Movies with “Face” in the Title Ranked By Whether You Should Watch Them While Recovering from FFS
Facial feminization surgery — or the reason For Fuck’s Sake internet slang always confuses me — is a group of procedures that counteract the masculinizing effects of testosterone puberty. Jaw contouring, nose jobs, Adam’s Apple reductions, brow bone reductions, lip filler, cheek filler, and hairline changes are among the things people get with FFS. Sometimes the results are subtle, and sometimes they’re drastic.
My first years transitioning most of the results I saw were drastic. I was impressed — and let’s be honest a little jealous — but also felt complicated about changing my face. It took years and seeing the range of results — and let’s be honest having healthcare through my job — to realize what exactly I wanted for myself. I feel really confident about my choices of procedures (sorry I’m keeping my crooked Ashkenazi nose!) and my choice in surgeon, but it does still feel very science-fiction to go to sleep with one face and wake up with another. Even if the initial change will be the swelling that will eventually subside.
Luckily, the history of cinema has provided many explorations of faces and changing faces to process these feelings. I’ve decided to rank every movie I’ve ever seen with the word “face” in the title ranked by how enjoyable they would be to watch while recovering from FFS. I know, I know, some of these movies aren’t literally about faces and other movies that don’t have face in the title are more relevant. Whatever. Ever heard of a bit?
NOTE: I have not seen any of the following movies with face in the title. Let me know if I should watch them while recovering from surgery: Angel Face (1952), Face (2009), The Face of Love (2013), False Face (1977), The Last Face (2016), The Man Without a Face (1993), Stolen Face (1952)
12. A Face in the Crowd (1957)
This is a very good movie, but I’m sorry while recovering from surgery I do not recommend watching a prescient film about an egomaniac who uses his cult of personality among the “common man” to gain power. I also don’t think anyone in that state wants to grapple with director Elia Kazan, a very bad man who alas was one of the most talented and influential directors of the 20th century.
11. Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Another good movie, this one directly about faces and surgery. There might be a fun masochism to this, but personally I think it would be tough to watch since it’s more concerned with Christiane’s father’s shame around her face than her own feelings about it.
10. A Woman’s Face (1941)
Joan Crawford is so good in this, but there are about twenty George Cukor movies that would be more fun to watch while recovering from surgery. I also don’t think it’s a great vibe while recovering — or ever! — to equate disfigurement with bad behavior.
9. Frybread Face and Me (2023)
This is a really sweet coming-of-age movie about two Navajo cousins spending a summer together. This is the true neutral of the list. It would be a totally lovely film to watch while recovering from surgery, but there’s nothing about it that makes it more appealing as opposed to watching it at any other time.
8. Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Being on a lot of drugs is part of the healing process and Bill and Ted are stoner icons. Is this third entry as good as the first two? No. But it does have Jack Haven and it’s nice to see a trans person on-screen while recovering from a trans-related surgery.
7. Funny Face (1957)
Kind of weird to watch old Fred Astaire woo young Audrey Hepburn — not everyone can be Bogart in Sabrina sorry! — but, I mean, it’s a Stanley Donen movie with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. How can that not feel like a balm against post-surgery pain?
6. Face to Face (1976)
This is not one of my favorite Ingmar Bergman movies/miniseries but the extended cut is nearly three hours long and while recovering from surgery you have a lot of time on your hands. Also it’s about an emotional breakdown, something many have warned me is common in the days just following FFS.
5. Baby Face (1933)
Barbara Stanwyck uses her sex appeal to destroy the lives of men and get ahead. I assume with my new face I’ll also have this power. It’s a good lesson for the newly beautiful/confident that in the end it feels better to use beauty for love instead of power.
4. The Face of Another (1966)
If you want to lean into questions of faces and identity, this is the movie to watch. It’s a challenging, at times unpleasant film, but I’d argue it’s very worth it.
3. Saving Face (2004)
Alice Wu’s first film is one of the best lesbian rom-coms of all time. If you’re someone looking for a post-surgery comfort movie, this is the one for you.
2. Face/Off (1997)
Escapist entertainment AND explorations of faces and identity? I have not seen this since I was a kid but I might just have to rewatch it myself during my recovery. Nicolas Cage and John Travolta chewing scenery as each other in a John Woo action movie is irresistible. Also Margaret Cho is in it!!
1. Smiley Face (2007)
This also topped my list of best movies to watch stoned. I think I’ll just keep putting it at the top of movie lists until every person in the world watches it. This movie hits so hard with just a little edible — I can’t even imagine how incredible it would be on pain meds.
Fingers crossed I don’t need revisions unless you want another one of these lists for the word faces. Faces (1968), Faces Places, The Two Faces of January, The Three Faces of Eve… hmm maybe I’ll do it anyway.
60 Best Lesbian Movies on Tubi
Tubi is an upstart whippersnapper in the streaming space, rising in popularity for its free service that offers a massive library of films and television shows available to all of us in exchange for our willingness to watch a few commercials along the way. There are, by my count, at least 200 movies about lesbian, bisexual and queer women and/or trans people on Tubi, and the range of quality amongst those 200 is as vast as all the world’s oceans, from movies that were shot in an abandoned office park for $5 to actual real Hollywood cinema flicks. Here’s our guide to some of what’s best amongst queer and lesbian movies on Tubi.
Classic Lesbian Cannon
Chutney Popcorn (1999)
Kayla called Chutney Popcorn “the South Asian Dyke Rom-Com I always wished Bend It Like Beckham had been.” Funny and dykey and warm and centering a compelling group of lesbian friends, Chutney Popcorn is a romance but it’s also about family— the one we’re born with and the ones we choose.
A Woman Like Eve (1979)
In this Dutch drama, a woman on holiday in France with her husband means a young feminist from a commune, falls in love, and leaves her husband —resulting in a child custody battle in her departure’s wake.
Better Than Chocolate (1999)
Rooted in a fully realized Vancouver lesbian community with all its in-jokes and bars and bookstores and drama and overdone sex scenes, some find “Better than Chocolate” cloying, others appreciate its absolute dedication to being entirely itself.
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Jamie Babbitt’s dark comedy holds up year after year with its satirical take on conversion therapy, starring Natasha Lyonne, Melanie Lynskey, Clea Duvall and RuPaul.
Chutney Popcorn (1999)
Kayla called Chutney Popcorn “the South Asian Dyke Rom-Com I Always Wished Bend It Like Beckham Had Been.” Funny and dykey and warm centering a compelling group of lesbian friends, Chutney Popcorn is a romance but it’s also about family— the one we’re born with and the ones we choose.
The Children’s Hour (1961)
“Lost amidst this plot, amidst the lies, the ruined lives, the self-hatred and shame and suicide, is a detail I really must underline: Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine play queer women in love. These two adorable lesbians crackle with sexual tension and even in the most dramatic moments connect in a way that’s heartwarming and sexy.” – Drew Burnett Gregory, Thirsty Classics: “The Children’s Hour” Is All About Shirley MacLaine’s Hair
The Truth About Jane (2000)
This TV movie is very much of its time, but features a winning performance by Stockard Channing as Janice, the struggling mother of a gay daughter in high school — and by RuPaul, who plays Jimmy, Janice’s friend who helps her process the news and inch towards acceptance.
Queer Documentaries
Southwest of Salem (2016)
The tragic story of four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted of the sexual assault of two small children during the 80s and 90s witch-hunt Satanic Panic era — and their fight for freedom.
Read Yvonne Marquez’s review of Southwest of Salem
Chavela (2017)
The life of boundary-breaking lesbian ranchera singer Chavela Vargas — the first artist in Mexico to openly sing to another woman on stage, one of the first to wear pants pre-1950 — is given a loving tribute in this documentary.
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement (2009)
This film tells the story of legendary lesbian couple Edie and Thea, from their childhoods to their first meeting in 1963 to Thea’s M.S. diagnosis and their eventual marriage in Toronto in 2007.
Regarding Susan Sontag (2014)
“While it would be easy to create a sterilized portrait of the accomplished intellectual, Kates refrains from doing so. No subject is too delicate: Sontag’s ego, contradictions, futile attempts at becoming a successful novelist, inability to play nice with other feminists, and infamous glass closet are all touched upon during Regarding‘s 90 minutes.” – Sarah Fonseca, “Regarding Susan Sontag”: A Style Guide for the Young, Queer, and Whipsmart
The Aggressives (2005)
This groundbreaking documentary, filmed in New York between 1997 and 2004, cast light on the thriving queer subculture of “Aggressives,” or “AGs,” QPOC who have adopted masculine behaviors and styles, built their own social spaces and are challenging traditional ideas of gender and sexuality.
The Punk Singer (2013)
An adoring portrait of punk rocker and Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna and her position at the forefront of the 1990s “Riot Grrl” movement.
Wish Me Away (2012)
When Chely Wright came out in 2010, it was a big f*cking deal —country music simply had no space for a lesbian, but she couldn’t keep swallowing her own self forever. Wish Me Away follows her through her childhood through her early success in Nashville and through the painful process of coming out publicly, and dealing with the repercussions.
Lesbian Romance
Hearts Beat Loud (2018)
“I’m here for the intense summer romance between Sam and Rose. I suspect you will be, too. Together they make gentle jokes and stroke thumbs and their eyes look like heart emojis. Everything around them just feels… bubbly. And full and new and, quite simply, great. I don’t remember the last time I got to see young black lesbians have the opportunity to love each other like this on a big screen.” – Carmen Phillips
A New York Christmas Wedding (2019)
This wacky trip of a lesbian Christmas movie sees Jenny (Nia Fairweather), nervous about her engagement to her fiancé, David, when a guardian angel Azraael (Cooper Koch) shows up to give her a vision into the future she could’ve lived but did not — in which she ended up with her childhood best friend, Gabrielle (Adriana DeMeo). “Instead of some far-off Snow White Christmas Village, it’s an queer Afro-Latina looking for love in a very not whitewashed New York,” wrote Carmen in her review.
I Can’t Think Straight (2007)
Tala, the daughter of wealthy Christian Palestinians living in Jordan, is prepping to marry when she meets Leyla, an aspiring writer and British Indian Muslim woman who’s also in a relationship with a man — but the two women hit it off, and what ensues will shake up their lives and their families forever. Erin enjoyed this movie so much she wanted to send its writer/director an Edible Arrangement.
Kiss Me/Kiss Myg (2011)
Mia meets Frida at an engagement party for Mia’s father and Frida’s mother and is immediately drawn to Frida, an out lesbian. But their attraction poses a pretty serious problem because Mia is also engaged to be married, to a man (his name is Tim of course).
love, spells and all that (2019)
Reyhan and Eren had a relationship as teenage girls in the small Turkish town where they grew up — Eren the daughter of a powerful politician and Reyhan of one of his workers — but that ended in scandal, and Eren left home for university in Paris. Now it’s 20 years later. Eren is back and wants to pick up where they left off, but Reyhan “can’t simply erase two decades and run away to live a lifestyle of abundance and lesbianism.” Also, she’s wondering if Eren’s only still interested at all because of the eternal love spell Reyhan put on her all those years ago.
Princess Cyd (2017)
Heartwarming and sincere, Princess Cyd is the story of a life-changing summer in which our titular character lives with her estranged writer aunt, falls for a neighborhood boy and also her local barista, Katie. Heather writes: “Princess Cyd is quiet almost to the point of stillness and deeply generous.”
Rafiki (2018)
This “beautiful, colorful celebration of Black queer love” sees two young women in Kenya, Kena and Ziki, falling in love in a country where homosexuality is illegal and so many of their friends and family members aren’t supportive of their relationship. Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu creates art in a style she calls “Afrobubblegum, presenting a ‘fun, fierce and fantastical representation of Africa.”
Signature Move (2017)
Fawzia Mirza’s “late-in-life coming-of-age lucha libre romance” is about a thirtysomethign Pakistani Muslim lesbian in Chicago who’s taking care of with her mother and training to be a wrestler when she meets and falls for a woman who challenges her to embrace her true self..
The Summer of Sangaile (2015)
“Alanté Kavaïté’s coming-of-age queer love story is less about the spectacle of the thing and more about the emotional nuance. It’s dark in places but as light as first love’s wings in others… Summer of Sangaile will compel you to smile really big and shed three knowing, bittersweet tears.” – Heather Hogan
The Feels (2018)
Andi (Constance Wu) and Lu (Angela Trimbur) corral their friends into California Wine County for a pre-wedding bachelorette party, where Lu makes the drunk confession that she’e never had an orgasm —much to Andi’s surprise, who thought they were having the best sex of their lives. Everybody pitches in to solve this problem, but they’ve got a lot of their own emotional hijinks to tend to along the way. Heather writes: “it’s authentic and it’s tender and while the climax is a little bit rushed — eh hem — it’s a gay happy ending. And that, itself, is still revolutionary.
Indie Queer Movies
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
Desiree Akhvan’s adaptation of emily m. danforth’s stunning coming-of-age novel follows teenage Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) in the early nineties who’s sent to conversion camp after her boyfriend catches her having sex with her secret girlfriend Coley Taylor, in the backseat of Coley’s car. There she meets Jane Fonda (Sasha Lane), who was raised in a hippie commune, and begins to discover who she really is and who she wants to be.
“This is a quiet movie, Akhavan trusting Ashley Connor’s cinematography, Julian Wass’ score, and her actors’ faces to tell the story. Akhavan never lets the seriousness of the subject matter overwhelm the moments of humor and joy — the suggestion that our best hope for holding onto ourselves is to find community.” – Drew Gregory
A Date For Mad Mary (2016)
After a brief stay in prison, Mad Mary returns to her hometown, where she must push back against her reputation to get a date to her best friend’s wedding. “The film balances its subject matter and its tones due to sharp writing and Kerslake’s truly remarkable performance,” writes Drew. “This is really a gem of a film.”
Adam (2019)
Based on Ariel Schrag’s graphic novel, Adam is the story of an awkward teenage boy who spends his last high school summer in New York with his sister and the queer and trans community she’s surrounded herself with. When those gay friends assume Adam himself is trans, he doesn’t correct them. It’s a self-conscious, humorous snapshot of young queer life in the late ’00s.
Appropriate Behavior (2014)
Desiree Akhavan’s debut film, described at the time by Kaelyn as “the movie everyone in the queer lady-loving community and indie film universe is buzzing about.,” is still a gem. It tells the story of a bisexual Brooklynite reeling from a breakup with her girlfriend (Rebecca Henderson) and battling the expectations of her traditional Persian family.
Bare (2015)
Dianna Agron is Sarah Barton, a small town girl-next-door who’s friendship with a drug-dealing drifter (Paz de la Huerta) becomes a hazy, intense romance. Come for the chemistry and performances from Agron and de la Huerta; the script itself is pretty mid.
BFFs (2014)
Two straight best friends pretend to be a couple to enable them to attend a relationship retreat one of them bought with a now-ex boyfriend. But once there, the lines between friendship and romance blur in a film that’s a funny and lighthearted look at the silly complexities of female friendship.
Boy Meets Girl (2014)
One of the first films to show a trans woman played by a trans actress dating another woman, “Boy Meets Girl” is a lighthearted romance about Ricky, a 21-year-old bisexual Virginia trans woman dreaming of a design career in New York, who makes two surprising connections in one unforgettable summer.
Goldfish Memory (2003)
“Like Love, Actually, but Irish, gay, and riddled with commitment issues this ensemble romantic comedy follows the lives and intersecting relationships of several delightfully messy people. Equally split between gay, lesbian, and straight romances, some storylines work better than others, but all of the actors are charming and the film is smarter about love than most of these kinds of romcoms.” – Drew Gregory
Life Partners (2014)
Leighton Meester is Sasha, a lesbian who’s entrenched in a deeply co-dependent best friendship with Paige, who is straight — a friendship that’s tested when Paige meets a man (Adam Brody) she actually likes and Sasha hates sharing. B Nichols called Life Partners “a film in which everything that could go usually wrong in a lesbian film inexplicably doesn’t!” Beth Dover and Gabourey Sidibe are delightful as Sasha’s queer friends.
Portrait of a Serial Monogamist (2015)
After a formative heartbreak, 40-year-old lesbian Elise has bounced from one serious relationship to another with a perfected exit strategy — but after her most recent breakup, she’s lost her will to continue the cycle, and she’s got lots of queer friends and an overbearing Jewish family eager to weigh in on her problems and choices! Heather writes in her review of Portrait of a Serial Monogamist that it is “incisive and very, very funny.”
Red Doors (2005)
Ed, the father of three daughters in a Chinese-American family living in the New York suburbs, is revisiting his whole family history through VHS tapes — including the story of Julie, the shy middle child who’s life is shaken up when she falls for actress Mia Scarlett.
Thrills and Chills
Good Manners (2017)
“Good Manners…is exploring something uniquely queer. Part of the reason it’s such an overwhelming and complex film is because its queerness forces it to embody both the body horror of pregnancy and the fear of parental failure, while also including the distrust of adoption found in something like The Omen and the rejection of an other found in works like Frankenstein and Freaks.”
— Drew Burnett Gregory, via Monsters & Mommis: “Good Manners” Is a Tribute to Queer Motherhood
Bit (2019)
Laurel (Nicole Maines) is just a regular 18-year-old trans girl with protective parents before she gets vampired while spending the summer with her brother in LA, where she has a perfect gay meet-cute with Izzy who of course digs in and turn Laurel into a vampire. “Brad Michael Elmore’sBitisn’t a landmark film about the trans experience,” wrote Drew in her review of Bit. “But God is it fun. And it’s not without meaning.”
Breaking the Girls (2012)
Jamie Babbitt’s ode to “murderous crazy lesbians in pools” is worth exactly one (1) watch. Sara and Alex, two girls in college, make an agreement to kill each other’s archenemies, thus inviting suspicion for the wrong murders and ensuring their freedom forever. As they get closer they get… sexually closer… and the murder doesn’t go as planned.
Cracks (2009)
“Jordan Scott’s Cracks, set in a 1930s all-girls boarding school, dives head-first into a coming-of-age horror story that disturbs at every turn. It’s a piercing portrayal of abuse. It’s a monster movie, only instead of a creature in the night, its monster is a human woman. Its monster is a master of manipulation and deception.” – Kayla Kumari, “Cracks” Is a Boarding School Monster Movie
Good Manners (2017)
“Good Manners…is exploring something uniquely queer. Part of the reason it’s such an overwhelming and complex film is because its queerness forces it to embody both the body horror of pregnancy and the fear of parental failure, while also including the distrust of adoption found in something like The Omen and the rejection of an other found in works like Frankenstein and Freaks.” – Drew Gregory, via Monsters & Mommis: “Good Manners” Is a Tribute to Queer Motherhood
Jack & Diane (2012)
Charming and naive Diane (Juno Temple) meets tough-skinned Jack (Riley Keough) in New York City. They hook up all night and must grapple with their growing relationship under challenging circumstances — Diane’s moving at the end of the summer, but her feelings for Jack are manifesting themselves in terrifying ways, creating violent changes in her physical body.
Knife + Heart (2018)
“While the murders and raunchy smut are the flashier elements of the film that make it easy to pitch to an audience, the core of the story is a sincere meditation on desire. While stopping the killer and uncovering the mystery behind his motives moves the narrative forward, they are peripheral to the actual substance of the film which, in line with filmmaker Yann Gonzalez’s trademark style, weaves romantic queer poems out of queer eroticism and obscenity.” – Chingy Nea via “Knife + Heart” and the Thin Line Between Desire and Destruction
Knocking (2021)
This “simple, effective thriller” follows Molly, a woman fresh out of a psychiatric hospital, starting her new life in her new apartment where her desire to be better is immediately challenged by an incessant knocking and a series of similarly chilling omens.
Lyle (2014)
Leah (Gaby Hoffman) and June (Ingrid Jungermann) are mothers grieving the loss of their toddler while planning for a new baby in a psychological thriller Kristin Russo described as “each moment punching your eyeballs in with the sheer force of its beauty.”
The Carmilla Movie (2017)
Beloved actor Elise Bauman co-stars in this film inspired by the web-series of the same name which was adapted from the 1872 graphic novel Carmilla. Five years after vanquishing the apocalypse, Laura (Bauman) and Carmilla (Natasha Negovanlis) and their pals face a new supernatural threat tied to Carmilla’s past. Valerie, a fan of the web series, declared the film “everything we want it to be (and so much more).”
The Retreat (2021)
“The monsters in the film are not mythical — they’re militant homophobic serial killers targeting queer people. And the majority of the film with all its bloody torture and revenge is really well-done. It finds the perfect balance between being properly brutal and satisfyingly cathartic. The film follows some pretty standard beats but it does them well and it’s exciting to get this kind of horror movie with queers at its center.” – Drew Gregory, “The Retreat” Is a New Kind of Lesbian Horror, Full of Catharsis and Dykey Swagger
Thelma (2017)
“This beautiful coming-of-age thriller actualizes queer shame and repression. As Thelma navigates adjusting to college — and gay feelings — apart from her religious upbringing, she begins to have seizures and visions and potentially telekinetic powers. As the tension builds, the scope of the film widens with more imagery and plot twists. But at its core is simply a girl navigating her identity and trying to find herself separate from her family.” – Drew Gregory
Queer Arthouse Movies
House of Hummingbird (2018)
This award-winning South Korean drama, set in 1994, captures the acute misery of being 14 years old, a time when everything seems like the end of the world. Eun-hee is a working class girl with a secret boyfriend, an abusive brother, a Chinese teacher she’s obsessed and a best friend, Yu-ri—a schoolgirl who’s nursing a huge crush on Eun-hee. Drew writes that “this is a movie for all the queers who ate lunch in a teacher’s room and this is a movie for all the queers who wondered if a future was possible and then, one day, stopped wondering and started to believe.”
Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)
This controversial film dominated lesbian community discourse for a solid few months with its three-hour romantic drama saga starring Léa Seydoux as aspiring painter Emma and Adèle Exarchopoulos as introverted eventual schoolteacher Adèle. Based on a 2010 graphic novel by Jul Maroh, Blue garnered widespread acclaim as well as lots of attention for its graphic, long sex scene and the volume of spaghetti consumed by its lead characters. While intimately beloved by so many, our reviewer Kate felt that the film was an example of “the male gaze reigning supreme.”
Certain Women (2016)
“Renowned lesbian auteur Kelly Reichardt brings her famous touch of melancholy from her usual setting of Oregon to the plains of Montana,” writes Drew of Certain Women. “This triptych of stories about lonely women includes Reichardt’s most explicit work about queer women. Lily Gladstone is remarkable as a rancher who falls hard for a law professor played by Kristen Stewart. The infatuation is fairly one-sided, but it’s powerful to watch Gladstone’s shy character follow her heart and yearn for more. Like most of Reichardt’s films, this is a quiet and meditative piece, but its nuance will haunt you long after it ends.”
Daddy Issues (2019)
“A love story between a 19-year-old artist, her Instagram crush, and her Instagram crush’s sugar daddy, Cash’s debut feature is equally sweet and taboo. The artist, Maya (Madison Lawlor), is estranged from her father and stuck at home with her cruel mother and inappropriate stepdad. She dreams of going to art school in Florence but doesn’t have the money. Instead she settles for texting her Florence-based friend about her all-consuming crush on fashion designer/influencer Jasmine Jones (Montana Manning). Fed up and filled with an angsty joie de vivre, Maya follows an insta-tag to a bar and manages to infiltrate Jasmine’s crew. Chaos ensues. Romance ensues.” – Drew, “Daddy Issues” Is a Very Queer Very Good Movie
Petit Mal (2022)
“Petit Mal is about a throuple figuring out how to begin again. It’s not that the film shies away from the specific joys and challenges of a throuple — it’s just done in a way that doesn’t attach value or judgment.” -Drew, “Petit Mal” is a Lesbian Throuple’s Real Life Friction
Salmonberries (1991)
k.d. lang stars as an orphaned Eskimo who passes as male to work at a mine in Alaska. She has a relationship with Roswitha (Rosel Zech), an exiled widowed East German librarian. “It’s a slow and odd film about identity and the past that doesn’t totally work but is endlessly fascinating,” wrote Drew.
Young & Wild (2012)
Daniela is a horny teen living in Chile with her evangelical family and she writes about all of it on her very popular blog. “With a range of specific sex scenes and well-drawn relationships, the film is a painful and inspiring tale of desire,” writes Drew.
Dyke Drama
AWOL (2017)
Joey’s looking for direction in her small town and thinks she’s found it in a military recruitment center — but then she meets Rayna, and her world turns upside down.. “Joey resists being both a poster girl for both hillbilly kitsch and tragic poverty porn,” writes Sarah Fonseca in her review of AWOL. “This is because, before anything else, AWOL is a movie about class: every single move made, be it across the Canadian border or setting foot into a pawn shop, has an impact on Joey and Rayna’s wallets and the contents of their families’ bellies.”
Her Smell (2019)
This uneven, gritty, intoxicating, dizzying, polarizing journey through the life of a self-destructive alt-rock queen Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss) also stars model Agyness Deyn as Becky’s coke-starved guitarist and Cara Delevingne as Cassie, a queer member of the new all-girl band Becky’s label has got her eye on.
Monster (2003)
Based on a true story, Charlize Theron stars as sex worker and serial killer Aileen Wournos, who, after a lifetime of abuse and neglect, kills a client in self-defense, starting a string of murders that will eventually land her on death row. Christina Ricci plays her girlfriend “Selby Wall” (a semi-fictionalized character based on Wournos’ actual girlfriend, Tyria Moore) in a film that is both very good and extremely upsetting.
Take Me For a Ride (2016)
“A simple coming-of-age movie about queer teen love in Ecuador, Take Me For a Ride works because of the precise cinematography and the chemistry between lead actors Samanta Caicedo and Maria Juliana Rangel. The drama remains low-key and the film feels like a personal snapshot.” – Drew
The Duke of Burgundy (2015)
This British erotic romance drama details the BDSM relationship between a scientist and her maid, which Drew describes as “a gorgeous and strange film with alluring performances from Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna.” Fikri wrote that Duke of Burgundy “deals with love and relationships in such a nuanced and sensitive way that I’d recommend it just because, not just as “a BDSM film.”
The Secrets / Ha Sadot (2007)
This “complicated film about faith and love and commitment to principles all in the face of patriarchy” is the story of two young women studying at Jewish seminary — studious and conservative Noemi and rebellious Michelle. They discover their queerness through their feelings for each other, while both are pushed towards marrying men.
Vita & Virginia (2019)
The legendary relationship between author Virginia Woolf and her lover and muse, the androgynous writer Vita Sackville-West is the topic of this film that Drew writes “refuses to stay in the past, ensuring its tale of women writers, polyamory, and unsustainable connection feels alive and current.”
Women Who Kill (2017)
This dry, dark comedy follows exes Morgan (Ingrid Jungermann) and Jean (Ann Carr), locally famous true-crime podcasters in Park Slope who interview female serial killers — but Morgan can’t seem to shut off her suspicion of darkness lurking beneath everything when she starts dating Simone, a mysterious girl she meets at the Park Slope Food Co-Op.
Actresses Born Before My Grandma Ranked by How Badly I Want Them to Top Me
Since I was a young closeted lesbian, I’ve been cursed to crush on actresses who died before I was born. Celebrity crushes always live in a fantasy space, but at least if I crushed on my contemporaries the fantasy would be possible. Alas I am a sucker for a mid-atlantic accent and a beauty in black and white.
My crushes may be consistent but my sexuality is not! I’ve long considered myself a switch and yet only in the last few years have I really explored and enjoyed the bottoming part of that. So let’s combine old fantasy with new and rank some crushes based on how much I’d like them to top me.
This list could’ve been infinite so I’ve set the cutoff at my (dead) grandma’s birthday which was August 1922. Unfortunately, this means Dorothy Dandridge just misses the cutoff — based on Carmen Jones alone she would’ve ranked high.
15. Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1944)
Beautiful, talented, bottom. If Ingrid Bergman tried to top me it wouldn’t even be fun and goofy like some of the other bottoms on this list — it would be cold and awkward. Love watching her on-screen, don’t lust for her much IRL.
14. Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo in Ninotchka (1939)
Another bottom but at least this one is bratty. She’d try to top me and then get pouty when I laughed. But then she’d laugh too! It would be fun!
13. Jennifer Jones
Jennifer Jones in Cluny Brown (1946)
Her performance in Duel in the Sun was a sexual awakening for me, but there’s a reason she was better suited for roles like Cluny Brown and Portrait of Jennie. I’m not sure how it would go if she topped me but I’d love to have her try!
12. Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy in The Thin Man (1934)
Sure, we can all imagine Nora topping Nick in the Thin Man movies, but for some reason Myrna Loy feels like a top with men/bottom with women bisexual. Maybe it’s because of her body language in those pictures with Amelia Earhart.
11. Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn in Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
The highest ranked bottom on this list and my longest held Old Hollywood crush. I have a “want to be” and “want to be with” crush on Katharine Hepburn unmatched by any celebrity of any era. But there’s a difference between having top energy and being a top! I think Kate was more masc but less toppy than her reputation.
10. Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers in Top Hat (1935)
She topped Fred Astaire in all ten collaborations and she did it backwards and in heels !
9. Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar (1954)
Obviously, one of the great tops in Hollywood history, but, personally, I like a top who is a bit more playful! Johnny Guitar is one of the greatest movies ever and she wears pants better than anyone and still I can’t imagine a night with her being all that fun.
8. Bette Davis
Bette Davis in The Letter (1944)
Bette Davis wins this round of the feud. I mean, have you seen The Letter? I will say I think I’m possibly being influenced by Susan Sarandon’s portrayal of Davis. And while Sarandon would top my overall top list, she was not born before my grandma and should not factor into my feelings about Bette.
7. Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong in Shanghai Express (1932)
Due to, you know, racism, Anna May Wong’s roles were split between underwritten characters who were dangerous sexpots and underwritten characters who were passive and suffering. She was talented enough to breathe life and add dimensionality to both. Freed from this dichotomy would Anna May Wong be a top? I don’t know but I’d like to be the one to find out!
6. Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat (1944)
I would love to be topped by Tallulah Bankhead. By all accounts, she was an incredible lover. That said, I do think she’d be the kind of cis woman who would top other cis women but then call me the “best of both worlds” and expect me to top her. Or she’d top me but insist on calling it pegging. She has that dangerous mix of progressive politics and freewheeling entitlement I’ve found to be a red flag!
5. Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino in On Dangerous Ground (1951), which she co-directed
I love a multi-hyphenate!! Sorry to be such a Capricorn. Actually not sorry. My type is multi-hyphenate. And Ida Lupino was one of the best. Yes, this is largely a talent crush. But I also think she’d bring some of her directorial forcefulness to my body.
4. Maya Deren
Maya Deren in At Land (1944), which she directed
An auteur working within the system is hot, but an auteur working outside the system?? Creating an entirely new film language?? While I’m not exactly sure what sex with Maya Deren would be like, I’m sure it would be a totally new experience. Also she was a dancer which is one of the hottest things a person can be.
3. Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck in The Furies (1949)
Almost any list of Old Hollywood stars is going to include some people with questionable politics. But Barbara Stanwyck was so right-wing it’s prevented her from getting the number one spot on this list. It’s a shame because if I was just focusing on her on-screen persona… my God. Double Indemnity, The Lady Eve, The Furies?? Even as a bitter old lesbian in Walk On the Wild Side she’s swinging her hypothetical strap all over the screen. But even though she’s been dead for over 30 years… I’m still struggling to crush on a Republican.
2. Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930)
Puts the top in top hat! Marlene Dietrich was so powerful she seduced half of Hollywood. I do think I’d fall in love with her afterward and it would take me 1-3 years to get over it, but, hey, it would be worth it for even just one night with the blue angel.
1. Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946)
That’s right! This top list is topped by not one but two Capricorns. And Ava Gardner isn’t just any Capricorn — she’s my Christmas Eve birthday twin! While she may not have the best filmography on this list, she overpowered the screen with every appearance. She was beautiful, she was forceful, and she was very active in progressive politics. What more could anyone want from a top??
January 2024: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Max, Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Peacock, Starz and Paramount+
Well it’s a brand new year and we are still the same people we were last year… or are we? The only way to find out is to sit down and get into some television and cinema experiences with lesbian, bisexual queer and trans characters on HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ Showtime, Starz and Peacock.
Top Row: Death and Other Details, Sort Of, SkyMed, True Detective Bottom Row: Hightown, Hazbin Hotel, The Traitors, LOL: One Last Laugh Ireland, Love on the Spectrum, All Fun and Games
HBO Max’s Queer January 2024 Content
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2023) – January 8
Giovanni, one of the world’s greatest living artists and commentators, plays with the lesbian poet’s fascination with space travel as it “reckons with the inevitable passing of time through a collision of memories, moments in American history, live readings, and visually innovative treatments of Giovanni’s poetry.” Drew wrote of the film, “what makes this portrait of Nikki Giovanni so special is it makes her contradictions, her elusiveness, her boundaries, part of the film itself.”
True Detective: Night County: Season 4 Premiere – January 14
The fourth season of this lauded crime series stars lesbian icon Jodie Foster as Liz Danvers, a detective in Alaska investigating the disappearance of eight men from a research station with her partner, Iñupiaq cop Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), with whom she shares a complicated past. Isabelle Star LeBlanc is Liz’s queer daughter Leah Danvers. Queer actor Fiona Shaw also stars as “a survivalist with a past full of secrets.” It appears that Jodie Foster’s character is straight, but showrunner Issa López describes Navarro and Danvers as “two characters that love each other, found each other and fell in love, and then fell out of love terribly. Now they’re enemies. And that’s when we meet them. And the show is the story of how they fall back in love. This is friendship. But in the end, it’s the same thing.”
Sort Of: Season 3 Premiere – January 18
The final season of nonbinary creator Bilal Baig’s TV series, an Autostraddle TV Awards favorite, finds Sabi coping with grief and an unanticipated feeling of freedom after their father’s death. Free of his expectations, they confront big questions about their identity and start making big life choices in their typical messy, hopeful, sort of way.
Netflix’s Queer January 2024 Shows & Movies
Black Sails (Starz): Seasons 1-3 – January 1
This Starz show is about pirates, set in New Providence Island and intended as a prequel to the 1883 novel “Treasure Island” and there are quite a few queer female characters aboard this ship.
Loudermilk (Audience Network): Seasons 1-3 – January 1
Ron Livingston stars as a music critic and recovering alcoholic “who regularly doles out clever but acid-tongued critiques to his clients, his friends, and any random person he interacts with.” Anja Savčić is Claire, his young queer sponsee who’s life is also a bit of a mess.
This is Us (NBC): Seasons 1-6 – January 8
The legendary tearjerker about the lives of a set of parents and their three kids across multiple time periods ended up adding a very cute queer storyline in Season Three with one of the kids in the cast.
Love on the Spectrum: Season Two – January 19
People on the autism spectrum navigate the wonderful world of dating and amongst them is Teo, who’s seen expressing excitement for a lady-date in the trailer.
