Celebrate the bt gay movi wh our list of the 50 most sential LGBTQ+ films ever ma
Contents:
- THE 50 BT GAY MOVI: HOW MANY HAVE YOU SEEN?
- INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD
THE 50 BT GAY MOVI: HOW MANY HAVE YOU SEEN?
* greatest gay movies of all time *
Culled om a longlist of hundreds, movi nsired for the list promently feature gay, lbian, trans, or queer characters; ncern self centrally wh LGBTQ+ them; prent s LGBTQ+ characters a fair and realistic light; and/or be seen as a touchpot the evolutn of queer cema. And we regnize that some of the films the list will re-igne healthy bat that have been fixtur of discsn around LGBTQ+ films — straight actors playg gay characters, cis actors playg trans characters, and the historil domance of whe male perspectiv. For our most recent update to the list, we’ve add mastream edi Fire Island and Bros, thriller Knock at the Cab (featurg two pairs of hbands whose vatn is terpted by the potential apolypse), Disney feature Strange World (wh the stud’s first openly gay lead character), Blue Jean (a Brish drama set durg the Thatcher premiership), the extremely well-reviewed Girl Picture), France’s magil realist The Five Devils, and Cann 2023 buts Monster and Strange Way of Life.
Wh tl like Love, Simon and Paris Is Burng to Tangere and Brokeback Mounta, the list has a wi range of genr and moods, but they all have somethg mon: they all "promently feature gay, lbian, trans, or queer characters; ncern self centrally wh LGBTQ+ them; prent s LGBTQ+ characters a fair and realistic light; and/or be seen as a touchpot the evolutn of queer cema. “My name is Harvey Milk, ” the first openly gay man to be elected to public office California, memorialized Rob Epste’s The Tim of Harvey Milk, proclaimed 1978, ls than one year before his assassatn. Fireworks gurated not only the private mythology of unrground experimental filmmaker Kenh Anger, but also the subversive exprsn of gay sensualy Amerin film, a torch rried to the early days of the New Queer Cema.
A verable dictnary of homoerotic inography, the 1947 short is also, lerally, a home movie shot while a 20-year-old Anger’s parents were away for the weekend, and a transfixg view of the vlence and sed rapture of beg “different” the 1940s. Jean Ge’s overpowerg 1950 short Un Chant d’Amour, ma shortly after the publitn of The Thief’s Journal, is a tone not jt of gay rebelln, but also of pure sensual exprsn film, a polemil visn of sire fed wh the provotr’s randy ardor and the artist’s spirual directns. Sce homosexualy is illegal England at the time, the lawyer’s stake the vexg search for the person rponsible for an elaborate blackmail scheme targetg high-profile gay men is both personal and profsnal.
INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD
If gayns remas figured as a malignant force here (a half-acknowledged viance here mobilized the pursu of manipulatn and personal ga), there’s also somethg unniably thrillg about watchg wd s stctive path, vivified by Joseph Losey’s tt pacg, stylish formal play, and distrsg-as-ever atmospherics. At this pot Amerin unrground cema, gay directors were celebratg those sweet sticky thgs ntexts cerebral and performative (Flamg Creatur) and matter-of-factly clarative (Wakefield Poole’s bawdy of work). Though picts an eventful week the liv of two semi-swgg Londoners—Daniel, a gay doctor (Peter Fch), and Alex, a divorced civil servant’s scn (Glenda Jackson)—who begdggly share the affectns of an aimls bohemian named Bob (Murray Head), John Schlger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday is almost naïvely nonpolemil.
And if imag of pulsg gay club dance floors rell a past time and place, anyone whose ey have ever snned a room—or a screen—of bodi and fac jt might feel that faiar twge of thrillg, anx, endls possibily. Rob Epste’s granst up, and what elevat The Tim of Harvey Milk beyond beg a stunng, emotnal docudrama and to the realm of elegant social activism, is the subtle parallels he draws between the Harvey Milk/Dan Whe dichotomy and the ncurrent, ntroversial battle over Proposn 6, which would grant California public schools permissn to fire openly gay teachers. The alcg Moral Majory briga (which would form the first signifint Amerin movement backlash agast the gay muny’s gas sce Stonewall) were puttg all their chips on a wager that the Amerin public’s tolerance would only go so far, and the le the sand: “the children.
Swgg-London pater, mic-vio experimenter, outspoken gay-rights activist—the rtls Derek Jarman got his start films as a set signer for Ken Rsell, and there’s somethg of the impunce (but not, thankfully, the hysteria) of Rsell’s mock-bpics Caravagg.