The logic of film marketing suggests we need to know everything about a movie before we’ll pony up for a movie ticket—but that doesn’t mean that’s the right way to see every movie. There’s a lot of competition for our attention these days, meaning many of us do a lotof vetting before we actually sit down to watch something. But trailers too often telegraph a film's entire plot, even as social media discourse memes its cleverest moments to death before you get a chance to buy a ticket (or open up Netflix).
The spoiler debate can get annoying, sure, but some movies simply seem designed to be watched with as little foreknowledge as is possible. Some of them feature twist endings, but sometimes even knowing the premise is a spoiler. (In the spirit of the piece, you’ll forgive me if I don’t say much about the plots of these movies, and the trailers are included only for illustrative purposes. Yes, this is a little weird; use your best judgement.)
Barbarian (2022)
In the opening minutes of this twisty thriller, Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb-esque rental house in a sketchy neighborhood, only to find it's been double-booked by Bill Skarsgård. When she feels bad and lets him in, you're pretty sure you know what kind of horror movie you've stepped into. Nope!
The story of a Black telemarketer who pretends to be white, Boots Riley’s directorial debut plays, at first, like a strictly social satire before veering into territory both more biting and way more fucked up.
There have been countless “cabin in the wood”-style horror movies, with every possible variation of the many associated tropes done to...death; Sam Raimi was already parodying and subverting the genre with his Evil Dead movies way back in the 1980s. We know these movies, and we know how they’re meant to work. While it initially looks like Cabin in the Woods is a Scream-style deconstruction of the subgenre, it soon reveals itself to be something far more ambitious. While the trailer makes it clear that something weird is going on, the biggest twists are far from predictable.
Bong Joon-Ho’s unlikely and deserving Best Picture Oscar winner starts out like a darkly humorous satire, the kind of sharply pointed comedy of manners and social class that South Korean filmmakers often do so well. Then it nimbly shifts gears, and spends the rest of its runtime careering into much darker territory.
The number one question that people ask about Django Unchained on Google is “is Django Unchained historically accurate?” Which suggests that fewer people have seen a Quentin Tarantino movie than one might suspect. Every Tarantino film of the past decade+ has taken place in some sort of real-life historical context, then tossed history out the window in often rather satisfying ways, as happens here. Save your internet deep dive for after you’ve watched it.
The first and third Cloverfield movies are sci-fi action spectacles, and the only thing I can really say about 10 Cloverfield Lane is that it's not. A woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) gets into a car accident and is rescued by an older man (John Goodman), but rescued might not be the right word. I've already said enough.
Even protagonist Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) comes into Oldboy with no idea what's going on. Bad and confusing things happen to him, he has no idea why, and his subsequent quest for vengeance (and answers...but mostly vengeance) goes to truly wild places.
The movie that put Christopher Nolan on the map was a genuinely original mind-blower back in 2000, and still retains much of its power to surprise (and confuse) two decades later. If you can watch it without knowing the premise, do so immediately.
Another mind-bender from the brothers Nolan, The Prestige takes a story inspired by real-life warring magicians and performs some slight of hand of its own, deftly blending genres and taking a hard left turn from its initial straightforward period piece trappings.
Come for Robert Pattinson in an old-timey mustache, stay for the gallery wall-worthy cinematography, subversion of vintage movie-making techniques, an all-time weird Willem Dafoe performance, and a plot that goes places.
One of the darkest comedies of recent memory, Ruben Östlund's surprising Oscar frontrunner feels like at least three movies in one, with narratives that take sharp right turns at unexpected moments, taking potshots at greed and capitalism all the way. Best watched in ignorance, and on an empty stomach.
The anxious fever dream that is Beau Is Afraid isn't going to be for everyone, but there's really no point in trying to figure out if it's going to work for you without diving right in—and certainly if you've seen director Ari Aster's earlier films Hereditary and Midsommar, you can understand why you want to go in knowing as little as possible. (It was my favorite movie of 2023, but at least as many hated it as loved it.)
The elements of noir are solidly in place in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel, right down to Leonardo DiCaprio’s rumpled suit and period Boston accent. Then the tone quickly shifts, leaving us guessing as to what genre of film we’re in, exactly.