Queer Eye: Season 8 – January 24
Non-binary hair queen Jonathan Van Ness returns for the eighth season of this reliable tearjerker — which’s also Bobby Burke’s final season!!! Who is going to remodel an entire house in three hours after Bobby leaves???!
Amazon Prime Video’s January 2024 Streaming
Hazbin Hotel: Season One – January 19
This animated series follows Charlie, the Princess of Hell, a young whippersnapper full of ambition who’s built the Hazbin Hotel, a facility that aims to rehabilitate demons, thus making them suitable for Heaven and thus no longer taking up space in her kingdom of Hell. Most of her pals and colleagues scoff at the idea, but her girlfriend Vaggie (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) and her adult-film-star pal Angel Dust are in for the ride.
LOL: One Last Laugh Ireland: Season One – January 19
Graham Norton hosts this reality television program in which 10 comedic stars gather to make each other laugh without ever laughing themselves. Whomstever can last the longest without cracking up will win $50k for their charity of choice! Amongst the funny people on this program is queer comic Catherine Bohart.
Hulu’s January 2024 Gay Streaming Opportunities
Grandma (2015) – January 1
Lily Tomlin stars as the titular Grandma, Elle, a lesbian poet and widow who gets a visit from her teenage granddaughter who needs money for an abortion. Thus the two head on an all-day journey into Elle’s past trying to score the cash to make it happen.
Good Trouble: Season 5b Premiere (Freeform) – January 3
It’s time for the final episodes of this spinoff of lesbian Mom TV show The Fosters, which has become a queer powerhouse in its own right.
All Fun and Games (2023) – January 5
A critically panned thriller about a group of teens in Salem who find a cursed knife from the 17th century that turns children’s games into horrorshows. Laurel Marsden is Sophie, a lesbian on her way to Smith College and the best friend of Billie, one of two protagonists.
Echo: Season One (Disney+ and Hulu) – January 9th
The latest hotly anticipated Marvel series is, let’s face it, unlikely to have any queer women characters — but the show is still worth noting for everything else it’s got going on. Indigenous actor plays deaf Cheyenne hero Echo (aka Maya Lopez), queer indigenous actor Devery Jacobs and Jacobs’ Reservation Dogs co-star, Zahn McClarnon.
Death and Other Details: Season One Premiere – January 16
Centered on the “brilliant and restless” Imogene Scott, “Death and Other Details” is a locked room murder mystery set on a lavishly restored Mediterranean Ocean liner, where every guest and every crew member is a suspect. Imogene must team up with her nemesis, Rufus (Mandy Patinkin), “world’s greatest detective” to solve this little crime. Non-binary actor Karoline plays a “very rich lesbian heiress.” Queer actor Lauren Patten also stars.
Peacock’s LGBTQ+ January 2024
Ted: Season One – January 11
This television series set in the ’90s is apparently the prequel to the apparently very popular film Ted, about a dude who’s best friend is a teddy bear who came to life voiced by Seth McFarlane. Max Burkholder is John Bennett (the dude with the best friend) and Giorgia Whigham plays his cousin Blair. And yes there is a storyline that is relevant to your lesbian interests!
The Traitors: Season Two – January 12
The second season of this incredibly popular reality television competition show hosted by queer icon Alan Cumming has a cast chock-full of reality veterans, including the newly-out Survivor winner Parvati Shallow!
Paramount+ Showtime January 2023 Gay Streaming
The Changemakers: Docuseries – January 1
This eight-part documentary series “follows an A-team of impassioned campaigners as they discover the work of several remarkable activists and their respective communities around the world.” Amongst them are Black, queer, feminist migrant Trinice McNally, known for her work around inclusive college campuses.
Basic Instinct (1992) – January 1
Famous for its truly appalling bisexual stereotypes, Sharon Stone stars as a depraved bisexual murderer in this ’90s thriller.
Chasing Amy (1997) – January 1
A film that hits different now than it did back then, Chasing Amy is Kevin Smith’s film about a straight male cartoonist who falls in love with his lesbian pal, Alyssa (a character inspired by Smith’s friend, Guinevere Turner.)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) – January 1
Bisexual hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) helps Journalist Mikael Blomkvist track down a woman who’s been missing for 40 years! This celebrated film is chock-full of trauma, dark mysteries and cold landscapes. It’s possible that Ronney Mara made you gay when you first saw this film, or perhaps you were already gay after seeing Noomi Rapace play Lisbeth in the Swedish film that came out in 2009.
Chloe (2010) – January 8
This erotic thriller finds Julianne Moore hiring a sex worker played by Amanda Seyfried to test her husband’s fidelity but then stuff happens between Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried, obviously.
SkyMed: Season Two – January 11
All nine episodes of this series that “follows the personal journeys and jaw-dropping medical rescues of young medics and pilots who fly air ambulances across Northern Canada” drop January 11th, and the preview is teasing a romance between Lexi (Mercedes Morris) and new character Stef (Sydney Kuhne).
Starz’s January 2024 Lesbian Show
Hightown: Season 3 Premiere – January 26
The final season of this drama series led by queer actor Monica Raymund will see her character, Massachusetts State Trooper Jackie Quiñones, unemployed after falling off the wagon — but her lack of official authoriy won’t stop her from trying to help save “the most often ignored and forgotten victims in Cape Cod, sex workers.”
LGBTQ+ Movies To Stream on Netflix With Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Characters
What are the best lesbian and trans movies are on Netflix? This is probably a question you have typed into a search box before. Perhaps you typed that into a search box really recently, like ten seconds ago, and that’s why you’re here, now, with all of us, wondering about the best streaming lesbian movies on Netflix, or the best lesbian bisexual queer and trans movies on Netflix. In this case we are using “lesbian” as an adjective referring to romance and other activities between two women.
Most recent update: 1/1/2024
The Best Lesbian and Trans Movies On Netflix
Blockers (2018)
This absolutely delightful contemporary twist on the raunchy teen sex comedy finds three teenage girls (including one lesbian) looking to lose their virginities before they go away for college and three sets of parents trying to stop them. Mey wrote that Blockers is “shockingly sex-positive, feminist and gay.”
Carol (2015)
#12 on the Best Lesbian Movies of All Time // our review of carol
I mean, it’s Carol! You know Carol. Cate Blanchett is Carol with a terrible ex-husband and lots of fur coats, Rooney Mara is Therese who wants to be a photographer and works in a department store.
Do Revenge (2022)
This delightfully dark homage to ’90s teen flicks is a colorful, slick comedy starring Camilla Mendes as mean girl Drea who, after seeing her video sexts leaked by her boyfriend, teams up on an intricate revenge plot with Eleanor (Maya Hawke), a lesbian transfer student dead-set on punishing the girl who bullied her at summer camp as a pre-teen.
The “Fear Street” Trilogy (2021)
“What makes The Fear Street Trilogy go from a solid good time to a grand cinematic event is its understanding that intelligence and fun are not antithetical,” writes Drew in the Lesbian Movie Encyclopedia. “Like The Slumber Party Massacre Trilogy, Fear Street doesn’t make us choose between campy horror and an engagement with reality. It’s proof that “good politics” are also good storytelling.” The first installment of this series based on the Christopher Pike movies does the unthinkable: it lets its queer heroines live.
Badhaai Do (2022)
“Despite its blind spots, Badhaai Do is the movie I always wished Bollywood would make, the sweet and silly story I was desperate to find beneath the cheerful cruelty of Dostana,” writes Anamika Gopalan. “The smallest moments in the film were electrifying — Sumi holding Rimjhim’s hand at the doctor’s office, Rimjhim putting her arm around Sumi’s shoulders, Sumi blowing kisses up to Rimjhim on the balcony — I was watching two Indian women fall in love, and for 150 minutes the world felt open and full of possibility.”
The Half of It (2020)
our review of the half of it // #17 on the Best Lesbian Movies Of All Time List
Alice Wu’s lesbian take on Cyrano de Bergerac follows Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), a shy, Chinese-American 17-year-old who splits her days taking care of her grieving father and writing essays for her peers for extra money. She forms an unexpected bond with the crush of a sweet football player who hires her to write her love letters. “It may not be a “love story” in the traditional sense, but it is about love,” wrote Malinda Lo in her review. “It’s about young people discovering what it is, what it isn’t, and what it could be. It’s about searching for your other half and finding that the other half might be within you. And yes, it’s about a queer Asian American girl — still a revolutionary subject for a mainstream film.”
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
our review of ma rainey’s black bottom
Based on August Wilson’s Tony-award winning play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom sees Viola Davis as the titular character, a Black queer blues singer and one of the most successful Black women of the era. In her hands, Carmen writes, the triumphant and emotional film “becomes a complex portrait of a queer Black woman hurricane whose footprints loom over the last 100 years.”
Mars One (2022)
In this Brazillian family drama from writer/director Gabriel Martins, Eunice (Camilla Souza) — a college student ready to leave home and even more ready to explore her sexuality — is one of four protagonists. Writing about Eunice’s relationship with her girlfriend Jo in her rave review of the film, Drew wrote “their hotter than cute meet cute at a club, their dinner with Jo’s wealthy family, the way they love each other in the sort of impassioned yet insufficient way college students love. It all just feels so real. ”
The Mitchells vs The Machines (2021)
our review of the mitchells vs the machines
“The Mitchells is a genuinely hilarious animated film, full of cutting cultural jokes, visual gags, smash cuts, bonkers animation, and frolicking dialogue,” writes Heather of this delightful story about a family driving cross-country to drop off their daughter, Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) for film school. Although Katie’s queerness isn’t the focus of the film, it’s an essential element of her very relatable character.
Mutt (2023)
Over the course of 24 hours, a trans man named Feña experiences the extremes of human emotion when he bumps into his ex-boyfriend and then a whole host of people who disappeared when he transitioned have suddenly returned to his life. Drew wrote that in a world full of films that don’t portray the trans experience very well, this is the rare film that does.
Nimona (2023)
“One of the most interesting things about the film is how both Nimona and Ballister want revenge for what happened to him, but she wants it because she wants to watch this tyrannical heteronormative world burn, whereas he just wants this terrible world to accept him,” writes Heather. “They both learn a lot about themselves as their hijinks find them working seamlessly, side-by-side, and also find them often at odds, motivationally and ethically, because they want the same thing for vastly different reasons.”
Nyad (2023)
“Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s NYAD is a rousing masterpiece of a sports movie,” writes Drew. “Focusing on Nyad’s Herculean swim from Havana to Key West, the film is a thrilling tribute to its stubborn protagonist and the power of queer friendship. Annette Bening captures Diana in all her prickly complexity and Jodie Foster as Bonnie, Nyad’s best friend and coach, gives her best performance since the 90s.”
Passing (2021)
“Passing has me in such a chokehold, I still don’t know where to start. There’s the craft of the storytelling, the questions it presents about understanding race — for once! — from a Black gaze. It’s singular in its grab and should be on the short list for any awards season conversation. But more than anything, I can’t stop thinking about the way that Tessa Thompson looks at Ruth Negga.” – Carmen Phillips
Prom (2020)
This Netflix adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, produced by Ryan Murphy, follows a handful of out-of-work Broadway actors as they insert themselves into a small Indiana town to advocate for a teen to attend the prom with her girlfriend. It left Valerie with “a happy, joy-filled, unruly heart.” It wasn’t a critical favorite, but we as a community had a very nice time!
Ride or Die (2021)
“This is easily my favorite two and a half hour lesbian murder drama about bourgeoisie class betrayal with a Norah Jones needle drop. Based on the popular manga Gunjō, Ryūichi Hiroki has made the bonkers, gratuitous lesbian movie I’d hoped Benedetta would be. ” – Drew Gregory
All The Other Bisexual, Queer, Lesbian and Trans Movies On Netflix
Anne+: The Movie (2022)
The 90-minute dramedy follows the titular Anne as all the happy endings from her beloved crowd-funded two-season Dutch webseries Anne+ come unraveled. The film “simply does not care that straight people exist, as characters or as audience members,” writes Heather Hogan in her review, praising its “low-stake storytelling” and “queer-acted and queer-directed sex scenes.”
Beauty (2022)
Netflix barely promoted the existence of this film, probably because it’s not very good! Described as the story of “a young singer on the brink of a promising career who finds herself torn between a domineering family, industry pressures and her love for her girlfriend,” it is very clearly intended to be about Whitney Houston. Niecy Nash plays her mother.
Bruised (2022)
“If you’re anything like me and your main reasons for seeing Bruised were to see Halle Berry fight and make out with girls, you won’t be disappointed,” wrote Carmen in her review of this film in which Berry plays an MMA fighter grabbing one last shot at redemption when the son she left behind returns to her life. “But you might walk away wishing it had stuck to just those two things.”
Chloe (2009)
A doctor played by Julianne Moore hires an escort named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to test whether or not her husband is cheating on her, but then finds herself drawn into a dangerous little attraction with Chloe.
Deadly Illusions (2021)
“If Netflix had wanted my attention on Deadly Illusions any earlier than when I got very sad around noon on Thursday, what they should’ve told me is that the lines between STRAIGHT and GAY will start to blur. Because my friends, they do. This is like, high camp, but also a gay movie for straight people? This is heterosexual camp. This is fan fiction but about two characters we’ve never heard of except one of them is Charlotte from Sex and the City.” – Riese Bernard
Duck Butter (2018)
“Duck Butter was a lot like a Naima and Sergio’s failed experiment: the sex was good but the delirious lesbian mumblecore didn’t leave a lasting impression.” – Heather Hogan
Elisa & Marcela (2019)
“Not the art film its showy Black & White cinematography and more creative flourishes seem to be aspiring for, but nevertheless an enjoyable period romance. Based on the true story of Spain’s first same-sex marriage, Isabel Coixet replaces an average looking queer woman and her androgynous love with two beautiful high femmes. It’s a bit silly and a bit long, but hey the sex scenes are great.” – Drew Gregory
Familia (2023)
Leo, the family patriarch who lives alone with his son Benny, brings his whole family together once a month to catch up over a meal hosted in a resplendent landscape — and this time he wants to talk to his three daughters about the future of his idyllic olive farm. One of those daughters, Mariana, brings her new girlfriend to the lunch. Mariana’s pregnant, but refuses to disclose the identity of the father.
FanFic (2023)
“The movie is a delight when it’s showing Tosiek’s exploration and discovery,” writes Drew of this Polish sweet, gay, trans coming-of-age story, “less delightful when it’s telling us about it. It has similar problems in its approach to mental health.”
Happy Ending (2023)
After a year of secretly faking orgasms with her aimless artsy boyfriend, Luna pitches a threesome to her boyfriend, Mink, and they seal the deal with a climate change activist, Eve — an experience that turns everything upside-down.
I Care A Lot (2021)
“If you don’t like to watch movies about horrible people doing horrible things, you’ll probably want to skip J Blakeson’s I Care A Lot,” recommends Kayla in her review. But, if you do like those movies, “then you might have fun with this cynical, clinical movie steeped in the horrors of capitalism and greed.” I Care A Lot is wicked and callous, but vivid and sharp, with a heartless lesbian protagonist played by Rosamund Pike and her girlfriend/partner played by the VERY hot Eiza González.
The Perfection (2019)
“This recent Netflix horror movie would be offensive for a multitude of reasons if it wasn’t so incoherent. Instead it’s just an absolutely wild, incredibly shallow thrill ride with a queer woman romance(??) at its center.” – Drew Gregory
Let It Snow (2019)
“The inclusion of a queer romance in a film like this is exciting enough on its own. But what makes it all the more exciting is both Hewson and Akana are queer in real life! Hewson is non-binary and gay and Akana is bisexual. They’re both so good in their roles, bringing their charm and authenticity. ” – Drew Gregory
Moxie (2021)
A 16-year-old is inspired by her Mom’s Riot Grrrl and zine-making past to strike back against INJUSTICE, misogyny and toxicity at her high school. Josie Totah plays a trans girl frustrated that her classmates and teachers won’t use her name. There is a subtle lesbian storyline that emerges quietly without much fanfare, which is fine — what’s less fine is that this film is centered on a white cis straight protagonist who is surrounded by women of color with far more interesting stories to tell. Read our review of moxie.
Someone Great (2019)
“At its core, Someone Great is a comedy about getting high and drunk with your girls and listening to some great pop music and growing up a little in the process.” – Carmen Phillips
So My Grandma’s a Lesbian (2020)
This Spanish comedy follows a young Spanish lawyer whose plans to marry some rich Scottish dude from a conservative family are put into jeopardy when her 70-year-old grandmother, Sofia, comes out and announces her intention to marry her best friend. Good for them!
To Each Her Own (2018)
Although this French film got bad reviews, Sally informed us that she in fact has seen it and furthermore; liked it. I trust Sally so here we are. The plot is described as “Just as Simone works up the courage to tell her conservative Jewish family she’s a lesbian, she finds herself attracted to a man.”
Wendell & Wild (2022)
“This is an animated kids movie about how private prisons are way more evil than literal demons. How could I not love it??,” wrote Drew of this stop-motion adventure. “Not only does this give us a goth Black girl lead — it also has a Latino trans boy at her side. This isn’t just inclusive children’s entertainment — it’s inclusive children’s entertainment that actually engages with the realities of the people it represents.”
The Valley of a Thousand Hills (2022)
This South African drama tells the story of a woman in a conservative village community who must choose between the husband her father chose for her or her secret true love, a woman.
Wine Country (2019)
Paula Pell plays “a lesbian antique shop owner from Portland with a new set of knees and thirst for love” in this film Heather described as ” improv funny and physical comedy funny and sight gag funny and punny funny — and a story about how sometimes our little personality quirks can only be distilled into their truest form and made manifest as our lurking anxieties and insecurities and maladaptive coping mechanisms when we’re in the company of the women who love us best and most.” Also, Cherry Jones is in it!
Your Place or Mine (2023)
This rom-com from Alline Brosh McKenna (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) sees Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) and Peter (Ashton Kutcher) as best friends forever who swap houses for a week — him taking care of her son in LA, her spreading her wings in NYC — to discover themselves et cetera you know how it is with heterosexuals. Tig Notaro has a side role in this film as Debbie’s sardonic lesbian pal, although her queerness is never directly addressed.
You People (2023)
This movie is so objectively, unsettlingly, depressingly terrible, that I considered not even telling you that it existed at all. But alas, it does. Ezra (Jonah Hill) is a white Jewish guy and Amira (Lauren London) is Black and their families are very different and now they all have to meet and see who gets along! Ezra’s best friend and coworker, Mo, is a masc lesbian played by Sam Jay, and his sister, Liza (Molly Gordon) is also gay.
25 Lesbian Movies on Hulu That You Can Watch Right Now For Fun If You Want
You might be wondering, “What other best lesbian movies are on Hulu? I bet some of the best lesbian movies are all over Hulu!” More specifically: “Where can I see two women stare longingly into each other’s eyeballs?????” Well good news! we have you covered.
Last updated 1/2/2024.
Lesbian and Queer Focused Movies on Hulu:
Ammonite (2020)
This film starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan star in the story of real-life 19th century paleontologist Mary Anning and her love affair with society lady Charlotte Murchison. “Winslet is dour dour dour and not even Saoirse Ronan’s dynamic performance as Charlotte can add any heat to their relationship,” wrote Drew in her review.
Anaïs in Love (2022)
“Throughout the film, Anaïs interest in the married man pivots to a much greater interest in the man’s wife,” writes Drew of this lesbian film on Hulu about a chaotic thirty-something who finds herself entangled with the wife of a publisher she’s having an affair with. “But it’s not the film’s queerness that separates it from its subgenre — although I’m grateful for the steamy sex scene. What Anaïs in Love does differently is it lets its protagonist get away with everything.”
Bendetta (2021)
Our “sacrilegious lesbian nun movie” is based on the true story of a 17th-century nun who finds herself entangled in a lesbian affair with a novice and has visions that threaten the Church’s very foundation. Drew was underwhelmed, however, by its alleged scandalousness, noting, “Verhoeven’s offering ends up feeling like a relic of a bygone era — one where the only people allowed to film lesbian sex were straight cis dudes ignorant to the most exciting ways we fuck.”
Blue Jean (2023)
In 1980s Ireland, Jean is a high school PE teacher and netball coach who dodges lesbian rumors at work while enjoying a robust queer community at home and a radical dyke girlfriend, Viv. As homophobic politicians fight to root lesbians out of education altogether, Jean’s worlds begin to collide when she runs into a new student, Lois, at the gay bar. “The triumph of Blue Jean is that it takes time showing the queer lives at stake,” writes Drew in her review of Blue Jean. “This is not a dour film. It has hot lesbian sex, sweaty snapshots of queer bars, and, ultimately, portrays the power of community. This makes the constricting environment of the school all the more painful.”
Cloudburst (2012)
Lesbian couple Dotty (Brenda Fricker) and Stella (Olympia Dukakis) break free from their nursing home and venture out on a road trip to Canada where they intend to tie the knot. in her review, Vanessa noted that it was fantastic to “see a true honest story about two old women in a real relationship with feelings and nuance and layers and depth.”
Crush (2022)
This delightful teen rom-com is a lesbian movie on Hulu full of queer actors playing queer characters. Paige is an aspiring artist who joins the track team to beef up her college resume, hoping to get closer to her eternal crush, Gabby — but ends up finding herself drawn to somebody unexpected! “From the extremely winsome leads to the easy story beats and quick humor, it’s darn cute and wholly queer,” wrote Analyssa in her review. “By about 20 minutes in, I had adapted to all the Gen Z speak and was fully along for the ride.”
Elena Undone (2010)
The story of a mother/pastor’s wife and a well-known lesbian writer who cross paths and are instantly drawn to one another. Meanwhile I am drawn into another room where anything but this film is playing. Read Erin’s scathing and hilarious review of it here.
Fire lsland (2022)
This heartwarming film about a group of gay friends looking for love and sex and community on Fire Island isn’t a lesbian movie, but it’s so hilarious and heartwarming and fantastic that any queer person who believes in queer community would enjoy it. Plus, Margaret Cho gives a delightful performance as “career brunch server, age unknown, lesbian scam queen” Erin. “I loved Fire Island because it was real. It’s real to be erased and undesirable in white queer spaces as a fat person of color,” wrote Carmen in her review. “It’s real to be gay and thirst after Christine Baranski or laugh until your sides hurt over Marissa Tomei. It’s real to want to escape for seven days and never once see a straight person.”
Grandma (2015)
Lily Tomlin stars as the titular Grandma, Elle, a lesbian poet and widow who gets a visit from her teenage granddaughter who needs money for an abortion. Thus the two head on an all-day journey into Elle’s past trying to score the cash to make it happen.
Happiest Season (2020)
This hit holiday lesbian movie by Hulu is a rom-com co-written and directed by Clea Duvall. It stars the one and only Kristen Stewart as Abby, who’s meeting her girlfriend Harper’s (Mackenzie Davis) family for the first time. But, big surprise! They don’t know that Harper is gay! Also, Aubrey Plaza plays Harper’s ex-girlfriend, Riley.
Jack & Diane (2012)
Charming and naive Diane (Juno Temple) meets tough-skinned Jack (Riley Keough in New York City. They hook up all night and must grapple with their growing relationship under challenging circumstances — Diane’s moving at the end of the summer, but her feelings for Jack are manifesting themselves in terrifying ways, creating mysterious violent changes in her physical body. Read our review of Jack & Diane.
Jagged Mind (2023)
“…my favorite works of queer horror aren’t so easily bound by genre descriptions,” wrote Kayla of this time-looping lesbian erotic thriller, “and Jagged Mind views to me much like a haunted house story — without the actual haunted house. The haunted house, instead, is a relationship.”
Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019)
#6 on our 50 Best Lesbian Movies List
The invention of lesbian cinema is a project as old as cinema itself,” wrote Drew Gregory in her review. “But every once in a while there is a work of art so specific, so complex, so new in its oldness and old in its newness, that it moves the craft, our craft, to another level of seeing.”
Tell it to The Bees (2018)
This romantic drama film set in the 1950s stars Anna Paquin as Jean, a new doctor in a small town who makes a connection with Lydia (Hollilday Grainger), whose young son bonds with Jean over their shared interest in bee colonies. But Jean and Lydia’s relationship, believe it or not, is a scandal!
Two of Us (2021)
Nina and Madeline are retired women who’ve spent 20 years posing as neighbors to hide their lesbian relationship from their community when a health emergency throws their relationship, and their plan to escape to Rome to live openly, into chaos. “Aside from the harrowing suspense, what sets director and co-writer Filippo Meneghetti’s film apart is the passion and tempestuousness of Madeline and Nina’s interactions,” writes Heather of this French film. “The visual and narrative tension, of course, ramps up the eroticism, but so does Madeline and Nina’s actual relationship, which hasn’t aged in that calm, quiet, mature way we usually think of lesbian grandmas.”
We Need to Do Something (2021)
If you are very desperate for a horror movie or really any movie at all, then perhaps you should subject yourself to this really truly awful film that includes what Drew described as a “queer romance between two goth girls who look like those black and pink houses in Santa Monica.”
The World to Come (2020)
Mona Fastvold’s exquisite skills as a director are on display in this movie which fits most of the lesbian film tropes — 19th century, isolation, white straight cis actresses, lots of longing and period costumes. Two women in bad marriages develop a quick and deep friendship with each other that blossoms into more! In her review of The World to Come, Drew called it “an extraordinary lesbian romance ruined by Casey Affleck.”
Other movies on Hulu with a minimal amount of Lesbian / Bisexual content:
All Fun and Games (2023)
A horror movie about a group of teens in Salem who find a cursed knife from the 17th century that turns children’s games into horrorshows. Laurel Marsden is Sophie, a lesbian on her way to Smith College and the best friend of Billie, one of two protagonists.
A Little White Lie (2023)
Kate Hudson stars as an English professor organizing a literary conference in this indie comedy about a middle-aged nobody man who ends up as a featured guest at said literary conference after accepting an invite that clearly confused him with a reclusive novelist who shares his name. Aja Naomi King plays lesbian poet Blythe Brown, who clashes with said man early in the conference.
The Donor Party (2023)
Fresh out of a messy divorce and unfruitful online dating experiments, recently single Jaclyn has decided to get pregnant and live her dream of being a Mom by any means necessary, enlisting her friends to pull off “the ultimate sperm heist.” Her friend Molly invites “three good prospects” for Jaclyn to seduce to a birthday party for her husband Geoff. According to Movieweb, “naughtiness abounds” when “Amandine (Bria Henderson), a lesbian with eyes on Geoff’s sister, encourages Jaclyn to get down and dirty.”
The Drop (2023)
Set at a lesbian destination wedding, this comedy is focused on a straight couple who arrives and immediately drops a baby. Read Kayla’s review of “The Drop.”
Fresh (2022)
This horror movie finds a girl on an endless bad date with a seemingly perfect man who turns out to be a cannibal. Her bisexual best friend bi best friend Mollie (played by Jojo T. Gibbs of Twenties!) ends up having to save her ass. Read Kayla’s review of Fresh.
Spencer (2021)
Kristen Stewart has a stunning turn as Princess Diana of Wales in this biopic focused entirely on Diana’s Christmas at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate while rumors of an impending divorce stirred about. Stewart’s Diana is gorgeously nervous, manic, unsettled, haunted. Her royal dresser, Maggie, is a lesbian, Diana’s closest friend and most treasured confidant.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)
This biopic telling the story of Billie Holiday is “heavy on trauma and light on queerness,” going so far as to include a kiss between Billie and Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne) in the trailer that was cut from the film! Read our review of The United States vs. Billie Holiday.
So there you have it, all the lesbian movies on Hulu that we could find! And we searched high and low! Which are you most excited to dust off and revisit, or watch for the first time?
Want more streaming lesbian movies?
- Every Movie Streaming on Max With Lesbian or Bisexual Women Characters
- Lesbian Movies on Netflix
- Queer Movies on Prime Video
The Best Movies of 2023 According to Autostraddle Readers
As the resident cinephile on the Autostraddle TV Team, since 2020 it’s been my task to put together a list of the best queer movies of the year. It’s my greatest pleasure to watch as many queer movies as I can and then recommend my favorites to you all. It’s even better that with each passing year there has been more and more to recommend. This year my list includes over 40 movies!
But my opinion is just one opinion. I love writing about and discussing movies because I like to share my enthusiasm and because I believe criticism is an art in itself. I don’t think I’m some sort of objective incontestable voice on film. That’s why this year we decided, in addition to my list, to also hold a poll on our Instagram to find out which films you all like most!
Of course, there are limitations to this. The winners will likely skew toward films more people saw which might explain — along with difference of opinion — why my fave Mars One went out in the first round. We were also limited by the amount of poll options on Instagram and how many rounds we felt like taking on in this first experiment. It became obvious very quickly that people on the internet do not like limitations and in the future we’ll have to find a way to include every queer movie of the year or have somewhere for write-ins. I’m glad there’s enthusiasm for movies I didn’t like or movies I haven’t seen yet! All I ever want is for people to be excited about queer cinema, even if it’s different queer cinema than what is exciting me.
And now… without further ado…
The Top 10 Queer Movies of 2023 According to Autostraddle Readers:
- Bottoms (dir. Emma Seligman)
- Nimona (dir. Troy Quane, Nick Bruno)
- Blue Jean (dir. Georgia Oakley)
- May December (dir. Todd Haynes)
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (dir. Aitch Alberto)
- Theater Camp (dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman)
- Knock at the Cabin (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
- Kokomo City (dir. D. Smith)
- NYAD (dir. Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)
- All of Us Strangers (dir. Andrew Haigh)
Congrats to the ugly, untalented gays!!
The Best Queer Movies of 2023
It’s an incredible time be a queer cinephile. Hollywood may be slowing its progress in queer storytelling but there have never been more — or better — independent and international films. That’s why any list of the best queer movies of 2023 is basically just a list of the best movies period.
This year I couldn’t contain the list to a top ten. Hell, I considered doing a top 50. There have been so many great queer films, a range of queer stories and queer storytelling.
Sports movies, romances, magical realist fantasies, broad comedies, horror movies, and films that defy categorization. If you’re willing to explore even just one level beyond the mainstream, the best queer movies of 2023 are waiting to entertain and challenge you.
Past years, I’ve tried to include mention of everything. This year that wasn’t possible. Instead I’m shouting out some worthy straight movies, an honorable mentions list that could’ve been even longer, picking the year’s best queer docs, and then getting to the main top 20 (okay it’s technically 21). If you’re fave isn’t here, maybe I haven’t seen it yet, or maybe it just didn’t make the cut!
What a joy that there are so many great queer movies to watch and discuss!
Best Straight* Movies of the Year:
Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig)
The Boy and the Heron (dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Magic Mike’s Last Dance (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Other People’s Children (dir. Rebecca Zlotowski)
Past Lives (dir. Celine Song)
Priscilla (dir. Sofia Coppola)
Return to Seoul (dir. Davy Chou)
Saint Omer (dir. Alice Diop)
*some of these movies have queer elements and I agonized over whether they were queer enough to be included in the main list, if you disagree with me especially on Barbie and Return to Seoul don’t worry I disagree with myself a little bit
14 More of the Best Queer Movies of 2023:
Biosphere (dir. Mel Eslyn)
Cassandro (dir. Roger Ross Williams)
Down Low (dir. Rightor Doyle)
Frybread Face and Me (dir. Billy Luther)
Jagged Mind (dir. Kelley Kali)
Knock at the Cabin (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
Moving On (dir. Paul Weitz)
Nimona (dir. Troy Quane, Nick Bruno)
Perpetrator (dir. Jennifer Reeder)
Petit Mal (dir. Ruth Caudeli)
Punch (dir. Welby Ings)
Strange Way of Life (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
Theater Camp (dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman)
Wingwomen (dir. Mélanie Laurent)
The Top Five Queer Documentaries of 2023:
Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (dir. Benjamin Cantu)
Kokomo City (dir. D. Smith)
Little Richard: I Am Everything (dir. Lisa Cortés)
Queenmaker: The Making of an It Girl (dir. Zackary Drucker)
The Stroll (dir. Kristen Lovell, Zackary Drucker)
The Top 20 Best Queer Movies of 2023
20. Bottoms (dir. Emma Seligman)
The way Peter Bogdonavich riffed on screwball comedies in movies like What’s Up, Doc?, Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby follow-up riffs on the teen comedies of the 90s and early 00s. It’s less spoof than it is an escalation of the genre to its natural conclusion. That conclusion? Super violent and super gay.
Bottoms is now available to rent
19. (tie) Saltburn (dir. Emerald Fennell)/The Origin of Evil (dir. Sébastien Marnier)
Ever since I declared Killing Eve season two better than season one, I was destined to defend Emerald Fennell’s imperfect cinema. Her work is like a double pop album or a third scoop of ice cream. It’s fun, it’s sweet, it’s too much, and not enough. Like Promising Young Woman, the depth of the film is in the feeling it inspires. The disgust is the point. The emptiness is the point.
Saltburn is now in theatres
If you didn’t like Saltburn, you may still like its twin sister. Replace horny classmate with horny estranged daughter and you get a decent summary of this delicious French thriller. There is no pompacity on display — just an ease of intelligence hidden within expert genre filmmaking.
The Origin of Evil is now available to rent
18. Rotting in the Sun (dir. Sebastián Silva)
Watch Sebastian Silva’s latest for viral internet comedian Jordan Firstman and you’ll be part of its best joke. Silva plays a fictionalized version of himself, a filmmaker who decides to go on vacation rather than killing himself only to be terrorized by a fictionalized version of Firstman. What begins as a lo-fi take on Adaptation spirals into its own unique concoction of misery and farce.
Rotting in the Sun is now streaming on MUBI
17. Blue Jean (dir. Georgia Oakley)
Queer people can exist in every shadow; not in every spotlight. Set in 1988, this debut feature follows a familiar story of a closeted teacher torn between her job and her life. Elevated by sharp writing and acting, the film also distinguishes itself with a willingness to hold conflicting truths, to push for moral courage while acknowledging its limitations.
Blue Jean is now streaming on Hulu
16. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (dir. Aitch Alberto)
When adolescents fall in love, they’re falling in love with themselves. Like all the best films about teenage romance, this long-awaited adaptation respects the connection of its leads while centering their individual growth. This is a beautifully crafted film about the way queer people shape each other’s lives — in love and beyond.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is now available to rent
15. All of Us Strangers (dir. Andrew Haigh)
In Andrew Haigh’s ghost story, death is a metaphor. Ostensibly about a middle aged gay man reconnecting with his dead parents and hooking up with his neighbor, the grief echoing through the film is something quieter than total loss. It’s a portrait of the isolation of queerness. There is so much potential for connection if one can ignore the blurred pane of heteronormativity.
All of Us Strangers opens in theatres on December 22
14. Mutt (dir. Vuk Lungulov-Klotz)
Cis people have been making bad trans movies for so long, it felt like only cis people could be human. If trans people wanted dimensionality on-screen, we would have to ignore our transness altogether. Well, this film is the counter argument. Just about everything its protagonist faces during his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day intersects with being trans. And yet it still doesn’t define him. He’s allowed to be trans and allowed to just be.
