It takes a lot of skill and talent to make a funny movie actually funny and it takes a lot of skill and talent to make a lesbian movie actually good. But often, those two situations converge. I’m here today to speak to you about the movies that have been birthed from that convergence and stepped into the glorious light of online streaming.
9. D.E.B.S. (2005)
“When the leader of an elite team of paramilitary college co-ed superspies takes on the world’s greatest supervillainess, it’s love at first gun sight in this smart and sexy “sleeping with the enemy” comedy adventure.”
The premise is delightfully campy, providing a queer twist on the satirical faux-spy-thriller with Angela Robinson’s snappy writing at the helm. It won’t change your life, but it’ll make for a nice evening of entertainment with sexy turns from Jordana Brewster and Devyn Akoi, among others.
8. Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (2012)
Also available on Netflix.
“A low-fi sci-fi quirky comedy following the adventures of three lesbian space aliens on the planet Earth, sent here to look for love in order to save their planet.”
It’s super weird and super super smart. Even after it’s over, you’re not sure what you watched, but you’re glad you watched it.
7. The Four-Faced Liar (2010)
Also available on Wolfe Video and Netflix.
“A story of love and lies for four twenty-somethings looking to find themselves in New York City.”
Okay so I personally wasn’t really in to this movie, but y’all seem to really like it! For example, Kate has seen it SIXTEEN TIMES! She describes it like so: “At first I didn’t actually know there were lesbians in the plot. You can imagine my glee when lo and behold the main character Bridget is a womanizing lady who lives in a shitty apartment with her best guy friend, and falls for the new straight girl, Molly, who has already shacked up with the man she imagines she’ll marry. Complications ensue, and the complications are familiar to anyone who has ever been a twenty-something who thinks they can chainsmoke their emotions away.”
6. Who’s Afraid Of Vagina Wolf? (2014)
“A fun new lesbian feature about looking for love at age forty!”
I still haven’t seen this one but have heard nothing but good things and it looks really delightful. And yes, this is the second time I’ve recommended it without having seen it but I’m just being real with you.
5. Life Partners (2014)
“Sasha (Leighton Meester) and Paige (Gillian Jacobs) use their co dependent friendship to not venture into the dating world. When Paige meets Tim (Adam Brody) and get serious their friendship changes. Sasha tries to keep their relationship the same.”
This new release has gotten positive reviews from pretty much everybody I’ve talked to about it, including me. However, I wished there’d been a more prominent romance story for the lesbian character.
4. Imagine Me & You (2006)
“Right before she’s to say “I do,” a bride-to-be finds herself attracted to the female florist her mother hired to do the arrangements.”
This is Heather Hogan’s favorite lesbian movie. It follows all the familiar mainstream romantic comedy tropes and has the sheen of a wide-release film… but with girls!
3. But I’m a Cheerleader (2000)
“A naive teenager is sent to rehab camp when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being a lesbian.”
If you haven’t already seen this movie, then you are missing out on a monumentally important life experience. It’s hilarious, it’s smart, it involves Clea Duvall, what else can a grrrl ask for?
2. Saving Face (2005)
“When a young woman’s pregnant, unmarried mother moves into her apartment, she does what any dutiful child with an expectant widow on her hands would do: she sets her up with every bachelor in town.”
This film doesn’t get enough credit, so we try to give it as much credit as we possibly can, whenever we possibly can. It’s a sweet love story between two Chinese-American girls — a tomboyish doctor whose 48-year-old mother has just moved in with her following an affair and the sophisticated ballet dancer who teaches her to fall… IN LOVE!
1. Appropriate Behavior (2014)
“Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities. Being without a cliché to hold onto can be a lonely experience.”
Real talk: this post mostly exists for me to tell you to watch this movie. It stars and was written by bisexual actress Desiree Akhavan, who plays her own version of the Brutally Honest Misanthropic Anti-Pixie Daydream Girl, vacillating from hyperbolic-but-relatable despair to Ilana Wexler-esque repellant charm. It’s quirky, funny, and delightfully indie, chock-full of inside queer jokes that’ll surprise you and tickle your ripbones.
I’m feeling like our staycation sleepovers just got a really good movie list y/y?
Saving Face is a great movie! I’m looking forward to some of the others!
Saving Face is amazing. Seriously.
“But I’m a Cheerleader” was one of the first gay movies I was able to get my hands on as a teen. Sooo good.
I thought “The Four-Faced Liar” was only okay, but Bridget was pretty much the only memorable part.
I was so underwhelmed by “the four-faced liar”! but everybody else likes it a lot.
