This Ranking Of The Top 50 LGBTQ+ Films Has Movie Buffs Sharply Divided
GLAAD, the famous media advocacy organization for queer representation, has found that the number of movies featuring LGBTQ+ characters is steadily on the rise. For instance, in 2023 we've already seen major movies with queer characters such as Knock at the Cabin and Scream VI — not to mention how much LGBTQ+ audiences loved M3GAN. Things are not perfect, of course, and there are still strides to be made, but it us at least looking up. And all of this has got us thinking... What are the very best queer movies anyway?
To qualify for our ranking, a movie — we're not including documentaries, sorry — had to be released theatrically and had to feature an LGBTQ+ character or theme. Simple! Then we found each movie's IMDB score, Metacritic score, Rotten Tomatoes Score, and Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score and determined the average. The movie with the highest average score tops our rankings; any ties were split by the movie's IMDb score.
50. In the Family (2011)
IMDb Score: 7.1
Metacritic Score: 82
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 76
Our Score: 81.5
Patrick Wang wrote, directed, and starred in the engrossing drama In the Family. Critics couldn't get enough of it: Roger Ebert summed it up nicely when he said in his review, "I was completely absorbed from beginning to end." The movie — about a gay man fighting for custody of his stepchild after his husband passes away — doesn't give its audiences easy answers, but as the prejudices build up against the hero, you can't help but hope for a happy ending.
49. Signature Move (2017)
IMDb Score: 5.8
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 81.7
There aren't many movies that have a hero who's a lesbian Pakistani Muslim living in Chicago, working as a lawyer by day and an amateur wrestler in her spare time. But then there probably aren't many movies like Signature Move. Director Jennifer Reeder brought all these themes together and more in a film that Sight & Sound magazine called a return "to the celebratory multicultural, intergenerational, complex lesbian films" of the 1990s. Signature Move didn't get a wide release in the U.S., so seek it out on streaming platforms now.
48. Passing (2021)
IMDb Score: 6.6
Metacritic Score: 85
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86
Our Score: 81.8
Director Rebecca Hall had a personal connection with Passing: her black grandfather had "made the decision to pass for white" before she was born. "But the thing that I’m sort of left with, as a descendant of that, really, is what the psychological toll of a life hiding [your identity has] on the people that you birth and the people that they birth," Hall told Variety magazine in 2022. The theme of "passing" similarly applies to the forbidden attraction between the movie's two female lead characters.
47. The Power of the Dog (2021)
IMDb Score: 6.8
Metacritic Score: 89
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 76
Our Score: 81.8
Critics seemed to be more enraptured with The Power of the Dog than audiences if these scores are anything to go by. But everybody agreed that the movie was a trip worth taking. This vision of "rural queerness" — as magazine The New Yorker described it — is not a romantic paean set in the Wild West in the vein of Brokeback Mountain, though. Instead, director Jane Campion has crafted a shocking tale of revenge and repression nestled in a world of toxic masculinity. She won an Academy Award for her efforts, too.
46. A Fantastic Woman (2017)
IMDb Score: 7.2
Metacritic Score: 84
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 77
Our Score: 81.8
After GLAAD studied the 77 movies put into theaters by the biggest studios in Hollywood in 2021 the organization revealed that only one had a trans character. This was in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story: though Anybodys is "a trans man who plays a small role in the film," according to GLAAD. This is all to say it's still unusual to see a trans character as the lead in a movie, as is the case in Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman. And it's even more unusual because while the movie tackles serious issues, it remains warm and ultimately inspiring.
45. Tomboy (2011)
IMDb Score: 7.4
Metacritic Score: 74
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 83
Our Score: 81.8
In Tomboy, a ten-year-old girl called Laure decides to become a boy called Mikhael after moving house. But for writer-director Céline Sciamma, the movie is about more than identifying the gender or sexuality of its main character. "I made it with several layers so that a transexual person can say, 'That was my childhood' and so that a heterosexual woman can also say it," she told website AfterEllen after Tomboy's release. "The movie creates bond. That's something I'm proud of."