Mutt is now streaming on Netflix
13. Joyland (dir. Saim Sadiq)
Alina Khan’s Biba towers over this film like her gargantuan cardboard cut-out towers over the film’s central household. She is at once separate from the family who lives there and the catalyst for their greatest triumphs and tragedies. For Biba, transness is one part of her identity. For the rest of the characters, it’s a symbol of a freedom they’ve been denied.
Joyland is now available to rent
12. NYAD (dir. Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)
My favorite sports movies treat athletics like a compulsion. The feat Diana Nyad sets out to accomplish is impossible — and yet she can never give up. With rousing swimming sequences, and a complicated queer friendship that lets Jodie Foster go full dyke, this story is at once human and superhuman.
NYAD is now streaming on Netflix
11. The Five Devils (dir. Léa Mysius)
Magic smells, time travel, arson, ice cold swims, a high school dance team. A fantasy with the human specificity of a quiet drama, there is so much here to reflect upon. It’s a tribute to lives lived and unlived, and a welcome return to lesbian cinema for star Adèle Exarchopoulos.
The Five Devils is now streaming on MUBI
10. L’immensita (dir. Emanuele Crialese)
The first movie I’ve seen about a trans person who doesn’t know they’re trans, this is a film that could only be made by a trans filmmaker. After years of working while stealth, Emanuele Crialese has come out to tell his childhood and does so with detail and whimsy. It captures the magic of even the most confused youth.
L’immensita is now streaming on Prime
9. Bad Things (dir. Stewart Thorndike)
Even though I find many buzzed about contemporary horror titles to be self-important, narratively muddled, and thematically confused, horror remains my favorite genre because of films like Bad Things. Stewart Thorndike’s second film excels as a work of art, a work of reference, and a queer character dramedy all while being extremely scary. Patient in its craft, sharp in its writing, perfect in its casting, this is a film worthy of its genre’s history.
Bad Things is now streaming on Shudder
8. Showing Up (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
One of our great film artists making a movie about art-making. As patient and specific as we’ve come to expect from Kelly Reichardt but filled with humor, this is a film to sink into, to live within. Enjoy the experience and let its power surprise you. May our greatest ambitions be intrinsically linked to our humanity.
Showing Up is now streaming on Paramount+
7. Something You Said Last Night (dir. Luis De Filippis)
When I saw Luis De Filippis’ debut feature at TIFF in 2022, I knew something had shifted in trans cinema. Finally, here was an independent film — an excellent independent film — that approached character and story with a casual ease akin to decades of cis cinema. It’s not only that De Filippis is drawing from personal experience the cis voyeurs of the past lacked; it’s that the film feels personal to one artist’s singular voice, transness just one part of that. My hope for trans cinema is for more films like this, more films like Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca, more films where brilliant trans artists are allowed to simply create their vision.
Something You Said Last Night is not currently available to stream
6. Passages (dir. Ira Sachs)
A hungry, horny treat where beautiful people wear beautiful clothes in beautiful apartments and then take off those clothes for desperate sex. Ira Sachs does not abandon the tenderness of his previous work so much as contrast it with a deliciously selfish bisexual terror. Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, and Adèle Exarchopoulos are the reason moving images were invented.
Passages is now streaming on MUBI
5. The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (dir. Francisca Alegria)
An ecological fantasia about our suffering world. This unique debut is experimental in narrative and form yet wholly accessible due to its attention to character and its immense watchability. I feel the urge to compare it to the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, an insufficient urge that nevertheless speaks to the film’s splendor. The future is dire, the future is hopeful, the future is trans.
The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future is now available to rent
4. Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet)
Anatomy of a fall. Anatomy of a marriage. Anatomy of a broken justice system. Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner is a sticky character drama with a possibly murderess, certainly flawed bisexual main character. The nuanced script and powerhouse performance from Sandra Hüller make for a thrilling cinematic experience — one that gains new resonance every time a bisexual celebrity is found in a legal and media frenzy.
Anatomy of a Fall is now in theatres
3. How to Blow Up a Pipeline (dir. Daniel Goldhaber)
Can movies change the world? I don’t know, but I do think it’s better to have high-octane genre-filmmaking that’s queer, environmentalist, and anti-colonialist than the empire propaganda we usually get. Maybe it’s not fair to compare this indie shot on 16mm to blockbuster actions films, and yet it’s a testament to this film’s craft that the comparison feels apt. This is edge-of-your-seat, radical filmmaking with an expert script and wonderful performances to back it up. Can movies change the world? I don’t know, but ecoterrorism probably could.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is now streaming on Hulu
2. May December (dir. Todd Haynes)
Before you tell me this film isn’t queer, I already wrote an essay about its queerness. A queer filmmaker does not always equal a queer film, but when it comes to Todd Haynes, it usually does. His queer sensibility is deeply felt in the film’s craft and in his approach to these characters — also the one explicitly queer character is integral to the film’s depth. Uncomfortable, upsetting, hilarious, and moving, there is so much movie in this one movie. With every watch, new layers are revealed like never-ending butterflies from never-ending chrysalides.
May December is now streaming on Netflix
1. Mars One (dir. Gabriel Martins)
My favorite film at Sundance in 2022 is now my favorite film of 2023. (Thanks to the always wonderful ARRAY!) I love it now as much as I loved it then. A rare film about a family that does right by every member, each starring in their own intersecting movie. Through the specific experience of a Black lower middle class family living through the early months of Bolsonaro’s presidency, Gabriel Martins has made a film about finding a way in an impossible world. In this difficult yet tender film, coming out to someone is a gift. To share your desires, your wants, your dreams is to let someone know you better. It’s an invitation to dream together.
Mars One is now streaming on Netflix
Want to weigh in on the best queer movies of 2023? Go to the Autostraddle Instagram where all weekend we’re conducting reader polls in our stories! Argue for your faves in the comments and the final results will be posted on Monday.
Every Good Queer and Trans Movie Streaming on HBO Max
What movies with lesbian, bisexual, queer, and trans women in them can a person find streaming on Max? This is a question you might have, and good news, we are here to answer it.
Historically, HBO has been pretty good to the LGBTQ community, producing a lot of inclusive original content, but only a limited number of these titles are currently available on Max, and their library isn’t as robust as it once was.
This post was originally published in November 2020. Most recent update: 1/2/2024.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)
“Laura Poitras’ remarkable documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is about Nan Goldin and her work,” wrote Drew Gregory of this award-winning film about legendary bisexual photographer Nan Goldin. “It’s also about Goldin’s campaign to take down the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, the company who manufactured Oxycontin. The brilliance of the film is it shows these aspects of her life to be one in the same.”
Bessie (2015, HBO)
#37 on our Best Lesbian Movies Of All Time List
This immediate classic and multiple-Emmy-winner co-written and directed by Dee Rees (Pariah, When We Rise, Mudbound) stars Queen Latifah as bisexual American blues singer Bessie Smith and features Mo-Nique as Ma Rainey. Gabby described this “badass bisexual biopic,” declaring, “this movie is well-done, like so well-done. The vaudeville stage moments and all of the singing in clubs and giant tent revivals are lively and beautiful. The black excellence in this film is something to behold and revel in. Everyone is gorgeous. The costumes, the wigs, the make-up, the dancing: all of it is authentic and just so much damn fun to watch.”
Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn (2020)
“There’s the gay that you know because the movie says it with their words,” Carmen wrote of the film she described as “the chaotic sparkly queer misandrist comic book movie of my dreams,” “and there’s the gay you know because you can see it with your eyes. Birds of Prey, with its neon pink and blue hues, glitter bomb grenades, pet hyenas in rhinestone collars, and car chases on roller skates, gives us both.”
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Drew writes that this “cruel movie about cruel women” is worth it for its “camerawork, costume design, and incredible performances from Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, and Irm Hermann.”
Call Me Miss Cleo (2022, HBO)
With commentary from celebrities like (gay) Raven-Symoné, Cleo’s friends and her partners, this documentary sheds light on the mysterious life of a psychic hotline guru — “her rise to fame, fall from grace, and eventual embrace of her truest self.”
Desert Hearts (1986)
#4 on Best Lesbian Movies of All Time
“Donna Deitch’s lesbian love story is set in the ’50s and was filmed in the ’80s, and is still, in 2020, a radical piece of filmmaking,” wrote Heather in her review of this classic based on Jane Rule’s novel. “It basically has an all-women cast, and — much like Carol, which is what critics tend to compare it to for all the wrong reasons — it does not center the pleasures or preferences of men, ever.”
The Fallout (2021)
During a school shooting, bisexual high school student Vada (Jenna Ortega) ends up hiding in the bathroom with her schoolmates, dancer Mia (Maddie Ziegler), and Quinton (Niles Fitch), whose brother os killed in the shooting. As Vada’s trauma makes her feel increasingly isolated from those closest to her and school itself, she begins spending all her time with Mia. “The two girls have nothing in common,” writes Analyssa in her review, “except for literally the most important thing to ever happen to them.” Their relationship gets increasingly intense.
Gia (1998, HBO)
An underrated film I have personally discussed so much on this website that it may have at some point crossed the line from underrated to overrated, Angelina Jolie plays the tragically beautiful (and very bisexual) titular figure Gia Marie Carangi, known as “world’s first supermodel.”
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
“This film explores some of my favorite themes all in one glossy, campy, self-aware package: misandry, women being extremely gay together, principled revenge, and the triumph of aught culture.” – Erin Sullivan, “I Watched Lebianish Classic “Jennifer’s Body” and Now I Love Cinema!”
Je tu il Elle (1975)
#16 on the Best Lesbian Movies of all time
“Je Tu Il Elle obviously centers a woman with depression,” writes Drew of this seminal entry in the cannon of lesbian cinema. “It does it wonderfully and to deny that would do the work and [Chantal] Akerman a disservice. But can there not be pleasure within? Pleasure in painting your furniture, that small amount of control, pleasure in the first taste of sugar, before it makes you sick, pleasure in crafting a letter, before it feels impossible, pleasure in meeting a stranger, before he reveals his full self, pleasure in fucking your ex, before you have to leave.”
The Laramie Project (2002)
Moises Kaufman’s 2000 play about the murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming was a piece of “verbatim theater,” drawing on hundreds of interviews his theater company conducted with Laramie residents and published news reports. HBO adapted the play into a grounded, emotional GLAAD-award-winning film in 2002, starring Christina Ricci, Laura Linney, Camryn Manheim, Joshua Jackson and Clea Duvall, among others.
Milk (2008)
This biopic telling the story of the legendary gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk has a queer female character, Anne Kronenberg, played by Allison Pill. I saw this film in the theater and cried like a baby!
Mother’s Day (2016)
If you’re looking for a light, talent-packed mainstream content that you can watch with straight people that has just enough queer content to ensure you’re not completely invisible, try Mother’s Day! Cameron Esposito is Max, the wife of Gabi (Sarah Chalke), one of many “seemingly unconnected” stories tht intersect on Mother’s Day in Atlanta. We’ve got Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Shay Mitchell — the whole slate of ’em. It was Gary Marshall’s last movie before his death and every critic hated it, but I had a nice time.
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
#42 on Best Lesbian Movies of All Time
“John Waters lives up to his title Pope of Trash with this raucous celebration of counter-culture deviancy,” writes Drew of this film that opens with “a group of cishet normals making their way through a free exhibit titled The Cavalcade of Perversions” followed by Divine robbing them all at gunpoint. “Waters starts his filmography with a statement and never lets up.”
Shiva Baby (2021)
Jewish twentysomething chaotic bisexual Danielle (Rachel Sennott) makes cringey privileged choices, has a Sugar Daddy and minimal prospects for her post-graduation life, a situation that all comes to an uncomfortable head when she heads out to the suburbs to sit shiva with her family and who shows up but aforementioned Sugar Daddy and his wife (Dianna Agron) and their baby. And then, of course: Danielle’s ex-girlfriend (Molly Gordon). It’s very funny!
Suited (2016)
This documentary focuses on Bindle & Keep, a Brooklyn-based custom-suit company who caters to queer, trans and gender-non-conforming humans, including a trans man preparing for his wedding and a law student struggling through job interviews.
Unpregnant (2020, HBO)
A charming little buddy comedy about a popular, successful high school girl who gets pregnant and must road trip from Missouri to New Mexico to get the abortion her boyfriend doesn’t want her to have. She recruits her former friend — weirdo lesbian Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) — to join her on this journey. Look out for a very charming Betty Who cameo!
Valentine Road (2013, HBO)
The tragic story of the murder of 15-year-old trans student Larry King by his classmate Brandon McInerny is the topic of this documentary, which loooks at the circumstances that led to the crime and its complicated and far-reaching aftermath.
V for Vendetta (2005)
V for Vendetta is a dystopian political action film from the Wachowskis starring Natalie Portman. In 2006, A*terE*len’s Sarah Warn called it “One of the most pro-gay films ever.”
Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley (2013)
Iconic African-American standup comic Jackie “Moms” Mabley is honored in this documentary featuring performance footage as well as interviews with stars like Eddie Murphy, Joan Rivers, Sidney Poitier and Kathy Griffin. The film also gives space to Moms’ lesbianism — she was out to her friends and other entertainers during her career, but it was kept a secret from the public, who were drawn to her “frumpy mom in a housedress” persona.
Working Girls (1986)
“Focusing on a day in the life of lesbian Molly, Working Girls reveals the boredom and mundane difficulties of working at a Manhattan brothel,” writes Drew in the entry for Working Girls in The Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema. “The film doesn’t romanticize sex work or sensationalize it — instead it just lets it be like any crappy job. The dynamics between Molly and her boss, her co-workers, and her clients are all compelling as they reveal more about her, the job, and society’s relationship to sex work. This is a landmark work of cinema that’s finally getting its due and a landmark work of lesbian cinema as well. “
37 Christmas Movies With Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer or Trans Characters
Lesbian Christmas movies: the final frontier. In a Christmas Movie landscape dominated by heterosexual workaholic girl-bosses returning to their hometowns in power suits and falling for heterosexual males who do artisan/manual labor, for many years nary a lesbian or bisexual woman, let alone a non-binary person, dared to make an appearance. It’s usually been hard to find any LGBTQ+ Christmas movies at all, but in recent years gay men have been emerging out of the corners into the Christmas spotlight in droves and also, occasionally, a wee lesbian, queer or trans woman or a non-binary person has earned a few minutes under the mistletoe. In 2020, Clea Duvall’s Happiest Season starring Kristen Stewart broke records for Hulu and Netflix’s A New York Christmas Wedding delivered a Black queer love story that was regarded as both “howlingly bad” and “a must-watch.” In 2021, we apparently went mainstream enough to warrant a few moments in the Lifetime and Hallmark spotlight. What’s next in the world of Lesbian Christmas Movies??! Hopefully the lesbian Christmas movie I am writing with my girlfriend! One can only hope, dream and ask Santa for tips!
This list is in chronological order and includes films with LGBTQ+ women and/or non-binary characters, even minor queer characters because yes we are that desperate. It does not include short films that are under 30 minutes, but there are three films that hover in that space between “short” and “feature length.”
Friends & Family Christmas
dir. Anne Wheeler, 2023 // hallmark tv movie
Humberly Gonzalez and Ali Liebert star in the Hallmark Channel’s very first lesbian Christmas movie. In which photographer Dani (Humberly Gonzalez), overwhelmed by Christmas events and a surprise visit from her parents, asks lawyer Amelia (Liebert) to be her fake girlfriend. If you’ve read any lesbian romance novels, then you are well aware that what begins as a pretend relationship always ends with something more! Stream “Friends and Family Christmas” on Hallmark.
Exmas
dir. Jonah Fiengold, 2023 // prime video tv movie
After their son, Graham (some man) cancels his plans to come home for Christmas, the Stroop family goes ahead and invites his ex Ali (Leighton Meester) to their Minnesota family Christmas celebration. Then, of course, Graham shows up after all and all hell breaks loose! More importantly, Graham’s sister Mindy is the best character in the film because she is a lesbian. Unfortunately she is not the main character. Exmas is streaming on Prime Video / Freevee.
A Holiday I Do
dir. Paul and Alicia Schnieder, 2023 // web release
Our friends at lesbian film/TV company Tello debuted this film which answers the question “what happens when a single mom and a country girl fall for her ex-husband’s beautiful and sophisticated wedding planner?” The answer is; “she’ll need some Christmas magic to fix the chaos that ensues.” Drew got high and watched this movie for you and had a pretty nice time. There are a lot of horses and Rivkah Reyes is hot. Stream Holiday I Do on tello..
It’s a Wonderful Knife
dir. Tyler MacIntyre, 2023
This “queer Christmas slasher” with loads of LGBTQ+ characters, including a Cool Lesbian Aunt played by scream queen Katharine Isabelle, centers on Winnie (Jane Widdop, Yellowjackets), who saves her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve only to be depressed and suicidal a year later. Then she is drawn into a parallel universe where she learns that without her, things would suck a lot more, and also now the killer is back and she’s gotta team up with the (queer) town misfit Bernie (Jess McLeod) to ID him and get back to real life. According to Kayla, the film contains “a queer love story that’s stocking stuffer candy sweet if not as developed or sharp as I tend to prefer my queer relationships on-screen.” It’s a Wonderful Knife is streaming on Shudder.
The Christmas Clapback
dir. Robin Givens, 2022 // BET+ tv movie
It’s the Miles sisters’ first Christmas without their mother, which means they’ve gotta win their town’s annual Christmas Church Cook-Off in her honor — but when social media influencer Aaliyah (Kara Royster) moves in next door, she poses a formidable challenge to the Miles’ crown. She also develops a romantic spark with Tisha (Porscha Coleman), a single mother of a college-age son who’s been out of the dating game for a minute, and their story is actually really cute! The Christmas Clapback is streaming on BET+ or through your cable provider.
Merry & Gay
dir. Christin Baker, 2022 // web-release
photo by Josiah Clark
Becca Winters (Dia Frampton) has just finished her starring run in a popular Broadway musical and is heading home for the holidays, where her meddling mother TIlly (Hayat Nesheiwat) and her best friend Lucille (Janet Ivy) are planning more than just Christmas dinner: they wanna reignite the high school romance between Lucille’s non-binary kid Sam (Andi René Christensen) and Becca. Sam is bartending at their family’s bar, Sheridan’s, and is initially wary of the girl who hurt them three years ago. But it doesn’t take much to warm her right back up! Merry & Gay is streaming on Diva Box TV and tello.
Something From Tiffany’s
dir. Daryl Wein, 2022 // prime video tv movie
This Christmas rom-com starring queer actress Shay Mitchell and the beloved Zoey Deutch asks the age-old question, “what if two men were at Tiffany’s at the same time and their packages got mixed up and the wrong man went home with an engagement ring?” Most importantly for our purposes here, Zoey Deutch’s Rachel owns a bakery with her best friend, Terri, a lesbian played by Twenties‘ Jojo T. Gibbs. We also are gifted with a few brief glimpses into Terri’s marriage with Sophia (Batwoman‘s Javica Leslie) and well, honestly, the movie is pretty okay! Something from Tiffany’s is streaming on Prime Video.
Looking for Her
Dir. Alexandra Swarens, 2022 // tv movie
Taylor’s taken a lot of space from her family so she’s quite surprised when they insist she come home for Christmas and bring her girlfriend, Jess — but Taylor can’t muster up the courage to tell them that she and Jess broke up. Instead, she hires an out-of-work actor to pose as her girlfriend and join her for an extended improv exercise with her family. Sort of like The Proposal but low-budget and gay and the family has a much smaller house. Looking for Her is streaming on Tubi.
Under the Christmas Tree
dir. Lisa Rose Snow, 2021 // lifetime tv movie
Under the Christmas Tree is famously Lifetime’s first-ever lesbian Christmas movie! Elise Bauman is marketing whiz Alma Beltran, who crosses paths with a Christmas Tree Salesperson (?) Charlie while on the hunt for the prefect tree for the Maine Governor’s Holiday Celebration right in Alma’s backyard. What begins with sparring leads to sparking and romance with the help of Ricki Lake, the town’s pâtissière extraordinaire, who is an inspirational figure to all. Under the Christmas Tree is streaming on Hulu.
Picture Perfect Holiday
dir. J.E. Logan, 2021 // lifetime tv movie
Fashion photographer Gaby Jones (Tatyana Ali)’s shot at her dream magazine job is in doubt when her editor suggests she’s not ready for the position — but she could mayhaps improve her chances by attending a Christmas Photography Retreat in a Cute Christmasy Town in the Forest. A little snafu at the cabin reservation desk leads her to have an unexpected hot photographer roommate. This is all very cute and well and good but the unexpected situation of interest to us here is that her lesbian photographer friend from NYU, Dani (played by Paula Andrea Placido of The L Word: Generation Q and Hacks), is also at the retreat with her partner, Amelia (Rivkah Reyes), and both lesbians are trying to plan the perfect proposal. While they’re not the central focus of the film, Dani and Amelia get a surprisingly significant amount of screentime! Picture Perfect Holiday is streaming on Lifetime.
Christmas is Cancelled
dir. Prarthana Mohan, 2021 // prime video tv movie
Emma (Hayley Orrantia) and her Dad (Dermot Mulroney) have lots of beloved Christmas traditions that improve their holiday disposition despite the absence of her mother. But this year she’s in for a nasty surprise: her Dad is dating her high school nemesis, Mona from Pretty Little Liars! Luckily she has a queer BFF, Charlyne (played by non-binary actor Emilie Modaff) to help ease the pain of this terrifying blow. Christmas is Cancelled is streaming on Prime Video.
An Unexpected Christmas
dir. Michael Robinson, 2021 // hallmark tv movie
Jamie brings his pal Emily home for the holidays to pretend like they are legitimately dating which is fine or whatever, what’s more important is that Jamies’ sister, Becca (Alison Wandzura), is a divorced lesbian and single Mom, thus putting the “lesbian” into this Christmas movie. “She’s able to halt Jamie’s incessant whining with her wry verbal smackdowns!” writes Heather Hogan. “She’s got her own subplot and is more than just a sounding board for the main characters! And she has one scene with Jamie that actually made me laugh out loud for real!” An Unexpected Christmas is streaming on Hallmark.
Christmas at the Ranch
dir. Christin Baker, 2021 // web-release
Heather writes that Christmas at the Ranch is a “horse girl holigay rom-com that feels like fan fiction in the way all the best Hallmark Christmas movies do.” In this actual lesbian Christmas movie, workaholic Haley (Laur Allen) goes home for Christmas, finds out her Meemaw is in debt and also meets the new horse-hand, Kate (Amanda Righetti). Between Haley’s money smarts and Kate’s horsey skills, perhaps this ranch can be saved and also lesbian love. Christmas at the Ranch is streaming on Tubi.
You Make It Feel Like Christmas
dir. Lisa France, 2021 // lifetime tv movie
Emma (Mary Antonini) and her BFF Liz (Nadine Pinette) own an “artisanal Christmas ornament store” and when a big-time design guru (???!) falls for Emma’s art, she’s gotta cancel her trip home for Christmas. This is a big bummer for her Dad ’cause Mom died literally last year and he is sad and lonely. Emma’s ex, Aaron, is home from Army visiting with Emma’s Dad and when he finds out Emma’s not coming home, he grabs his cousin Sarah (Solange Sookram) and heads into the city to bring her back! This is relevant to you because aforementioned Liz has a thrilling romantic spark with recently mentioned Sarah, who of course runs a soup kitchen. You Make it Feel Like Christmas is streaming on Lifetime.
Every Time a Bell Rings
dir. Maclain Nelson, 2021 // hallmark tv movie
Three estranged sisters come together in their Mississippi hometown to see their Mom and fulfill their father’s dying wish: a Christmas scavenger hunt to find a prized family heirloom. AND IN THE PROCESS THEY ALSO FIND EACH OTHER. Queer actress Ali Liebert plays the lesbian sister, who is making a website for her family woodshop following the closure of her own business in Boston. She meets a girl and they flirt throughout the film, which honestly is terrible but YMMV! Every Time a Bell Rings is streaming on Hallmark.
Silent Night
dir. Camille Griffin, 2021
This “ambitious but muddled mix of Christmas comedy and apocalyptic drama” centers on a family in a posh English country estate who’ve gathered for the hoilday as a giant toxic cloud sweeps across our wretched neglected planet with the intent of killing everybody! Amongst these humans are Bella (Lucy Punch) and her girlfriend Alex (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). Queer actress Lily-Rose Depp is also featured as the much younger girlfriend of a doctor who is friends with the family. Silent Night is streaming on AMC+
The Magical Christmas Tree
dir. Scott Hillman, 2021
Picture this: you’re a park ranger and a young person in a suit arrives in your parking lot carrying an axe. You approach them. What is your first question? If you said “what are your pronouns?” you’d be correct!!! This is one of many magical moments in low-budget indie flick The Magical Christmas Tree. (The second question is “I’m wondering what you’re doing with that axe,” obviously.) Pace is an accountant in Los Angeles with a mean boss who is visited off-screen by the ghosts of Christmas past and decides to throw a holiday celebration after all, thus requiring Pace to drive into the mountains to find the perfect tee. As their journey progresses, they find a non-binary elf named Buddy and romance ensues! The Magical Christmas Tree is streaming on Tubi.
O Night Divine
dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2021 // web-release
This tight, atmospheric and precise Christmas indie (it’s about an hour long) from Call Me By Your Name’s Luca Guadagnino stars John C. Reilly as a Santa Claus-ish character resting for a night at a fancy ski resort where a few interconnecting stories are at play. One of them involves the hotel’s overseer, Babette (Hailey Gates) and her apparently tortured romance with her ex-girlfriend, Julia (Francesca Figus), who works at a hotel boutique. O Night Divine is streaming on Zara’s YouTube channel.
The Happiest Season
dir. Clea Duvall, 2020
The pitch for this film seemed fantastical from the outset — Kristen Stewart was starring in a lesbian Christmas rom-com made by Clea Duvall? REALLY?!?! Indeed, at the end of a year full of broken dreams (2020), Hulu brought Happiest Season to us all in December. Stewart plays Abby, who gives in to the Christmas spirit she usually resists by heading home to spend the holidays with her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis), who informs her en route that she’s not exactly out to her family. The winning cast includes Dan Levy as Abby’s best friend, Aubrey Plaza as Harper’s ex-girlfriend and Alison Brie as Harper’s uptight sister. The Happiest Season is streaming on Hulu.
A New York Christmas Wedding
dir. Otoja Abit, 2020
This wacky trip of a lesbian Christmas movie sees Jenny (Nia Fairweather), nervous about her engagement to her fiancé, David, when a guardian angel Azraael (Cooper Koch) shows up to give her a vision into the future she could’ve lived but did not — in which she ended up with her childhood best friend, Gabrielle (Adriana DeMeo). “Instead of some far-off Snow White Christmas Village, it’s an queer Afro-Latina looking for love in a very not whitewashed New York,” wrote Carmen in her review. A New York Christmas Wedding is streaming on Tubi and Freevee.
Christmas With the Darlings
dir. Catherine Cyran, 2020 // hallmark tv movie
The lesbian isn’t in this picture but I don’t have a picture of the lesbian so here we are
Jessica (Katrina Law), finds herself in co-charge of orchestrating a perfect New England Christmas for the recently orphaned nieces and nephew of her CEO, who’s away on business and otherwise would be shipping the kiddos back to boarding school. Her help in this mission is Max, the kids’ other uncle, who is not very paternal. Most important to all of us here today is that Jessica’s BFF, Zoe (Morgana Wyllie), is a lesbian, and she has herself a little romantic subplot with a HOT BARISTA. Christmas With the Darlings is streaming on Hallmark.
The Christmas Lottery
dir. Tamika Miller, 2020 // BET tv movie
“After being estranged for nearly three years, the Davenport sisters — Diedre (Asia’h Epperson), Tammy (Candiace Dillard) and Nicole (Brave Williams) — reunite at the family home, just in time for Christmas. But it’s not the holiday spirit that brings everyone home, it’s the promise of collecting a share of their parents’ lottery winnings…which they can only get if they repair the relationships between them. That’s easier said than done, though: Diedre carries some serious emotional scars over having sacrificed so much for sisters when they couldn’t even be bothered to attend her wedding to her wife, Belinda. But all the work on repairing their relationships might be for naught when the winning lottery ticket turns up missing.” — Natalie. The Christmas Lottery is streaming on BET.
Last Christmas
dir. Paul Feig, 2019
The lesbian character in Last Christmas is so incredibly minor that if you only half-watched this movie, you could miss her entirely! Directed by Paul Feig (The Office, Bridesmaids), Last Christmas is the story of aspiring singer Kate Andrich (Emilia Clarke), who works at a year-round Christmas store owned by “Santa” (Michelle Yeoh) in London and feels suffocated by her depressed mother, Petra (Emma Thompson), who dotes on her but ignores her sister, Marta (Lydia Leonard), a very successful lawyer who is gay but fears coming out to her parents. Kate meets a hottie named Tom (Henry Golding) and their romance is central to this movie that is brimming with talented actors and yet none of them can transcend the absolutely absurd plot! Also there are cameos from Patti LuPone and Sue Perkins? Last Christmas is available for rent on RedBox.
Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas
dir. Theresa Bennett, 2019 // freeform tv movie
This genuinely adorable Freeform Christmas flick stars Aisha Dee as Jess, who unfortunately dies right after a great first date with Ben (Kendrick Sampson), but then finds herself still hanging out as a ghost! This is great news for her lesbian best friend, Kara (Kimiko Glen) and for Ben — at least at first. It’s a weird little plot that somehow works, but what works best for me personally is the romance between Kara and Ben’s sister, Mae (Jazz Raycole). Plus I mean, it’s Aisha Dee and Kimiko Glen! A treat! Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas is streaming on Freeform.
Season of Love
dir. Christin Baker, 2019 // web-release
Another entry in the “intersecting stories” Christmas film genre but this time it’s “intersecting LESBIAN stories.” There’s Sue (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), a musician and Janey (Janelle Marie), her formerly-long distance girlfriend. Kenna (a deaf character played by a deaf actress, Sandra Mae Frank!), who is opening a brewery and Lou (Jessica Clark), a welder she hired for the project. And finally, Iris (Emily Goss) and Mardou (Laur Allen) — Iris is set to marry Mardou’s brother, but he leaves her alone at the altar. “The movie has everything you could want from a cheesy holiday movie,” wrote Valerie in her “Season of Love” review. “Mistletoe mishaps, zero-stakes drama, happily ever afters.” You can rent Season of Love on Tello.
Let it Snow
dir. Luke Snellin, 2019 // netflix tv movie
This decent rom-com promises less wholesome activity than your typical Christmas film, weaving together stories from an intersecting group of teenagers in Laurel, Illinois on a very snowy Christmas Eve. One of these little stories involves Dorrie (played by non-binary actor Liv Hewson of “Yellowjackets”), a lesbian who works at Waffle Town and is having a secret affair with a cheerleader. So you know, come for the lesbian, stay for Joan Cusack driving a truck wrapped in tin foil. Let it Snow is streaming on Netflix.
City of Trees
dir. Alexandra Swarens, 2019
Ainsley (Alexandra Swarens), a somewhat aimless twentysomething, returns from Los Angeles to her small hometown for the holidays and finds herself facing some unexpected lingering trauma in this lesbian Christmas movie. Sophie (Olivia Buckle), a popular cheerleader from Ainsley’s high school, has changed since Ainsley last saw her and is even friends with Ainsley’s Mom — but it’s hard for Ainsley to see past the girls they once were. As Sophie and Ainsley keep being in the same place at the same time, a romance begins to spark! City of Trees is streaming on YouTube.
Life Size 2
dir. Steven K. Tsuchida, 2018
Life-Size 2 follows Grace, a twenty-something former socialite at the helm of Marathon Toys, erstwhile manufacturer of Eve Dolls, now that her mother’s been sent to jail. Tyra Banks returns as Grace’s favorite childhood toy Eve, here to usher her through the new slings and arrows of her life. Heather refrained from spoilers in her review because “you deserve to experience the absolute ecstasy of watching Tyra Banks commit to the bananapants wide-eyed wonder of this role again, without being spoiled on all the Easter Eggs.” That said, the queerness of the lead character is very much not central or even center-adjacent to anything that happens in the film but you know we took what we could get in 2018.
Anna and the Apocalypse
dir. John McPhail, 2017
What says “the spirit of Christmas” more than a zombie apocalypse movie musical?? Nothing, that’s what. And that’s exactly what Anna and the Apocalypse is. Starring queer Dickinson actress Ella Hunt, and featuring a prominent lesbian character Steph played by queer actor Sarah Swire, the movie is a bloody romp. While sometimes the big picture metaphor gets a little muddy, it boils down to encouraging you to live in the moment and appreciate what you have because you never know when a deadly pandemic will break out and separate you from the people you love the most. The music is a delight, and Ella Hunt is phenomenally talented, and the movie is campy and fun and may or may not make you cry just a little. Tis the season for watching teens bash zombies over the head with giant candy canes! — Valerie Anne. Anna and the Apocalypse is streaming on Tubi.
We Need a Little Christmas
dir. Noble Julz and Onyx Keesha, 2017 // web-release
This very low-budget holiday flick (at times it’s hard to hear the dialogue) follows a group of Atlanta-based queer friends who share a cabin for Christmas: Smith and her wife Chris, their children, her best friends Lindsay and Brighton, and her new coworker, Angel. There’s also a lot of Christianity in this film. We Need a Little Christmas is notable for being focused entirely on a group of Black lesbians, which is a rare treat! You can rent We Need a Little Christmas on LesFlicks.
Carol
dir. Todd Haynes, 2015
Have you heard about the movie Carol, it’s about this woman Carol? Played by Cate Blanchett? I believe she has an affectionate “affair” with Therese, who has a stupid boyfriend and wants to be a photographer. Waterloo is involved. So is Sarah Paulson. We have written no less than 63 posts about this film right here on this website!
Tangerine
dir. Sean Baker, 2015
Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in TANGERINE, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
This is not a lesbian Christmas movie, but it is a Christmas-adjacent movie about two trans women sex workers of color and this queer list felt incomplete without making note of it. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor) get out of jail and right back into their chaotic Los Angeles existence on Christmas Eve. Alexandra’s prepping for an upcoming performance and Sin-Dee is prepping to cause a bit of drama regarding her boyfriend, Chester, cheating on her. Naming it the #2 best Christmas movie of all time, Vulture writes that in a list primarily occupied by “prosperous white families,” Tangerine serves as “a corrective to that tradition: “It’s a film as vital, alive, and in touch with the holiday as more traditional entries — an invitation to other filmmakers to redefine what a Christmas movie can be, and as much a story about the importance of human kindness as the one that tops the list.”