Director Molly Hewitt’s colorful directorial debut didn't make a huge splash, but it’s surely destined for cult status. The upbeat sex-and-king-positive film involves a dominatrix who can communicate with the dead, and I’ll leave it there.
Where to stream: VHX TV
Dark City (1998)
It doesn’t take long for Dark City to reveal itself as something other than the highly stylized neo-noir that it sets out as, but the plot twists and nimble blending of genres make it consistently surprising. The superior director’s cut (available for rental via Prime Video) fleshes out the world while doing a lot less hand-holding, so it’s even better if you’re looking for surprises.
Is it sci-fi? Is it horror? I'm not telling. For fans of all things trippy and mindbending, it works on just about every level.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Freevee, Crackle, Amazon Prime
Us (2019)
The contours of Jordan Peele’s followup to Get Out don’t become clear until the final act, but the film never feels like it’s waiting on a big reveal or a twist (though there are a few). The surprises are littered throughout.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star as the sibling caretakers of a rural California horse ranch, who find themselves beset by...something? Wildly original, if frequently vexing, the tagline calling it a "neo-Western science fiction horror film" tells you all you need to know.
Larry Charles directs this jaw-dropingly crude and goofy musical, written by stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, who play separated at birth twin siblings, but you'll know this definitely isn't The Parent Trap. long before the sewer boys appear onscreen. If you need additional convincing, the supporting cast includes Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, and Megan Thee Stallion.
One of our most interesting, wildly inconsistent filmmakers, M. Night Shyalaman managed the closest thing he’s had to a slam-dunk in years with Split, a horror thriller anchored by a brilliant (if, problematic) performance from James McAvoy. Though there are surprises right up until the end, the director eschews his traditional reliance on a twist ending in favor of something more like a twist beginning.
This Elizabeth Taylor vehicle with co-stars Katherine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift may be quite a bit talkier than many of the other movies here, but its impressive weirdness (drawn from the Tennessee Williams play) piles up throughout its runtime. By the end, you’ll almost certainly be wondering how this ever could have possibly been made, with this cast, in 1959.
In genre terms, IMDb considers Big Trouble in Little China a fantasy martial arts action-comedy (that began life as a western), and that’s probably more than enough information to tell you if it’s for you. By quite a stretch it’s the weirdest of the great John Carpenter/Kurt Russell collaborations of the 1980s.
As absurd as film gets, led by a fabulous performance from Juliette Binoche, I’m not sure I could spoil Slack Bay if I wanted to. As much as any film here, it defies even the most rigorous attempt at summary.
Finally: a Universal monster reboot done right. This one that takes the bare bones premise of H.G. Wells novel (and James Whale’s excellent 1933 film version) and by shifting its focus, creates something new and interesting.
I make no guarantees, as this seems to be very much a love it/hate it affair...but I’m personally team Malignant. Its genuinely batshit plot twists are just this side of silly, and, when blended with some over-the-top horror, all add up to a good time at the movies.
Though slightly less common in 1997, when digital effects were expensive and streaming services weren’t desperate for genre content, this type of space-marines-fighting-aliens movie was still the kind of thing that we’d seen a million times. Or so we thought. Professional provocateur Paul Verhoeven clearly had little interest in something so straight-down-the-middle, opting for a film that satirizes the book it’s based on rather than adapts it.
It’s on the lighter side, as werewolf-themed horror movies go, and that’s to its credit. It’s a rather charming (but often grisly) mystery with impressive twists, turns, and misdirects.
Kaboom probably isn’t New Queer Cinema titan Gregg Araki’s best, but it’s certainly his most fun, colorful, and fast-paced. While having a fair bit of sex, a bunch of college students face the potential end of the world.
This ultra-low-budget indie preceded and inspired Night of the Living Dead, and its thoroughly unique style and tone still impresses today. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) emerges from a car accident and stumbles into a creepy, entirely mysterious abandoned carnival, but you could probably figure out that from the title. Anything more is a spoiler.