44. Love, Simon (2018)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 72
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 88
Our Score: 81.8
Love, Simon became a landmark movie in 2018 because it was the first major studio release to ever tell the story of a gay teenage romance. But the real step forward was that it was allowed to be a fairly conventional teen rom-com that just happened to feature a gay hero. Director Greg Berlanti's movie scored a decent $40.8 million box-office victory and enough fan love to warrant a spin-off TV series — Love, Victor — in 2020. Co-star Alexandra Shipp underlined its significance when she said at a screening, “I chose to do the movie because it’s going to save lives and create allies.”
43. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 70
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 88
Our Score: 81.8
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is not a perfect film. Star Guy Pearce revealed in 2023 that he's been asked for 30 years whether “gay people should have played” the characters in the film; co-star Hugo Weaving has fielded similar questions, too. Plus, the movie's representation of racism and sexism leaves a lot to be desired when viewed through today's lens. But considering Priscilla came out in 1994 and is a story about two drag queens and a transgender woman, it's a groundbreaking movie that remains an essential part of LGBTQ+ cinema.
42. Booksmart (2019)
IMDb Score: 7.1
Metacritic Score: 84
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 77
Our Score: 82.0
On paper, Booksmart may sound like "Superbad for girls." Yet in reality, Olivia Wilde's comedy is so much more than that: for starters, its central narrative is a lesbian love story. Star Beanie Feldstein told Entertainment Weekly, “The only love scene in the film is a queer love scene, and that’s so radical. By doing that, you're asking that to be the norm... Showing queer sexuality, and making heterosexual people relate to it, is actually really deeply meaningful.”
41. Pariah (2011)
IMDb Score: 7.2
Metacritic Score: 79
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 82
Our Score: 82.0
It took Pariah only 11 years to be selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The prestigious list aims to preserve movies that "represent important cultural, artistic, and historic achievements in filmmaking." This makes Pariah the most up-to-date film to get on the list: not bad considering it was director Dee Rees' debut feature. Rees called Pariah a semi-autobiographical story about a woman coming to terms with her sexual identity. "I finally came to the conclusion that I didn't have to check a box, that I can just be myself," the director told newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle in 2011.
40. Tangerine
IMDb Score: 7.1
Metacritic Score: 86
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 76
Our Score: 82.3
If you're looking for an unconventional choice for the best alternative Christmas movie, look no further than Tangerine. Just like Die Hard or any number of other traditional holiday flicks, Tangerine takes place on Christmas Eve and features an unbreakable friendship at the heart of its story. It just so happens that this particular story is about transgender sex workers in Los Angeles. More importantly, it became the first movie to have an Oscar campaign for its transgender stars. The movie is also notable for being filmed entirely on iPhone 5s smartphones.
39. Bad Education (2004)
IMDb Score: 7.4
Metacritic Score: 81
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86
Our Score: 82.3
Bad Education is not a film to watch with your parents. After all, when it hit theaters in 2004, it was slapped with an NC-17 rating for "explicit sexual content." But those who can see past the rating will be rewarded with a dazzling, multi-layered exploration of youth, abuse, religion, and many more things besides. "This is a story I had to get out of my system," director Pedro Almodóvar said in 2004. "I had been working on the screenplay for over ten years."
38. The Favorite (2017)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 91
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 70
Our Score: 82.3
The Advocate argued that Olivia Colman's Oscar win for The Favorite marked a historic moment in Academy Award history. It said it was the first time a woman had won for playing a character who enjoys lesbian sex and doesn't come to a bitter end. The publication also claimed that The Favorite would go down in "Oscar history as the film that landed unabashed queer female sexual desire in the Best Picture category." Ultimately, though, Colman's triumph was the only win out of the film's ten Academy Award nods.