Everybody’s Fine
dir. Kirk Jones, 2009
When Frank Goode’s children all cancel their plans to come home for Christmas, Frank hits the road on his own, planning to visit each of his kids, which will of course entail finding out WHO THEY TRULY ARE. For example Rosie (Drew Barrymore), who picks him up in a limo takes him to her fancy alleged apartment where he meets her “friend” Jill (Kate Moennig)— but it’s all a show! Because also, she’s bisexual! The Christmas element of this film is pretty light, as is the queerness, but it has its moments and it’s always fun to see queer actresses playing queer roles.
Rent
dir. Chris Columbus, 2005
While not strictly a Christmas movie, the beloved film adaptation of the Broadway musical does open and close on Christmas Eve in a very deliberate way, and it’s chock-full of LGBTQ stories and characters. Set in the Lower East Side in the late ’80s amid the growing HIV/AIDS crisis, lesbian couple Maureen (Idina Menzel) and Joanne (Traci Thoms) and their legendary “Take Me or Leave Me” made this film a notable root for theater kids all over the world. How could a night so frozen be so scalding hot? There’s only one way to find out and that way is “watching this movie” and maybe also listening to the original Broadway cast recording! Rent is streaming on HBO Max.
8 Women
dir. François Ozon, 2002
This French dark comedy musical centers a family of eccentric women and their employees after their family patriarch is found dead in the isolated cottage where they’ve chosen to spend a very snowy Christmas. One by one each woman finds her situation under scrutiny. “This movie feels gay and then it gets explicitly gay and then it gets explicitly gayer,” writes Drew Gregory. “By the end it’s unclear if anyone is straight!”
Female Trouble
dir. John Waters, 1974
While technically not a lesbian movie or a Christmas movie, this John Waters masterpiece demands inclusion due to its iconic Christmas scene and iconic lesbian characters. Of course, the Christmas scene is Divine’s tantrum about not receiving cha cha heels. And the lesbianism is found most prominently in Edith Massey’s Aunt Ida. “The world of the heterosexual is sick and boring,” she says and truer words have never been committed to screen. Christmas movies are traditionally wholesome so if you’re looking for some queer counterprogramming, look no further than the Pope of Trash himself — trash that’s now available on the prestigious Criterion Collection. — Drew Gregory
December 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Hulu, Max, Starz, Shudder and Peacock
Ho Ho Ho Happy Holidays to everybody in the whole world, but especially to people who are reading this post in search of new December 2023 streaming television and film events airing on the various networks to which we subscribe and featuring lesbian, bisexual and queer female characters and/or trans characters! Come sweet children of the winter harvest and let’s see what the world has in store for us!
Top Row: Familia, Cindy la Regia: The High School Years, Friends & Family Christmas, Such Brave Girls
Bottom Row: Under Pressure, We Live Here, Rebel Moon, The Knife Before Christmas, Blue Jean, Power Book III: Raising Kanan
What’s New and Gay on Netflix in December 2023
Blockers (2018) – December 1
One of my favorite queer movies of all time, Blockers follows a group of teenage friends who’ve made a pact to lose their virginity on prom night and their overprotective parents, who really hate this idea! It’s so much cuter and funnier than the description suggests.
Black Swan (2010) – December 1
Ballet! Homoeroticism! Natalie Portman! Swans! Mila Kunis!
Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team (2023) – December 12
This documentary follows the U.S Women’s Soccer Team on their 2023 journey to the World Cup, a time in which they were hoping and dreaming to win a third championship in a row but did not. Watch the trailer for Under Pressure.
Familia (2023) – December 12
Leo, the family patriarch who lives alone with his son Benny, brings his whole family together once a month to catch up over a meal hosted in a resplendent landscape — and this time he wants to talk to his three daughters about the future of his idyllic olive farm. One of those daughters is pregnant and won’t say who the father is and also has brought her possible-girlfriend to the farm! Said maybe-girlfriend takes pictures and has tattoos. Watch the trailer for Familia.
Cindy la Regia: The High School Years: Season One – December 20
Cindy wants to conquer the world! But then her crown is taken away! In this Mexican television series, CIndy must survive high school and the pressure of the high society of San Pedro Garza García. Her friends are by her side forever. One of them is a lesbian!!!! Cindy is like, “I’ve never met a lesbian before,” and her friend is like, “you’ve known me all your life, stop it!” Ultimately they will challenge the rules of love and be unstoppable. Watch the trailer for “Cindy la Regia: The High School Years”
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) – December 22
A peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy is threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, but a hot myseterious strangers, Kora (Sofia Boutella) rises up to become the villagers’ best hope for survival. She must assemble a band of warriors — “outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge.” Amongst them is Milius, played by nonbinary actor E.Duffy. Milius is a nonbinary refugee from a farming world that chose to cooperate with their tyrants rather than resist and ended up demolished. Snyder told Vanity Fair that Milius’s strength is their heart — they have the “purest” motives — just wanting to defend this world ’cause they weren’t able to defend or save their own. Watch The Rebel Moon trailer.
Star Trek: Prodigy (Season 1) – December 25
The first season of this animated Star Trek series, originally launched on Paramount+, is being added to Netflix in anticipation of its second season hitting Netflix exclusively in 2024. The series aimed at kiddos has been applauded for its non-binary character, Zero. Zero is a Medusan, an energy-based species that has no gender or corporeal form (living the dream, honestly).
Queer on Max in December 2023
Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023) – December 5th
Queer photographer, filmmaker and journalist Amanda Mustard turns the lens around to her own family in this stirring documentary, investigating sexual abuse crimes committed by her grandfather. Watch the trailer for Great Photo, Lovely Life.
Hulu’s December 2023 LGBTQ+ Content
We Live Here: The Midwest: Season One – December 6
This docuseries profiles families who’ve established deep roots in communities they sometimes struggle to exist within: a trans/queer family with five kids in Iowa who’ve been expelled from their church; a Black gay couple in Nebraska whose daughter is testing the line of acceptance; a lesbian couple in Kansas whose son is being homeschooled on their farm after being bullied in school; a gay teacher in Ohio building safe spaces for LGBTQ+ kids and a Minnesota couple rebuilding their families after transitioning. Watch the trailer for We Live Here: The Midwest.
Blue Jean (2022) – December 14
It’s 1988 in the UK and Thatcherism has the country focused on traditional values. Jean is a netball coach and PE teacher who’s closeted at school and has a thriving queer community at home — but those worlds collide when she sees a student at her local gay bar, and the student sees her, putting her job at risk. “The triumph of Blue Jean is that it takes time showing the queer lives at stake,” writes Drew. “This is not a dour film. It has hot lesbian sex, sweaty snapshots of queer bars, and, ultimately, portrays the power of community.”
Such Brave Girls: Season One – December 15
Produced by A24, Such Brave Girls is a “loosely autobiographical” British sitcom described by star and creator Kat Sadler as “a family sitcom about trauma” and a show about “being narcissistic losers who are pathetically obsessed with what people think about us.” Sadler plays Josie, a character with a lot of mental health struggles, a possessive boyfriend and a burning crush on a woman. “There is a particular joy in seeing a woman-led, female-written show that doesn’t pull its punches and revels in plumbing the depths,” writes The Guardian. Watch the trailer for Such Brave Girls.
Letterkenny: Complete Season 12 – December 26
The final season of this cult hit Canadian community is set in an eccentric rural community in Canada full of very funny people, including several queer characters.
Peacock’s Gay Movies for November 2023
All of the brand-new Hallmark content on Peacock is added to Peacock the day after it airs on the Hallmark channel and is subsequently removed three days later. So watch them right away okay
Commitment To Life (2023) – December 1
This documentary looks at the fight against HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles through its community and activists but with a specific focus on Hollywood, and “how an intrepid group of people living with HIV/AIDS, doctors, movie stars, studio moguls and activists changed the course of the epidemic.” Watch the Commitment To Life trailer.
Kajillionaire (2020) – December 1
Miranda July’s super strange movie about a quirky family of petty criminals stars Evan Rachel Wood as 26-year-old Old Dolio, who even as an adult remains in an emotionally manipulative relationship with her parents, who treat her like an accomplice rather than a daughter. Things get complicated when the family ropes Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) into their next heist, and a weird relationship begins building between Old Dolio and Melanie.
Round and Round (2023) – December 11 (Hallmark)
Maybe this is incredibly wishful thinking but if the oil burned for eight whole nights then it certainly feels possible that there is a minor lesbian character in this Hanukkah time loop Hallmark movie? Because if you look in the back of this picture… there’s a lesbian couple there! Queer actor Jess Smith plays “Bex” in this film, and straight people aren’t named Bex. Anyhow Louis Litt from Suits is in this movie in which Rachel is stuck in a time loop reliving the night of her parents’ Hanukkah party and wondering if Zach, the “nice boy” Grandma is trying to set her up with, will help her make it to tomorrow.
Friends & Family Christmas (2023) – December 18 (Hallmark)
IT’S HERE OUR FIRST LESBIAN FOCUSED HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIE!!! Ali Liebert is a lawyer named Amelia and Humberly Gonzalez is a photographer named Dani who ropes Amelia into pretending to be her girlfriend for the holidays because Dani is simply just quite overwhelmed by the holiday season and pressure from her parents. Fake lovers become real lovers, we know the rules here!
Starz’s LGBTQ+ TV for December 2023
Power Book III: Raising Kanan: Season 3 – December 1
Carmen said “Power Book III: Raising Kanan is easily the best of the Power series” and also “good as hell and gay as hell!” Set in the 1990s, Raising Kannan is when we meet a teenage Jukebox and her various early lesbian trysts. The series has already been renewed for Season Four ahead of its season three premiere.
Shudder’s Lesbian Movie Of December 2023
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) – December 1
This “queer Christmas slasher” with loads of LGBTQ+ characters centers on Winnie (Jane Widdop, Yellowjackets), who saves her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve only to be depressed and suicidal a year later. Then she is drawn into a parallel universe where she learns that without her, things would suck a lot more, and also now the killer is back and she’s gotta team up with the (queer) town misfit Bernie (Jess McLeod, who played a queer non-binary character in One of Us is Lying) to ID him and get back to real life. Also, Winnie’s got a cool lesbian aunt and there’s just apparently a lot of gay stuff overall even though reviews are mixed!
Gay for Play: The Best Queer Sports Movies of All Time
When someone says “queer sports movies” what titles come to mind? Bend It Like Beckham? A League of Their Own? Love and Basketball? Bring It On?
If your first thought is subtext, you’re not alone. These films still hold a grasp on our collective hearts unlike any queer sports movies where the queerness is explicit. Despite queer people’s major involvement in sports — especially in women’s sports — Hollywood has long neglected our stories.
That’s finally starting to change.
Today NYAD, the true story of lesbian swimmer Diana Nyad, was released on Netflix and it joins a series of other recent sports movies that aim to fill in this long-held gap. In Hollywood and beyond, more queer sports movies are being made every year, but there still aren’t enough. You’ll notice this list is lacking in trans movies — something I’ve personally tried to change with my trans girl soccer movie but after two failed development processes, no luck. You’ll also notice, despite the very queer WNBA, there isn’t a single movie here about women’s basketball — something my far more successful friends have tried to change, also no luck.
Nevertheless, as we ask for more, let’s celebrate what does exist. This list has queer women testing their physical limits, queer men confronting their toxic masculinity, and even a few cute and sporty gay romances. The definition of sports is nebulous, but I decided not to include movies about dance or skateboarding and only one movie from the canon of queer cheerleading. There are also quite a few queer sports movies not available or not yet released in the U.S. that I wasn’t able to watch!
Brush off your cleats, pump up your balls, and join us in celebrating the very best explicitly queer sports movies of all time.
Queer Sports Movies Not Yet Released In the U.S.:
Golden Delicious (dir. Jason Karman, 2022)
Marinette (dir. Virginie Verrier, 2023)
Summer with Hope (dir. Sadaf Foroughi, 2022)
Queer Sports Movies Not Currently Available In the U.S.:
Ciao Bella (dir. Mani Maserrat-Agah, 2007)
Guys and Balls (dir. Sherry Hormann, 2004)
Like It Is (dir. Paul Oremland, 1998)
The Shiny Shrimps (dir. Maxime Govare and Cédric Le Gallo, 2019)
Zen In the Ice Rift (dir. Margherita Ferri, 2018)
Queer Movies That Feature Sports But Don’t Center Sports:
Absent (dir. Marco Berger, 2011)
Blue Jean (dir. Georgia Oakley, 2022)
Breakfast with Scot (dir. Laurie Lynd, 2007)
The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (dir. Greg Berlanti, 2000)
Crush (dir. Sammi Cohen, 2022)
The Half Of It (dir. Alice Wu, 2020)
Queer Sports Movies That Didn’t Make the Cut:
1:54 (dir. Yan England, 2016)
Beautiful Boxer (dir. Ekachai Uekrongtham, 2003)
Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story (dir. Steven Hilliard Stern, 1997)
Bruised (dir. Halle Berry, 2020)
Boys (dir. Mischa Kamp, 2014)
Eleven Men Out (dir. Róbert I. Douglas, 2005)
Like a Virgin (dir. Lee Hae-Jun and Lee Hae-young, 2006)
Morgan (dir. Michael D. Akers, 2012)
The Pass (dir. Ben A. Williams, 2016)
Summer Storm (dir. Marco Kreuzpaintner, 2004)
The Top 12 Queer Sports Movies of All Time
12. Handsome Devil (2016)
dir. John Butler
If you liked “can you play basketball and do the school play,” you’ll love “can you play rugby and be gay.” This Irish charmer may hit familiar beats but it’s noteworthy for being the rare coming-out-age movie to center friendship and mentorship over romance. It also features a wonderful performance from Andrew Scott in the classic role of gay English teacher.
11. Play It to The Bone (1999)
dir. Ron Shelton
Universally panned upon its release, and still disliked by most today, Ron Shelton’s least known sports movie isn’t exactly an undiscovered masterpiece. That said, I do think it’s deserving of a better reputation — especially since its 90s sexism and homophobia have aged into something that feels more like commentary than offense. Antonio Banderas and Woody Harrelson play best friends and has-been boxers who get the chance to fight each other for a title shot. The movie follows the two of them on their road trip to Vegas for the fight, alongside their shared ex-girlfriend, played by Lolita Davidovich, and a horny stranger played by Lucy Liu. At one point, Banderas’ character admits that in the past he’s tried being “a fag.” Maybe intended as a homophobic joke — and certainly crass — Banderas, who got his start portraying queer characters in Almodóvar films, grounds the moment in reality. His character reads now simply as a bisexual man — a bisexual man trapped in the toxic world of boxing.
10. Cassandro (2023)
dir. Roger Ross Williams
Based on the true story of Saúl Armendáriz a.k.a. Cassandro, this crowdpleaser set in the world of lucha libre wrestling is an unabashed celebration of flamboyance. Gael García Bernal plays the title role, an exótico who finds strength in his overt queerness, and through that embrace of self achieves success. Bernal is joined by a fantastic supporting cast that includes Raúl Castillo, Bad Bunny, and queer icon Roberta Colindrez. Most male-led queer sports movies center masc athletes who keep their queerness hidden; Cassandro is a femme icon who chose to be loud and proud.
9. Battle of the Sexes (2017)
dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Speaking of icons, Billie Jean King is a queer icon, a tennis icon, and an icon of the sports world at large. This movie does her legacy justice with pathos and charm. Focusing on her much-publicized match against Bobby Riggs, the film acts as both a portrait of King and a rallying cry for women’s sports. It also features a very sultry haircut scene between Emma Stone as King and Andrea Riseborough as her hairdresser and lover Marilyn Barnett. This Hollywood tale may brush over the pricklier aspects of King’s story — especially with Barnett— but it’s still a rousing story of lesbians, tennis, and putting an annoying straight man in his place.
8. Punch (2022)
dir. Welby Ings
This recent New Zealand film hits many familiar beats of both queer coming-of-age movies and boxing movies. It also happens to hit them with the skill of a champion fighter. By focusing on specificity of character, the film grounds its clichés. This is a beautifully crafted film that’s emotional yet never maudlin. It also touches upon the specific challenge of today’s queer youth who are exposed to celebrations of Gay Pride while still facing discrimination — overt and subtle — from within their communities.
7. Signature Move (2017)
dir. Jennifer Reeder
Before Jennifer Reeder was making idiosyncratic horror features and Fawzia Mirza was embracing full auteur status, they teamed up for this late-in-life coming-of-age lucha libre romance. Mirza plays Zaynab, a Pakistani lesbian lawyer who is training as a wrestler on the side. Her life is complicated when she begins a romance with a woman played by Sari Sanchez who challenges her to fully embrace herself. One-third romcom, one-third family dramedy, and one-third queer sports movie, all the pieces click for an entertaining, nuanced, and heartfelt experience.
6. Sarah Prefers to Run (2013)
dir. Chloé Robichaud
Days of Happiness director Chloé Robichaud’s debut feature follows another ambitious woman at a different stage in her life. As Sarah cautiously steps into young adulthood, all she wants to do is run. She gets offered a position on the track team at McGill, and, in order to shoulder the financial cost, enters into a questionable, and possibly dangerous, financial agreement with an older male roommate. The film lives in Sarah’s point-of-view, never providing easy answers while still making Sarah’s queer feelings obvious even as they elude Sarah herself. Grounded in a melancholy realism, Robichaud’s film is a quiet and painful tribute to the complex simplicities of youth. It also has an all-time great queer karaoke scene.
5. Backspot (2023)
dir. D.W. Waterson
This film hasn’t been released yet, but I was lucky enough to see it at TIFF! When putting together this list, I couldn’t decide whether to include cheer. I would never question the athleticism required, but I also wouldn’t question the athleticism required for dance and I decided I had to leave that off. Well, D.W. Waterson’s debut starring Devery Jacobs, Kudakwashe Rutendo, and Evan Rachel Wood, made the inclusion of cheer undeniable. This is an excellent film about a young athlete pushing her body, her mind, and her personal life to the limits and should be in any future conversations of the best queer sports movies. (Full disclosure: I know D.W. and Devery but, even with my bias, I really think you’re all going to love this when it comes out next year.)
4. Mario (2018)
dir. Marcel Gisler
While a lot of films on this list embody that classic sports movie triumph, this Swiss drama takes a harsher look at homophobia in professional sports. New player Leon immediately catches the eye of star player Mario, but their budding romance quickly gets in the way of their chances at advancing to professional soccer careers. The film wisely avoids melodrama, focusing instead on the painful day-to-day experience of having to lie about who you are in order to play the sport you love.
3. NYAD (2023)
dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
When I saw this film at TIFF, I used it as an excuse to examine transphobia in sports. But now that the real-life Diana Nyad has changed her stance on trans women inclusion in athletics, I just want to celebrate it as a remarkable entry in the canon of queer sports movies. Annette Bening as Nyad and Jodie Foster as Bonnie, Nyad’s best friend and coach, have a crackling friendship chemistry. It’s the sort of relationship between two older queer women rarely shown on-screen. And the swimming sequences are as exceptional as the character development. The film’s directors have a history in extreme sport documentary and use those skills to immerse us in Nyad’s mission. It’s an exhilarating experience and wonderful portrait of a woman who tested the limits of not only her own body but the human body.
2. Personal Best (1982)
dir. Robert Towne
This is the classic queer sports movie and it’s a classic for a reason. Starring Mariel Hemingway and Patrice Donnelly as track and field competitors to lovers, Robert Towne’s film is a sweaty, sexy, groundbreaking masterpiece of athletics and lesbianism. While not without its moments of casual 80s bigotry, overall the movie holds up as a portrait of two women who bond over their desire to be the very best. This movie is Capricorn4Capricorn representation and, as a queer woman Capricorn myself, I love it dearly.
1. The Novice (2021)
dir. Lauren Hadaway
Pulsing with raw energy, Lauren Hadaway’s feature directorial debut was inspired by her own experience rowing crew. This is a movie made by an athlete, made by an artist, who approaches her craft as a filmmaker with the same attention to detail as her ambitious protagonist approaches her sport. Isabelle Fuhrman plays Alex, a college freshman we learn little about beyond her compulsive need to be the best novice on the crew team. By stripping down the story to bare essentials, Hadaway trusts in her cinematography, sound design, and stunning lead performance. This is the best queer sports movie of all time, because it commits to an athlete’s point of view. Everything but the goal of being the best is mere distraction. We are with Alex as she trains, as she pushes, as she destroys herself for a singular purpose. It’s a frightening portrait of athletic determination and a stunning cinematic achievement.
What are your favorite queer sports movies of all time?
November 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Apple TV+, MGM+, Lifetime and Peacock
Welcome to the beginning of the darkest time of year, when often there is nowhere else to be than the little dip in the sofa where you often find yourself seated to watch something glorious and gay on the television set. We are here with a plethora of options you could potentially enjoy if you like lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters. These are of course simply what we have identified thus far, who knows what else will come onto our radar as the month progresses but we will all keep in touch about it!
Netflix
Six Feet Under (Seasons 1-5) – November 1
My favorite show of all time is coming to Netflix!!!! There is pretty minor queer women content that doesn’t show up until mid-season, but uptight gay undertaker David Fisher is central and iconic throughout and Brenda Chenoweth matters to me deeply.
Nyad (2023) – November 3
Nyad is the true story of competitive swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Benning), who at the age of 64 is setting out to swim from Cuba to Florida, a 110-mile swim. Drew says it’s “a joy to witness [Jodie] Foster” step fully into her dyke energy” as Nyad’s best friend, Bonnie Stoll.
Selling Sunset: Season 7 – November 3
This show is about selling sunsets to people who have enough money to buy mansions with swimming pools in the hills of sunny southern California, where we will see “Oppenheim Group agents navigating explosive office politics, evolving friendships, a tricky housing market, and jaw-dropping new listings.” Most importantly to us here is that Chrishell Stause is gay and will be present for this event.
Escaping Twin Flames: Season One – November 8
A three-part docuseries telling the story of the Twin Flames Universe, which is basically a cult led by a couple in Michigan who have convinced their followers that they know the secret to finding their Twin Flame and thus achieving happiness forever! Prime Video did a series about Twin Flames last month, and there is some truly fascinating stuff in here from a queer perspective, specifically the turning point in the cult’s evolution when they shifted towards intergroup matchmaking, which meant convincing a solid chunk of their almost-entirely female membership that they are, in fact, men.
Mutt (2023) – November 16
Over the course of 24 hours, a trans man named Feña experiences the extremes of human emotion when he bumps into his ex-boyfriend and then a whole host of people who disappeared when he transitioned have suddenly returned to his life. Drew wrote that in a world full of films that don’t portray the trans experience very well, this is the rare film that does.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: Season One – November 17
The Scott Pilgrim Takes Off animated series — hotly anticipated by the queer nerds who have helped the movie achieve cult status — brings back all the original characters and actors of the 2010 film, which was based on based on the graphic novel series. So this will be an adaptation of an adaptation. Returning cast include queer actor Aubrey Plaza returning as Julie Powers and Mae Whitman returning as the “bifurious” ex-girlfriend of Ramona Flowers, Roxie Richter. The American-Canadian-Japanese anime will have eight episodes.
Rustin (2023) – November 17
Produced by the Obama’s production company, this film we are all very excited about is based on the true story of gay activist Bayard Rustin and the work put in with Martin Luther King, Jr, to organize the 1963 March on Washington.
The Dads (2023) – November 17
This short film directed by Luchina Fisher and EP-ed by Dwayne Wade and Jon Marcus follows five Dads from different backgrounds coming together for a fishing trip in Oklahoma with Matthew Shepard’s father with one thing in common: they love and want to support their transgender kids.
Prime Video
Pretty Hard Cases: Season 3 (Freevee) – November 29
Adrienne C. Moore and Meredith MacNeill star as Kelly and Sam, two very unlikely partners, in this CBC comedy’s final season. Queer actor Karen Robinson is returning as their beleaguered unit commander and Tricia Black as a homicide detective Tara Swallows.
Max
Rap Sh!t Season Two – November 9
In Season One of this hip-hop comedy from Issa Rae, Miami rappers The City Girls (KaMillion and non-binary actor Aida Osaman) acheived viral fame and had to reckon with the meaning of that success. Queer actor Jonica Blu Booth plays a stud, the self-declared “Duke of Miami,” who joins her estranged high school friends on their path towards success.
Hulu
Black Cake: Season One Premiere – November 1st
Based on the bestselling novel, Black Cake spans decades and takes place in Jamaica, Italy, Scotland, England and the U.S.. In present day California, a widow loses her battle with cancer, leaving her two estranged children, Byron and Benny, with a flash drive containing stories about her own journey from the Caribbean to America that will change everything they thought they knew about their family. Benny is a lesbian who hadn’t spoken to her mother for eight years after feeling discarded following her coming out.
A Murder at the End of the World: Limited Series Premiere – November 14
I am unclear if they play a queer character in this, but non-binary actor Emma Corrin is starring as a young amateur detective in this series from Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. Their character is tasked with catching a killer ravaging a remote retreat before more people turn up dead. We’ve also got Joan Chen, Raul Esparza and Clive Owen, so it should be a good time! But will it be a gay time? I suppose we shall see.
Peacock
Periodical (2023) – November 19
Ahem. “Periodical covers everything from the people who use their period blood for facials and ‘free bleed’ while running marathons, to the ones who want to forget it exists. The film uncovers the shocking truths, challenges taboos and celebrates the untapped potential of this nutrient-dense blood.” Megan Rapinoe is involved!
Apple TV+
The Buccaneers: Season One Premiere – November 8
A group of young Americans explode into the “tightly corseted London season of the 1870s, kicking off an Anglo-American culture clash as the land of the stiff upper lip is infiltrated by a refreshing disregard for centuries of tradition.” Sent over the ocean to secure husbands and titles, the girls learn so much about themselves and each other and most importantly, trans actress Josie Totah plays queer character Mabel Elmsworth, who is spotted kissing Honoria Marable (Mia Threapleton) in the trailer.
For All Mankind: Season Four Premiere – November 10
Unfortunately Jodi Balfour will not be returning in a regular capacity as NASA astronaut-turned-President Ellen Waverly, but she will appear for a moment just to wrap up her storyline.
MGM+
Beacon 23: Season One Premiere – November 12
You know that feeling when you are in the farthest reaches of the Milky Way and a government agent and a stoic ex-military man find themselves trapped inside a beacon that serves as a lighthouse for intergalactic travelers? Me too, and I’m so glad it’s finally going to be represented on screen! Lena Hedley has a lot of tattoos and wears a muscle tee throughout this trailer and does eventually end up, for a brief moment, kissing a woman and then topping her in outer space?
Lifetime
You’re Not Supposed To Be Here (2023) – November 4
Pregnant lesbian couple Zoe (Chrishell Stause) and Kennedy (Diora Baird) are struggling with work-life balance and thus accept Kennedy’s boss’ invitation to go on a little babymoon getaway in the woods. But they get out there and shit gets SINISTER. Lifetime movies are usually also available on Hulu, unsure when or if this one will be!
The Bloody History of the Lesbian Vampire in 20 Films
The phrase “lesbian vampire” might be one of the most titillating combinations of words in the English language. She is a specter that has endured throughout the last 150 years in fiction and film. Before she appeared on screen as a predatory lesbian coveting the necks of young girls, she found her roots in two sources from history, lore, and literature.
The first of these sources is the infamous Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman. Elizabeth Bathory is best known in the annals of morbid history as a prolific serial killer. According to lore and testimony from her trial, the 17th century countess believed bathing in the blood of young girls would preserve her youth and beauty — purportedly to the tune of 300 exsanguinated virgins in Hungary. Several of the country’s own scholars have speculated that Bathory was the victim of a patriarchal conspiracy. In such theories, a cabal of men, blood relations of Bathory’s, strove to take over her land and wealth after her husband’s death. If one is to accept the theory of power-hungry misogyny, the details of Bathory’s various murders do indeed read with a feverishly sadomasochistic bent. In other words, it is not hard to imagine these unsavory descriptions being manufactured by sexually repressed Hungarian noblemen who could not handle this one woman’s autonomy. Bathory has been heavily filtered through the language of men.
The second major source for lesbian vampire lore appears in Joseph Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 novella, Carmilla, which predates Dracula by 26 years. It is the story of a strange female visitor, Carmilla, who seduces a young, lonely girl named Laura who is confined to her father’s house. Eventually, the male characters defeat her and rescue the female narrator from Carmilla’s clutches. Indeed, this becomes the standard cycle of many lesbian vampire movie narratives.
Queer people continue to be drawn to the figure of the lesbian vampire. The allure signals there is more than the lust of the male gaze on display in this body of work. One need only point to Carmen Maria Machado’s recent re-edition of Carmilla in which she repositions the novel in the context of queer history. The continued interest in historically “problematic” imagery is more than a queer scavenger hunt for representation. After all, there are now also more explicit portrayals of queer relationships on screen than ever before. So why do so many queer horror fans keep returning to these films, which are more interested in homoerotic undertones than they are in any commentary on “queerness” as an identity?
The lesbian vampire remains a figure rafted between two schools of popular feminist discourse. Mainstream feminist theses have steered the discourse from the ivory tower to the art house screen. Decades later, the erotic potential of the lesbian vampire outside of a patriarchal framework and these particular feminist responses remains woefully untapped.
Feminist writers have typically written off sadomasochistic imagery in this subgenre of a subgenre as yet another violent male fantasy. But what to make of women whose sexual modalities incorporate violence and fear into the erotic experience? A binary is reinforced in these texts that male fantasies are uniformly violent and that, conversely, women’s desires are delicate, almost chaste. As a leatherdyke, my sensibilities are entrenched in the sadomasochistic and perverse. Lesbian vampire movies scratch that itch for me; they utilize a host of traditional imagery associated with sadomasochism, including bondage, domination, and submission — all practices that have only been improved upon by queer people throughout leather history. In my writing, lectures, and podcast work, I posit that the lesbian vampire figure can be reclaimed not necessarily as a figure of women’s empowerment, but as a symbol of dark eroticism and the less savory aspects of queer life, those of which have not been abated by assimilationism and neo-queer pride. This list highlights some of my favorite lesbian vampire movies (in no particular order) that, while mostly made by heterosexual men, I believe embody a counter-cultural, sadomasochistic sensibility.
Dracula’s Daughter (1936) dir. Lambert Hillyer
While Vampyr (1932) directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer is technically the first film to adapt Carmilla, the controversial Universal Studios production Dracula’s Daughter is considered the first true lesbian vampire movie. It is one of the last of the first wave of universal monster movies, occurring during the fall of the Hollywood powerhouse family, the Laemmle Family. The film is a combination of both the Dracula and Carmilla story, following Countess Zaleska (Gloria Holden) on her lonely quest for female blood. Marketing for the film exploited the lesbian undertones of the story and was much derided by the Production Code Administration for that reason.
Made during the rise of modern psychology, lesbianism is equated to vampirism as an affliction the victim cannot control. This film gives us the first image of an existential female vampire, wallowing in misery and suicidal ideation over her plight. Countess Zaleska bemoans her vampiric affliction throughout, desperately seeking a cure. She wanders the streets alone at night, her depressed countenance scouring the streets reluctantly for a victim.
In the most famous scene of the film, Countess Zaleska solicits a sex worker she meets during one of her nighttime strolls to model nude for her back at her house. Gloria Holden’s performance conveys the deep pain and conflict that the Countess feels in this encounter where she ultimately feeds on the girl. In desperation, the Countess seeks the help of a psychiatrist in ridding her of this curse. But in the end, she accepts her fate.
Is the film indicative of contemporary psychology’s view on lesbianism? Absolutely, and it is important to acknowledge that in its history. But Countess Zaleska is also a powerful symbol of the depression and suicidal ideation many queer women struggle with under patriarchal oppression. The desire to be rid of the “affliction” is one many queer people can relate to.
Blood and Roses (1960) dir. Roger Vadim
The lesbian vampire lay relatively dormant until her return to the art house film scene in the 1960s. Post Dracula’s Daughter (an American film), the lesbian vampire remains a largely European art house/exploitation film phenomenon. Given that Europe is historically less sexually strict in a cultural sense, this lent filmmakers to a freer, more avant-garde sensibility. 1960s U.S. cinema was still quite mired in production codes and studio systems, something that would not abate until the late 1960s/early 1970s. European lesbian vampire movies from this time have a remarkably contemporary feel compared to American films that were being made.
Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses is a reworked Carmilla narrative. The young Carmilla (played by the director’s wife, Annette Vadim) is torn emotionally by the engagement of her friend Georgia (Elsa Martinelle) to her cousin Leopoldo. During a celebration where the tomb of her vampire ancestor is opened, she becomes possessed by her and begins claiming victims. The story capitulates around her lust for Georgia, which is constantly stymied by the presence of a male lover.
Blood and Roses centers on the concept of a queer woman’s unrequited obsession with an unattainable love interest who is invested in a heterosexual order. While an initial reading reveals the homophobic misogyny at the center of this trope, it behooves us to look beyond the obvious. Many young queer women have had this exact experience in their journey to embodiment, lusting after a straight woman that rebuffs affection. The film illustrates the angst of that experience in a beautifully gothic manner.
Female Vampire (1973) dir. Jesús Franco
Jesús Franco Manera, known to most cult cinephiles as Jess Franco, was a prolific Spanish filmmaker who specialized in the glorious intersection between horror and pornography. He made about 195 feature films and, during his peak period, averaged nine films per year. Known for his trademark blend of surreal psychedelic imagery, gore, and eroticism, Franco is responsible for two of the most famous lesbian vampire movies in horror history.
Female Vampire (a.k.a. The Bare-Breasted Countess) stars Lina Romay, an adult actress and longtime collaborator/muse of Franco’s who appeared in approximately 109 of his films made over 30 years. Romay, in an obvious nod to both Bathory and Carmilla, plays the titular female vampire Countess Irina von Karlstein. In a perverse twist on the vampire mythos, the Countess needs sex as well as blood to stay alive, and takes many opportunities to fulfill her hunger.
Female Vampire is a beautiful example of Franco’s gory erotic vision, as the film functions as much as titillation (Franco rejected the idea that this was a porno) as it does a horror film. An artist as well as a smut peddler, Franco was working with some “high-brow concepts” of lust as it relates to the death drive. In her book Screening the Marquis de Sade: Pleasure, Pain, and the Transgressive Body in Film, Lindsay Anne Hallam positions Irina as a Sadean heroine who through primal expression of lust, claims her body and sexuality outside of a patriarchal framework. By only living for sex, Irina becomes a symbol of Sadean hedonism.
Vampyros Lesbos (1971) dir. Jesús Franco
Vampyros Lesbos is the first lesbian vampire film Franco wrote and directed. He even makes an appearance in the film as a serial killer character. Lesbos is the more famous of the two and certainly the more overtly psychedelic and stylish vampire flick.
Countess Nadine Carody (played by Soledad Miranda, who tragically died in a car accident at age 27, a year before the film’s release) lives with her loyal servant on a remote, vaguely mediterranean island (the film was shot in Turkey). By night, she performs as part of a kind of erotic horror burlesque act that involves female mannequins, mirrors, psychedelic music, and lots of sheer fabrics. Autostraddle readers may remember the soundtrack score from the episode of The L Word where Alice has sex with a lesbian vampire named Uta Refson.
