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Synopsis: Realizing that they share common foes in Margaret Thatcher, the police and the conservative press, London-based gays and lesbians lend [More]
Starring: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine
Directed By: Matthew Warchus
Magnus Juhl Andersen and Nina Terese Rask in Sauna.
The dazzling competition that emerged from that moment is a sparkling reminder that drag has always thrived under pressure.
(And speaking of comments: yes, we know that But I’m a Cheerleader is missing — we love it too!
That Mackay has made four features in just six years — all this confident and increasingly playful — marks her as a force to watch.
Season 17 arrived amid revived political hostility toward trans and gender-nonconforming people. In a year filled with movies where queer people were acting horribly, none were quite as detestable, and also scarily recognizable, as the gays in “Twinless.” —WC
It’s reductive and even unhelpful to compare the work of one contemporary South Asian filmmaker to another, but Vietnamese auteur on the rise Trương Minh Quý brings to mind Thai queer director Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the best possible ways with his gorgeously composed third feature, “Viet and Nam.” Locating gay desire in the only furtive corners where it can bloom in a hegemonic civilization, “Viet and Nam” is in part the story of two male coal miners who fall in love among the soot and ruins (and with eroticism boiling over in those scenes despite the movie’s hushed, at times statically arranged shots).
Synopsis: When inexperienced criminal Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) leads a bank robbery in Brooklyn, things quickly go wrong, and a hostage [More]
Starring: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
#37
Critics Consensus: Bridging times past with issues that are still current, Blue Jean resonates intellectually and emotionally thanks to thoughtful direction and authentic performances.
Based on Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, the film is now streaming on Netflix and HBO Max.
Jimpa stars John Lithgow as an ageing gay man living in Amsterdam.
—AF
“Overcompensating” has the raunchy content and snarky humor of a show that’s a little too-cool-for-school, but what makes the series great comes from a place that’s deeply earnest and personal. [More]
Starring: Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana, Sophie Cattani, Mathieu Demy
Directed By: Céline Sciamma
#40
Critics Consensus: Gods and Monsters is a spellbinding, confusing piece of semi-fiction, featuring fine performances; McKellen leads the way, but Redgrave and Fraser don't lag far behind.
Queer stories continued to thrive where risk and imagination are valued, from indie films that brilliantly explored queerness as both an identity and lived culture, to TV series that embedded LGBTQ characters into smart ensemble storytelling without apology. “The Best of Both Worlds” deepens Weard’s partial self-portrait as Michaela “Traps” Sinclair, and the filmmaker folds DIY intimacy, authentic trans friendship, and universal existential dread into a puzzle that feels less like a movie and more like a nervous system expanding.
Shot with a loose, communal energy and powered by a killer experimental spirit, “Castration Movie” rejects respectability without abandoning self.
Directed by Nia DaCosta and adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, the film offers a queer reimagining of the classic story. The being he now calls his friend is a spirit that has taken his form — with Yoshiki’s voice, too — and one that will kill him if he tells anyone the truth. [More]
Starring: Pat Henschel
Directed By: Chris Bolan
#4
Critics Consensus:We Were Here revisits the crises facing the gay community in the early 1980s -- and offers a powerful tribute to the inspiring resolve shown at a time of turmoil.
Is it about AI? Colonialism?
Synopsis: A shy, introverted student helps the school jock woo a girl whom, secretly, they both want. The film sits at 88 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and is streaming on Paramount+.
Denmark’s Sauna turns the heat up as Johan, a sauna attendant, falls for William, a trans man taking time out from uni.
One of them, though, wants to leave the country, which splits the movie into parallel directions, between the Vietnam War and the real-life horror story of 39 Vietnamese refugees found in a refrigerated truck in 2019. Think “The Craft” filtered through “Buffy” reruns and contemporary young adult doom. Gorgeously animated and delicately written, “The Summer Hikaru Died” tells a teen melodrama tale through a decidedly queer lens, asking how repression and self-hate can make one feel like their own desires are monstrous.
—WC
Alain Guiraudie‘s extraordinary and wonderfully twisted new queer noir, “Misericordia,” begins on a long, snaking, winding drive and ends with a man and a woman, who are unrelated and unmarried, in bed, and a light turned out. Things go awry when they realise their rental is haunted.
—WC
Created by Rebecca Cutter, “The Hunting Wives” was engineered to provoke in every political direction. —AF
One of the goofiest, most delightful new shows of 2025, “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” combines the camp appeal of a Pedro Almodóvar movie with the charm of an Aardman stop motion film.
Over the summer, Pride marketing declined across major movie brands, and by the fall, streaming services had announced several cancellations of well-loved queer TV shows.