37. The Fallout (2021)
IMDb Score: 7
Metacritic Score: 84
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 84
Our Score: 82.8
Megan Park couldn't have picked a trickier subject for her first feature film as writer-director. The Fallout deals with two high-schoolers learning to get on with life after surviving a school shooting. These teens — played by Wednesday star Jenna Ortega and dancer Maddie Ziegler — run the gamut of emotions and become closer and closer as a result of their experiences. The resulting film is even more impressive when you realize you probably best know Park as an actor from The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
36. Tár (2022)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 92
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 74
Our Score: 82.8
Many people didn't know what to make of Cate Blanchett's Lydia Tar in Tár. On the one hand, we have an A-list, Oscar-winning actor taking the role of a lesbian in a major awards movie. On the other hand, if Lydia is actually the villain of the piece, is that a good thing for LGBTQ+ representation or a bad thing? The question had movie-watchers divided. But the real-life genius composer who inspired the character of Lydia was not impressed. In 2023 Marin Alsop toldBritsh newspaper The Sunday Times, "I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian."
35. The Way He Looks (2014)
IMDb Score: 7.9
Metacritic Score: 71
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 89
Our Score: 83.0
"This exquisite film — about a blind teenager who falls in love with a classmate — will charm you from beginning to end," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. "The film offers something much deeper, and what is not said makes it refreshing, and beautiful," agreed British newspaper the Observer. "This may be the first feature to trace with humor and compassion how hard it is to be gay, blind, and in love," said the Bay Area Reporter. Suffice it to say that Daniel Ribeiro's coming-of-age drama is worth seeking out.
34. Parallel Mothers (2021)
IMDb Score: 7.1
Metacritic Score: 88
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 78
Our Score: 83.3
This isn't the first movie by Pedro Almodóvar on our list, and it won't be the last. It is his most recent entry, though, and it was one honored with a GLAAD Media Award in 2022. But the director has been hesitant to label the relationship at the heart of the story as lesbian. "I really think about it as something more fluid and more broad than that," he said at the New York Film Festival. He added that things have changed so much in society that "really what has happened is that the family structure is one that is really based on love."
33. Carol (2015)
IMDb Score: 7.2
Metacritic Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 74
Our Score: 83.5
Carol caused controversy at the 2016 Oscars by not getting nominated in the Best Picture category. Critics were quick to point out that the academy had a long tradition of shutting out both queer-themed movies in general and queer-themed movies where the heroes don't suffer and die in particular. The lauded flick did get nominated in six other Oscar categories, but it went home empty-handed. It would be another year before queen cinema would have a Best Picture winner, but we won't spoil which movie that was just yet...
32. The Crying Game (1992)
IMDb Score: 7.2
Metacritic Score: 90
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 78
Our Score: 83.5
The Crying Game is 30 years old, but it still has the power to shock and surprise. Even today, the film's famous plot "twist" spawns a wide range of reactions, including from those who view the movie as transphobic. But for director Neil Jordan, The Crying Game is anything but that. "Brian De Palma and The Silence Of The Lambs constructed trans characters that were wielding scalpels and [were] interested in cutting people up and all that sort of stuff," he told website The A.V. Club in 2023. "I did present a trans character that the world fell in love with, basically."
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
IMDb Score: 7.7
Metacritic Score: 87
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 82
Our Score: 83.5
It's hard to underestimate the impact of Brokeback Mountain. Ang Lee's "gay cowboy" movie was arguably the most significant step in pushing queer cinema toward the mainstream in the 21st century. It was a box-office smash, it had major stars, and it got nominated for Oscars. And the fact that it didn't win the Best Picture Oscar — losing out to Crash — became a cultural outcry that started to get people to look at the academy's voting body more closely. The film's success and legacy also paved the way for future queer cinema greats on this list, such as Love, Simon and more you've yet to discover.
30. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
IMDb Score: 7.3
Metacritic Score: 86
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 83
Our Score: 83.8
Melanie Lynskey debuted in Heavenly Creatures; her resume is littered with other iconic queer movies and TV shows, too. There was her role in But I'm a Cheerleader as well as recurring parts in The L Word and Yellowjackets. The result is that the actress is something of a queer icon. "Doesn't everybody want to be loved by gay people?" she told bews website The Independent in April 2023. "I feel like heterosexuals are not always so discerning. This feels like more of an achievement."