When Linda (Ewa Strömberg) visits the island and becomes entranced by Nadine’s stage act, the Countess sets her sights on seducing the innocent blonde. She releases Linda’s suppressed sexuality with her emancipating bite. However, the bite also causes the women to become obsessed with her, crazed and tormented by their unfulfilled lust.
The Blood Spattered Bride (1972) dir. Vicente Aranda
The 1970s were the decade when the most lesbian vampire movies were produced. With exploitation and grindhouse cinema in full swing, sleaze mongers (a phrase I use with love and respect) latched onto the idea of the predatory lesbian vampire as an erotic figure.
The Blood Spattered Bride is a Spanish horror film written and directed by Vicente Aranda. Based wholly on Carmilla, Aranda shifts the action to present day Spain. Vampire Carmilla (Alexandra Bastedo) takes the form of a ghost who tries to tempt newlywed Susan (Maribel Martín) into murdering her abusive husband and joining her in her ghostly crypt.
Though one of the more obscure entries, the film has obtained some recognition. It attained cult film status for its mix of horror, vampirism, rejection of fascism, and progressive ideas on gender and sexuality. Director Quentin Tarantino named a chapter in his 2003 film Kill Bill: Volume 1 after The Blood Spattered Bride. It’s been screened at hip New York theater locales like Quad Cinema and Nitehawk. Nitehawk describes Bride:“riffing on the 19th century vampire tale of Carmilla, The Blood Spattered Bride is a trashy exploration of female sexuality, marital misogyny and good old fashioned graphic violence.”
Many lesbian vampire films center around a female protagonist in a dubious (or just straight up abusive) relationship. The lesbian vampire enters as a kind of dark heroine to save our girl from his clutches. This film is no different. There are plenty of allusions to gendered violence and its relationship to fascism.
Alucarda (1977) dir. Juan López Moctezuma
The Spanish speaking world has produced several iconic lesbian vampire films. Alucarda is a Mexican cult horror film that was a major inspiration for Guillermo Del Toro. It’s directed by Juan López Moctezuma, who produced Alejandra Jodorowsky’s El Topo, another cult classic. Moctezuma was a figure in the Mexican artistic avant-garde of the 1960s and 70s. His reach was prolific, and his credits boast TV and radio host, as well as jazz musician, painter and film director.
Manolo Santillán and Lalo Cazares, two hardcore fans of Alucarda that would later become close to the director, recall tracking him down in his later life. At this point, Moctezuma was a patient at a mental institution. Santillán and Cazares describe the director as “looking into emptiness” in an interview for Radio UNAM. They claim that, upon asking him how he fared, he replied: “Here with my friends, the monsters and the vampires flying all around me.”
A loose adaptation of Carmilla, Alucarda stars the enigmatic Tina Romero as Alucarda/Lucy Westenra (both references to Dracula), and Susana Kamini as Justine (a reference to the Marquis de Sade). The film has been noted by film scholars for its themes regarding national tradition versus modernity, as well as the tensions between science and religion, and the failures of both.
Alucarda wasn’t received well upon its initial release. Especially in native Mexico, where it was supposedly banned. But like many films of this ilk, it has developed a cult following over the years. It was considered all but lost until a negative of the film was discovered, making this film a diamond in the rough for those who are resourceful enough to find it.
Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975) dir. Juan López Moctezuma
This obscure gem is Moctezuma’s first foray into lesbian vampire territory and is the only lesbian vampire film to reference the “Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary” nursery rhyme/urban legend. The plot revolves around an impossibly stylish bisexual American artist named Mary (Cristina Ferrare) with a penchant for drinking blood. Mary seduces and drains the residents of a small fishing town in Mexico, the police hot on her trail.
Mary is especially notable for its art direction. Mary’s paintings were done by Rosa Rosenberg, a surrealist Mexican painter who Moctezuma knew from the avant-garde art scene. The sculptures that decorate her home were provided by Diaz Barriga, Feliciano Bejar, and Lorraine Pinto, also Mexican artists working in the surrealist, post-war movement.
The Vampire Lovers (1970) dir. Roy Ward Baker
The gorgeous, British horror film icon Ingrid Pitt stars as another iteration of Carmilla in this 1970 British Gothic Hammer horror film. Despite its lack of explicit gay sex, The Vampire Lovers is one of the more well known lesbian vampire films. Once the crown jewels of British horror cinema, gothics had become unpopular. The Vampire Lovers was one of the last in the Hammer Horror revival era of the 1960s and 1970s when the company was overhauling its image to include more cheesecake (fluffy, gratuitous TnA.) It is the first of the Karnstein trilogy, which also includes Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. Though British to the core, the film was actually a co-production between Hammer and American International, who were interested in a vampire movie with more explicit sexual content to take advantage of a more relaxed censorship environment.
Roy Ward Baker claimed that after reading Carmilla twice, he didn’t get a sense of any lesbian content. Which just goes to reinforce the obliviousness of heterosexual men remains unmatched. Although, in her autobiography, Ingrid Pitt also claimed to have no idea her character was supposed to be a lesbian. Madeline Smith (who plays Emma) apparently was similarly clueless about this aspect, even though she literally bares her breasts for Pitt’s character to feed on. That compulsory heterosexuality goes deep! While filming, the women had a great deal of trouble getting through scenes without giggling. In the scene where Ingrid has to drink from Kate O’Mara (who plays the Governess), her vampire teeth kept falling out and into Kate’s cleavage. Oh to be a fly on the wall of that production!
The Velvet Vampire (1971) dir. Stephanie Rothman
The Velvet Vampire earns its place in history as one of the only lesbian vampire films directed by a woman and has recently enjoyed a new life of restoration glory in the Criterion Collection. The plot is intentionally rote, standard vampire stuff by way of Carmilla and Dracula: Married couple Lee (Michael Blodgett) and Susan (Sherry Miles) are drawn into the strange, seductive web of Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall, who some may recognize from Star Trek: The Original Series, and whose name is an ode to Sheridan Le Fanu). Diane lives in her own private desert enclave somewhere outside Los Angeles. While there, they discover she may be harboring an uncanny secret which is already evident by the title of the movie itself.
Stephanie Rothman is an unconventional filmmaker. A protege of the great horror master Roger Corman, her 1966 movie Blood Bath was deemed so weird that the production hired Jack Hill (a notorious exploitation sleaze director known for Spider Baby and The Big Dollhouse) to come in and make it less weird.
Roger Corman famously mentored female directors working in sleaze like Katt Shea, but always with the caveat that the films must feature ample amounts of TnA. Stephanie Rothman has acknowledged this and her frustration with being associated with exploitation films, but she always managed to sneak in political messaging. In her film Student Nurses, Rothman interweaves narratives of pro-choice advocacy and immigrant representation throughout the structure of a typical Corman-produced exploitation film. With The Velvet Vampire, Rothman wanted to make a feminist-leaning film making fun of vampire tropes. The sexual frankness is a commentary on the vampire genre itself rather than merely an example of it, although it was intended as a commercial exploitation film for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. There are many hints throughout the film toward the feminist bent of the narrative. For example, the film opens with a typical sort of rape-revenge red herring. The Velvet Vampire arose alongside a variety of lesbian vampire films including Daughters of Darkness and Vampyros Lesbos. But Rothman’s specific surrealistic vision continues to influence works like The Love Witch and Jennifer’s Body.
Daughters of Darkness (1971) dir. Harry Kummel
With Delphine Seyrig sporting a variety of fabulous gowns and stopping mid-seduction to launch into feminist rants, Daughters of Darkness is definitely one of my favorites on this list. The plot is typical lesbian vampire film fare: A young couple is taking a holiday at a strange European location when they meet a gorgeous and mysterious woman (a vampire) who takes an interest in the young wife and becomes obsessed with possessing her. A battle for her soul between the vampire and the husband ensues and typically, the hetero man is victorious. But not in Daughters of Darkness, which makes it a particularly unique addition to the canon.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory is played by international film star Delphine Seyrig, who is absolutely gorgeous in this part. Delphine was a Lebanese-born French stage and film actress, a film director, and a feminist. She is perhaps best known for her starring role in Chantal Akerman’s 1975 epic feminist film, Jeanne Dielman. Seyrig’s background and status as an outspoken feminist is important here to give the film some context. She certainly would have been highly conscious of the messages about women she was putting out there by choosing certain roles, so I believe she probably saw this representation as an important one. After all, even the title Daughters of Darkness suggests a kind of sisterhood. Harry Kummel was thrilled to have her in this film. At first, she didn’t want to accept the role, but her husband encouraged her to as he was obsessed with comics and graphic novels and thought it would be great for her to star in a film with horror themes.
In the BBC documentary Horror Europa, Kummel said he deliberately styled Delphine Seyrig’s character after Marlene Dietrich and Andrea Rau’s (who plays Countess Bathory’s consort) after Louise Brooks. Because the vampire character of Elizabeth Bathory is also a demagogue, Kummel dressed her in the Nazi colors of black, white, and red. Controversial critic Camille Paglia wrote about this movie in her book Sexual Personae (1990): “a classy genre of vampire film follows a style I call psychological high Gothic. It begins in Coleridge’s medieval Christabel and its descendants, Poe’s Ligeia and James’s The Turn of the Screw. A good example is Daughters of Darkness, starring Delphine Seyrig as an elegant lesbian vampire. High gothic is abstract and ceremonious. Evil has become world-weary, hierarchical glamor. There is no bestiality. The theme is eroticized western power, the burden of history.”
Clearly, both Kummel himself and critics see this film as a critique of European despotism and aristocracy. In fact, vampires are often used as a vehicle in literature and film for criticizing the decadence of the upper class. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was, after all, largely an illustration of the English fear of other hedonistic and seductive Europeans stealing away good English women.
Shiver of the Vampires (1971) dir. Jean Rollin
French fantasy/horror arthouse director Jean Rollin made a series of lesbian vampire-themed films, three of which are on this list. If you can ever get your mitts on a copy of the out of print Lost Girls: The Phantasmagorical Cinema of Jean Rollin, edited by Samm Deighan and penned by all women critics, scholars and film historians, do yourself a favor and snag that tome. Jean Rollin was an undersung genius known for his depiction of explicit sexuality and themes of mortality and longing. Shiver of the Vampires is an early film that fully established the visual motifs and overall stylistic approach to which he would return for most of his subsequent oeuvre.
Shiver of the Vampires is most notable for its lush castle and forest settings, especially a series of beautiful outdoor night scenes that cement this fun French camp in a canon of 70s gothics.
Fascination (1979) dir. Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin’s most famous vampire film is set in the 1905 French countryside outside Paris.
This is many fans’ favorite Rollin films and is considered one of his most accessible. Rollin’s films fall squarely in the erotic horror canon, which isn’t surprising considering he directed literal pornography, with titles such as Fly Me the French Way (1974), Hard Penetration (1977), Sexual Vibrations (1977), and Sodomanie (1983).
Rather than the studio-bound period sets of Hammer Films, this is a real location and one where Rollin creates a suggestion of an aristocracy that has fallen into bored decadence.
Rollin keeps alluding to things happening at midnight, leaving us with suggestions of something that might involve Satanic rituals, orgies, or vampirism, all culminating in one extended act of violence.
The Living Dead Girl (1982) dir. Jean Rollin
Rollin’s vampires are typically ambiguous and fall outside traditional vampire lore. The Living Dead Girl is one of his more experimental vampires, with Catherine Valmont the Living Dead Girl (François Blanchard) being brought back to life through toxic radiation. Catherine as a female monster is a mix between a vampire and a zombie, as she basically eats people whole instead of just sucking their blood.
Catherine’s crypt sits in the basement of the crumbling Valmont chateau. When leaked toxic waste brings her back from the dead, she discovers her home is up for sale and begins to pick off prospective buyers with her voracious appetite. When Catherine’s childhood friend Hélène (Marina Pierro) returns to the Valmont home after hearing the dead girl’s music box playing distantly over the phone, the two begin a troubled sexual and romantic relationship. The Living Dead Girl is the perfect film for sapphics who have ever been in love with a childhood best friend. It is an incredibly romantic erotic horror film.
Vampyres (1974) dir. José Ramón Larraz
For those unfamiliar with José Ramón Larraz’s horror films, do yourself a favor and rectify that immediately. The man loved using lesbianism and from Symptoms (1974) to Black Candles (1982), his films deal with the intersection of femme madness and the supernatural. Vampyres is his most well known effort. The film follows two female vampire lovers who lure unsuspecting travelers to their dilapidated estate to feed on their blood. Upon its release, the film was targeted by film critics for its depictions of graphic violence, sex, and female bisexuality. Film theorist Barbara Creed called a scene in this movie “one of the most grotesque sights in the film.” If that’s not a selling point, I don’t know what is!
As was typical of erotic European art house films of this era such as Daughters of Darkness, adult as well as “higher brow” stage actresses are utilized in the cast. Anulka Dziubinska had been featured in Playboy’s “Girls of Munich” pictorial in 1972 and appeared as the magazine’s Playmate of the Month in May 1973. Vampyres was her first acting role on film. Sally Faulkner, a Shakespearean stage actress, was cast in the role of Harriet. Marianne Morris had appeared in a number of horror movies and sex comedies.
Mark of Lilith (1986) dir. Bruna Fionda, Polly Gladwin, and Isiling Mack-Nataf
This short film is difficult to find, but if you seek it out, the experience is well worth it. I was lucky enough to catch a screening of it a few years ago. It is, to my knowledge, the only lesbian vampire film that explicitly deals with race and interracial lesbian relationships, and one of the few directed by women. Zena (Pamela Lofton) is a Black lesbian and graduate student researching monstrous women (hello again, Barbara Creed!) She meets Lillia (Susan Franklin), a white, bisexual vampire at a horror movie, and they embark on a bizarre, fraught relationship.
The Hunger (1983) dir. Tony Scott
It’s time to talk about one of the most stylish films ever made. Tony Scott’s The Hunger oozes 1980s New York decadence and faded glamor with a cast to die for. The story focuses on Miriam Blaylock (played by Catherine Deneuve), a vampire living in a New York City Townhouse with her lover of the last few hundred years, John (played of course by David Bowie). When John begins to exhibit the rapid aging symptoms of the lovers that came before him, Miriam seeks out brilliant gerontology doctor, Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), who is working on a “cure” for aging. We open in a dark, goth night clubwith Bauhaus on screen singing their famous single “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” Miriam Blaylock and John stalk the club for punk blood, and the film only escalates in moodiness from there.
Milena Canonero’s costuming is one of the most iconic aspects of the film. She’s extremely prolific and did the costumes for Marie Antoinette, Chariots of Fire, and A Clockwork Orange. One day during filming, Canonero, who is famously dedicated to her craft, disappeared and was nowhere to be found. It was discovered eventually she had flown to Rome to purchase fabric for a handkerchief David Bowie wears in the film. Unable to find fabric she liked in London, Canonero had flown to Rome at her own expense to find the fabric she needed instead. To me, this is femme culture.
In The Celluloid Closet, the 1995 documentary about the history of homosexuality in film, actress Susan Sarandon said the screenplay for The Hunger (1983) originally called for her to be demonstrably drunk in the lead-up to her sex scene with Catherine Deneuve, but Sarandon asked for it to be changed so that her character had only a single sip of wine and then spilled the rest of the glass. She said she wanted to make it clear that her character was choosing to have sex with Miriam instead of doing it because of the alcohol, and also because “you wouldn’t have to get drunk to bed Catherine Deneuve, I don’t care what your sexual history to that point had been.”
In another interview about this film, Sarandon said “would you want to live forever if you were an addict?” Indeed, in addition to themes around sexuality, The Hunger is also a potent metaphor for addiction. Additionally, queer film scholars agree that most queer horror films of the 1980s make subtextual reference to the AIDS epidemic. The Hunger novel was released in 1981, the year the CDC first published a written report on what would later be known as AIDS. At this time, it was known among those affected, but remained largely unspoken among the general public. It is unlikely Tony Scott and co. intended for this film to be a one to one metaphor for the disease, but it is subtextually and historically present nonetheless. The Hunger is a powerful time capsule, perfectly 80s, decadent, and languid. It is wholly representative of the cultural hangover Americans were in after the hedonism and debauchery of the 1970s.
Nadja (1994) dir. Michael Almereyda
This ultra-hip take on the lesbian vampire is a black-and-white homage to Dracula’s Daughter. Produced by David Lynch and featuring Peter Fonda as Van Helsing, this film’s pedigree earns it a treasured spot the arthouse horror canon. Adding to its hipster cred, Nadja was filmed with a toy Fisher Price camera that used audio tape to record a very low resolution black- and- white picture. The soundtrack is iconic for its shoegaze tracks, which include artists like My Bloody Valentine and Portishead.
Nadja is a post-modern vampire tale set in contemporary New York City. Members of a dysfunctional family of vampires are trying to come to terms with each other in the wake of their father’s death. Nadja (Elina Löwensohn, who needs to be in more movies), Dracula’s bisexual daughter, is on a quest for her new consort when she meets Lucy (played by an actress named Galaxy Craze, whose parents were surely dropping LSD in the 60s.) Dr. Van Helsing and his hapless nephew hunt the family down and try to rescue Lucy before Nadja has a chance to turn her. As in all good vampire movies, forces of love are pitted against forces of destruction. The film is notable for being one of the only lesbian vampire films to show and utilize menstrual blood.
The Addiction (1995) dir. Abel Ferrara
This gem is directed by legendary cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara, who most fans know for the rape revenge exploitation film Ms. 45 (1981). Lili Taylor stars as an introverted philosophy graduate student at NYU, Kathleen, who is stalked and attacked by a female vampire, on a dark street late at night. The Addiction also features such figures of the 1990s New York-Italian scene such as Edie Falco, Annabella Sciorra, and Michael Imperioli (of course, each of these actors would go on to star in The Sopranos). Now turned, Kathleen must satisfy the nightly cravings for human blood that have begun to consume her. Along the way she meets fellow vampire Peina (Christopher Walken), who becomes her murderous mentor.
According to Abel Ferrara, the characters of Peina and Casanova (the female vampire that turns Kathleen) were originally written as a female and male respectively. When Walken read the script, he thought Peina was a male character and wanted to play the role. As a result, Walken had his way, and the Casanova role ended up going to Annabella Sciorra, making this the lesbian vampire horror film fans know and adore. Ferrara also said in a 2018 interview that he intended the film to be an explicit metaphor for drug addiction; Ferrara himself had had a years-long addiction to heroin and conceptualized the film as a Catholic redemption tale in which Kathleen, stricken by her lust for blood, accepts her powerlessness and submits to God before being reborn in the conclusion. Of course it also recalls themes around HIV, queerness, and social disillusionment, whether Ferrara intended so or not. Film critic Stephen Hunter interprets the film as containing commentary on the world of academia, specifically pointing out Kathleen’s transformative disillusionment with philosophy as a means of understanding the nature of good versus evil: “She’s got a grudge against philosophy, which, in the long run, with all its constructs and rationalizations and insights, has proved somewhat inefficient as salvation.”
The gritty New York setting and the high-contrast black-and-white cinematography position the film as an exploration of loneliness and longing. “Self-revelation is the annihilation of self,” says Kathleen: “Dependency is a marvelous thing. It does more for the soul than any formulation of doctoral material.” The dependency, the “addiction,” is literally to blood and figuratively to human connection (particularly of the sapphic variety), and the film trusts the viewer to recognize this analogy on their own. In addition to this longing for connection, themes of cruelty, violence, and genocide are also explored. Lesbian desire is positioned within the larger realm of existential anxiety and the nature of cruelty itself. There is connection, however aberrant it may be, through violence and addiction.
Red Lips (1995) dir. Donald Farmer
Red Lips is a shot-on-video trashy diamond in the rough that was extremely difficult to track down until Vinegar Syndrome recently re-released it in restored splendor. Letterboxd user Nocturna describes this movie as a “megatrash romance blood transmission thirstfuck from an adjacent realm of pure desire. open wide and suck the ache. fit your mouth around a neon hunger. just promise you won’t leave.”
Caroline (the Amazonian Ghetty Chasun) donates blood because she is broke and it is easy money. One day, the doctor injects her with a serum that infects her with a violent need to feed on human blood. Caroline is busy slaughtering people with her new teeth when she unexpectedly meets and falls in love with Lisa (Michelle Bauer), who is just fresh off a lesbian breakup with her lover (a cameo performance for legendary porn actress Kitten Natividad). Red Lips is a beautiful piece of softcore porn trash that is very aware of itself. It is a time capsule to the 90s. Critic Astrid Anne Rose of the Live From the Death Factory podcast describes this movie as “a shoegaze Jean Rollin music video.”
Carmilla (2019) dir. Emily Harris
Emily Harris’s adaptation of Carmilla is an important addition to the canon as its one of the rare lesbian vampire movies directed by a woman, and it is also the truest adaptation of Carmilla I’ve seen. There is a Nightmare Classics episode from 1989 that transposes the Carmilla story onto a pre-Civil War plantation setting that is also quite close to the novela (you can find the full episode on YouTube.) But Harris’s iteration keeps true to the setting and plot points of the novella almost exactly.
Harris’s film elevates the romance element between the two young women and highlights the repression of women’s sexuality that Sheriden La Fanu hints at subtextually in his novella. More of a dark romance than a horror film, Harris makes sure to spotlight the female characters interiority as opposed to the male-centered action that makes up the bulk of the novella’s climax. It is a lovely, quiet film that blooms slowly and enfolds the viewer into its bloodsucking embrace.
Horror Is So Gay is an annual Autostraddle series of queer and trans reflections on horror.
What Three Horror Movies Capture Your Evil Essence, According to Your Sign
It’s Gay Christmas, my dear LGBTQ family, and what would a celebration be without another round of Trashology? That’s right. This column is called Trashology because it’s “pop” astrology, not like, real in-depth astrology. But, no need to fear…yet because we do in fact have a queer astrologer who writes for us! So go get your October horoscopes before they turn into pumpkins!.
And now, I’m going to give you not one, not two, but three horror movies that capture your sign’s evil essence. And when I say evil, I do in fact mean the aspects of your sign that are…less than pleasant. Take a look at both your sun and your rising sign, if you dare to peek behind the curtain and stare into the abyss that is your shadow side. Is this in any way an endorsement of these movies or an implication that they’re good, bad or otherwise? No, this is about the energy these horror flix bring and how the evil aspects of your zodiac sign are matching that energy. Much like drawing three Tarot cards in a reading to get a sense of a situation from multiple sides (and I am, in fact, a Tarot reader with 20+ years of experience), we are looking at three movies that reflect your sign’s nefarious side, the skeletons in your closet (or maybe deep freezer), the monster under the mask. This is maybe more trick than treat, so, in advance, you’ve been warned!
Aries
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
Spoiler warning: This is about the twist. It’s not immoral in and of itself to jump quickly to conclusions, Aries, but your tendencies to make assumptions and to, at times, assume bad faith intentions on the part of others can lead to disastrous consequences! Like nearly everyone at your party getting killed! Also, Pete Davidson gives off Aries vibes, even though I looked him up and he’s a Scorpio. So, bonus points for that.
The Purge films, all of them.
The concept of “The Purge” sounds like something my dad, an Aries, would come up with when trying to imagine a way to solve societal issues. He’d be like “universal healthcare…and maybe a purge.” That’s Aries energy, sorry. Why do you always feel like a hammer and like everything looks like a nail? Your blanket solutions are not really going to solve anything longterm, and likely, they’ll make things worse. Also, though, the absolutely ham-fisted anti-Capitalist-ish eat-the-rich-ish bent of these movies likely also speaks to your fiery heart, dear Aries. But you know, maybe think twice before metaphorically declaring THE PURGE in your life. I know you won’t listen, but you know, had to say it.
The Omen
Sometimes you can really keep up that innocent act, Aries, when you are in fact, plotting and scheming and up to no good. I don’t know if it’s because you do in fact have charm and a youthful charisma, but you can genuinely make people forget today that you were only just calling for The Purge yesterday. When you’re at your worst, you absolutely give off Antichrist — but dressed up as a little kid.
Taurus
Midsommar
You long for structure, and you’re stubborn as heck, so, surface level, you’d be truly at home in the cult in Midsommar. However, what we’re here to talk about Taurus, is how deep down, you long for someone else to do your dirty work for you. You like to put on a big show about sticking up for yourself, but sometimes you can’t get out of your head and you find yourself assuming a more passive role, avoiding confrontation. But when that happens, you’re more than willing to engage in an unhealthy codependency with other people or even a whole cult who will help propel the confrontation forward. The problem, though, is there’s no nuance, is there, when you both ask for and give unwavering loyalty against the people you consider your enemies. Your ex sucked, sure, but they aren’t pure evil. I’m not sure they deserve what your friends have planned for them, Taurus. Maybe you just should’ve talked!
I Know Who Killed Me
Your capacity for holding really petty grudges can get the best of you, Taurus! (And then Lindsay Lohan is going to come get you, sorry.) Like, the revenge situation against Lindsay Lohan’s one character in this is so wild? I believe her offense was…not playing piano? So her piano teacher kidnaps her??? That’s you at your worst, Taurus. Calm down.
The Blair Witch Project
This movie has the energy of a bunch of earth signs yelling at each other while camping in bad weather. If you’re going to do a group project, Taurus, you need to remember you actually are not a very chill sign and you have a short fuse and a tendency to lash out when your blood sugar is low. Pack plenty of snacks, take breaks, and maybe don’t plan a multi-day camping / hiking excursion to find a local witch with some classmates because you know what? You’re going to get grumpy.
Gemini
M3GAN
Geminis are GREAT friends. But also, you don’t deal with rejection well. You might appear to have a healthy attitude about it, but I know it secretly eats you alive. You might channel this into working harder, making new friends and connections, or working on your “glow up,” but at the end of the day, being told “no” under the wrong circumstances is sure to send you over the edge. You’re not unlike M3gan, in that way. You should be perfect. You want to be perfect. But other people aren’t letting you be perfect!
Sissy
When people talk about watching out for Geminis, I think they’re often referring to the way you can weave a narrative, spin a personal story or present yourself just the way you like to be seen. This is even more pronounced over social media. In the darkest recesses of your heart, Gemini, you’re tempted to be like Sissy, to take a short-cut around authenticity and to just construct a mask that serves your goals, instead.
Us
You creep! Both of Lupita Nyong’o’s characters in Us, besides the twinning aspect that runs through this film, capture the heart of what can make Geminis so chilling. You, Gemini, can commit to a bit so well that I can never be sure that you’re really who you say you are, that you really feel the way you claim to feel, what you’re actually thinking, deep down. You’ve got layers upon layers and only the first few are penetrable. We just have to hope that deep down, we’re in your good books.
Cancer
Suspiria (2018)
Yes, Cancer, the Witch Mommi vibes of Suspiria suit you, but this is about the evil that lurks within you, which is not the same as the hot witch. Cancer, it’s one thing not to let people in past your hard exterior, to keep your secrets and your spells to yourself. It’s an entirely other thing to want the facade of whatever realm you’ve taken ownership of to appear perfect, no matter what’s going on behind the scenes. The problem with this, dear Cancer, is that when you invite other people into this space — a home, a friend group, a relationship, a workplace, whatever it might be — they only know about the good parts and the good parts appear so much grander than the drawbacks. This leaves the unsuspecting people who’ve been drawn in by your cookie cutter presentation vulnerable to stumbling, to getting hurt. You’ve constructed a dancing school and painted it with prestige, but what’s inside? Witches, pain, sacrifice, and people who should be caring but who actually have their own agendas. It’s a bit evil because it’s a bit selfish, isn’t it, and because it’s not treating the people around you like they’re humans, adults who deserve to know the whole truth.
Superhost
The killer in this one (spoilers, the superhost) gives me Cancer energy when a Cancer is at their most frenetic, least secure. The host is simultaneously bubbly and nosy, over-attentive and invasive and, for whatever reason, obsessed with the running of her small business. Deep down, Cancer, I know there are times where you want to conveniently “forget” other peoples’ boundaries and just jump in there and Make Everything Perfect already because obviously you know best!
What Keeps You Alive
A Cancer that gets tired of harboring watery feelings might get so into building up their defenses that they take it too far, that they stop feeling altogether. The murderous Jackie explains to Jules that she never had any feelings. A Cancer that gives into the temptation to be all hardness, to reject their inner softness, their crab rangoon filling, is a dangerous person.
Leo
Pearl
“I’m a star!” We know. We know. We’re sorry. Please don’t hurt me! You, Leo, at your worst, can get quite upset when the world doesn’t see the talent, the sparkle, the shine you so clearly see in yourself. But the world doesn’t revolve around you! I’m sorry!
Creep
Much like the creep in Creep, you can also be overbearing when you let your ego get the best of you. You want to control every detail, and that includes what other people are doing around you. But please, PLEASE don’t make anyone film you having “tubby time.”
The Hunger
When you’re into someone, Leo, you’re into them, focused on them, loyal to them. But if you’re not careful, you’ll wind up promising the world to to someone you’re not that serious about. And, while they may not be cursed to an eternity of withering and decay like David Bowie is in this movie when Catherine Deneuve moves onto Susan Sarandon (an understandable choice), they’re certainly going to have their heart broken. Naughty of you!
Virgo
Perfect Blue
This psychological thriller about a pop idol struggling as she starts to pursue a career as an actress is terrifying even though it’s animated, and so is your ability to wear yourself down to a nub with your relentless self-criticism. When you turn your critical eye to yourself, it can feel like you’re haunting yourself, taunting yourself, holding yourself up to impossible standards and flagellating yourself when you fall short. You’re your own tormenter, Virgo. It’s pretty scary.
Sick
Judgey judgey! Spoilers: In this movie, the killer(s) pursue people who aren’t taking COVID quarantine and social distancing protocol seriously. The fact that they’ve taken this vigilante justice on themselves? It’s a lot! When unchecked, your self-righteousness can turn into a weapon you’re wielding against others, Virgo.
The Saw Movies
Stop! Judging! People! You could use to remind your inner Jigsaw that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
Libra
The Ring
First of all, we KNOW you can’t resist showing other people a video you found. Second of all, that moment in the movie where Naomi Watts’ character briefly convinces herself that Samara is in fact just a ghost in need of saving and not inherently evil — Libra move. Sometimes people just have bad intentions, Libra! You gotta learn to spot it so you don’t wind up at the bottom of some well hugging a girl who’s about to be making VHS tapes in a world of DVDs. And maybe if you were a bit more aware and didn’t give into your people pleasing tendencies so often, you wouldn’t feel the need to overcompensate by cutting people out when you’ve finally decided that they’ve hurt you too much. This! Isn’t! Balance!
Swarm (I know it’s a TV series, but it’s basically a long movie)
Listen, Libra, you give up on people and cut them out of your life (hopefully not as literally as Dre does in Swarm, but hey you do you) too easily sometimes! You pretend you’re a fair and balanced person who gives a lot of second chances, and you do and are a lot, but sometimes…you just nope right out of a relationship, never speak to someone EVER AGAIN. It’s not healthy! I know they did you wrong, but you are just going “snip snip snip” and if you keep trimming, what are you going to have left?
Carrie
The tragedy behind the ending of Carrie is that there were a few people making fun of her, a decent number of people who felt neutral about Carrie, and a few people starting to care about her, and then she freaks out and burns just about everyone because she hasn’t done any work on her trauma and she doesn’t know how to direct her hurt. Better to burn it all down than suffer any further! Libra, sometimes you’re trying to balance the scales, to see both sides of something, but woah when the scales tip too far, or, even worse, when someone takes a stab at (or dumps a bucket of pig’s blood on) your ego, you will burn a bridge (school).
Scorpio
Hellraiser (2022)
Scorpio, when you don’t remember that other people are their own people, you can be just like a cenobite. Not everyone likes the exact same things you do, and they don’t suck if they don’t! Just because you’re into something niche or dark or scary, it doesn’t make you better than other people. But in that sharp, scorpion mind of yours, you might let yourself feel superior and that will keep you lonelier than anything — and hurt other peoples’ feelings in the process. But it’s a self-perpetuating cycle isn’t it? You distance yourself because you think you’re better, and then you have to think you’re better to explain why you feel so alone.
Lamb
Scorpio, we know you’re loyal. You’re amazing for that. However, sometimes, you put up with too much from a partner and you let things go too far. You would totally just quietly accept a little soft butch lamb/human hybrid that you believe your partner fathered in an act of bestiality and raise it as your own without breaking up with them. But what’s wrong with you??? Don’t you want better for yourself? Wake up, Scorpio!
The Strangers
It’s the fucking worst when you can’t tell what a Scorpio’s thinking or why they hate you so much! Or if they hate you! Maybe this is just their face! Throughout this movie, there’s no reason given as to why these three masked people are terrorizing and torturing this couple. You can lock your reasoning and your feelings away in a vault, Scorpio, but it doesn’t keep you safe, it just keeps you from others.
Sagittarius
The Evil Dead
You would open the book. You would read the book. You would be all like “Hey, guys! I found a book! And some records! A lot of cool stuff down here! Kind of creepy though! I’m gonna put it on Instagram,” because you also can’t resist letting everyone else know how smart and inquisitive you are. You’re also into Eldritch horrors and I do suspect that you kind of want to fuck them? Like you feel as sexual about monsters as they feel about you? Also, giggling and mocking someone else with your knowledge like a deadite is a Sagittarian vibe. Your desire, your insatiable need to be the smartest or most interesting person in the room might sometimes be cleverly disguised, but I think we all know what’s going on (and it’s not that you have ancient and ineffable arcane knowledge).
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
Sagittarius, you’re fun and all, but you’re not always the most honest. If I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, then I might think that you genuinely believe others are in on the game, in on the joke. But your desire to manipulate another person’s reality with your words isn’t a game someone else can consent to if they haven’t been let in on the fact that they’re playing, Sagittarius.
Ju-on
You’re really the least scary of the fire signs, dear Sag. When a Sag is dealing with someone who hurt them, then much like the ghost in this movie, you’re inclined toward revenge, sure, and you might even get it, but you’re also going to be a miserable sad sack the whole time. For you, anger and despair are often intertwined. How dare someone interrupt your carefree adventures in order to cause you hurt?! You’re no stranger to crying rage tears. Dear Sagittarius, take care of yourself out there. Because this isn’t it.
Capricorn
The VVitch
Dost thou like the taste of butter? Yes. You are grabbing that quill. You are signing that book. You are done with this dull life. Capricorn, you’re always after something better, something tastier, something that more exciting. At your worst, it doesn’t matter to you who you discard on the way, who you hurt, who you betray.
The Babadook
You didn’t talk about your feelings and now your depression is a Literal Monster. At least he’s a gay icon. You should work on that though, and also on not making your issues other peoples’ issues in a projection kind of way.
