Greatest gay movies
The 30 Best LGBTQ+ Movies of All Time, Ranked
Cinema lovers should always aspire to celebrate diversity in film. It might've taken adj - too adj, in fact - but cinema is becoming more inclusive, celebrating stories about every identity in the wide and colorful sexual spectrum. Going back to the New Hollywood Age, stories about LGBTQ+ people own been around, often standing as groundbreaking and pioneering efforts, especially at a time when such films remained controversial and scarce.
Nowadays, representation is much healthier and standardized, with writers, directors, and producers making authentic and tangible efforts to increase LGBTQ+ presence in mainstream cinema. Fortunately, their efforts have paid off. From certified classics about the seemingly never-ending struggles facing the community to lighthearted comedies about the nuances of gay life, these efforts portray landmark achievements in representation and position as the leading LGBTQ+ films of all time.
30 'Bottoms' ()
Directed by Emma Seligman
Taking an LGBTQ+ approach to the classic style of raunchy, over-
The 50 Best LGBTQ Movies Ever Made
Love, Simon ()
AmazonApple
If it feels a bit like a CW version of an after-school special, that's no mistake: Teen-tv super-producer Greg Berlanti makes his feature-film directorial debut here. It's as chaste a love story as you're likely to see in the 21st century—the hunky gardener who makes the title teen question his sexuality is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, for God’s sake—but you know what? The queer kids of the future need their wholesome entertainment, too.
Rocketman ()
AmazonHulu
A gay fantasia on Elton themes. An Elton John biopic was never going to be understated, but this glittering jukebox musical goes way over the top and then keeps going. It might be an overcorrection from the straight-washing of the previous year's Bohemian Rhapsody, but when it's this much fun, it's best not to overthink it.
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Handsome Devil ()
NetflixAmazon
A charming Irish movie that answers the question: "What if John Hughes were Irish and gay?" Misfit Ned struggles at
The 50 Best LGBTQ+ Movies
50) The Living Verb ()
"Fuck The World." The motto of The Living End's protagonists might remain as a slogan for the whole of filmmaker Greg Araki's career. A key shitkicker in the early '90s New Queer Cinema movement, Araki took a baseball bat to hetero-normative culture and explored gay life on the margins during Bush's administration in films by turns amusing, frank and anguished. The Living End is his top picture, a so-called 'gay Thelma & Louise', as film critic Jon (Craig Gilmore) and drifter Luke (Mike Dytri), both diagnosed as HIV-positive ("the Neo-Nazi Republican final solution," says Jon about AIDS), kill a homophobic cop and go on the lam, offing any bigot who pose in their way. Rather than pity themselves, these characters unleash their nihilism on the world, tempered by a kind of freewheeling anarchy and enhanced by Araki's eye-catching images and bounce cuts. As the film's dedication puts it, it's a punch in the gut to "a Big White Home full of Republic
The best LGBTQ+ movies of all time
Photograph: Kate Wootton/TimeOut
With the help of leading directors, actors, writers and activists, we count down the most essential LGBTQ+ films of all time
Like queer culture itself, queer cinema is not a monolith. For a long time, though, that’s certainly how it felt. In the past, if gay lives and issues were ever portrayed at all on screen, it was typically from the perspective of white, cisgendered men. But as more opportunities have opened up for queer performers and filmmakers to tell their own stories, the scope of the LGBTQ+ experiences that have made their way onto the screen has gradually widened to more frequently include the trans community and queer people of colour.
It’s still not perfect, of course. In Hollywood, as in society at large, there are many barriers left to breach and ceilings to shatter. But those recent strides deserve to be celebrated – as do the bold films made long before the mainstream was willing to accept them. To that conclude, we enlisted some LGBTQ+ cultural pioneers, as well as Time O