Where to stream: Max, AMC+, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Crackle, Shudder, Freevee, Amazon Prime
Swiss Army Man (2016)
Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who later went on to direct Everything Everywhere All at Once, made Swiss Arm Man waaay back in 2016, cementing their reputation as masters of emotionally engaging weirdness...and, fortunately, didn’t doom their careers. If it weren’t already clear, this is also the movie in which Daniel Radcliffe proved that he was well and truly ready to step out of Harry Potter’s long shadow.
One of those nearly, but in this case unfairly, forgotten Best Picture Oscar winners, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s very dark comedy is surprising both in its directorial style (the closest thing to a gimmick here), and in the ways that the jokes keep piling up. Iñárritu is known for more overtly dramatic movies (The Revenant, 21 Grams, etc.), but here directs all of that energy at making Michael Keaton’s life a living hell. It features a great performance from Keaton, playing off his once-and-future Batman role.
Many supernatural thrillers aspire to deeper resonance, and very many of those deal with grief. Few do so as cannily as Nicholas Roeg’s classic, set in a beautiful, but somber, Venice and starring Julie Christie alongside Donald Sutherland doing the best work of his career.
Cristin Milioti, Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons star in this romantic comedy that takes a quick lurch into science fiction—a good case of a film with a plot twist that comes at the beginning, rather than the end, and that keeps surprising throughout.
Where to stream: Hulu
Annette (2021)
I love to imagine the faces of the non-art house cinema crowd after haplessly happening upon Annette while scrolling through Amazon Prime. “Oooh, Adam Driver! I love him!” they think, clicking play, wholly unprepared for what French director Leos Carax and extraterrestrial musicians Sparks hath wrought.
An example of a movie with a trailer that is effective for making it seem much less clever than it is, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar only looks like a Kristen Wiig SNL sketch stretched to its absolute limit. It’s actually way fucking weirder.
Don’t let anyone spoil the stupidity of Serenity for you.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee
Extra Ordinary (2019)
Extra Ordinary pays homage to those crappy horror films you used to rent from the video store based only on the freaky box art. Except it’s actually really, really good. It starts like a parody and gets weirder as it goes; the presence of Will Forte is both a red herring and its secret weapon.
A couple of foodies (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) secured a coveted reservation to an exclusive restaurant on a secluded island. They have a delicious meal, post glowing reviews on social media, and go home happy and full. JK.
A prequel to Ti West's X co-written by star Mia Goth. You'd think you'd know what to expect if you've seen the first installment, which naturally reveals how it all turns out. Not so much.
Psycho did its job much, much too well, and, as a result, the number of film fans left to be surprised by its central twist are few. Still, if you only know Psycho as a famous title, there are more to its surprises (and shifts in perspective) than showers. Much copied, but never bested for shocking its audience: This is, quite simply, how it’s done. But, given that you've probably seen this one, check out the surprisingly effective Psycho II, which does nearly as good a job at keeping its audience guessing.
Gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts nearly two decades ago and across the U.S. back in 2015, yet somehow, queer movies are still mostly a trickle at the box office (unless you count Barbie...which you can). Bros, which came out in 2022, was marketed as the first mainstream gay romantic comedy ever released by a major studio. Movies like Saltburn and All of Us Strangers have made waves, but still represent only a tiny (tiny) fraction of mainstream releases: notable for their rarity even while the usual suspects will scream about how it's impossible to find any straight-centered entertainment these days.
LGBTQ representation in the modern blockbuster era is generally limited to half-hearted queer-bating (Poe/Finn), background smooches between minor characters, or the cautious, sexless relationships of the sort trotted out in Eternals. Smaller films seem to be making a comeback, so maybe there's hope for a sexier and more queer cinematic future if we move past the need for every movie to four-quadrant extravaganza that plays as well in Beijing as in Boca Raton.
On another level, Hollywood has been making gay movies since the advent of the form—albeit with plausible deniability. The late 1920s and early 1930s were a golden age for movies that explicitly (or nearly so) dealt with queer characters (Garbo, Dietrich, and Hepburn were bisexual icons before that term wasn’t as commonly used); the same can be said of the independent-minded 1970s. At other times, representation was all about subtext—sometimes pointedly, the filmmakers sneaking in themes that would go over the heads of the censors but land with the right audiences, or arising as unintended subtext. Which is to say, sometimes even the straightest movies are gay as hell—the inevitable result of straightness trying too hard.