It Follows
When you’re pissed off Capricorn, you’re relentless, like a dog with a bone. I suppose you’re just applying the same level of commitment that you do to any other task, but making sure, really making sure, that whoever you’re upset with gets the message that you are in fact now their enemy, really does get kind of scary, especially when you don’t leave well enough alone when it’s been time to leave things alone. Stop stalking your ex on Instagram, at the very least!
Aquarius
Host
Not enough people talk about your flakiness, dear Aquarius, but here’s the thing, you don’t always flake, but when you do flake, it’s epic and it can leave a lot of people in a lurch, probably because you’ve promised a lot. And then you’ll just be like “oopsie” or deny that it was even that bad! Much like the medium in Host who opens a PORTAL to the SPIRIT REALM that allows a MURDER DEMON through and into everyone’s homes via a Zoom call, and who then peaces out because her internet isn’t working, you, Aquarius, can sometimes have a dangerous relationship with [not] taking responsibility.
Videodrome
Aquarius, you’ve got a god complex, for one, and that god complex can lead you to treating the world like your own personal psy-op. But have you ever considered not trying to MK-Ultra everyone and to, instead, maybe make some friends? No? You’re going to become a cult leader, instead? Because you’re too smart and visionary and brilliant to have friends, you’re supposed to have followers? Great.
The Mothman Prophesies
You were right! Like Mothman, you warned everyone, they didn’t understand or didn’t listen, and then they learned the hard way that you were in fact right. The problem, Aquarius, and the thing that it wouldn’t hurt to set your ego aside (as we’ve been discussing) and unlearn, is the fact that you don’t have a shred of empathy for the people who didn’t listen to you, even though you cared to warn them at one point! Do you only care about people when they tell you how smart you are, and is that then really care?
Pisces
The Descent
Not everyone realizes that a Pisces can be super reckless, but y’all have it in you, and you’ll take everyone down with you, too! You can lie just long enough to get everyone together in an unmapped cave, and then next thing you know, it’s all broken bones and carnivorous cave creatures. The risks you take aren’t just risks that affect you, Pisces! You and others are not immortal or indestructible even though sometimes you forget that. Be more considerate and careful with other people and their lives!
Possession
Even if you’ve never been married, I feel like all Pisces carry a “divorced” energy to them. Maybe it’s because you’re an old (divorced) soul. But the reason this movie is here, Pisces, is because when you decide to cut someone out of your life, it is so sudden and the silent treatment you’re capable of is monstrous. You know how to add in other elements, like glaring, crying diabolically, all sorts of things to really amp up the discomfort. Terrifying of you.
The Lure
This dreamy, watery, artsy, mermaid horror film has Big Pisces Energy. It also, because it’s based on the original telling of The Little Mermaid, has a story of unrequited love, of codependency, of pining. Pisces, you’re at your most destructive (and self-destructive) when you’ve decided to fixate on a person. You’ll convince yourself that they’ll solve all your problems, and then next thing you know you’re getting surgery to replace your mermaid tail with legs for a situationship that doesn’t even treat you right. This is not a noble quality Pisces! It’s not serving you or others to let yourself live in limerence like this.
Thank you for reading and for consenting to being read. Don’t worry, I don’t actually think you’re evil. Oh, and if it makes you feel good to know that you’re giving off Elvira energy this Halloween, then you, in fact, are. And, and, and if anyone wanted to grace me with a photo of their pets dressed up for Halloween in the comments, for absolutely no reason, I wouldn’t say no!
Autostraddle’s 30 Scariest Queer Horror Movie Moments
In October 2004, Bravo first aired its iconic five-part docuseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Featuring bloody, haunting, terrifying clips from some of the most revered horror movies of all time along with talking head deep-dives provided by actors, directors, writers, critics, and horror experts, the special was the go-to televised compendium for all things horror.
Last year, Shudder debuted its own take on the cult classic with the eight-part series, The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time. The new list includes plenty of overlap with the original as well as a lot of new entries, especially of films released since 2004.
We’re here to do the queer version.
The horror co-hosts of Autostraddle’s 30 Scariest Queer Movie Moments — Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya — have different relationships with the original Bravo list. Drew watched it obsessively in her youth writing down all the films with a pen and paper and then hunting them down from Blockbuster. Kayla was introduced to it more recently by her girlfriend because for the first twentyish years of her life she avoided scary movies and for the past decade has been voraciously catching up.
As with all lists, no matter how much effort goes into a goal of objectivity, there’s always a lot of subjectivity. “Scariest” especially is a subjective category. And even though between the two of us we watch a wide variety of horror subgenres, there will always be gaps including a few international movies that could have qualified, but proved impossible to find such as 2014 Japanese horror film Gekijōban Zero (also called Fatal Frame) about young lesbians at a Catholic all-girls school and the 2019 Hindi-language film Ghost about a woman murdered by the spirit of her vengeful dead ex-girlfriend. We’re sure there are other movies from around the world that belong on this list that have not been distributed in the U.S.
We decided to open this list up to the entire LGBTQ+ spectrum, but because this is Autostraddle, we are focusing on movies that feature lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer women and nonbinary people rather than cis queer men. In our minds, this makeup is basically the inverse of a lot of mainstream lists of this nature, which usually tip the scales in favor of works by and about cis queer men and throw just a few slots to the dykes. Why include cis queer men at all? Well, the movies we ended up including that center queer men are groundbreaking, important to the genre, and frequently overlooked.
On a similar note, all of the movies on this list feature explicitly queer content. We only included films with subtext if that subtext is so overt it has been accepted as the text — films made by or with queer creators, films confirmed queer by us and fellow queer horror critics. We’ve also done our best to pick iconic LGBTQ+ horror movie moments in which the horror and violence is not inherently homophobic or transphobic. For example, you won’t find High Tension or any one-note trans killers on this list.
This is the second iteration of this list for Autostraddle, and we’d love to see it grow, expand, and shift. We hope the future of queer horror is less white and less cis. We hope queer horror from around the world is made more widely available. A lot of times, lists like these can have an air of pretension and authority about them — and don’t get us wrong, we do consider ourselves to be an authority on queer and trans horror — but horror, as Drew wrote herself, is a very democratized genre. We encourage you to share the queer and trans movie moments that have scared you the most in the comments! As a general warning, all of the blurbs contain spoilers for their respective movies.
This post was originally written in October 2022 and has been updated in 2023.
30. Jennifer’s Body (2009)
dir. Karyn Kusama
Jennifer’s Body is a perfect embodiment of a very specific dilemma: Should I be turned on or scared right now? It’s also one of the most bisexual horror movies ever.
While it belongs pretty squarely in the subgenre of horror-comedy — with a quippy, acidic script from Diablo Cody that also has surprising moments of poetic imagery (“He was skinny and twisted and evil, like this petrified tree I saw when I was a kid” has always stood out to me) — there’s something genuinely frightening about the core of its premise, both in how willing a mediocre indie band is to literally murder a teen girl just so they can get fame and fortune but also, and I think even more relevant to this particular list, the fear of losing a friend to forces beyond your control.
Indeed, Needy and Jennifer’s intense best friendship (layered with erotic undertones, ofc) and its dissolution is the emotional core of the film and also the root of some of its scariest moments. As a horror-comedy, it isn’t full-throttle scary all of the time, but it is brutal and violent throughout, with gore that’s disgusting and enticing all at once. Karyn Kusama is a particular maestro at directing stories about violence and girlhood.
There are specific images that have stuck with me through the years and, among those, Jennifer’s return to Needy after leaving in a van of predatory men stands out. Yes, it’s hard to forget Megan Fox crouched in a corner shoveling rotisserie chicken in her mouth and then vomiting up needly black goo, but even before that, Jennifer’s return as something transformed unsettles. Needy is confused and worried, and Jennifer is covered in blood and dirt. It’s very clear that something very bad has happened. But as Needy waits for an explanation, waits perhaps for Jennifer to break down, Jennifer instead veers in a different direction. Her face stretches into a strange, bloody horror movie smile. It’s a little taste of what will come later on in the movie when her face stretches into something even more sinister.
“Are you scared?” Jennifer asks Needy at the end of the scene. “Yes.”— KKU
29. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
dir. M. Night Shyamalan
At first, Knock at the Cabin just appears like regular home invasion horror. A group of people break into the cabin where gay couple Eric and Andrew are staying with their young daughter. Things get weirder and scarier when those people claim that in order to prevent an apocalypse, Eric and Andrew have to choose someone in their small, innocent gay family to sacrifice.
Things get weirder and scarier tenfold the second you realize these intruders might not just be religious zealots but rather regular people genuinely trying to prevent a horrible thing from happening on a global scale. News reports throughout the film suggest the awful events they warn of are actually happening. Tsunamis, other natural disasters, planes falling out of the sky. It’s all terrifying to watch.
And then during one of those reports, Leonard, the soft-talking member of the group who is introduced as if he might be a villain but ends up much more complicated than that, starts reciting everything the anchor says in unison, suggesting he really did see all this in a prophetic dream. It’s eerie on a lot of levels, but it also just ramps up the fear factor in such a sharp way. What if everything they’re saying really is true? — KKU
28. Hellbent (2004)
dir. Paul Etheredge
In 2004 slasher Hellbent, a killer in a devil mask targets gay men with a very sharp scythe. The central friend group feels very real in all its dynamics, which heightens the horror by providing clear and affecting stakes. It’s a slasher that doesn’t get too bogged down in mythology or motive — while the killer indeed specifically murders queer people, he doesn’t seem driven by any kind of moralizing force. He is more Michael Myers than Ghostface in that his violence doesn’t really have a point at all. Only an unfortunate subplot of its main character desperately wanting to be a cop mars an otherwise satisfying slasher.
Hellbent has creative and memorable kills. (I mean, it’s hard to go wrong with a weapon as showy as a scythe.) Most of the movie is set at the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval where all sorts of queers are dancing, cruising, and living their best Halloween lives — minus the killer on the loose. While the moment depicted on its movie poster of a scythe against an eyeball is indeed a striking image, the scene that truly stands out is its dance floor kill. I’m a sucker for a dance floor scene in general, and dance floor kill? Well, it’s one of the best scenes Killing Eve ever delivered.
In Hellbent, it’s also a moment to remember. There’s something about a dance floor that really lends itself to a perfect blend of horror and erotics. (The sequence in Jacob’s Ladder is a prime example.) Body parts flung about, a closeness to strangers that implies risk and vulnerability, disorienting lighting casting shadows, and loud sounds that might drown out other loud sounds. Indeed, of all the kills in Hellbent, this dance floor one is the most difficult to discern exactly what’s going on. But that obscured violence is exactly what makes it scary. — KKU
27. Make a Wish (2002)
dir. Sharon Ferranti
Two years before Hellbent, lesbians made our own slasher. Instead of a gay dance party, we got a camping trip. Instead of a mysterious cruiser, we got a bunch of chaotic exes. Sharon Ferranti’s only feature feels like The L Word if it didn’t take six seasons for them to start killing each other. There is more humor and dyke drama than out-and-out scares. One kill is an exception.
Of all Susan’s exes, Monica (Virginia Baeta) is the biggest ladykiller — even if she turns out not to be the lady killer. Not only did she cheat on Susan (Moynan King), but here she is cheating again, this time with the now “straight” Linda (Melenie Freedom Flynn). After a late night romp, Linda goes down to the water. Monica calls out for her, and when the tent starts to cave in, she assumes it’s Linda messing around. Her face goes from flirty to annoyed to terrified in a matter of seconds. It’s not Linda but the killer using the tent and some rope as a cocoon. Monica struggles to no avail, and when she’s good and stuck, the killer stabs the cocoon again and again and again.
For Monica, being a fuckboi was punishable by death. — Drew
26. Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
dir. Halina Reijn
To some, Bodies Bodies Bodies will be the least scary film on this list. To me, it’s one of the scariest.
While other films get their terror from ghosts or serial killers or demon babies, this recent slasher gets its terror from fear itself. Or, rather, the damage that can be caused when people feel fear — especially people who are privileged enough to live a life without any real danger.
The final reveal — there was no killer, the first death was an accident, and subsequent deaths were caused by the group’s paranoia — is not just a great twist. It’s also an indictment of a culture where true crime and fear-mongering politicians have created a society of distrust.
The moment that really gets me is when the girls discover Emma’s body and Alice immediately turns on Bee. As the new girlfriend of long-time friend Sophie, Bee is an easy target for suspicion. Her queerness and her accent probably don’t help her chances once Alice (a terrifying and hilarious Rachel Sennott) decides she’s her new suspect. (For someone like Alice, even an Eastern European accent is enough to other someone!) Alice quickly escalates from accusations to shoving to locking Bee outside in the dark, in the rain, vulnerable to a killer — or, far more likely, the elements.
There’s nothing scarier than a rich — excuse me, upper middle class — straight white girl with a victim complex. — Drew
25. Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021)
dir. Leigh Janiak
Undoubtedly the strongest installment of the Fear Street trilogy, it is my firm belief that Fear Street Part One: 1994 is more successful at being a “new Scream” than Scream (2022) is at being a “new Scream.” It strikes the right balance of doing a ton of homage and self-referential work while still providing elements and sequences that feel exciting and original. And it’s got a young lesbian love story at its core.
I love a good twist of the knife at the very end of a horror movie, and this first chapter of Fear Street does one quite literally. The characters think they’ve saved the day, stopped the killer(s). Deena is reunited with her girlfriend Sam. “Sam,” she whispers in relief, but Sam says nothing, eyes dead. When Deena looks down, a sharp splinter of wood is plunged into her stomach, Sam’s hand on the other end. It’s completely silent until Sam slowly pulls the splinter out, making a horrible squelching sound. Deena collapses.
There are more disturbing scenes in Fear Street Part One: 1994 (the breadslicer kill is one of the most upsetting kills I’ve seen in recent years, and I mean that as a compliment). But as far as queer horror goes, what could be scarier than thinking you’re safe in your own home with your ex-girlfriend who you’ve recently rekindled things only to realize she cannot be trusted for far worse reasons than what led to the breakup? Deena and Sam’s relationship isn’t perfect, but that’s actually what I love about it. It feels like a real teen relationship, like a real First Girlfriend situation. Maybe they shouldn’t even be together, but they’re still going to literally fight for the relationship as if it’s life-or-death because, at this point, they can’t imagine anything else. — KKU
24. She Creature (2001)
dir. Sebastian Gutierrez
Drew and I put a lot of work and parameters into making sure this list would be comprehensive and not merely a reflection of our personal tastes. That said, as we touched on in the intro, true objectivity is an impossible and sometimes stifling goal. The 2001 made-for-television film She Creature deserves a place on this list; I’m also confident that only a list made by me and Drew would feature the 2001 made-for-television film She Creature. For one, it’s hard to find. We stumbled upon it somewhat accidentally in our research. For two, it’s weird as fuck.
She Creature — which has the alternative title Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature even though a part two was never made — is about a carnie couple played by Rufus Sewell and Carla Gugino who are transporting a captive mermaid by ship in order to make riches off of her in America. The mermaid, it turns out, has psychic abilities as well as a tendency to murder men.
It might not sound very obviously scary or very obviously queer, but if there’s one thing that pushes the movie to surprising heights on both fronts is the performances — particularly by Gugino and Rya Kihlstedt as the mermaid. In many ways, this is your typical monster movie. In many ways, this is absolutely not your typical monster movie. The mermaid develops a psychic connection with Gugino’s Lily that is also, undeniably, a sexual connection. There’s never a kiss between the two, but there are multiple almost-kisses, and this psychic-sexual connection makes for an original premise that’s titillating and terrifying — especially since Lily doesn’t really know what’s going on for much of the time.
While there are also some great nightmare sequences leading up to it, we ultimately decided to highlight the mermaid’s transformation, often the best part of a creature feature. She Creature really saves it for the end, up until this point the mermaid only appearing as a cliche beautiful, seductive woman. She takes her true form right before leading the ship full of men to their slaughter, the monster coming out. — KKU
23. Sissy (2022)
dir. Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes
Two of my biggest frustrations with modern horror cinema seem to be in conflict. 1) The historical and immediate trauma of marginalized groups is used for cheap scares rather than meaningful engagement. 2) An attempt at inclusivity is made without acknowledging how race, sexuality, and disability impact a storyline. But, in fact, both of these extremes are making the same error. They are remaining on the surface when the best horror dives deep within reality.
Sissy, unfortunately, falls pretty squarely in the latter category. It wisely casts the wonderful Aisha Dee as its lead and has a diverse cast, but falters when it tries to engage with the specific experiences of those characters — or opts not to engage at all. It’s frustrating, because what the film does well, it does really well. It commits to nastiness and gore in a way similar films do not and Dee is almost good enough to make the whole thing work.
It’s a tribute to Dee’s talent that the scariest moment is not any of the brutal — and, I mean, brutal — kills. It’s when Dee as the titular Sissy — excuse me, Cecilia — is attempting to make herself look like a victim. After coming from her latest kill, Cecelia sits in silence as a creepy work of art seems to speak to her. She smiles. She laughs. And then she brings back her unsettling rapid breath technique from the film’s opening and begins smacking her face with her phone. Suddenly, this horrifying display stops and she unlocks her phone to play the victim on Instagram live.
It’s a frightening tour-de-force and hints at what Dee could achieve in a more thoughtful work of horror cinema. — Drew
22. Tom at the Farm (2013)
dir. Xavier Dolan
Queer horror has always explored the line between fear and desire. That’s why this list has almost as much sex as it does death. The sexiest moment — and one of the most emotionally devastating — comes from Xavier Dolan’s underrated thriller. (His best film IMO.) Dolan plays Tom, a queer from Montreal with dyed blonde hair, who goes to rural Quebec for his boyfriend’s funeral. His boyfriend’s family didn’t know about Tom — supposedly — and Tom begins a complicated psychosexual relationship with his deceased boyfriend’s hypermasculine brother, Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal).
There are moments in the film with more obvious horror, but the one that stands out to me is when Francis chokes Tom. The choking is goaded by Tom, and Francis even says: “Tell me when to stop,” and “You’re the boss.” Tom tells him to choke harder. All he can do is note that Francis smells like his brother smelled, sounds like his brother sounds. It’s here that we really feel why Tom is continuing to put himself in danger by staying with this family. It’s self-harm induced by grief. He wants to feel pain. He wants to die. This single moment holds sex and grief, arousal and fear. For queer people, the desire to be fucked has often been paired with the smell of death. — Drew
21. Knife + Heart (2018)
dir. Yann Gonzalez
In Knife + Heart, the connections between sex and death are explicit. Voyeurism is baked into the premise: Set in 1970s Paris, it’s a slasher in which a killer is offing gay porn actors. It evokes Peeping Tom in its positioning of horror as inherently voyeuristic and hides a blade in an even more memorable prop.
The queer characters of Knife + Heart are wonderfully complex, and the words you’ll soon read from Drew in the top half of this list on Hitchcock characters and dimensionality vs. palatability absolutely apply here. Gonzalez executes a queer slasher with a queer killer so fucking well — especially because its killer is not its true villain. Anne is.
Anne is a lesbian director of gay porn, and when one of the guys she regularly works with is brutally murdered, she pivots to working on a new project that is literally a porn retelling of the murder case unfolding around her. People keep dying, and she keeps going. Anne’s heartless in this way, seeing tragedies as fodder for her films and, in fact, this vampiric quality of her creative practice ends up being the root cause of the violence that unfolds in the movie.
This is a slasher without a final girl, a horror movie with a tremendous amount of empathy for its killer but without downplaying the impact of his violence in the community. Everyone is complicated as hell, and the movie plays with various tropes, casting Anne as the one who’s trying to solve the murders but also as a presence almost more nefarious than the killer himself. She stalks and assaults her ex-girlfriend, the editor of her films. Anne’s twisted obsessions are dangerous to everyone around her, and she is the movie’s monster. Near the end, she sits in a movie theater watching her own films, no doubt delighting in her own genius. In a nightmare sequence — that’s fueled less by guilt IMO and more by her alcoholism and tendency to turn what’s happening around her into spectacle — the bodies of the dead grab her as if to say this is all your fault. It’s haunting and disturbing, and while Anne’s fear is palpable, you don’t exactly root for her to escape this nightmare. Knife + Heart fucks with you in that way. — KKU
20. Nope (2022)
dir. Jordan Peele
No one has had a greater impact on horror cinema the past decade than Jordan Peele. But none of the work he’s produced or inspired has matched the three masterful films he’s written and directed. His latest is about OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (queer actor Keke Palmer playing queer), siblings whose family have long been Hollywood horse trainers, facing off against a UFO. There’s a lot more going on in the plot and a lot more going on in the film, but I’ll spare you since this movie made over 120 million at the box office and a lot of you have seen it.
The obvious moment for me is after the reveal that the UFO isn’t a ship but the alien itself — a giant monster in the sky we’ve just watched suck up dozens of people. OJ is out in the truck. Emerald is in the house with Angel, their loyal Fry’s employee, and it’s pouring rain. Nope is as much an action movie as a horror movie, and this is an enthralling sequence. But oh God, when the screams of people can be heard from inside the alien! When blood starts raining down! The jumpscare when the alien spits back out any synthetic objects! The sequence ends with OJ locking his car door as if that will do anything. Humor, horror, and action all in one. — Drew
19. Memento Mori (1999)
dir. Kim Tae-yong and Min Kyu-dong
A Nightmare on Elm Street may have the most famous teen girl being haunted by a ghost in class, but the second film in the Whispering Corridors series has one to match. After finding the journal they shared, Min-ah (Kim Gyu-ri) grows obsessed with her classmates Shi-eun (Lee Young-jin) and Hyo-shin (Park Ye-jin) who have, let’s say, a homoerotic friendship. Min-ah wants to be a part of this connection, even as she observes the distance that’s grown between them. Her obsession only increases after Hyo-shin jumps off the roof of the school.
Min-ha is reading the journal in class when she sees the words “memento mori” glued on letter by letter. She removes them revealing a translation: Remember you must die. As Min-ha reads these words, Hyo-shin’s hands begin crawling up her body. They reach under her skirt, and Min-ha makes a sound that’s something between a scream and an orgasm. She has finally achieved Hyo-shin’s attention — unfortunately it arrived only in death. — Drew
18. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
dir. Jack Sholder
Speaking of A Nightmare on Elm Street, the sequel is so gay it got a whole documentary about it. What it lacks in Wes Craven’s unique genius, it makes up for in bigger set pieces, campier kills, and, yes, loads of gay subtext. This time around, Freddy has abandoned his dream killings to take possession of closeted teen Jesse Walsh in real life. Jesse fights his inner Freddy with the same intensity he fights his confusing sexual feelings.
After a failed makeout with Lisa, Jesse runs away to popular bro Grady’s house and begs Grady to watch him while he sleeps. Grady falls asleep too (classic) and, before you know it, Freddy has replaced Jesse and has Grady up against a wall. Grady’s parents shout against the locked door as Freddy slashes his famous claws through Grady and the door. The most horrifying moment is after Jesse changes back and has to witness what he’s done. Mark Patton was cast for his queerness, and it results in a tortured protagonist who sympathetically grapples with emotions he can’t control. While the movie may have set out to make homosexuality the evil within, Patton’s sympathetic performance results in a movie that’s both scary and goofy about a bisexual boy learning to overcome shame. — Drew
17. The Strings (2021)
dir. Ryan Glover
Named the fifth best queer movie of last year by Autostraddle — aka me — and the subject of this recent essay of mine, if you still haven’t watched The Strings, I don’t know why! It’s a beautifully shot slow-burn of a horror movie about Catherine (Teagan Johnston, who also wrote the film’s excellent music), an indie musician going through a band breakup and a breakup breakup. She secludes herself in the icy world of her aunt’s empty house, working on music and flirting with a local photographer.
Most of the movie is spent watching Catherine drive, drink, walk around, and try to make music. But the benefit of this measured pace is, when the scares start, they have the shock of a horror jumpscare and the surprise of Jeanne Dielman’s burst of violence. The first of these moments occurs almost an hour into the film. Catherine is in her makeshift studio working on music. We then cut to a wide shot in the kitchen. A door opens, and we assume it’s Catherine, but no one is there. The camera then tracks over to the other side of the kitchen where Catherine is cooking. The camera tracks back to its initial position and reveals a figure standing in the doorway. Suddenly the door slams! And then reopens, the figure gone. Catherine enters the frame and walks through the door. The soundtrack is completely silent. We wait and wait and wait until finally she reemerges. It’s an expert bit of horror filmmaking. There are no expensive effects — just a good performance and some incredible camerawork. — Drew
16. Hellraiser (1987)
dir. Clive Barker
Clive Barker invented his own visual language with the original Hellraiser. The film calls to mind words like fleshy, squirty, spitty, bloody, meaty, sticky, grimy. It’s gorgeous in its grossness — not in the typical way of hyper-stylization or artfully turning body horror into something lovely but in just how truly, baldly gross it is. That is not only the point but something to be desired. Pain and pleasure are indistinguishable here. It’s a kink classic, one that Barker makes with no capitulation to straight-laced viewers. With Hellraiser, Barker holds up a mirror to the stigmas toward BDSM and forces people to look right in the face of what makes them uncomfortable.
It was difficult for us to choose a particular moment from this classic — not because it isn’t scary enough or queer enough but rather that it feels so very scary and very queer all the way down to its bone marrow, making it difficult to rip its limbs apart to isolate just one thing. As Drew wrote in her review of the new Hellraiser, sometimes subtext is more evocative than text. Hellraiser (1987) oozes queerness from every oriface, and Pinhead and the pain-loving Cenobites exist beyond gender binaries and also rigid definitions of sexuality.
For me, the moment forever burned in my brain is when the Chatterer’s fingers enter Kirsty’s mouth. It is, to say the least, not a common way for a monster to restrain someone. The Cenobites sure are inventive in their displays of pain and torture. And while fingers down a throat aren’t even close to the most graphic part of this gay gore fest, the shot epitomizes so much of what the original film does well, not just blurring lines between sexual and brutal physicality but erasing them altogether. — KKU
15. The Haunting (1963)
dir. Robert Wise
This 1963 adaptation of the iconic Shirley Jackson gothic novel The Haunting of Hill House is much different than the later Netflix miniseries adaptation, but I’m drawn to both for a lot of the same reasons. In both, Hill House itself feels like a living, breathing thing. A cursed thing. A haunted house whose hauntings are conveyed not always by what can actually be seen but by what is not seen and by what is heard. Strange sounds in the night, a floor plan that doesn’t really make sense, a phantom squeeze of a hand. The two adaptations touch in little ways, especially in some of the imagery in both and in the tracking shots used in the titular haunted halls.
Also, even though it was made over half a century before the world met Kate Siegel’s very gay Theodora Crain, The Haunting manages to preserve the implicit queerness of the novel, delivering a fraught queer storyline between its Eleanor and Theo that is, for the time, barely even concealed. I wouldn’t even call it subtext, really. Like much of what unnerves in The Haunting, it’s right there in front of you if you really look.
The scariest queer horror moment for this film is quite easy to pick. On their second night in Hill House, Eleanor and Theo end up falling asleep in the same bed. Eleanor awakens in the night to banging sounds and phantom laughs, the same creepy audioscape that frightened her and Theo the night before. She asks Theo to hold her hand. As the sounds escalate, Eleanor says Theo’s crushing her hand. But when the lights suddenly come up, Eleanor isn’t in bed with Theo anymore. She’s on a fainting couch by herself, Theo nowhere near. If it wasn’t Theo…what…the fuck…was holding her hand?????
There’s always something especially scary about moments of horror that occur in bed, in the middle of the night. In fact, one of The Haunting of Hill House (2018)’s scariest moments — while significantly different in that Eleanor/Nell is a child — also occurs in the middle of the night on a fainting couch in Hill House. The Haunting has way fewer jumpscares and ghosts that are seen, but it’s an impressive feat of horror in just how little it needs to do to evoke general unease and disturbance. Its version of Hill House haunts in subtle strokes. — KKU
14. The Perfection (2018)
dir. Richard Shepard
The fun part about ranking moments is we can include movies that may not be entirely great. I’m not a big fan of Richard Shepard’s classical music shocker, but there’s no denying the effectiveness of its second section. Charlotte (Allison Williams) is a former cello prodigy who has fallen out of the spotlight. She meets Lizzie (Logan Browning), the new star, and jealousy soon gives way to lesbian romance.
After a night of fucking, the two women go full lesbian lets-go-on-a-trip-together-after-one-night cliche. Lizzie wants to go off the grid, and Charlotte offers her ibuprofen for her hangover. This doesn’t seem to help and Lizzie is not doing well as they board a bus around rural Shanghai. Charlotte suggests they not go, but Lizzie insists and takes more ibuprofen. Once they’re in the middle of nowhere, Lizzie really starts to struggle. The sequence goes from a real-life nightmare to a heightened nightmare when Lizzie throws up and Charlotte sees the vomit is full of bugs. Lizzie starts freaking out — fair! — and is convinced she has bugs in her skin. They’re kicked off the bus and, once alone, things escalate again. Bugs are bursting out of Lizzie’s arm and, for the first time, Charlotte drops the supportive act. “You know what you have to do,” says as she holds up a meat cleaver. Lizzie chops, and we rewind to reveal, there were no bugs. It was a hallucination. Charlotte drugged her.
It’s a horrifying sequence and a fantastic twist — if only the rest of the movie lived up to its beginning. — Drew
13. Titane (2021)
dir. Julia Ducournau
I wonder if I’d be as enthusiastic about Julia Ducournau’s sophomore feature if it trafficked in transfeminine imagery rather than transmasculine imagery. I understand why some people have reacted negatively to a film made by a cis woman that shows binding and pregnancy and masculinity to be the stuff of nightmares. And yet, I just can’t dismiss this singular work of art so easily. It’s brutal, but it’s also very funny and very tender. Nothing is simple in this film, and that’s one of the reasons I love it, one of the reasons I respond so viscerally to it.
Many of the film’s scenes of violence are also its funniest or its most oddly beautiful. A few moments stand out as purely horrifying. The first is when Alexia makes her transformation into Adrien, binding her breasts and pregnant belly, smashing her face on a public bathroom sink. But the moment that really gets me is later when Alexia has unbound and is itching furiously at her now very pregnant belly. She breaks a hole in her flesh and is met with the residue of metal. She starts punching at her belly and hitting her head against the floor. She tries to bind again and fails. Her nipples start leaking oil.
The car baby inside her will ultimately be something rather beautiful, but this moment is devoid of that later acceptance. There’s just a person fighting with a body of betrayal. — Drew
12. Lyle (2014)
dir. Stewart Thorndike
While “Rosemary’s Baby but lesbian” is already a compelling premise to me personally, Stewart Thorndike’s hour-long work of trauma horror adds grief to the former’s tale of mistrust. The film begins similarly to the Satanic classic. Leah (Gaby Hoffmann) and June (Thorndike’s real life ex-girlfriend Ingrind Jungermann) move into a new apartment in New York — just swap Manhattan for Park Slope — and pregnant June starts to grow suspicious of the new place, the neighbors, her partner. One important difference is Leah and June already have another child, the titular Lyle.
The tension seems to be ratcheting up slowly until about ten minutes into the film when Leah is on Skype with her friend. She’s talking about how June has been distant and how this house is creepy. She is standing in front of one side of a dividing wall. Lyle is waddling around making toddler noises on the other side. The entire scene plays out in the frames of the Skype call. As this casual conversation takes place, the video glitches, the sound lags. Then Lyle’s noises stop. And Leah hears something else.
“Lyle? Lyle? Honey?”
Leah walks around the dividing wall until she comes out the other end and stops. She starts to run forward but the image freezes. Her friend starts to look concerned. When the image unfreezes, Leah is gone. She’s screaming. Her friend’s screen shuts off, and we just hear garbled wails as we look at her empty apartment.
Thorndike takes the daily annoyance of video calls and combines it with horrifying tragedy. It’s so simple, so expertly done. It creates a real life pain that elevates the rest of the film’s genre paranoia. — Drew
11. Prey (1977)
dir. Norman J. Warren
The predatory lesbian trope in horror often finds innocent bicurious girls returning to heterosexual safety after a brief dalliance with sin. Norman J. Warren’s alien intruder movie Prey stands out in several ways and ends with a far more interesting — and more frightening — twist.
First of all, Josephine and Jessica-Anne are a couple. Jo is not controlling like a sinister vampire, but like a true-to-life toxic, biphobic girlfriend. Their dynamic is honest and the romance of their relationship is confirmed in a lengthy sex scene.
The other major difference between this movie and similar work is the “man” — Kator is actually an alien who has taken the body of a man — does not present an escape from lesbianism but rather a metaphor for abuse. After many hijinks — including Jo force-femming Kator — Jessica-Anne finally breaks up with Jo and falls into Kator’s arms. What begins as a sex scene shifts to a rape scene as Kator’s aggression increases and Jessica-Anne tries to escape. Suddenly, Kator takes his true animal-like form and begins eating Jessica-Anne. It’s graphic and horrifying and made more horrifying when Jo enters the room and sees the tragedy that has just occurred.
For Jo, it’s like looking in a twisted mirror. Kator may be literally consuming Jessica-Anne, but Jo has been trying to consume her too. It lends the film a unique perspective compared to similar, more homophobic tales. The villain here is not lesbianism. The villain is any creature — human or otherwise — who feeds on a person as prey. — Drew
10. Rebecca (1940)
dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock can be blamed for some of our most harmful on-screen horror tropes. His 1930 film Murder! is the earliest example I know of a “cross-dressing killer,” something he popularized three decades later in Psycho. His villains were often queer-coded or flat-out queer. But unlike his imitators, his work stands out in how much affection and humanity he granted these sinister queers. While his influence might have been harmful — not to mention his on-set abuse — the films themselves remain some of our earliest and best portrayals of queerness. The goal cannot be palatability. It should always be dimensionality. This is true if a character is the hero or the villain.
If you watch Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca as a love story between the mousy second Mrs. DeWinter (Joan Fontaine) and the older millionaire Maxime (Laurence Olivier), then Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) is undoubtedly the villain. But if you watch the film as a love story between Mrs. Danvers and the late Rebecca, the villain becomes the murderous Maxime. No matter your interpretation, the best scene, the scariest scene, the gayest scene, is when Danvers confronts Second in Rebecca’s old room, the east wing by the sea. Second has gone in snooping, and Danvers is quick to point out that she’s wanted to show her the room anyway every day since Second arrived. As Danvers fondles Rebecca’s furs and her underwear made by nuns, the ghost of her former mistress, her former lover, haunts both women. Danvers asks, “Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?” For Second, this is a moment of frightening confrontation. But for Danvers, the fear is born from the possible answer, no.
Even if Hitchcock was viewing queerness as a fascinated outsider, du Maurier was writing from experience. Her many relationships with women were widely known, and she wrote about having a secret “male energy.” With this in mind, it’s easy to reevaluate this classic moment. The greatest fear is losing your love. The greatest fear is not being able to express it. The greatest fear is that ghosts do not exist. — Drew
9. Annihilation (2018)
dir. Alex Garland
Much of the horror in Annihilation — the 2018 movie based on the Jeff VanderMeer novel of the same name — is atmospheric. Until it’s suddenly very, very bodied.
