel by William S. Burroughs, Queer tells an almost similar narrative to Call Me by Your Name, except following an older gay journalist in 1950s Mexico City who falls in love with a young man named Eugene Allerton while in search of ayahuasca.
Queer will surprise you most with its heavilyDavid Lynch-inspiredexperimental and surreal moments. The cinematography is breathtaking, the soundtrack again features the music of Oscar-winning composer duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and Daniel Craig’s performance is one of his best to date and on the same level as Adrien Brody’s Oscar-winning turn in The Brutalist.