Some of the following movies have a definable context that makes queer readings essential, or at least plausible. Others are just really gay, without necessarily meaning to be.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Following the events of Frankenstein, the eponymous doctor is all ready to settle down with his fiancée when his old college mentor shows up: Dr. Septimus Pretorius, who lures Henry away from the arms of his promised in favor of the two of them getting together after hours and building more bodies. Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), given to sassy retorts and chain-smoking in mausoleums, was high-camp before the notion was codified. Although there’s nothing explicit here, there’s no real queer-coding, either: the fascinating Thesiger never made any effort whatsoever to hide his queerness, nor to accommodate anyone’s ideas of masculinity, and he certainly doesn’t in this role. Following an injury while serving in World War I, he took up needlework and passed the skills on to other injured soldiers, despite formal warnings that the work was too “effeminate.” Later, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for both his embroidery skills and his acting career. Even with all that, he remains most famous for luring Colin Clive’s Frankenstein out of retirement.
This movie is so gay it inspired 1998's Gods and Monsters, a super queer biopic of its director, James Whale, played by Ian McKellen, who came out publicly in 1988.
Rebecca represented a unique blending of sensibilities: new to Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock didn’t yet have the clout that he would quickly gain, and so was forced to work with powerful producer David O. Selznick—who had notes. Hitchcock was adept at dodging Selznick’s requests, and was always a highly organized filmmaker who never left studios with miles of footage from which to edit, meaning they were ultimately forced to go with what he’d produced.
The queer subtext here revolves around the character of Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), housekeeper of the gothic mansion at Manderley. When the master of the house, Laurence Olivier’s Maxim de Winter, brings home a new bride following the death of his first wife, Mrs. Danvers becomes a problem. What might have played as excessive mothering to straight audiences in 1940 seems less subtle now: her obsession with the late, first Mrs. de Winter forms the spine of the film, and moments in which Mrs. Davers nuzzles the dead woman’s clothes or fixates on her hair and lingerie suggest that her interest was something other than maternal. Gone were the days of Garbo, Dietrich, and early Hepburn, who made lesbian overtones chic and sexy; by 1940, lesbians were dowdy spinsters, and threatening ones at that. And yet Mrs. Danvers still manages to be the most interesting character in the movie.
Most of these movies have queer themes running throughout; I'm not sure that's the case here, although I'd be thrilled to be proven wrong. Still, I'm going to let Peter Lorre’s Joel Cairo speak for all of the many queer-coded villains in classic Hollywood. It wasn't always a great trope, but audiences have always been open to spinning straw into gold by giving extra love to the meager, often problematic representations of LGBTQ+ characters in classic films. Characters made to be mocked or hated become appreciated figures, and that's the case here. Overtly gay in Dashiell Hammett's novel, Hollywood censors of 1941 of course wouldn't allow Joel Cairo to be explicit in a film version. So Petter Lorre sashays his way into Sam Spade's office with pretty clothes, fancy gloves, a cane that he can hardly stop from fondling and, of course, gardenia-scented calling cards...because the planned lavender cards were seen as too on-the-nose by censors.
Directed by Jacques Tourneur and, crucially, produced by the unconventionally highbrow Val Lewton, Cat People stars Simone Simon as Irena Dubrovna, who believes that she's descended from a line of, well...cat people. Convinced that she'll shape-shift into a panther if she ever allows her true and repressed sexuality to come out, she avoids engaging sexually with her new husband. The metaphors involving otherness work on multiple levels, but seeing Irena as a woman stuck in a straight marriage that she was never meant for is the reading that sticks.
In 1924, Leopold and Loeb, two wealthy University of Chicago boyfriends kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old largely to prove that they could, the pair having read just enough Nietzsche to convince themselves that they were the Übermensch of whom he wrote. They weren’t, of course, but they wouldn’t be the first rich white boys to believe themselves inherently superior.