It starts with a classic Came Back Wrong setup, Natalie Portman’s Lena reunited with her believed-to-be-dead husband Kane, played by Oscar Isaac. But something’s off about Kane, and it leads Lena to go on the same mysterious mission as him into a zone called The Shimmer.
In The Shimmer, things get increasingly weird and disturbing. Wildlife has mutated, creating new beauty and new monsters, like a gator with shark teeth. These monster mutations get worse as the characters go deeper into the Shimmer, culminating with the movie’s most vicious beast, a bear-like creature far more fucked-up than the words “mutant bear” really encapsulate. It’s a stunningly original film monster — visually and in some of its other details, like the fact that it echoes and amplifies the sounds of its victims in place of a standard growl or roar. The bear shows up right at the same moment as Anya, the lesbian member of Lena’s mission team played by Gina Rodriguez, reaches the peak of her paranoia. Suddenly, there are multiple threats at once, Anya turning her gun on her colleagues and the skeletal, beastly bear threatening to rip them all apart.
The sound alone is enough to make you want to look — or run — away from the scene. And then we never pull away from the horror. The monster kills Anya and rips her jaw off. In addition to being visually gruesome, there’s also the bleakness of the fact that her paranoia and delusions — while technically well founded in the sense that they are indeed being lied to about their mission — put everyone at risk. She contributed to her own death by aiming her defenses in the wrong direction. A lot of times in horror, people might have lived if they’d just worked together and trusted one another. It’s a real-life horror of humanity that people often don’t. — KKU
8. Black Swan (2010)
dir. Darren Aronofsky
Even after many repeat viewings, I watch Black Swan in a perpetual state of distress. I know Nina will sacrifice her entire self — her body and her mind — for the pursuit of the leading role in her company’s production of Swan Lake. I know she will unravel. I know the unraveling will lead to seeing things that aren’t really there, to a fracturing of reality. And yet even though I know what’s coming, the specific touchpoints of this unraveling scare me.
I’m not usually into horror that relies on jumpscares, but I think what works about the way they’re deployed in Black Swan is that they’re so seamlessly integrated into the visual and emotional storytelling of the movie while still operating as interruptions to reality. There’s a sense that something menacing lurks at the edges of every frame in Black Swan.
The best of all the jarring moments in the movie comes when Nina is in the bathtub. Bathtubs are often the site of terrifying moments in horror — the classic shot from A Nightmare on Elm Street is the crème de la crème. In a bathtub, you’re naked and vulnerable, relaxed which also means you’re on low alert. Black Swan makes its bathtub sequence explicitly sensual and frightening. Nina begins masturbating and lowers herself all the way underwater. But when a drop of blood falls into the tub and she looks up, she’s met with a smiling figure who looks an awful lot like herself. It works on a lot of levels. The bathtub setting, the use of sound, the doppelgänger. Seeing one’s self is a particularly effective source of uncanny horror in psychological thrillers like this one. And in Black Swan, Nina’s sexuality is tightly wound to her obsession with rising to the top. This scene distills that entanglement into its most basic parts. For a jumpscare, it’s bloody complex. — KKU
7. Bad Things (2023)
dir. Stewart Thorndike
The Shining is one of my favorite movies of all time, and Stewart Thorndike’s queer reimagining of its narrative for Bad Things makes for a delightful and daring horror movie that’s familiar and surprising in equal measure. Drew said it best in her review, which is what first convinced me to move it to the top of my viewing list: “This is not the easy Hollywood update of putting a few queer characters into a franchise reboot — this is deep textual analysis and fuckery presented with a sharpness of filmmaking worthy of its influences.”
Ruthie inherits a hotel and is convinced by her girlfriend Cal to run it, Ruthie’s history of infidelity weighing greatly over the relationship. Surely taking over a small town hotel is just what every struggling relationship needs. Surely nothing will go wrong here.
What’s fun and ultimately so scary about Thorndike’s approach is that things go wrong slowly, slowly, then in an onslaught. The atmospheric horror is wonderful. On a long weekend at the hotel with their friend and Cal’s ex Maddie as well as Maddie’s on/off girlfriend Fran, the group encounter strange hauntings.
The first real injection of horror comes when Fran begins seeing figures in the hotel, starting with a bunch of people in the dining hall eating breakfast. They all look up at her silently when she enters. “Sometimes, you can’t feel your fingers,” a little girl says, her fingers detached on the table. When Fran stumbles out, the room empties, making it clear she has just seen not just one but a whole bunch of ghosts. From there, things just get progressively weirder, but the group also turns on Fran, accusing her of lying, which of course only heightens the horror. — KKU
6. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)
dir. Jane Schoenbrun
Jane Schoenbrun’s understated, unnerving We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is difficult to define in terms of horror and in terms of queerness and transness. It’s a movie about the depths and dangers of loneliness. It’s a movie about the nebulous and, well, difficult to define predatory behavior of adult men toward young people in all corners of the internet.
There isn’t explicit abuse at the hands of Michael J. Rogers’ JLB toward Anna Cobb’s Casey, but that feels weird to say. Not all abuse — especially that takes place online — is straightforward. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair contends with the ambiguity and slipperiness of the internet in so many ways. It starts with Casey joining an online horror game whose purpose and rules are impossible to grasp throughout. Does Casey think she’s playing a game or think she’s immersed in something real, undergoing actual transformations? There’s never a clear answer, which Schoenbrun pulls off dazzlingly well.
The only person we really get to see Casey interact with in the entire movie is JLB, a man who is similarly lonely but also a grown ass adult. The movie disturbs in strange, potent bursts, the most affecting of which is a sequence where JLB narrates over a video Casey filmed and posted of herself sleeping. He paused on a frame in which she appears to wake up and her face distorts into that of a nightmarish demon. The image itself is scary, a bit Exorcist-esque. There’s a found footage element to it, too. But there are layers to the horror beyond a creepy face that really deepen it — and make it fucking scary. JLB analyzing Casey’s sleep so closely — even in the context of a game, even though Casey has willingly shared this video for strangers to see — feels threatening and ominous.
Most queer people in my life — myself included — had inappropriate interactions with adults online before we were out. What makes it harder to talk about — and ultimately scarier — is that we sought these connections out, were hungry for them. Validation online felt affirming. Even (especially?) when that validation came from adults. But does that make us complicit in these inappropriate relationships? No. We were kids; they were adults. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is brilliant in the way it taps into these complexities, never portraying JLB as a monster. It shows that the internet can be a place that’s lifesaving at the same time as it’s harmful. — KKU
5. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)
dir. William Asher
Famous for being an early sympathetic portrayal of a gay character, this absolutely batshit 80s horror movie is really so much more. There is not just a gay character; there are two. And their queerness isn’t secondary but essential to the movie and its critique of homophobia, police violence, and the presumed innocence of white women.
Despite the title — eventually changed to the equally obtuse Night Warning — Butcher Baker is not about a butcher or a baker. It’s about Cheryl (Susan Tyrell), a woman obsessed with her nephew Billy (Jimmy McNichol). She’s been his primary caregiver since his parents died in a suspicious accident, and she is terrified by the possibility of him going off to college with a basketball scholarship. Tyrell gives one of the best horror villain performances I’ve ever seen. She makes Annie Wilkes seem well-adjusted. When Cheryl kills a TV repairman after he refuses her sexual advances, her guilt should be obvious. Her role in Billy’s parents deaths should be obvious. Instead, the police blame Billy’s gay basketball coach, Tom (Steve Eastin). It turns out the TV repairman was Tom’s partner, and the police decide Billy must have been in the center of a love triangle and Cheryl’s only crime is that she’s covering for her nephew. This is so obviously incorrect. The police don’t care.
As Tom faces continued harassment amid his grief, Billy falls ill. Cheryl’s need for control has caused her to go full Munchausen by proxy. Billy is suspicious and recruits his girlfriend Julia (Julia Duffy) to distract Cheryl while he snoops around. Cheryl screams at Julia to get out. When Julia doesn’t comply, Cheryl takes out a slab of meat and a meat tenderizer. She smacks the meat harder and harder as she grows agitated before finally bursting into tears. She tells Julia that she had a boyfriend once, she understands. She seems to have softened — it’s not convincing. Billy is still upstairs snooping. She asks Julia to get something from the fridge and SMACK she hits Julia in the head with the meat tenderizer. It’s blocked by the open fridge, but we don’t need to see it — the terror is in Tyrell’s face. And the knowledge that Billy is running out of time.
This is a story where the gay basketball coach is the hero. His love for Billy is selfless and appropriate, while “aunt” Cheryl’s is obsessive and violent. The movie asks: What perversions are actually dangerous? What perversions are criminalized? — Drew
4. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
dir. Peter Jackson
I’m pretty sure Heavenly Creatures was the first queer movie I ever watched. We can thank Peter Jackson and a childhood Lord of the Rings obsession for that one. It’s an appropriate introduction since film history has long been fixated on gay murderers. It’s an appropriate introduction because this film is so tied to childhood imagination.
Heavenly Creatures recounts the true story of Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) and Pauline Parker (Autostraddle fave Melanie Lynskey), two teen girls who developed an obsessive “friendship” that culminated in the murder of Parker’s mother. While Parker’s darkness and Hulme’s sinister manipulation are apparent from the film’s beginning, it’s hard not to be won over by the world of imagination they create together. The adults around them are so suffocating and in each other they find queer love, queer escape. As we root for them to defy their parents and be together, it’s easy to forget that the film begins with them running and screaming covered in blood. Jackson has placed us so confidently in Pauline’s perspective that even as they plot the murder, the gravity of this action isn’t felt. Until, of course, they do it.
Jackson may be best known for Middle Earth, but he got his start making ultraviolent horror comedies like Bad Taste and Braindead. This shows that brutality — but none of the comedy. The beautiful music and slow motion shots of the girls in the woods give way to the harshest reality. The thuds and splats of the brick. Pauline’s mother’s moans and screams. The blood. So much blood. The film cuts back into the girls’ fantasy space but the terror doesn’t subside. And the final shot is all reality: Pauline, alone, screaming, covered in blood. — Drew
3. Mulholland Drive (2001)
dir. David Lynch
While he’s rarely labeled a horror director, nobody scares me like David Lynch. Ever since I watched Eraserhead as a precocious 11 year old, the uncanny of his sounds and images have unsettled me more than straightforward horror.
To me, Mulholland Drive is Lynch’s masterpiece — and not just because it’s his gayest. It is his greatest combination of surrealism and grounded, tight storytelling. For a two and a half hour film with several apparent non sequiturs, it’s impressive how every scene feeds into the next, every moment feels essential. It all builds up to the horrifying end.
The first two hours of the film are about the wide-eyed Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), an aspiring actress new to LA and filled with possibility. When she encounters the amnesiac — and babely — Rita (Laura Harring), she helps her with an untouchable eagerness. This story continues to unravel, punctuated by scenes of other random characters, most notably a cuckolded director who might want Betty for a part.
This is all a dream, a fantasy, an invention of a woman named Diane as she grapples with her failure, her depression, her guilt. She has invented a world where she is a promising actress and her ex-girlfriend Camilla is a damsel in distress, where Camilla’s new fiancé is pathetic. Everyone we’ve met is someone else in reality — a reality where Diane has hired a hitman to kill Camilla.
Late at night, Diane stares at the blue key that signifies the hitman has done the job. The sound rumbles. A loud knock is heard. An old couple we met earlier in the film seems to be crawling under the gap of the door. We hear them laughing. More knocking. Screams. Knocking. Laughter. Screams. The old couple chases Diane into her bedroom where she takes out a gun and shoots herself in the head.
The lie of possibility, the faux kindness. This is what the couple represents. Diane is a woman — like so many women — killed by Hollywood. A city of dreams. A city of nightmares. — Drew
2. Good Manners (2017)
dir. Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra
Good Manners is a Frankenstein’s monster of a film in the way it stitches together so many genres and themes to yield something staggering and, sure, grotesque but also beautiful. It’s a wholly original werewolf movie that centers queer motherhood. The love story in its first act is predicated on precarious power dynamics but also is the kind of messy, real relationship I love to watch in any film regardless of genre. A whirlwind, complicated romance that’s sexy but also laced with a foreboding sense that something is about to go very wrong. And after the first act, it becomes a movie about a mother’s love. Good Manners feels like several movies, and yet it also is impeccably well paced and balanced.
The first act concludes with wealthy Ana dying while delivering her werewolf baby, because it turns out delivering a werewolf baby when you are a human woman with a human body is extremely, um, unpleasant. It’s quintessential, good body horror, but it’s also devastating because it happens while her nanny and new lover Clara is in the adjacent room trying to call a doctor for help. We see the horror in-scene, and Clara sees its aftermath.
Clara’s used to working as a caretaker, and even though her relationship with Ana began from a place of being paid to care for her, it grew way beyond that. The fact that she cannot care for her in this crucial, terrifying moment conveys a suffocating hopelessness.
By the time she enters the room, Ana is already gone. Her body sits there, ripped apart, and Clara’s life rips into pieces too. It’s forever changed not only by this violent, nightmarish loss but by the new werewolf son she unexpectedly gains. Ana’s death is complicated by the fact that it happens not at the hands of some plainly villainous monster but rather an infant creature who has no control over the way he enters the world. There’s no one for Clara to fight in this moment, no one to run from. Just a baby, alone and likely as fear-stricken as her. — KKU
1. The Other Side of the Underneath (1972)
dir. Jane Arden
When we started working on this list, nothing stood out as number one. And then we watched Jane Arden’s The Other Side of the Underneath.
This is a movie that had been on my radar since I put together the all time lesbian movie list. It was in my working doc under “possible entries – unavailable.” So much queer art is outsider art; so much outsider art is harder to find. In fact, this film was practically unavailable worldwide until BFI restored and released it in the UK in 2009. But it was still largely unavailable in the US until Shudder recently put together a series celebrating the tenth anniversary of Kier-La Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women.
Kayla and I will reflect on the queer films of David Lynch and Peter Jackson and Alfred Hitchcock in a different way than Bravo and Shudder. But the greatest joys of this list were the discoveries. The greatest joy was clicking play on this masterpiece by a radical artist and having no idea the twisted queer magic I was about to witness.
Jane Arden was a feminist writer, theatremaker, and filmmaker who struggled with mental illness and campaigned against the psychiatric treatments of her time. This film is about a group of young women experiencing that treatment and it oscillates between that horror and surrealism likely inspired by the headspace of the film’s protagonist with schizophrenia.
It is a film filled with striking moments and surprising horrors. But the sequence that first made me realize the special nature of this film happens about ten minutes in. The young woman is lying in bed next to a nurse. Then we cut to another young woman furiously playing cello as she chants, “Multiply.” The music increases as the main young woman stabs her bed with a knife. The cellist screams on the soundtrack and then quiet. The woman in bed is no longer next to a nurse but lying in the bed of a sort of dream space. A little girl looks at a pair of dentures in a dirty cup. Then we meet her: Meg the Peg.
An arlecchino-inspired nightmare clown bursts into a point of view shot from the bed. “Meg the Peg can read your thoughts little girl!” she exclaims while clacking together dentures. She has a poorly fitted bald cap and a sharp fake red nose. Her eyes are open almost as wide as her gaping mouth. We cut back to the young woman who looks shockingly calm. And then back to the girl. The clown reappears in this frame and reaches for these other dentures. “Mine!” she shrieks. She carries on for quite some time saying, “Mine” and when we cut back to the young woman in a wide shot there’s a sheep in her bed. “Not right,” she says as she shakes her head. Yeah, I’ll say.
The clown’s antics continue, increasing in their terror, but also becoming oddly sexual. The young woman seems to be under her spell, enamored with the act. She kicks off her sheets to reveal blood and the calm remains. The clown disappears and her dresser shakes open. Another young woman is inside clattering unnaturally around until she falls forward on the bed. The young woman cackles with glee.
This film was based on Arden’s stage production, A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets, and Witches. Even as some fight for assimilation, it would do us well to remember that whether or not we see ourselves this way, that is how much of the world still sees us. Horror has long been a genre of reclamation, a genre of expression. There is nothing in horror as scary as our most radical queer artists being lost to time.
The Other Side of the Underneath is terrifying. This scene is terrifying. But when it ended, like the good little freak I am, all I could do was cackle with glee. — Drew
Horror Is So Gay is an annual Autostraddle series of queer and trans reflections on horror.
25 Streaming Movies With Hot Lesbian Sex Scenes
Lesbian sex: it’s a thing we have, but it’s also a thing we watch other people have on a screen! We love a good lesbian sex scene. These formative cinematic experiences have helped make us the gay sexual creatures we are today.
Five years ago, I solicited hot lesbian sex scene tips on twitter and combined that input with my own personal opinions, which includes the opinion that Elena Undone is a bad movie and nobody should have to watch it for any reason. That list has evolved over time into this list — an up-to-date collection of the best lesbian sex scenes that you can stream right this very moment.
This is not a comprehensive list, and only represents films available to stream. I imagine if you’re here with me today reading this, you’re probably not looking for recommendations on DVDs to mail-order. Just a hunch!
This post was originally written in 2018 and has been updated in 2023.
Kinky Lesbian Sex Scenes
Bound (1996)
Directed & Written By: Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski
Lana and Lilly were fans of sex-positive guru Susie Bright’s Lesbian Sex World, so they sent her a package in the early ’90s that contained a draft of Bound, asking if she’d honor them with a cameo. (Lana and Lilly are sisters and trans women who at the time that this film was made were still presenting as male.) It wasn’t an unusual request or one that particularly interested her, but she was impressed by the studio they were associated with and thus sat down to read the script. She fell in love with it immediately and agreed to the cameo but also offered them a different type of support: “If you don’t think I’m too presumptuous, could I be your lesbian-sex consultant?,” she wrote. “I notice that whenever two lovers fall into an embrace, it doesn’t say exactly what happens next. On behalf of every moviegoer who can’t live through another syrupy, comb all lesbian love scene, could I please, please, please give you my words of advice on what two women like this would do in bed together?” They said yes, and she did, and holy shit did that decision pay off! Bound is streaming on Paramount+.
The Duke of Burgundy (2015)
Directed & Written by: Peter Strickland
The Duke of Burgundy involves an extensive, drawn-out dom/sub relationship between a lepidopterist (somebody who studies butterflies) and the maid she brings into her home who has a lot of very kinky desires. It’s a very… unique film? There’s no actual nudity but the lingerie they’re wearing is so hot that it sort of compensates for itself. The Duke of Burgundy is streaming on Tubi.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Written by: Chan-wook Park and Seo-Kyung Chung, adapted from Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters
A beautiful, thrilling, meticulously plotted film; sumptuous and precise and erotically charged throughout. I could watch The Handmaiden ten times and it wouldn’t be enough but nothing will ever beat that first twisty time. Pajaba called it “the lesbian gothic psychosexual romantic thriller of our dreams.” Teo Bugbee at MTV called it “a film dedicated to getting off on the creative potential of sexuality, and by grounding that open exploration of desire in a story where two women find freedom through each other.” The sex itself isn’t kinky, but the movie is so directly about kink that it made the list anyhow. The Handmaiden is streaming on Prime Video.
Mommy is Coming (2012)
Written by: Sarah Schulman & Cheryl Dunye
Directed by: Cheryl Dunye
Cheryl Dunye’s campy sex comedy set in the Berlin queer underground finds power femme Dylan (Lili Harlow) and charming masc Claudia (played by queer porn performer Papi Coxxx) looking to spice up their monogamous relationship with some sexual adventures. Dylan finds new experiences in a BDSM sex club and Claudia, now presenting as Claude, meets an older woman at the hotel where he works who turns out to be Dylan’s Mom! “With its embrace of older bodies, bodies of color, and bodies that do not fit into any one gender, the film also reflects an ever more fluid sense of erotic queer representation,” writes Julia Bryan-Wilson in ArtForum. “All manner of configurations of desire are on display here, as an astonishing array of objects and appendages are inserted and received in various orifices.” Mommy is Coming is streaming on Prime Video.
Professor Marston & The Wonder Women (2017)
Directed & Written by: Angela Robinson
If you don’t want any men in your sex scenes, this isn’t the film for you. But if that element doesn’t turn you off, you’re in for a lesbian-written-and-directed DELIGHT. This movie is hot and kinky as hell and makes you feel like it’s okay to want what you want and it will probably inspire you to go out there and get what you want without shame or inhibition. Professor Marston & The Wonder Women is streaming on Vudu.
Wow Just a Lot of Lesbian Sex Happening
Better Than Chocolate (1999)
Directed by: Anne Wheeler
Written by: Peggy Thompson
I’m sorry everybody but this is a mediocre film and the sex scenes give me chronic internalized homophobia but so many of you brought this up on Twitter that I felt obligated to include it. It was, for its time, pretty wonderful, and was the first movie to show a trans woman with a lesbian friend group. It does have, to its credit, a lot of sexual content — we’ve got a sex toy collector, we’ve got bodypaint sex, we’ve got shower sex, we’ve got a mom discovering sex toys, we’ve got bathroom sex complete with a line of lesbians (patiently??!) waiting to use the bathroom where sex is being had. So much sex! Good on everybody involved in this seminal film for having sex! Better Than Chocolate is streaming on Tubi.
Concussion (2013)
Directed & Written By: Stacie Passon
After a concussion, a lesbian mom decides to become a sex worker who only sees women clients, leading to a bunch of small trysts and one complicated affair. Once upon a time I was feeling not particularly sexual but knew sex was on the agenda for that evening so I turned off all the lights and watched this movie with as much devoted attention as I possibly could muster and you know what, it worked! Concussion is streaming on Vudu.
Duck Butter (2018)
Directed by: Miguel Arteta
Written by: Miguel Arteta, Alia Shawkat
In her review, Heather Hogan wrote that the sex scenes, “which feel real and are not male gaze-y in any way,” were a highlight of this mumblecore movie. Naima (Shawkat), a struggling actor in Los Angeles; and Sergio (Laia Costa); meet at a club and hook up and decide to spend a sleepless 24 hours together, having sex once an hour. Duck Butter is streaming on Netflix.
A Perfect Ending (2012)
Written & Directed by: Nicole Conn
A very hot mommi has never had an orgasm and her lesbian friends are like “okay you need to see someone” and by “someone” they mean an escort, played by undeniably absurdly hot lesbian actress Jessica Clark!! A steamy affair ignites in a film that finds a new way to be extra at every turn. A Perfect Ending is streaming on Prime Video.
Ride or Die (2021)
Directed By: Ryûichi Hiroki
Written By: Nami Yoshikawa and Ching Nakamura
This two and a half hour epic may start with a heterosexual — and bloody — sex scene but the rest of the movie is filled with lesbian longing and the consummation of that longing. Kiko Mizuhara and Honami Sato have incredible chemistry and make this gratuitous (in every sense) murder drama a real delight. Ride or Die is streaming on Netflix.
Room in Rome (2010)
Written & Directed by: Julio Medem
This is a terrible film you should probably only watch on drugs if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s also a film composed almost entirely of lesbian sex scenes and the two women involved in those scenes having conversations about their feelings and childhood trauma. Room in Rome is streaming on Tubi.
Romantic Lesbian Sex Scenes
Ammonite (2020)
Written & Directed By: Francis Lee
This movie is as dull as the fossils it wants us to mediate on but might possibly actually be worth it for the sex scenes? They come straight out of the grey skies and sit right on your face! Full nudes! Kate Winslet finally takes that dress off!! Ammonite is streaming on Hulu.
I Can’t Think Straight (2008)
Directed by: Shamim Sarif
Written by: Shamim Shaif, Kelly Moss
I Can’t Think Straight is a tale of what happens when two very attractive women sustain intense amounts of sexual tension for a series of minutes, breaking every now and then to release that tension through sex scenes. Erin loved it! I Can’t Think Straight is streaming on Tubi.
Kiss Me / Kyss Mig (2011)
Directed By: Alexandra-Therese Keining, Therese Keining
Written By: Alexandra-Therese Keining
One way to check if you’re really falling in love or not is to have sex. Just ask these two ladies who are about to become step-sisters! It’s complicated, sure, but any lesbian could tell you that complicated is just another word for “irresistibly hot.” Kiss Me is streaming on Tubi.
Summertime / La Belle Saison (2016)
Directed by: Catherine Corsini
Written by: Catherine Corsini & Laurette Polmanss
The poster for this film is not lying to you: The two women at the center of this story do indeed spend a lot of time naked. Set in 1971, Catherine Corsini’s sex and protest filled romance is about a young woman from the French countryside who moves to Paris to get away from her parents, where she falls in with a group of politically engaged feminists and falls in love with their leader Carol. They even have great French countryside sex! Summertime is streaming on Prime Video.
There’s Only One Lesbian Sex Scene But It Sure Is Hot!
Atomic Blonde (2017)
Directed By: David Leitch
Written By: Kurt Johnstad
My jaw dropped right there in the movie theater when this sex scene began because it was so hot and so real and there it was in a mainstream movie! “Honestly I really thought Atomic Blonde was the best I’ve ever seen,” wrote @nollers on Twitter, “which sounds ridiculous because the scenes are so short, but the heat felt real and the progression felt natural and sincere. It was so passionate and honestly, I’m a sucker for the little bit of danger.” Atomic Blonde is streaming on Prime Video.
Bruised (2020)
Directed By: Halle Berry
Written By: Michelle Rosenfarb
Halle Berry showed a lot of directorial talent in her debut feature and that talent included shooting an incredible lesbian sex scene between herself and Sheila Atim! It’s tender and erotic and specific and marks a real shift for her character. Some sex scenes are frivolous — this is one of the best parts of the whole film. But it still makes this category because it is, above all else, very hot. Bruised is streaming on Netflix.
Chloe (2010)
Directed by: Atom Egoyan
Written by: Erin Cressida Wilson
An erotic thriller that sees Catherine (Julianne Moore) hiring Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to attempt to seduce her husband but, of course, we know how these things go. She finds Chloe’s descriptions of hooking up with her husband to be kinda hot and before you know it the two ladies have a romp of their own. Can you endure the entire ridiculous film for three minutes of Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried having lesbian sex? There’s only one way to find out! Chloe is streaming on Netflix.
The Hunger (1983)
Directed By: Tony Scott
Written By: James Costigan and Michael Thomas
While this is a film filled from beginning to end with a dangerous sexuality, there is one scene that stands out. If you’ve seen the film, you know the scene. Susan Sarandon spills sherry on her see-through white t-shirt and Catherine Deneuve is like you better change and then the two of them are in bed surrounded by billowy white curtains and they’re fucking and sucking and sucking blood. Forty years later it’ll still make you swoon. The Hunger is streaming on Prime Video.
Je, tu, il, elle (1974)
Written & Directed by: Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman’s body of work always rewards patience. That’s true in this film when it comes to cinema and lesbian sex. After spending most of the film hiding in her room and then traveling with a man, the protagonist played by Akerman arrives at her ex’s apartment. The film ends with 15 straight minutes of full-on fully-naked clawing folding connecting yearning lesbian sex. Je Tu Il Elle is streaming on Max.
The Watermelon Woman (1997)
Written & Directed By: Cheryl Dunye
Video store clerk and filmmaker Cheryl is making a documentary about Fae Richards, a Black actress as “The Watermelon Woman” who is rumored to have dated her white female director. Amid this research, Cheryl begins her own complicated relationship with Diana (Guinevere Turner). Eventually the two women find themselves having lesbian sex that the Philadelphia City Paper described as “the hottest dyke sex scene ever recorded on celluloid” when it premiered in the late 90s. The Watermelon Woman is streaming on Paramount+.
There’s Only One Lesbian Sex Scene But It Sure Is Exciting!
The Carmilla Movie (2017)
Directed By: Spencer Maybee
Written By: Alejandro Alcoba and Jordan Hall
The two women in question shed their period outfits before settling into a solid five minutes or so of lesbian sex, executed with loving, genuine detail. Bonus points for setting it to Uh Huh Her, my own personal Sex Soundtrack of 2007. The Carmilla Movie is streaming on Prime Video.
Carol (2015)
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Written by: Phyllis Nagy, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith
Have you heard of this movie? There’s a very nice May/December lesbian romance that eventually consummates itself. Carol is streaming on Netflix.
Disobedience (2018)
Directed by: Sebastián Lelio
Written by: Sebastián Lelio and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, based on the novel by Naomi Alderman
The first thing anybody ever learned about Disobedience was that it included a lesbian sex scene involving somebody spitting into somebody else’s mouth. “All the wetness, the spitting in the mouth, the pubic hair, the vaginas, but also leaving some of it to the audience to imagine,” said Rachel Weisz to Heather Hogan on the actual telephone, regarding this 6-minute sex scene. “Where is the other woman’s mouth, where are her fingers? It was important for him to focus on our faces to really capture that desire. There’s something very spiritual about their sex. I’m really proud of it.” Disobedience is streaming on Hulu.
Gia (1997)
Directed By: Michael Cristofer
Written By: Jay McInerney, Michael Cristofer
An erotically-charged photoshoot involving lesbian groping through a chain-link fence, followed by intense lesbian sex, followed by and also honestly preceeded by a lot of “Angelina Jolie with her shirt off.” There’s a lot of physical intimacy with her on-again-off-again girlfriend in this film, which is ultimately a tragic, heartbreaking story, based on a heartbreaking real life. Gia is streaming on Max.
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Written and Directed By: John Waters
The only lesbian sex scene on this list involving a drag queen and the only one where a rosary is used as anal beads! The beauty of this scene is that it manages to be hilarious, sacrilegious, and still hot. There’s an irreverent sexuality here that could only be from the mind of John Waters. Multiple Maniacs is streaming on Max.
There’s Only One Sex Scene But It Sure Is Revelatory!
Anaïs in Love (2021)
Written & Directed By: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
The titular character of this beautiful French farce follows her desires without shame. So when her fascination with her lover’s wife turns erotic, she follows that impulse. This culminates in an extremely hot and life-changing beach scene that disproves once and for all anyone who complains that beach sex is too sandy. Anaïs in Love is streaming on Hulu.
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Directed by: Jamie Babbit
Written by: Brian Wayne Peterson and Jamie Babbit
This entire film was notoriously de-sexed in order to avoid an NC-17 rating, but the tender, softly soundtracked furtive sex scene between Graham and Megan at conversion camp holds a special place in our hearts. “But I’m a Cheerleader’s sex scene didn’t make me gay,” wrote @DeepLezPower on twitter, “but it definitely helped.” But I’m a Cheerleader is streaming on Tubi.
Desert Hearts (1985)
Directed By: Robert Louis Stevenson, Donna Deitch
Written By: Jane Rule, Natalie Cooper
Desert Hearts features the first lesbian sex scene in a lesbian-made movie to get a major theatrical release and was #4 on our list of the 50 Best Lesbian Movies of All Time, where Drew describes it as “a period piece decades ahead of its time.” Desert Hearts is streaming on Max.
Mars One (2022)
Written & Directed By: Gabriel Martins
This family drama would be a remarkable movie even if it didn’t include a brief but important lesbian sex scene. Every member of our central family has big dreams despite a society that makes mere survival a challenge. Eunice’s brother dreams of going to space — Eunice just dreams of her own apartment where she can lead a free queer life. She gets a taste of this dream and puts an empty apartment to good use by having sex with her girlfriend. Mars One is streaming on Netflix.
Saving Face (2005)
Written & Directed By: Alice Wu
Coming in at #2 on our 50 Best Lesbian Movies of All Time list, Saving Face is one of the best romcoms of all time period. Its sex scene is brief, but it’s such a rewarding and joyful sexual experience for the characters, who are by the way naked. Saving Face is streaming on Prime Video.
Obviously not every great moment in cinematic lesbian sex was included here, which means I bet you’ll have some to add in the comments! FYI: Below Her Mouth, When Night is Falling, and If These Walls Could Talk 2 are not available to stream, so they are not included here.
42 Queer Horror Movies and Shows To Stream This Month
Even if you’re a horror movie fiend all year-round, there’s something special about watching them in October. Instead of just following your ghoulish whims, you’re participating in a time-honored gay tradition. And that’s community, baby!
As a gift to our community, we’ve gathered a list of queer horror to stream and told you where to stream it. This list has all-time greats, hidden gems, and recent faves. They range from fun and campy to truly horrifying to truly horrifying and fun and campy. We hope there are some discoveries here for even the biggest horror fan, but, hey, experts need to know where to stream queer horror too. Rewatching the classics is an important part of any horror movie marathon!
Queer Horror To Stream on Paramount+ with Showtime
Bodies Bodies Bodies
If you loved Rachel Sennott’s turn as the agent of chaos PJ in Bottoms, you’ll also love her in Bodies Bodies Bodies, one of the best new slashers to come out in recent years. There’s a queer relationship at the center of it, comprising characters played by Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova. I love everything from the movie’s banging soundtrack to its fun twist. As I wrote in my original review, I’m drawn to some of the class criticisms in the film:
The movie doesn’t read as a send-up of Gen Z in general but rather of a very specific subset of ultra wealthy twenty-somethings whose inherited wealth protects them from harm for most of their lives. These are young people who have never had to fight to survive, so it tracks that they would be wildly, comically bad at survival, always taking an individualistic approach to the game when they should probably be working together.