29. Law of Desire (1987)
IMDb Score: 7.1
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 82
Our Score: 84.3
In 2011 director Pedro Almodóvar and star Antonio Banderas reunited for a screening of Law of Desire at the AFI Fest. While talking about the film, Almodóvar revealed that they struggled to even get enough film in the can to make an entire movie. "It wasn't the kind of film the Spanish industry wanted us to make or the Spanish public wanted us to be making," the director explained. Banderas also divulged how critics at the time were more appalled by the actor playing a gay character than the shocking actions his character takes in the film. Still, Law of Desire has outlived all of this prejudice to stand tall as an essential part of LGBTQ+ cinema.
28. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
IMDb Score: 7.1
Metacritic Score: 87
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 81
Our Score: 84.3
Can You Ever Forgive Me? tells the story of a lesbian and a gay man, yet this is not a film specifically about sexuality. The plot follows the real-life criminal exploits of writer Lee Israel — played by Melissa McCarthy — as she forges literary letters to try to earn some much-needed money. "Their sexuality is not what defines these characters," director Marielle Heller told IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. Instead of foregrounding sexuality, then, the moviemakers used background details to create a subtly realistic queer world for them to live in.
27. Cabaret (1972)
IMDb Score: 7.8
Metacritic Score: 80
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 84.3
The Godfather took the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards in 1973. Still, Cabaret practically swept the rest of the board: the musical earned gongs in the prestigious director, actress, screenplay, and cinematographer categories, and it cleaned up at the box office, too. Pretty good, considering the film was way ahead of its time in terms of its depictions of bisexuality and queerness. It also, of course, turned Liza Minelli into a gay icon for the ages.
26. Mulholland Drive (2001)
IMDb Score: 7.9
Metacritic Score: 86
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 84.3
David Lynch earned a Best Director nomination for Mulholland Drive, and the film has only grown in stature since its release. Every ten years, for instance, Sight & Sound magazine polls critics and movie influencers to create a list of "the greatest films of all time." And while in 2012 Mulholland Drive took the 28th slot, it had shot up to land the 8th position in 2022. The British Film Institute also called it "one of the key cinema works of the last 25 years." The fact that it has a lesbian relationship at its heart makes it a must for any queer-cinema aficionado.
25. Boys Don't Cry (1999)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 86
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 84.5
There's a worrying trope in movies known as "bury your gays." This is the idea that when movies feature LGBTQ+ roles, these characters will invariably suffer and die. But Boys Don't Cry arguably doesn't fall into this category because it depicts a story that's based on the real-life rape and murder of its protagonist. Hilary Swank deservedly won an Oscar for her heartbreaking performance; the film itself was vital in showing audiences the extreme homophobia trans men can suffer.
24. Weekend (2011)
IMDb Score: 7.6
Metacritic Score: 81
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86
Our Score: 84.5
When Weekend was finally released in Italy in 2016 it ran into trouble with the Catholic Church. The Italian Conference of Bishops’ Film Evaluation Commission stated that the movie — centered on a gay romance — was "not advised, unusable, and scabrous." And because the Catholic church owned over 1,100 movie theaters in Italy, the commission's ruling meant that Weekend could only screen in ten cinemas. The president of distributor Teodora Film, Cesare Petrillo, said, "I cannot see any other explanation than a problem of homophobia in the church." Fortunately, though, the Italians turned out for Weekend and made it a box-office success in the country.
23. Pride (2014)
IMDb Score: 7.8
Metacritic Score: 79
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 89
Our Score: 84.5
Pride is an uplifting film about British miners and LGBTQ+ protestors working together for the greater good. There is little graphic imagery or language in the movie, yet it still earned an "R" rating when it hit theaters in the U.S. The British censors similarly gave the film a 15 rating, effectively prohibiting anybody under 15 years old from seeing it. These ratings prompted mass outrage upon the movie's release, with some angry fans blasting the censors as being homophobic and treating LGBTQ+ content differently from straight stuff. But, as you can see from its place on this ranking, Pride has risen above this noise to become a beloved classic.
22. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
IMDb Score: 7.9
Metacritic Score: 77
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 91
Our Score: 84.8
Matthew McConaughey was proud of all that Dallas Buyers Club achieved. "It's vital," he told the BBC in 2014. "It has translated, it has communicated with people, it's become personal with people." And he was right: the film was a hit in theaters and won three Oscars, including one each for McConaughey and co-star Jared Leto. Yet despite raising awareness of LGBTQ+ stories, the film has a complicated legacy. Leto's portrayal of a transgender woman has particularly come under the microscope and been accused of "trans-misogyny." You'd certainly like to think that, ten years later, this role would have gone to a transgender actor.
21. Milk (2008)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 83
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 89
Our Score: 85.0
Milk arrived in cinemas just as a real-life ban on same-sex marriages — Proposition 8 — passed in California. But, ten years after the movie's release, writer Dustin Lance Black argued that the timing actually might have been serendipitous. "The two [events] intersected in such a way that the film provided a solution for a real-life problem," he told website Focus Features in 2018. Black added, "For a lot of young people, Harvey Milk's life as depicted in the film provided them inspiration to fight back in a stronger and more vocal way." Milk also made an impact at the Oscars, picking up awards for lead actor Sean Penn and for Black.
20. Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
IMDb Score: 7.7
Metacritic Score: 90
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 85
Our Score: 85.0
When Blue is the Warmest Color won the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes, none other than Steven Spielberg was the head of the jury. He told reporters, "For me, the film is a great love story that made all of us feel like we were privileged to be flies on the wall, to be invited into this story of deep love and deep heartbreak." But since the film's release, its legacy has been complicated by a number of controversies: including the lead actresses, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, claiming the director was abusive to them on set. In terms of LGBTQ+ representation, though, Blue came under fire for its long, intimate sex scenes that have been called "ridiculous" and "unrealistic" among other, harsher criticisms.
19. Everything, Everwhere, All At Once (2022)
IMDb Score: 7.9
Metacritic Score: 81
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86
Our Score: 85.0
"A queer masterpiece of colossal sincerity," was the verdict of website Auto Straddle. "Why Everything Everywhere All At Once is the future of LGBTQ+ storytelling," claimed Gay Times. "Best Motion Picture of the Year," said the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In fact, the academy bestowed no fewer than seven Oscars on a movie that has a gay romance and focuses on a mother's relationship with her queer daughter. And the filmmakers were so adamant that "the movie doesn't work without" these elements that they sacrificed their movie earning a release in China.
18. 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017)
IMDb Score: 7.4
Metacritic Score: 84
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 84
Our Score: 85.3
Director Robin Campillo took the "write what you know" approach to 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute). "I actually lived through this time," he told the press at Cannes in 2017. "I was an ACT UP militant in the '90s." The film follows a group of AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power activists as they fight to get people to pay attention to the AIDS crisis in France. The film certainly struck a chord with critics and audiences, as it won the Grand Prix jury prize at Cannes and went on to earn six Cesár Awards, including one for Best Film.
17. My Life in Pink (1997)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 90
Our Score: 86.0
In 1997 Ma Vie En Rose director Alain Berliner described having a "very strange impression" of the film's co-writer, Chris Vander Stappen. He said that he'd been told that Vander Stappen was a woman but that he thought he was talking to a man. In fact, Vander Stappen was a woman who lived as a man because she believed she was "born in the wrong body," according to Berliner. So when Berliner and Vander Stappen collaborated on Ma Vie En Rose's screenplay, they leaned into Vander Stappen's experiences of childhood to lend the film authenticity.
16. Victor/Victoria (1982)
IMDb Score: 7.6
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86
Our Score: 86.3
According to a contemporary edition of magazine Film Quarterly, "1982 is, as everyone knows, the year in which Hollywood 'handled' the gay question." Ebert and Gene Siskel also highlighted Hollywood's "changing attitudes toward homosexuality" in a 1982 episode of their TV show. So it was in this culture that director Edward Blake's Victor/Victoria entered the world. It's a musical comedy starring cinematic titan Julie Andrews that pushes the queer subtext of so many other musicals into the actual text. And, as website Criterion acknowledged in a 2022 article, the film has aged surprisingly well.