The murder was a tragedy, but for someone with Alfred Hitchcock’s sensibilities, it was also too juicy a story to pass up. Rope is most famous because of its unique filming technique: it’s presented as one continuous take, though in reality the takes were about ten minutes long, limited by the film technology of the era. But Rope is based on a play loosely inspired by the Leopold and Loeb murders, and in the play the pair are explicitly gay. The movie, being a product of its time, obscures that without really suggesting anything else. These effete and sassy “roommates”—played by Farley Granger (who came out late in life) and John Dall (who is widely believed to have been gay, though he never came out publicly)—hold a party at which the body of their murder victim has been concealed. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents, who was gay, was an expert at dodging the restrictions of the Hays code in order to sneak in subtext that was just subtextual enough, a trick Hitchcock likewise excelled at.
Was it truly lost on 1940s audiences that these characters were more than friends? Apparently Laurents and company didn’t clue in Jimmy Stewart about his character, and the actor never caught on. Viewers did, eventually.
Nobody tell John Wayne, but the queer subtext of Red River has been discussed for decades, which makes a special kind of sense given that it provided a breakthrough for gay actor Montgomery Clift, who plays Matt, the more sensitive ward of a typically butch Wayne. Complicating life during the film's core cattle drive is the introduction of John Ireland as Cherry Valance—the scene during which Matt and Cherry compare guns is justifiably memorable as euphemism, and even characters in the movie seem not unaware of what's going on: Wayne describes them as pawing at each other, and Walter Brennan's old-timer character describes them as "...having some fun. A peculiar kind of fun."
Lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith wasn't afraid of gay subtext (see: The Talented Mr. Ripley), nor text-text, for that matter (see: The Price of Salt); neither was director Alfred Hitchcock afraid to inject queerness into his films, as we learned from Rope and Rebecca (among others). Given all that (as well as the presence of Farley Granger), it's not surprising that Strangers on a Train is rather delicious in its preoccupations. Granger's Guy Haines has a kind of meet-cute with Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) on a train (naturally), and they have a rather intense conversation about dual murders: Guy should kill Bruno's hated father, and Bruno will kill Guy's wife. Fun hypothetical, except that Bruno is absolutely serious and follows through with his part of the deal. The whole thing plays a bit like a straight man's fever dream—even giving into a momentary dalliance with another man could ruin one's life.
This low-budget Nicholas Ray film isn’t one of Joan Crawford’s better known movies, but it is one of her best and most fascinating, earning its entry into the vaunted Criterion Collection. Playing a saloonkeeper in the wilds of old-west Arizona, Crawford’s character is introduced by one of her employees just so: “I never met a woman who was more man.” Her arch-nemesis is a “cattle baron” played by Mercedes McCambridge, a straight (as far as we know) actress who became a gay icon for her portrayals of strong, queer-coded women. There are male love interests here, but they’re largely incidental. It’s the seething energy between the two leading women—frequently facing off while decked out in black leather that borders on the fetishistic—where the film’s true heart lies.
One of the essential thrillers of the 1950s, the film version of Boileau-Narcejac’s novel removes the explicit lesbian relationship between the two women at the plot’s center, the wife and mistress of a man whom they team up to murder, radically altering the ending in the process. Much of that relationship remains regardless; the closeness between Nicole and Christina is remarked upon by the students and faculty of the boarding school where the two live. They travel together, sharing rooms and even a bed. A climactic moment is played very much as a breakup scene. Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot are one of French cinema’s most memorable couples, even if their romantic pairing is never made explicit.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Moody, sensitive teen Jim Stark (James Dean) meets Plato Crawford (Sal Mineo) and Judy (Natalie Wood) at the police station, and one of cinema's great emo love triangles was born. Though restrained in the finished film, it's impossible not to see the attraction that Plato has for Jim, nor was it unintentional—worried censors told director Nicholas Ray during production that “It is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.” Still, Mineo spoke later about how Dean instructed him to "Look at me the way I look at Natalie...” None of it is terribly ambiguous in retrospect, and the pin-up of then-heartthrob Alan Ladd in Plato's locker is just one of the many winks to a savvy audience.
Don’t tell Charlton Heston, but everyone else involved in crafting Judah Ben-Hur’s relationship with his old friend Messala was down with the idea that the two were lovers. Script doctor Gore Vidal claims to have convinced the producer, director William Wyler, and actor Stephen Boyd that none of the rest of the film’s high drama involving the relationship would make any sense if there weren’t strong hints that the two had been knocking sandals. Everyone was in on the bit, except for Heston (who was pissed when he found out about it decades later, calling the suggestion an insult to the director).