– KKU
Scream V
Tis the season for a full Scream franchise rewatch, but of course for our purposes here we’re focusing on the ones with explicitly gay characters. Scream V introduces us to Jasmin Savoy Brown’s Mindy, the niece of Randy Meeks who shares her deceased uncle’s vast knowledge of horror tropes. While I’m not in love with this entry into the franchise and think it’s mostly just checking an inclusion box by making Mindy gay, I do like her a lot as a character and enjoy a lot of the new additions to the cast even if they’re in a bit of a flop of a story. – KKU
Scream VI
There’s definitely one kill in this movie that rubs me the wrong way, but I won’t spoil it since this is still the newest of the Screams. That flaw aside, I do think Scream VI improves upon some of the mythology set up by Scream V and also expands queer core four member Mindy’s role. It also brings back Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby, who might not technically be canonically bisexual but pings enough for me to make the executive gay decision to count her among the Scream Queers. – KKU
Annihilation
“Came Back Wrong” horror is one of my favorite tropes, and that’s the point from which we start in Annihilation, a disturbing eco-horror film adapted from the novel by Jeff VanderMeer with a stacked ensemble cast in which Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Jennifer Jason Leigh are standouts. It’s one of the few films that made both Shudder’s list of the 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments and Autostraddle’s 25 Scariest Queer Horror Movie Moments compiled by Drew and I. – KKU
Mulholland Drive
Just a fantastic movie all around, David Lynch’s iconic 2001 surrealist thriller is proof that abstract doesn’t have to mean incoherent in film. It has Lynchian strangeness, yes, but it’s also ultimately structured well, its tight pacing building genuine fear and suspense throughout. It’s my personal favorite work of Lynch’s — and not necessarily because it’s gay; it’s also just really good. – KKU
The Carnivores
There are lesbian horror movies and then there are LESBIAN horror movies. This movie about a lesbian whose girlfriend is more in love with her dog than with her very much falls into the latter category. It’s too bad the movie itself doesn’t quite live up to that premise or its stellar lead performance from Tallie Medel. That said, I still think it’s worth watching, especially for dog lesbians — or emphatically NOT dog lesbians — who have seen all the more popular fare and are looking for new queer horror to stream. – Drew
Queer Horror To Stream on Netflix
Fear Street
Of the three interconnected but aesthetically distinct Fear Street installments, part one, which mimics 90s-style slashers is undoubtedly my favorite. But there’s queerness throughout the trilogy, the show’s central themes of class divisions and a cursed town echoing through the decades and centuries. Watching all three in a row would make for a fun night in, especially if accompanied by delivery pizza and 2-liters of soda to really lean into the 90s nostalgia. – KKU
The Perfection
The first part of this movie is delicious and genuinely frightening. Allison Williams and Logan Browning are rival cellists who hook up before things take a very, very wrong turn. There’s a jaw-dropping moment that leads into an even more jaw-dropping twist. Unfortunately, everything after that doesn’t quite live up to the beginning. Nevertheless, it’s still a polished and unique work of high quality trash. – Drew
Wendell & Wild
If you want some spooky fare for October, but aren’t a horror person, here is the perfect solution! A collaboration between stop motion legend Henry Selick and horror genius Jordan Peele, this is a Halloween-ready kids movie with a lot on its mind. It has a goth Black girl lead, a Latino trans boy by her side, and a plot all about the dangers of private prisons. It also has demons and skeletons and all sorts of undead delights! – Drew
The Haunting of Hill House
The first thing I did when finishing the Mike Flanagan series loosely based on Shirley Jackson’s iconic gothic horror novel of the same name was go back to the beginning and start it again. I was instantly obsessed with this sprawling series about a family, their various traumas, and the haunted house that comes to define them well into their adulthood. While very different adaptations, it would be fun to pair this with a screening of 1963’s The Haunting, which you’ll find toward the end of this list and which is also featured on our Scariest Queer Horror Movie Moments list. If I have the time, I usually like to do a full rewatch of this series during the month, but if you want a more compressed experience, you can’t go wrong with rewatching either episode five (“The Bent-Neck Lady”) or six (“Two Storms”). – KKU
The Haunting of Bly Manor
If you’re worried The Haunting of Hill House might be too scary for you, might I suggest Flanagan’s other adapted-from-literature Netflix horror series, The Haunting of Bly Manor, which I think is less frightening than Hill House while still delivering some classic frights. It’s a loose adaptation of Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw as well as other works by James. But most importantly, it’s a lesbian love story at its core — featuring ghosts, hauntings, and time loops. If you want to experience the full impact of the slow-burn queer romance, you’ll have to watch the whole thing. But in my opinion, the best episode of the series works very well as a standalone installment: episode five (“The Altar of the Dead”). – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Shudder
Bad Things
One of my favorite movies of the year, Stewart Thorndike’s second feature queers The Shining with a heavy dose of mommy issues. Gayle Rankin and Hari Nef lead an absolutely perfect cast and Thorndike’s camerawork is worthy of its Kubrickian influence. When I interviewed her, Thorndike mentioned being surprised by her work’s divisiveness, and I’ve been similarly surprised! Some people have loved it, some have hated it, but I definitely think it’s worth a shot. And, hey, it’s the only film on this list featuring two different romantic relationships between a cis woman and a trans person! – Drew
The Strings
Calling all arthouse horror fans! This is the slowest of slow burns but the rewards are plentiful. Teagan Johnston — who also wrote the films songs — plays Catherine, a queer musician isolating at a remote cabin after a break up — a break up break up and a band break up. What begins as lonely and mundane, ultimately builds to moments of absolute terror. This movie has ghosts, great music, incredible cinematography, and queer make outs. What more could you want?? – Drew
Perpetrator
Some of you may know Jennifer Reeder as the director of Fawzia Mirza’s wonderful romcom Signature Move. But she usually works in horror! Her latest feature is about Jonny, a queer teenage girl who goes to live with her aunt (played by Alicia Silverstone!) as her 18th birthday approaches. Jonny isn’t a regular teenager and this new town isn’t a regular town. Other teenage girls keep going missing and Jonny takes it upon herself to figure out why. If you’re not familiar with Reeder’s unique — and bloody! — body of work this is a great place to start. – Drew
Sissy
Aisha Dee plays influencer — ahem, “mental health advocate,” according to her — Cecilia/Sissy in this very good, very gay Australian horror movie from 2022. It takes place at a gay bachelorette party (or hen party, because you know, Australia), which thrusts Sissy into the same space as her former bully. Psychological gay mayhem and mordant humor mix in this thriller in which Dee is an easy standout. – KKU
Knife + Heart
Few horror films explore the thin line between desire and fear as explicitly — literally explicitly, as it’s set in the world of the pornography industry in late 1970s Paris — and acutely as Knife + Heart, a penetrative blade of a film that’s lush and lurid in its imagery. Art, porn, and violence intermingle in a story not at all concerned about portraying queerness or its many queer characters as “good” or “safe.” It’s as horrific as it is (homo)erotic. And it will haunt you long after watching. – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Hulu
Titane
There was a lot of pressure on Julia Ducournau’s sophomore feature after her remarkable cannibalistic debut Raw. I’d say being the first woman to solely win the Palme d’Or lived up to that pressure! Rather than repeat herself, this movie is more idiosyncratic and challenging. It’s funny and brutal and baffling. Some trans people have taken issue with the way the film traffics in transmasculine imagery, but personally its complex approach to gender really worked for me. If you like strippers, firemen, cars, daddy issues, and body horror, check this one out! – Drew
Black Swan
I recently revisited this film, which I originally saw in theaters many times before I came out, and it holds up for a lot of the reasons I was obsessed with it in the first place. Beauty and brutality are twisted sisters in this ballet psychological thriller packed with haunting performances. I know people are mixed on what “really” happens between Nina (Natalie Portman) and Lily (Mila Kunis), but that ambiguity is a big part of the draw of this film, and to deny its queerness is to overlook so much of the character-level storytelling. – KKU
We Need to Do Something
I really disliked this movie but maybe you’ll disagree! It does have a romance between two goth girls. But it also punishes those goth girls for casting a spell on a creepy boy? As someone with my own personal experiences, I found its treatment of mental illness and cutting to be poorly done. And the dialogue in general rang false. But, hey, years of Covid does make trapped in a room horror more relevant! And, again, you might like this more than me. (Probably not.) – Drew
Matriarch
You’ll note that this list isn’t necessarily of the best queer horror movies and shows to stream, but we wanted to include as many titles as possible to account for different tastes and interests. Matriarch, in my opinion, is not a very good film, though it had promise in its premise. Folk horror vibes and cursed mother-daughter dynamics collide here, and maybe you’ll find more to like about it than I did. After surviving an overdose, the protagonist goes back to her hometown and childhood home and has to face the mother she’s estranged from. – KKU
Monsterland, “Plainfield, IL”
Monsterland is an anthology horror series that features a different monster in every episode, and there’s an episode featuring Taylor Schilling and Roberta Colindrez as wives! The episode admittedly makes some missteps in its portrayal of mental illness and doesn’t have as nuanced of a view of “monstrousness” as other episodes do. But if you’re only interested in watching the gay episode, this one’s it. – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Peacock
Dracula’s Daughter
One of the earliest lesbian films, this Dracula sequel pulls just as much from the other vampiric literary classic, Carmilla. Made after the introduction of the Hays Code, efforts were made to remove any lesbianism from the film, but they did not succeed. While there may not any explicit kissing, there is a lot of suggestive glances and hovering. As in Carmilla, the lesbian vampire is a predator who aims to seduce a nice girl away from “normal” behavior. And yet despite this intention, it’s easy to be seduced by the trope itself! – Drew
Lyle
It’s unnecessary to say that Stewart Thorndike’s fierce horror movie is more than its pitch – what if Rosemary’s Baby was gay? It’s unnecessary, because the film doesn’t settle in that premise and it doesn’t go beyond it. Instead it dives deep into the thematic mess that question raises. I’m still not sure what the film is saying, and I’m not sure it’s really saying anything. It’s just asking questions we don’t ask; expressing feelings often left unexpressed. And as an experience it’s an absolute ride. – Drew
They/Them
Here’s another film I do not necessarily recommend, but I know some people found things to enjoy about it, and it is billed as a gay slasher, so there’s that! If someone tries to tell you it’s the first queer slasher, however, that’s not true. That title belongs to Hellbent (available for rent on Amazon Prime and about a group of gay men) and Make a Wish (a bewildering lesbian slasher unavailable to stream ANYWHERE). But if you want something easier to find, you can watch this slasher set at conversion camp. It’d at least be a good candidate for a drinking game. – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Max
Jennifer’s Body
Bitingly funny, chillingly gross, and undeniably bisexual in its bones, Jennifer’s Body is finally getting the retroactive critical acclaim it deserved in the first place. Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried are fantastic, and their character’s obsessive best friendship makes for great sapphic tension underscoring a gory and sinister horror-comedy. – KKU
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
This movie is a true masterclass in slow-build horror and creating tension and stakes in really simple, borderline mundane ways. It’s very atmospheric horror, and its effects will stick with you for a while. Not much happens, but that lack of action is an inherent part of the horror here. – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Prime Video
Nope
Jordan Peele’s latest is somehow as audacious as it is funny and entertaining. Beyond its grand visual achievements, it is structurally inventive and thematically dense. Oh and it stars the one and only Keke Palmer getting to play her whole queer self. I’m still convinced we’ll someday get a director’s cut where she at the very least flirts with Barbie Ferreira’s character but even in the theatrical release she is explicitly queer. It’s not the point and yet in a movie partially about who is centered in film history and who is forgotten, this aspect of her character cannot be ignored. – Drew
Hellraiser
Gay author and filmmaker Clive Barker’s kinky masterpiece launched a franchise, but there’s nothing like the original. By finding the pleasure in pain and the pain in pleasure, Barker created a sticky queer world that’s deeper than our cultural image of Pinhead. This is a film about forbidden desire and even today remains one of the most accomplished queer horror movies. It’s great we now have more movies that go beyond subtext, but sometimes subtext is the best way to express a feeling. – Drew
Saint Maud
Writer/director Rose Glass has already shot a second feature starring Kristen Stewart that’s set to be released early next year. So while we wait, check out her startling debut about a pious nurse with a secret who begins taking care of a hedonistic lesbian dancer. This is a very Catholic film about sinning and saving. It’s definitely more interested in its titular character than the lesbian, but it can be fascinating to watch horror from the perspective of our villains. – Drew
Bit
When this movie first came out, I was a big fan. It was just so rare to see a queer trans woman on-screen! And in a movie about separatist lesbian vampires starring Nicole Maines? What a joy! I do still like it, but as more media has been made about queer trans women, I’ve held onto this one a bit less. Some of its problems — in plotting and theme — feel more glaring. But hey! It’s still a movie about lesbian separatist vampires that stars Nicole Maines. – Drew
The Carmilla Movie
Based on the Canadian webseries, which was of course based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 gothic novella Carmilla — often cited as the root of the everlasting lesbian vampire craze — The Carmilla Movie picks up five years after the webseries’ ending with Carmilla and Laura living and loving in Toronto. They head to a mansion in Austria after Laura has some bad dreams that start impacting Carmilla’s humanity, and various supernatural conflicts unfold, including ghosts and exes. It’s a sexy, thrilling, sometimes funny vampire movie. – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Tubi
Knife + Heart
See description above.
Hellraiser
See description above.
The Other Side of the Underneath
Based on her stage production, A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets, and Witches, Jane Arden’s uncategorizable masterwork was number one on our list of the 25 Scariest Queer Horror Movie Moments. Far from your average scare fare, this film oscillates between the uncanny terror and joyful surrealism inspired by the headspace of its protagonist with schizophrenia. Arden herself struggled with mental illness and campaigned against the psychiatric treatments of her time. Those experiences are on full display here — the horror coming as much from the the protagonist’s inner mental state. Equal parts queer magic, political fury, and arlecchino nightmare clowns, it’s time this underground classic took its rightful place on the surface. – Drew
The Retreat (2020)
The monsters in the film are not mythical — they’re militant homophobic serial killers targeting queer people. And the majority of the film with all its bloody torture and revenge is really well-done. It finds the perfect balance between being properly brutal and satisfyingly cathartic. The film follows some pretty standard beats but it does them well and it’s exciting to get this kind of horror movie with queers at its center. – Drew
All Cheerleaders Die
I find this movie about a group of cheerleaders who are turned into undead creatures who devour men for strength thanks to the witchy ex-girlfriend of one of the girls on the squad QUITE UNDERRATED. It even more explicitly fits the hyperspecific but very important to me subgenre of Queerleader Horror than Jennifer’s Body, and queer actress Caitlin Stasey gives a great performance as the central queer character. And her toxic relationship with her ex is a compelling driving force for the mythology. – KKU
Queer Horror To Stream on Criterion:
Rebecca
If you watch Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel as a love story between the mousy second Mrs. DeWinter and the older millionaire Maxime, then Mrs. Danvers is undoubtedly the villain. But if you watch the film as a love story between Mrs. Danvers and the late Rebecca, the villain becomes the murderous Maxime. Played by queer woman Judith Anderson, Mrs. Danvers is one of Hitchcock’s greatest characters. He may have used queerness to other his villains but he let them be three-dimensional characters and, as a result, created some of the best queer characters in classic film. – Drew
Freaks
Many classic horror movies found the humanity in monstrous outsiders, but Tod Browning’s follow up to Dracula turns its attention to real life outsiders. This is a really complicated and interesting movie in terms of disability, but it also includes a trans person in its cast of others. Real-life circus performer Josephine Joseph plays a version of herself. Here she portrays her transness by having the appearance of a “male” side and a “female” side, but she eventually had gender reassignment surgery and lived her life entirely as female. She is one of the earliest examples of a known trans person appearing on-screen.
Hausu
While not usually categorized as queer horror, this classic of Japanese cinema deserves a place on this list. It may explicitly be about girls who are trying to escape the expectations of heterosexual marriage, but you know what’s a great way to do that? Being gay! The relationships between the girls feels so queer it becomes undeniable. Paired with the flamboyant style, it ends up feeling formally queer as well as in its story. I’m not sure if there’s any proof that was intentional but just watch the movie and you’ll see!
The Lure
This genre-bending mermaid musical horror movie was likely not intended to be about a gay trans girl and her straight trans girl best friend. (Michalina Olszanska and Marta Mazurek who play the central mermaids, Gold and Silver, are both cis.) And yet with its literal bottom surgery and riff on The Little Mermaid — a trans girl favorite — it’s no surprise that it’s left such an impression on the community. But beyond this imposed subtext this is still a weird and wonderful work of queer cinema that includes a sung-through scene of lesbian fish sex that makes The Shape of Water look like Mr. Limpet. – Drew
The Old Dark House
James Whale is best known for directing horror classics Frankenstein and The Invisible Man. But his queerest movie — and one of his best — is this quirky and hilarious hidden gem. Subtext comes right up to the edge of text in this one with one male character played by an actress in drag and some suggestive moments between two other women. It’s also just so campy and formally queer! – Drew
The Short Films of Jennifer Reeder
If you like Perpetrator, you can watch more of Jennifer Reeder’s unique and horrifying body of work on The Criterion Channel! They have nine of her short films ranging in length between five minutes and a half hour. They also have an interview with Reeder about the films! – Drew
Queer Horror To Rent on Prime Video or Apple TV
The Haunting ($4.99 on Prime Video, $2.99 on Apple TV)
In this haunted house, we recognize the 1963 version of this movie and the 1963 version ONLY. You never really see anything terrifying in this movie — you hear it. And you see it in the eyes of the characters. Their fear becomes your fear. This movie really proves that all you need is good sound design and a talented ensemble cast to pull off horror. – KKU
Good Manners ($2.99 on Apple TV)
I am quite literally always trying to get people to watch this genre Frankenstein of a movie. Body horror! Monster narrative! Tragic lesbian love story! Social commentary on class in Brazil! Domestic horror! Musical?! This movie really does have it all. With this one, I always think it’s best if you go in knowing as few specifics as possible. Trust me, it’s worth the rental price tag. – KKU
Horror Is So Gay is an annual Autostraddle series of queer and trans reflections on horror.
October 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Disney+ and Paramount+
Welcome to the most spooky season of the year, when you can eat candy corn on the couch while enjoying a plethora of options upon your television set starring lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters from networks such as Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+, Max and Paramount+ With Showtime!
Netlix’s October 2023 Content For Girls, Gay and Theys
Everything Now: Season One – October 5
This British show created by 22-year old Ripley Parker centers on Mia (Sophie Wilde), a queer 16-year-old just out of eating disorder recovery who’s returned to school to see that her friends have changed since she left. To keep up with their bed-hopping and drinking, she creates her own bucket list of potentially thrilling and terrifying experiences. I’m very excited for this one!
The Fall of the House of Usher: Limited Series – October 12
Roderick and Madeline Usher have built their pharmaceutical company into a massive empire of wealth, privilege and power (despite their star drug contributing to an addiction epidemic) — but when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dropping dead, secrets begin angling towards the light. Mike Flanagan’s latest is a modern take on the Edgar Allen Poe story and is chock-full of queers — Roderick’s six offspring are, as per them dot us, “committing to being some of the worst rich gays you’ve ever met.” Amongst them is lesbian actor T’Nia Miller as Victorine, a lesbian medical researcher dating a surgeon and Camille (Kate Siegel), a PR Agent who has threesomes with her assistants.
Big Mouth: Season Seven – October 20
In Season Seven, our dysfunctional crew is leaving middle school for high school, where they’ll face new friends, new adversaries, and new Hormone Monsters.
Elite: Season Seven – October 20
Elite seems to be returning to its original spirit, which is to say that they’re dropping queer women like flies but there remains plenty for the straights and gay men! However; Nico, a trans male character introduced and seriously mishandled in Season 6, is back for Elite’s seventh trip around the sun. Sara, who flirted with a lesbian relationship with Mencia in Season Six, is also returning, but we all remember how that turned out, so! Also I guess this season is going to be about everybody dealing with their trauma, including Omar, who returns to Las Encinas for an internship.
Surviving Paradise: Season One – October 20
This reality show drops twelve contestants in a luxury villa only to discover that in fact they’ll be camping in the woods without any lavish amenities, and will have to fight their way back into the villa through friendships and alliances in pursuit of a $100,000 grand prize. If you have seen the trailer to this program I think you will have no choice but to agree with me that there is a lesbian or non-binary person present.
Prime Video’s October 2023 For The Queers
Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe – October 6
This fascinating three-part documentary follows a new age YouTube-centered movement (aka cult) lead by a bananas young Michigan couple who claimed the ability to enable their followers to find their “twin flames,” just like they had. There are myriad LGBTQ+ themes throughout the series. There’s the lesbian couple recruited early to be the model of Twin Flame’s success. There’s a trans woman struggling to understand her attraction towards a Cowboy-ish suitor. And, eventually, there’s a turning point in the cult’s evolution when they shifted towards intergroup matchmaking, which meant convincing a solid chunk of their almost-entirely female membership that they are, in fact, men.
Hulu’s LGBTQ+ TV and Film for October 2023
Goosebumps: Season One Premiere – October 13
Trans actor Miles McKenna plays one of the five high schoolers who are at the center of this adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, but I haven’t been able to confirm if his character is also trans! The series will find said group of buddies embarking “on a shadowy and twisted journey to investigate the tragic passing three decades earlier of a teen named Harold Biddle.”
Living for the Dead: Season One Premiere – October 18
It’s the hotly anticipated gay ghost hunting series produced by our very own Kristen Stewart and the creators of “Queer Eye” in which five “fabulous” queer ghost hunters travel the country, helping the living by healing the dead. They will explore some of the world’s most haunted locations and push boundaries to bring acceptance to all !
Paramount+ with Showtime’s September 2023 Gay Stuff
Citizen Ruth (1996) – October 1
Laura Dern stars as a poor, drug addicted pregnant woman who unexpectedly becomes a lighting rod in the abortion debate. Swwosie Kurtz plays a delightful lesbian abortion-rights activist and spy.
In the Heights (2021) – October 1
There’s a lightly expressed lesbian relationship between two characters played by Daphne Ruben-Vega and Stephanie Beatriz in this adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical set in Washington Heights.
Monster High 2 (2023) – October 5
Our beloved Clawdeen Wolf, Draculaura and Frankie Stein are entering their sophomore year at Monster High, where they’ll face even bigger challenges than last year, including new students, new powers, and a threat to their friendship/the world. Frankie Stein is a nonbinary genius who’s been Frankenmonstered together from an assortment of famous historical body parts. Heather found the first Monster High movie very delightful!
Disney+’s Queer October 2023
Loki: Season Two Premiere – October 5
This successful Marvel series centered on the genderfluid bisexual god of mischief, Loki, wil find in Season Two its titular character working with Mobius M. Mobius, Hunter B-15, and other members of the Time Variance Authority to navigate the multiverse in order to find Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes.
Max’s October 2023 Gay Action
Our Flag Means Death: Season Two Premiere – October 5
Legendary around here for Vico Ortiz’s role as non-binary pirate Jim, Meg wrote of the first season that it has “so many queer relationships, so many exes and love triangles, so many beautiful stories playing out and interweaving in ways that feel familiar and fresh all at once.” In Seaso Two, Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and his mentor-slash-ex-boyfriend Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) will continue to navigate (mis)adventure at sea.
Doom Patrol: Season 4B Premiere – October 12
The second and final half of Doom Patrol debuts this October, in which the Doom Patrol will meet old friends and foes as they race to defeat Immortus and re-possess their longevities, which will require facing their deepest fears and deciding if they can let go of the past to reclaim their future. Diane Guerrero returns as lesbian character Kay Challis/Crazy Jane.
Prime Video’s 25 Best Movies With Lesbian or Bisexual Women Characters
Like the retail website from which Prime Video sprung, Prime Video’s library of films featuring lesbian and bisexual characters is massive, incoherent, and very difficult to ascertain from a casual browse. Luckily, we are here to inform you of the best lesbian and bisexual movies currently available on Prime Video. Prime Video specifically seems to be a home for a lot of (at least 25) super low-budget lesbian films you’ve never heard of, most of which are pretty bad, but if you love Ambrosia or Anatomy of a Love Seen or Heterosexual Jill, I am happy for you although they will not be included here!
A Simple Favor
Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 56m
Director: Paul Feig
Read the Autostraddle Review of A Simple Favor
A twisty, sexy domestic thriller starring Blake Lively as Emily, an enchanting PR director who goes missing shortly after befriending widowed mommy vlogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), sending Stephanie on a hunt that eventually threatens her family and enlarges her fan base. Along the way, she meets Emily’s thwarted ex Diana (Linda Cardellini). Patti Harison and Kelly McCormack also star.
Appropriate Behavior
Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director: Desiree Akhavan
#9 on our Best Lesbian Movies of All Time List
Shirin is knee-deep in bisexual chaos after a breakup with the woman she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. “Writer/director/star Desiree Akhavan is a once-in-a-generation talent and her humor makes this an easy movie to watch even as Shirin is seeped in melancholy and crisis,” writes Drew.
Addicted to Fresno
Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 25m
Director: Jamie Babbitt
available on freevee with ads
Natasha Lyonne plays a lesbian, as usual, in the dark comedy Addicted to Fresno, which also stars Aubrey Plaza and Judy Greer. Shannon (Greer) and Martha (Lyonne) are codependent sisters in a cycle of Martha picking up the pieces for Shannon, the recovering sex addict.
AWOL
Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 22m
Director: Deb Shoval
available on freevee with ads
Read the Autostraddle Review of AWOL
“Talking about class can be ugly,” wrote Sarah Fonseca in her glowing review of AWOL, a love story set in a rarely-portrayed rural landscape and confronts new conversations issues of class, race and gender. “Yet as AWOL asserts, when you dare to comment, sometimes it frees up room for beauty to unfurl.”
Becks
Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director: Elizabeth Rohrbaugh & Daniel Powell
Lesbian musician Becks moves from Los Angeles back to her hometown of St. Louis to live with her religious homophobic mother after she catches her girlfriend, Lucy (Hailey Kiyoko) cheating on her. Soon she meets and begins bonding with a bored housewife (Mena Suavari) whose husband went to high school with Becks and I bet you can guess what happens next!
Better Than Chocolate
Year: 1999
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director: Anne Wheeler
available on freevee with ads
A film that inspires very mixed opinions from lesbian audiences, in the ’90s it definitely won over the hearts of many community members with its story of a lesbian friend group in Vancouver looking for love and fighting homophobic censorship and its impact on their gay bookstore. Also, there is a sex scene where Maggie and Kim paint each other’s bodies to make art and love. In 2019, Drew wrote that “Better Than Chocolate remains the only piece of media that portrays a trans woman as a member of a lesbian friend group” and described it as “silly and fun, especially when you’re accompanied by a group of friends and a bottle of wine.”
Birds of Paradise
Amazon Original Movie
Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Sarah Adina Smith
“Birds of Paradise is a fine little lesbian diversion for a moody day,” writes Heather of this psychological thriller set at an exclusive ballet academy in Paris, where two top American dancers — a scholarship kid and an ambassador’s daughter — develop one of those tortured homoerotic adolescent bonds that in fact eventually becomes sexual. It’s campy without knowing how campy it is but otherwise is exactly what you might expect from such a film.
Blackbird
Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Roger Mitchell
This emotional drama follows Lily (Susan Sarandon) and Paul (Sam Niel), a couple who’ve summoned their family and loved ones to the beach house for a final weekend together before Lily ends her life, and her battle with ALS, on her own terms. But also they have to deal with all their unresolved family shit really fast! Her daughter Anna (Mia Wasikowska), brings her partner, Chris, played by nonbinary actor Bex Taylor-Klaus, to bear witness to it all.
Blush
Year: 2015
Runtime: 1h 24m
Director: Michal Vinik
available on freevee with ads
“This Israeli coming-of-age film draws parallels between protagonist Naama’s burgeoning sexuality and her country’s troublesome politics,” wrote Drew in our Encyclopedia of Cinema. “While she’s having the usual queer teen experiences of first love, first heartbreak, and first post-heartbreak head shave, she’s also forced to deal with her violent home life and racist father. It’s a tale of intolerance across identities that’s affecting even as it follows familiar beats.”
Boy Meets Girl
Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Eric Schaeffer
21-year-old bisexual trans woman Ricky is a Kentucky barista dreaming of studying fashion in New York. She spends all her time hanging out with her since-childhood best friend Robby. Her life takes a turn when a friendship with new friend Francesca blossoms into an affair. Mari called it “heartwarming” and “groundbreaking.”
The Carmilla Movie
Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Spencer Maybee
Karly declared the film, inspired by the popular lesbian vampire webseries, “everything I’ve ever wished for a movie adaptation of a beloved series.” Queer actors Elise Bauman and Natasha Negovanlis play Laura and Camilla, enlisting the help of their friends to uncover a supernatural threat with connections to Carmilla’s past.
Chutney Popcorn
Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Nisha Ganatra
Starring Nisha Ganatra as young lesbian Indian-American Reena and Jill Hennessey as her girlfriend, Drew writes that this funny, sweet, character-rich tale “shows the intimacy and conflict within biological and chosen family structures, searching for new ideas around parenthood.”
Cloudburst
Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director: Thom Fitzgerald
Lesbian couple Dotty (Brenda Fricker) and Stella (Olympia Dukakis) break free from their nursing home and venture out on a road trip to Canada where they intend to tie the knot. in her review, Vanessa noted that it was fantastic to “see a true honest story about two old women in a real relationship with feelings and nuance and layers and depth.”
The Handmaiden
Year: 2016
Runtime: 2h 25m
Director: Park Chan-wook
#11 on our list of the Best Lesbian Movies of All Time
This intricate, seductive South Korean psychological thriller, inspired by Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, is set in 1930s Korea and tells the story of Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a con artist who cons her way into getting hired as a handmaiden to a wealthy Japanese heiress Hideko (Kim Min-hee) who lives in an isolated estate with her uncle, a collector of graphic erotica. But when they fall in love, the con is in peril.
The Feels
Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Jenée LaMarque
Andi (Constance Wu) and Lu (Angela Trimbur) go into the woods of California wine country for a pre-wedding co-bachelorette party, where an unexpected confession throws a wrench in the weekend: Lu drunkenly reveals that she’s never had an orgasm. Everybody wants to help, and the conversations snowball from there. “Lesbian mumblecore is practically its own genre at this point,” wrote Heather in her review. “With its boundary-less relationships, improvised dialogue, characters who remind you of your own friends, and those stifled hiccups that give way to just enough drama to make the happy ending rewarding.”
Kajillionaire
Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Miranda July
available on freevee with ads
Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Miranda July’s super strange movie about a quirky family of petty criminals stars Evan Rachel Wood as 26-year-old Old Dolio, who even as an adult remains in an emotionally manipulative relationship with her parents, who treat her like an accomplice rather than a daughter. Things get complicated when the family ropes Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) into their next heist, and a weird relationship begins building between Old Dolio and Melanie.
Loving Annabelle
Year: 2006
Runtime: 1h 16m
Director: Katherine Brooks
Rebellious 17-year-old lesbian Annabelle Tillman (Erin Kellyman) is sent to a Catholic boarding school where she finds comfort, inspiration and eventually a clandestine inappropriate homosexual affair with her poetry teacher, Simone (Diane Gaidry). This tale as old as lesbian fictional time was inspired by Mädchen in Uniform.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Year: 2006
Runtime: 1h 16m
Director: Katherine Brooks
#21 on Our Best Lesbian Movie of All Time List
available on freevee with ads
“The best adaptations capture the essence of their source material with a new set of tools,” wrote Drew of The Miseducation of Cameron Post. “That’s exactly what Desiree Akhavan’s movie of Emily M. Danforth’s contemporary classic accomplishes. Chloë Grace Moretz playa Cameron as “dykey and angsty and headstrong with that depth of vulnerability always peaking through” in this coming-of-age story that follows our heroine to gay conversion camp in the mid-90s.
Nope
Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Jordan Peele
In this neo-Western science fiction horror film from Jordan Peele, Keke Palmer plays a character A. Tony described as “the charismatic little lesbian of my dreams,” the sibling to Daniel Kaluuya’s OJ. Together they manage a ranch in California that handles horses for film & TV productions and discover something “wonderful and sinister in the skies above” that might offer a clue to who killed their father. They also must contend with the owner of an adjacent theme park trying to profit from the supernatural phenomenon lurking above them all.
Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Angela Robinson
#16 on our best Lesbian Movies List
This very sexy and very fun Angela Robinson film tells the story of Harvard psychologist and inventor Dr. William Moulton Marston and his wife, Elizabeth, who together created the Wonder Women character. William hires his student, Olive, as a research assistant, and she becomes part of William and Elizabeth’s relationship. There’s a lot of rope play in this one.
Reaching for the Moon
Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 54m
Director: Bruno Barreto
Set in Petrópolis between the years 1951 and 1967, Reaching the Moon tells the story of the love affair between the American poet Elizabeth Bishop and the Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares. “Reaching for the Moon illustrates how creativity and power and passion shape the world through two character’s imagination and strength,” wrote Hansen in her review.
Seventeen/Siebzhen
Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Monja Art
17-year-old high school student Paula is really into her classmate Charlotte, but Charlotte has a boyfriend, and then there is popular girl Lily, an antagonist of Paula who might actually have a thing for Paula. Also, Charlotte has a boyfriend and then Paula gets a boyfriend ’cause she just wants to be liked. It captures the endless pining and yearning inherent in struggling with your sexuality as a teenager and all the awkward moments that engenders.
Signature Move
Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 11m
Director: Fawzia Mirza
This late-in-life coming-of-age movie finds a Pakistani-American woman obsessed with Lucha-style Mexican wrestling as an emotional release from her tense relationship with her newly widowed mother. “Fawzia Mirza stars and co-wrote the script,” writes Drew, “and her natural likeability, impeccable comic timing, and chemistry with Sari Sanchez make this movie endlessly endearing. It’s part romcom, part family dramedy, and both threads feel nuanced and real.”
Somebody That I Used to Know
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 46m
Director: Dave Franco
Amazon Original Movie
This audacious rom-com about a TV producer who returns home after her show’s cancellation and reconnects with Sean, an old flame who’s already engaged to someone else is pretty mediocre! But, a highlight is Kiersey Clemons, Sean’s “20-something biracial bisexual fiancé who is the lead singer of a punk rock band” who Nic described as “sexy, confident and passionate about her craft.” It’s a light watch that offers welcome representation of an out bisexual woman with a queer friend group who has decided to marry a cis man.
Something From Tiffany’s
Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Daryl Wein
Amazon Original Movie
This isn’t a lesbian movie by any stretch of the imagination — but it is one of a handful of straight Christmas movies that actually contains a solid lesbian side-plot. This rom-com, starring queer actress Shay Mitchell and the beloved Zoey Deutch, asks the age-old question, “what if two men were at Tiffany’s at the same time and their packages got mixed up and the wrong man went home with an engagement ring?” Zoey’s character owns a bakery with her best friend, Terri, a lesbian played by Twenties‘ Jojo T. Gibbs. We also are gifted with a few brief glimpses into Terri’s marriage with Sophia (Batwoman‘s Javica Leslie) and well, honestly, the movie is pretty okay!
Sunshine Cleaning
Year: 2009
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Christine Jeffs
available on freevee with ads
This comedy-drama follows 30-something single Mom Rose (Amy Adams) and her queer underachieving sister Norah (Emily Blunt) as they embark upon the industry of crime scene cleanup. Norah experiences a little subplot of her own involving the daughter of a woman who died in one of the houses she cleaned.
Tár
Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 38m
Director: Todd Field
Cate Blanchett has “never looked dykier than in this film” in which she plays lesbian conductor Lydia Tár, a polarizing film that has delighted and annoyed the community in equal amounts. “It seems that the thesis of Tár is that in order to succeed in an institution, one must take on the traits of that institution, hoping that it would shield her from accountability for her worst impulses,” wrote Sadie in her review. “But how do we know that a queer woman chief conductor would act so egregiously? There haven’t really been any.”
Tell It To The Bees
Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Annabel Jankel
available on freevee with ads
In 1952 Scotland, Lydia (Holiday Grainger) is struggling to raise her young son after her husband leaves her — and meets new-in-town doctor Jean Markham (Anna Paquin), a passionate beekeeper, when he’s injured in a fight at school. Their attraction is exciting but forbidden in the small, conservative town where they live.
Tru Love
Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Shauna MacDonald & Kate Johnston
A Candian film about 37-year-old “serial bed hopping lesbian” Tru who is bounding aimlessly through life when she meets Alice, a 60-year-old widow visiting Tru’s friend, her busy lawyer daughter, Suzanne. Sparks fly! There are complications with Suzanne! I watched this entire film and retained not one moment of it, because in my opinion it was kind of bad. But others really like it, so!