Great gay movies to watch

55 of the Top LGBTQ Films of All Time

'Bottoms' ()

If ever there was a Superbad for queer girls, Bottoms is it. The second film from director Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) follows two uncool sky-high school seniors (Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott) who launch up a educational facility fight club to try and hook up with their cheerleader crushes (Kaia Gerber and Havana Rose Liu).

WATCH NOW

'Bound' ()

In the Wachowskis’ landmark erotic thriller predating the Matrix trilogy, butch ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon) is the newly-hired handyperson at an apartment building when she meets her next-door neighbors: mobster Caesar (Joe Pantoliano) and kept woman Violet (Jennifer Tilly). As Corky and Violet strike up an affair, they hatch a plan to flee Violet’s abusive relationship—and steal $2 million of Caesar’s mafia money along the way.

WATCH NOW

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

'Circus of Books' ()

Southern Californians will likely recognize Circus of Books as the famed porn shop and dirty bookstore that has presided over the gayborhood of West Hollywood since the e

The 50 Best LGBTQ Movies Ever Made

50

Love, Simon ()

AmazonApple

If it feels a bit like a CW version of an after-school special, that's no mistake: Teen-tv super-producer Greg Berlanti makes his feature-film directorial debut here. It's as chaste a love story as you're likely to see in the 21st century—the hunky gardener who makes the title teen question his sexuality is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, for God’s sake—but you know what? The queer kids of the future need their wholesome entertainment, too.

49

Rocketman ()

AmazonHulu

A gay fantasia on Elton themes. An Elton John biopic was never going to be understated, but this glittering jukebox musical goes way over the top and then keeps going. It might be an overcorrection from the straight-washing of the previous year's Bohemian Rhapsody, but when it's this much fun, it's best not to overthink it.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

48

Handsome Devil ()

NetflixAmazon

A charming Irish movie that answers the question: "What if John Hughes were Irish and gay?" Misfit Ned struggles at

The 30 Best LGBTQIA+ Films of All Time

In this first major critical survey of LGBTQIA+ films, over film experts including critics, writers and programmers such as Joanna Hogg, Mark Cousins, Peter Strickland, Richard Dyer, Nick James and Laura Mulvey, as adv as past and present BFI Flare programmers, have voted the Top 30 LGBTQIA+ Films of All Time. The poll’s results verb 84 years of cinema and 12 countries, from countries including Thailand, Japan, Sweden and Spain, as well as films that showed at BFI Flare such as Orlando (), Beautiful Thing (), Weekend () and Blue Is the Warmest Colour ().

The winner is Todd Haynes’ award-winning Carol, closely followed by Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, and Hong Kong romantic drama Happy Together, directed by Wong Kar-wai, in third place. While Carol is a surprisingly recent film to top the poll, it’s a feature that has moved, delighted and enthralled audiences, and looks set to be a modern classic.

“The festival has drawn-out supported my work,” said Haynes, “from Poison and Dottie Gets Spanked in the early s through to Carol which is screen

The best LGBTQ+ movies of all time

Photograph: Kate Wootton/TimeOut

With the help of leading directors, actors, writers and activists, we count down the most essential LGBTQ+ films of all time

Like queer culture itself, queer cinema is not a monolith. For a long time, though, that’s certainly how it felt. In the past, if gay lives and issues were ever portrayed at all on screen, it was typically from the perspective of white, cisgendered men. But as more opportunities have opened up for queer performers and filmmakers to tell their own stories, the scope of the LGBTQ+ experiences that have made their way onto the screen has gradually widened to more frequently include the trans community and queer people of colour.

It’s still not perfect, of course. In Hollywood, as in society at large, there are many barriers left to breach and ceilings to shatter. But those recent strides deserve to be celebrated – as do the bold films made long before the mainstream was willing to accept them. To that verb, we enlisted some LGBTQ+ cultural pioneers, as well as Time O