15. God's Own Country (2017)
IMDb Score: 7.6
Metacritic Score: 85
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 86.5
With its rural setting and its gay romance storyline, God's Own Country invited inevitable comparisons with Brokeback Mountain upon release. But for director Francis Lee, the similarities are only skin-deep. "It feels like such a different story and such a different world," he told British newspaper The Guardian in 2017. "The films are like chalk and cheese in that sense." God's Own Country is further distanced from Brokeback in that Lee is a gay man telling a semi-autobiographical tale. The film won a Harvey Award, as voted for by the readers of the gay German magazine Manner.
14. The Normal Heart (2014)
IMDb Score: 7.9
Metacritic Score: 85
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 88
Our Score: 86.5
Multi-hyphenate Ryan Murphy is probably better known to most audiences as the brain behind such TV hits as American Horror Story and Glee. But Murphy had a very good reason for deciding to adapt the biographical AIDS drama The Normal Heart for the screen. "So many young people don't know this part of our history," he told NPR in 2014. "They don't remember the fear." The director, who had lived through the AIDS crisis and lost friends along the way, enlisted the help of an all-star cast to bring this important story to life.
13. The Wedding Banquet (1993)
IMDb Score: 7.6
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 86.7
Here's a little fact you probably never knew: The Wedding Banquet was the most profitable film of 1993 — from a certain point of view. This tiny movie about a marriage of convenience — directed by Brokeback's Ang Lee — cost just $1 million to make, yet it raked in more than $23 million at the global box office. According to Variety, that means Banquet had a cost-to-return ratio of 23.6-to-1. By contrast, 19993's top earner, Jurassic Park, cost $60 million to make and grossed $845 million — a cost-to-return ratio of 13.79-to-1. So now you know.
12. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
IMDb Score: 7.7
Metacritic Score: 85
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 93
Our Score: 86.8
John Cameron Mitchell directed, co-wrote, and starred in the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, so he can take great comfort in how the movie musical was received by audiences. "Many trans, non-binary, queer, straight people have said it felt activating for them at a certain age," he told the Provincetown Film Festival in 2019. "I've never, from people I've actually met, had any negative [reaction], because it's a freeing thing." The stage version of Hedwig got a massive Broadway revival in 2015 — and is still going today — and has seen stars such as Neil Patrick Harris and Michael C. Hall take on the starring role.
11. The Imitation Game (2014)
IMDb Score: 8
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 91
Our Score: 87.0
Although The Imitation Game has a real-life gay man as its hero, some viewers questioned whether the movie was, well, gay enough. Critics even accused the filmmakers of shying away from the character's homosexual relationships so that straight audiences could accept him more. Of course, director Morten Tyldum dismissed the claims. "If I … had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he's heterosexual," he told Variety. "If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it, just to prove that he's gay?" The Guardian was also one prominent publication to applaud the film for its "celebration of weirdness."
10. Pain and Glory (2019)
IMDb Score: 7.5
Metacritic Score: 87
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 91
Our Score: 87.3
You didn't think we were going to go much longer without a Pedro Almodóvar film, did you? Pain and Glory is his eighth collaboration with actor Antonio Banderas, yet even the star was surprised by the nature of the material. He plays a character that is based in part on the director, who does some eye-opening things in the film! Yet Almodóvar found making the film therapeutic. "I didn't know that he wanted to close that wound," Banderas told GQ in 2019. "I didn't even know that there was a wound there."
9. Victim (1961)
IMDb Score: 7.7
Metacritic Score: 85
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 87
Our Score: 87.3
There aren't many films from the mid-20th century on this list; you can probably guess why. When Basil Dearden's Victim was released in 1961 it caused a stir with the British censors. And it couldn't even get a seal of approval from the American Motion Picture Production Code. Yet star Dirk Bogarde never regretted making it. "I had achieved what I had longed to do for so long, to be in a film which disturbed, educated, and illuminated as well as merely giving entertainment," he wrote in his autobiography.
8. Moonlight (2016)
IMDb Score: 7.4
Metacritic Score: 99
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 79
Our Score: 87.5
Moonlight is an important film. It was the first LGBTQ+-themed movie to take the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards. It was the first movie with a majority black cast and crew that is not about race relations to win the Best Picture Oscar. And star Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim to ever win an Oscar, too. But it's also important to remember that watching Moonlight is not homework. Barry Jenkins' movie is simply a great film, with some critics praising it as one of the best flicks of the 21st century.
7. Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
IMDb Score: 7.6
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 88
Our Score: 88.0
The oldest movie on our list is perhaps the most important. The British Film Institute has praised Mädchen in Uniform as "one of the first truly significant queer films ever made." And it was groundbreaking both in front of and behind the camera. It is a rare film from the early 20th century to be directed by a woman, and it is almost unique in having a completely female cast. Its depiction of lesbian desire is universal enough to appeal to anyone who ever had a teenage crush ,yet specific enough to make this a landmark of queer cinema.
6. Call Me by Your Name (2017)
IMDb Score: 7.8
Metacritic Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86
Our Score: 88.0
It's possible that the allegations against star Armie Hammer may put you off watching Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name. There was also a brief storm of controversy concerning the age gap between the two characters in the film. Although, as The Advocate pointed out, there have been plenty of straight relationships in popular films that have similar age gaps, including the likes of Gone with the Wind, Clueless, and Dirty Dancing. And if you can see past these obstacles, you'll be rewarded with a film so moving that an entire book was published about how the story touched and changed viewers' lives all around the world.
5. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
IMDb Score: 8
Metacritic Score: 86
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 90
Our Score: 88.0
It was not a common occurrence in 1975 for a star as big as Al Pacino to take on the role of a queer man. But with Dog Day Afternoon, Pacino seemingly believed enough in the director and the material to bring the character to life. Not that the actor didn't have his misgivings. In Sydney Lumet's audio commentary of his heist movie, he described how Pacino was nervous to risk his public persona as "the macho, controlled, ice-cold person" from The Godfather movies to play a man in love with a woman trapped in a man's body. "To take that risk was enormous," Lumet said. Pacino was rewarded with an Oscar nomination.
4. The Handmaiden (2016)
IMDb Score: 8.1
Metacritic Score: 84
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 91
Our Score: 88.0
Some critics argued that the male gaze dominates The Handmaiden, particularly in its long, intense lovemaking scenes between its female heroes. Yet it's also been claimed that the sex is essential to the plot and to the evolution of its character. In 2016 director Park Chan-Wook told The Hollywood Reporter, "I always wanted to create a movie that portrayed [homosexual romance] as something natural, as just a normal part of life." Sarah Waters, author of the novel that inspired the film, expressed her approval of the scenes, too.
3. All About My Mother (1999)
IMDb Score: 7.8
Metacritic Score: 87
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 93
Our Score: 89.0
There's always room for another Pedro Almodóvar movie, it seems, and here we have the great director's final entry on our list. And it could be argued that if you're only going to watch one Almodóvar movie, then you should probably make it All About My Mother. Esteemed critic Ebert argued that the movie "represents a clear apotheosis in Almodóvar’s career" as it combines so many of the themes the director has explored elsewhere. It also marked the moment Almodóvar shifted to more dramatic work, winning an Oscar in the process.
2. C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
IMDb Score: 7.9
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 93
Our Score: 90.7
Director Jean-Marc Vallée went on to have massive success in Hollywood with movies such as Dallas Buyers Club and Wild — as well as the TV shows Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects — but it was C.R.A.Z.Y. that pushed him into the big leagues. It was slightly odd, then, that the movie — originally released around the world in 2005 — only got its first run in U.S. movie theaters in 2022. "I didn't want it to be just seen as a gay film," Vallée told magazine Vertigo in 2006. "It's about a boy refusing to accept that he's different."
1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
IMDb Score: 8.1
Metacritic Score: 95
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 92
Our Score: 91.3
Portrait of a Lady on Fire made headlines in 2022 after it became the highest new entry on Sight & Sound's prestigious Greatest Films of All Time list. "I wanted to film desire and then the burst of love, and have the audience go through the same stages as the characters," director Céline Sciamma told Sight & Sound in 2022. Yet the film also pushed back against the way many lesbian romances had been shown in the past. Sciamma called her movie a "manifesto about the female gaze". Its place in cinematic history has seemingly been well cemented.
