Queer cinema is something of an embarrassment of riches for those willing to delve beyond the Blue Is The Warmest Colors and Brokeback Mountains of the top critics “best of” lists.
Though LGBTQ identity has come closer to mainstream acceptability than ever before, cinema has long been a safe space to explore the lives and perspectives of queer-identifying individuals beyond what is acceptable or appealing to the culture at large. Below we list ten queer films that more people need to see.
Viva (2015)
As a young Havana hairdresser who works at a nightclub for drag queens, Jesús finds himself yearning to perform himself. But when his estranged father, Angel shows up out of the blue, he attempts to tamp down his son’s desire to be a female impersonator. As the two butt heads over their differences of opinion, they work through their problems and come to understand each other.
Director Paddy Breathnach brings a sense of neo-realist grit to the film (shooting it in a neighborhood far from the prying eyes of tourists) and though it may occasionally dip into melodrama, Viva is a thoroughly relatable and heartfelt coming of age drama.
Happy Together (1997)
Lai (Tony Leung) and his partner, Ho (Leslie Cheung) flee Hong Kong to Argentina, seeking greener pastures, only to find that happiness eludes them. Prone to fights and abuse, they go through frequent break-ups and make-ups until Lai falls for a new man, Chang (Chen Chang), who’s on a personal journey of his own. Are Ho and Lai meant to be? Or are they just united through a shared sense of loneliness?
From Chinese auteur Wong Kar-wai, whose own In The Mood For Love is frequently listed among the most romantic films ever made, Happy Together is a stylish and melancholy gay love story stripped naked of all sentimentality.
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
When Cheryl begins researching “The Watermelon Woman,” an African American actress who appeared in films during the 1930s, she becomes utterly engrossed in her story. After discovering the actress’s real name and proof of her hidden affair with a white female director, Cheryl’s life starts to mirror her research when she falls for a white woman named Diana, much to the chagrin of her best friend, Tamara.
Reportedly the first feature film ever directed by a black, lesbian filmmaker, the title is a play on Melvin Van Peeble’s The Watermelon Man and explores the concepts of race, identity, and sexuality through the shared cultural experience of film itself.
Bound (1996)
A sexy neo-noir from the Wachowski sisters, Bound tells the story of gangster’s moll Violet (Jennifer Tilly) and Corky (Gina Gershon), the ex-con who catches her eye. As the two engage in a passionate romantic dalliance, they hatch a plan to free Violet from the clutches of her violent boyfriend (Joe Pantoliano) and disappear with a heaping helping of his cash in tow.
Though largely sold on its more titillating elements, Bound is an impressive genre exercise from two of modern cinema’s most idiosyncratic mainstream filmmakers, and was way ahead of its time in portraying a loving and romantic lesbian relationship onscreen.
Theorem (1968)
When an enigmatic drifter (Terence Stamp) shows up at a bourgeois Milanese mansion, he begins to seduce every member of the household, including the son, mother, daughter, and father, as well as the maid, before disappearing as if into thin air.
Communist, homosexual, Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini created in Theorem not just a bracingly political allegory but also a fable that crosses lines between class, sex, and family dynamics. A strange and compelling piece of provocation, Pasolini’s film obliterates hangups and explores the fluid nature of sexuality uninhibited by the bounds of modern and rigid capitalist societal morality.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Cinema wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder kicked off the Douglas Sirk inspired melodrama period of his illustrious career with this glittering tortured romance.
Marrying emotional rawness with a stage-bound sense of artifice, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant examines the relationship between a fashion designer (Margit Carstensen) and the chilly object of her affection (Hanna Schygulla) and the psychological cruelty they inflict on one another. Based on Fassbinder’s own feelings toward his obsession for a young actor, the film is a probing and gorgeous depiction of power imbalances and erotic manipulation buoyed by an all-female cast.
Orlando (1992)
Director Sally Potter cast a pre-fame Tilda Swinton as Orlando, a nobleman in the 1600s who awakens one day to find that he has become a woman. Based on the 1928 novel by Virginia Woolf, this tour through history sees the title character tussling with sexual politics as the centuries pass.
Though many critics found it somewhat lacking in narrative heft, it remains an entertaining gender-bending odyssey that provides plenty of food for thought.
Ma Vie en Rose (1997)
When seven-year-old Ludovic (Georges Du Fresne) informs his baffled parents, Pierre (Jean-Philippe Écoffey) and Hanna (Michèle Laroque) that he isn’t a boy, but a girl, they believe it to be a harmless phase. Though they indulge Ludovic’s newfound taste for girls’ clothes and toys, the local community grows increasingly hostile, lead by Albert (Daniel Hanssens), Pierre’s boss who makes it his personal mission to “cure” the child.
One of the best films ever made about gender-identity, director Alain Berliner tells Ludovic’s story with warmth, compassion, and grace and reminds us that life is about celebrating the full spectrum of human gender expression.
Tangerine (2015)
Christmas Eve in Los Angeles brings no joy to Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) who returns to her block after twenty-eight days in lockup to find out that the word on the street is that her pimp boyfriend (James Ransone) has been cheating. Teaming up with her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) Sin-Dee sets out to track him down and quash the vicious rumors.
A queer screwball comedy set amongst the marginalized, Sean Baker’s precursor to The Florida Project was famously shot on an iPhone 5, but is equally notable for how empathetic and hilarious it is. Treating the lives and struggles of POC sex workers with respect and pathos, Tangerine is a small masterpiece.
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
A queerified Hitchcockian thriller, director Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger By The Lake follows Franck, a gay man who spends his days cruising at a secluded watering hole. He makes two friends, an older man named Henri who seems disinterested in sex, and Michel, a smoldering erotic dynamo. Things are peaceful until a body is found in the lake, and tensions mount amongst the three friends and the rest of those who frequent the spot.
The darkest and most provocative film about gay men since William Friedkin’s controversial Cruising, Stranger By The Lake is sexy and disturbing, with just enough wry humor to make the death-haunted mood go down smooth.