I just watched four faced liar per this list since it was the free-est option that I hadn’t seen and I wholeheartedly agree with your underwhelmed experience.
I was also underwhelmed, but Waffle thought it was the bestest. Also, if I’m fully honest, I think it got me laid at least once so I can’t complain too much.
I love Imagine Me & You because it is a Faberry fanfic come to life before Glee even existed
Autostraddle is enabling me to never go outside anymore….
Blagh! Yes! Appropriate Behaviour! I’ve tried (and failed) to get everybody I know to watch it. I don’t care how much it’s massively indebted to Lena Dunham and her output, it’s so much better than any of her stuff. I mean, it manages to go beyond straight white wealthy people for one. But it’s also so much funnier and sweeter and more optimistic. And I’m tired of the Girls’ characters being entirely shitty all the time. And entirely straight. Mainly the latter. I think if they were all shitty and queer, I probably would have far fewer issues with it.
This comment really became something more than I meant it to be. Which was basically just APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR IS GREAT PLZ WATCH IT ERRYBADDY.
Are they all on Netflix?
I indicated in the post which films were on netflix – the links go out to Wolfe Video or Amazon, depending on which platform you can watch them on
I love this list so much :)! My boothang and I wanted to see Appropriate Behavior at the Denver filmcenter but we missed it
GOD I LOVE MEAGAN GOOD SO MUCH. SO MUCH.
yesssss she is a major factor in making D.E.B.S. worth watching
Four Faced Liar, Life Partners, Imagine Me & You: all A+. Looking forward to checking out the others!
Saving Face is great
I *love* Saving Face. It’s hilarious, and although I’m not Chinese, I could very much relate to the… not sure how to word it, but the whole situation around an ethnic group that tends to keep to itself and everyone knows everyone else at one or two removes. Fantastic film.
I quite enjoyed Imagine Me & You, too, but will need to check the rest out soon!
I remember watching Imagine Me & You and feeling like I was watching my own life. GAHHHH THAT MOVIE AND ALL IT’S FEELINGS!
Saving Face is the cutest! Codependent Lesbian Space Alien is also the cutest, although I still don’t know what was up with the MIB subplot, it felt really unnecessary. Everything else was amazing.
Saving Face is hands down my favorite lesbian film. I’m always surprised/depressed at how many queer women haven’t seen it. It’s just so lovely. I watch it when I feel sad and it always helps. It also makes me incredibly hungry during that one scene. LOL
I don’t know if you can get it online, but the foxy merkins is a must see. brought to you by the wonderful people who graced us with codependent lesbian space alien seeks same.
I absolutely love Saving Face! It pains me that so few people have seen it. I also like Imagine Me & You but I feel like everyone swoons over it too much? I mean, I think it’s great but not that great (please don’t come at me with pitchforks). I’m keen to check out Life Partners and now I’m definitely downloading Appropriate Behaviour after checking out the trailer.
Totally agree about Imagine Me & You. It’s fun but it’s not really exceptional or anything. I think Saving Face is a better crafted movie all around and just as romantic. I wish it would get the attention that Imagine Me & You does.
Oh yes – I agree with everything of these two comments. Love Saving Face. Just a wonderful movie all round – lesbian content aside (as is Bound).
I watched Imagine Me and You ages after it came out and was really disappointed – I found it disjointed and and bit too forced for my liking. Maybe my expectations were too high because of all the swooning I’d read about it before I saw it. Another movie I enjoy much more, that arguably has some of the same flaws is Nina’s Heavenly Delights. Maybe it is the Scottish accents making me more generous to that one.
Imagine Me & You was one of the first gay lady movies I watched, and I thought it was pretty bad, to be honest. I love a lot of “bad” movies, but to me it was just regular bad. Maybe I should give it another chance?
I think the thing is that it has the production value of a mainstream romantic comedy and it was just so amazing to see that kind of attention given to a lesbian story, perhaps? Saving Face is definitely a better film, I think, I’d call that my favorite romantic comedy.
The issue I have with IM&Y is that it’s too easy- the husband is entirely too okay with the whole situation.
Oh, I super love “Appropriate Behavior”. On the other hand, I, uh, Very Super Did Not Like “Life Partners” and am kind of disappointed to see so many people singing its praises.
what didn’t you like about it? i’m curious! i was annoyed that the entire romantic focus was on the straight girl instead of the lesbian but that didn’t seem to bother anybody else i’ve talked to about it quite as much.
