Rolling Stone's 50 Essential LGBTQ Movies
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From coming-out dramas to cult comedies, documentaries to blockbusters — our list of films that reflected and represented queer culture onscreen
By DAVID FEAR & JERRY PORTWOOD & JENNA SCHERER & MARIA FONTOURA & TIM GRIERSON
JUNE 25, 2020 2:45PM ET
It’s grainy, faded, and, given the clip is now 125 years old, more than a little worse for wear. But this brief footage is not so ancient that you can’t clearly make out two men, waltzing together, as a third man plays a violin in the background. It was an experimental short made by William Dickson, designed to test syncing up moving pictures to prerecorded sound, a system that he and Thomas Edison were developing known as the Kinetophone. It’s known as “The Dickson Experimental Sound Film,” and dates back to 1895, the same year movies were born. While there’s nothing to outright suggest that these men were romantically involved or attracted to each other during the roughly 20-second length of their pas de deux, there is nothing that contradicts that notion either. It’s considered by many to be one of the first examples of gay imagery in film, and a reminder that homosexual representation has been with the medium from the very beginning.
That clip appears in The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s documentary based on Vito Russo’s study of homosexuality in the movies, along with countless examples of how gay characters showed up, per narrator Lily Tomlin, as “something to laugh at, or something to pity, or even something to fear.” The history of representation is long, and extremely storied, often shaping how the public viewed “the love that dare not speak its name” for better or worse. But since those two men first danced, there have also been scores of stories, characters, and filmmakers that have presented the varied, multitudinous aspects of LGBTQ experiences 24 frames per second that have gone past those stereotypes, or flipped them on their heads. Some have been documents of a moment or era of gay history, some have been used as correctives to decades of negative clichés, and others have simply celebrated the fact that the movies can be queer, they’re here, get used to it.
In honor of LGBTQ Pride Month, we’re singling out 50 essential LGBTQ films — from comedies to dramas, documentaries to cult classics, underground experimental work to studio blockbusters. It is nowhere near a comprehensive rundown of every great movie to feature out-and-proud heroes and villains, or a queer sensibility, or even just visible (and/or risible) examples of gay life in cinema; we could have easily made this list twice as long. Rather, consider this a primer that helps illustrate the relationship between queer culture and the silver screen.
Notes:
1. This list is in alphabetical order.
2. At the bottom they included "Watch these films with a 30-day free trial to Amazon Prime or a free trial to Hulu here" so it's possibly they only picked films that were available on either of those two streaming services.
Pssst, want to check out the Rolling Stone's 50 Essential LGBTQ Movies list in our new look?
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1 new
Angels in America
2003, in 0 top lists Check -
2 new
Bound
1996, in 6 top lists Check -
3 new
Boys Don't Cry
1999, in 7 top lists Check -
4 new
The Boys in the Band
1970, in 1 top list Check -
5 new
120 battements par minute
2017 — a.k.a. BPM (Beats Per Minute), in 4 top lists -
6 new
Brokeback Mountain
2005, in 21 top lists Check -
7 new
Call Me by Your Name
2017, in 11 top lists -
8 new
Carol
2015, in 8 top lists Check -
9 new
The Celluloid Closet
1995, in 1 top list Check -
10 new
Cruising
1980, in 2 top lists Check -
11 new
Desert Hearts
1985, in 3 top lists Check -
12 new
Edward II
1991, in 2 top lists Check -
13 new
Una mujer fantástica
2017 — a.k.a. A Fantastic Woman, in 3 top lists -
14 new
Go Fish
1994, in 2 top lists Check -
15 new
God's Own Country
2017, in 2 top lists -
16 new
Chun gwong cha sit
1997 — a.k.a. Happy Together, in 13 top lists Check -
17 new
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
2001, in 10 top lists Check -
18 new
High Art
1998, in 2 top lists Check -
19 new
How to Survive a Plague
2012, in 0 top lists Check -
20 new
Keep the Lights On
2012, in 1 top list Check -
21 new
Looking for Langston
1989, in 4 top lists Check -
22 new
Love! Valour! Compassion!
1997, in 0 top lists Check -
23 new
Mädchen in Uniform
1931, in 5 top lists Check -
24 new
Moonlight
2016, in 13 top lists Check -
25 new
My Beautiful Laundrette
1985, in 7 top lists Check -
26 new
My Own Private Idaho
1991, in 10 top lists Check -
27 new
Mysterious Skin
2004, in 3 top lists Check -
28 new
Nighthawks
1978, in 1 top list Check -
29 new
Nitrate Kisses
1992, in 2 top lists Check -
30 new
The Normal Heart
2014, in 0 top lists Check -
31 new
O Fantasma
2000 — a.k.a. Phantom, in 3 top lists Check -
32 new
Dolor y gloria
2019 — a.k.a. Pain and Glory, in 5 top lists -
33 new
Pariah
2011, in 7 top lists Check -
34 new
Paris Is Burning
1990, in 12 top lists Check -
35 new
Parting Glances
1986, in 1 top list Check -
36 new
Pink Flamingos
1972, in 13 top lists Check -
37 new
Poison
1991, in 4 top lists Check -
38 new
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu
2019 — a.k.a. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, in 12 top lists -
39 new
The Queen
1968, in 1 top list Check -
40 new
Querelle
1982, in 3 top lists Check -
41 new
Silverlake Life: The View from Here
1993, in 0 top lists Check -
42 new
Fresa y chocolate
1993 — a.k.a. Strawberry and Chocolate, in 2 top lists Check -
43 new
Tangerine
2015, in 5 top lists Check -
44 new
Taxi zum Klo
1980, in 1 top list Check -
45 new
The Times of Harvey Milk
1984, in 8 top lists Check -
46 new
Tongues Untied
1989, in 11 top lists Check -
47 new
The Watermelon Woman
1996, in 7 top lists Check -
48 new
Weekend
2011, in 6 top lists Check -
49 new
Word Is Out
1977, in 1 top list Check -
50 new
Yossi & Jagger
2002, in 1 top list Check
Last updated on Jul 24, 2020; source