Well, for starters, Sasha’s being a lesbian didn’t contribute to the story AT ALL. It just wasn’t even relevant! Like, they could’ve made the exact same movie with two straight girls. And that would have been fine–representation is awesome, our lives shouldn’t be reduced to our sexual/romantic proclivities, etc.!–except for the fact that, well, nothing about her characterization felt authentic to me. At all. All the jokes were hackneyed, out-of-date, or inaccurate (the Subaru stuff? Really? Also, I don’t know a single queer woman named Jen[n], but I know about seven named Lauren. Just saying). It all just felt so arbitrary and shoehorned, and far more like tokenism than pretty much any movie I’d watched in a really long time.
I also thought the topic of marriage equality, etc., was kind of a wasted opportunity–but, again, every increment of that movie just left me desperate for something, anything, to happen that would make Sasha’s orientation feel relevant rather than pandering or gratuitous. Ya feel? I un
On a separate note–and I understand that this wasn’t what Life Partners is about, but the myriad ways in which that movie failed for me made me all the more upset that we’ve never seen THIS type of movie–when are we gonna get a film about a straight and a gay best friend where the lesbian shacks up and the straight girl is jealous? I feel like so many of us can speak to that type of experience, and THAT’S a singularly queer friendship experience I’d love to see represented.
Yes! This! So much. I just found Life Partners objectionable for lots of the more political reasons (focus on the straight partnership, resolution for the queer character was still kinda stunted, etc) but, also, I just thought it was quite boring? So few of the scenes had anything meaningful happen in them; they were just collections of banal conversations, and the overall plot felt tepid and like it never really went anywhere. And that’s not cos I don’t like films about friendships (I wept over Frances Ha) and slow moving films. I just thought it was really underwhelming and the funniest moments were in the trailer.
I adored Four Faced Liar! I could never remember the name of it! It’s so cute and short and has no super irritating characters, really. Also, the movie ultimately ended with them together, so that’s a huge win in my book!
Ahhh we LOVE Imagine Me And You in this house! It almost makes me want to move to Primrose Hill except not really because in reality it’s full of awful snobs.
A movie that I just re-watched recently that I forgot has an (admittedly very minor) lesbian storyline in it is Caramel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=319vcoleyMk – it’s also a really lovely moving film.
That movie sits on my very small DVD shelf. It’s really lovely.
I stumbled across Gray Matters a while back and as someone with chronic straight girl crush syndrome, did enjoy that movie. It’s really upbeat.Also, Rachel Shelley.
I’ve been meaning to catch “Appropiate Behavior” in a movie theater, it ought to appear in Europe sometime this month, but I might just give in to the lure of itunes.
And as for “Saving Face”, that also sits on my small DVD shelf, along with D.E.B.S., “Imagine Me&You” and “But I’m a Cheerleader”, along with a few other classics.
just watched Four Faced Liar and “meh.” It was completely predictable, but not terrible.
Awesome list! I agree on almost all of these movies being fun and excellent. I’m not a huge fan of the Four Faced Liar or Imagine You & Me, but they both have really decent production value and are fun to watch!
I’d also add Drool, which I think I saw was on Netflix recently. It’s a little rough-around-the-edged indie film, but I think it hits the right notes for anyone who likes a dark comedy.
yes!! drool was so weird, and amazing.
i also feel like there were some really interesting race/gender politics going on there
Okay, but here is the thing Appropriate Behaviour is EXTREMELY trans phobic and specifically trans misogynist. Don’t give that your money. I’m pretty (really super) disappointed that it is on this list at all, and even more so that it is number one. C’mon, y’all. I know you know better.
1 – Saving Face
2 – Imagine Me&You
3 – But I’m a Cheerleader
Appropriate Behaviour was OK but it doesn’t crack the top 3 for me. Maybe not even the top 5
Very late to this, but just adding in my absolute love of Saving Face. Lesbians and Joan Chen = fantastic. This movie makes me so happy.
When I was 19 I watched but I’m a cheerleader on repeat…until I was 21.
I love “But I’m a cheerleader” it’s a really good film. I’d also sudjust “GBF” it’s funny and awesome.
I just watched “Appropriate Behavior” and it was SO GOOD. Riese I understand why you wrote this whole article just for this…. everyone watch it!!!
Oh i love saving face. I rewatch that movie regularly, it’s such a sweet romance!
And i just saw Appropriate Behavior recently. It started off rough for me because the camera work is …very obriously handheld. But it’s really cute! I laughed a lot. I thought the characters seemed really well fleshed out, and the interactions felt really genuine.
I see that Janina Gavankar is in the Vagina Wolfe one. Does she do another ridiculous impersonation of a latin@ or does she actually play her own ethnicity this time?
Four down, five to go!
Appropriate Behavior looks like it’s going to be another favourite :3