The more recent Haunting of Hill House Netflix series, also based on the Shirley Jackson novel, made the subtext text, but the gay vibes between chic and sassy Theo (Claire Bloom) and repressed, mousy Eleanor (Julie Harris) radiate through the early ‘60s original. Theo rebuffs the men who flirt with her in favor of making eyes at shy Eleanor, the two forming a charmingly traditional idea of a lesbian couple: one glamorous and fashion-conscious, the other more of an awkward tomboy.
A low-budget cult classic with a tone that’s absolutely all over the place, Fear No Evil follows a somewhat effete young man (Stefan Arngrim) who slowly comes to learn that he’s the literal antichrist. He’s bullied relentlessly by the middle-aged actors playing high school jocks, who love nothing more than to strip down to their buff, bare asses and case him around locker rooms (so many male butts on display!). When he finally comes into his own as a Satan figure, our hero announces it by throwing on some make-up and getting revenge. The movie muddles its message; we’re not necessarily meant to cheer for gay Satan climactic rampage, but plenty of viewers have.
Where to stream:Amazon Prime, Tubi, Shout Factory TV
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
The subtext here comes through so strongly that it can hardly even be considered subtext, but back in 1985, plenty of straight audiences still missed it. There’s a role-reversal in the film’s basic premise, which puts Jesse (Mark Patton) in the position that would be taken up by the “final girl” in most slasher films of the era. Freddy toys with Jesse, at one point caressing his lips with those finger blades; Jesse flees from danger and his girlfriend in equal distress, and nearly always half-clothed. He runs into his gym teacher in a leather bar, and that same jerk later gets bare-ass spanked to death in a locker room. As a metaphor for the torments of being a closeted teen, you could do a lot worse.
When Chris Sarandon and Jonathan Stark move in next door, it’s the usual formula: “I did hear he’s got a live-in carpenter. With my luck, he’s probably gay,” says the main character’s mom. It’s usually “friends” or “roommates,” so “live-in carpenter” is an innovation, but it’s not hard to see what’s really going on. The two turn out to be vampire and familiar, but they share an easy rapport and a genuine concern for each other—a picture of a healthy, supportive relationship, even if they are evil vampires.
Coming out in the military in 1986 would have seen one dishonorably discharged, which is surely why Top Gun takes a time out, every so often, to reinforce the fact that Tom Cruise really, really likes kissing Kelly McGillis—even though the movie’s central relationship, and heat, is found between Cruise’s Maverick and Val Kilmer’s Iceman. The rest of the movie? Frequently shirtless, often sweaty (well, oiled) Navy boys do things like play volleyball to Kenny Loggins’ “Playing with the Boys,” with sample dialogue including lines like: “I want somebody’s butt! I want it now!” and “I’d like to bust your butt, but I can’t!” Late director Tony Scott copped to using books of gay beefcake photography as his primary reference for how to photograph the movie’s man meat—which probably explains the proliferation of slightly porny mustaches.
There’s a lot going on here, and I’m not sure how much of it was intentional (out director Joel Schumacher, later of Batman & Robin, wasn’t known for subtlety). Leather-clad bad boys who want nothing more than to suck (the blood) of slightly more straight-laced teenagers, with a climax that turns on vampiric seduction; a poster of a sweaty Rob Lowe placed prominently in Corey Haim’s room without explanation; that oiled and gyrating sax man, who almost singlehandedly queers the entire film. It’s not straight, I’ll tell you that.
Writer/director Walter Hiller described Red Heat as a “love story” between devoted cops played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Belushi, and though I’m not sure he meant it literally, you wouldn’t have to alter much of the screenplay to make their relationship explicit. This one serves as a stand-in for a lot of hyper-violent, hyper-masculine movies of the 1980s (many of them featuring Schwarzenegger): full of the kind of sweaty man-on-man action that you’d expect, with an entire opening sequence that takes place at a bath house. It’s co-ed, but the male characters are overwhelmingly the focus, fighting in coverings that could barely be described as loincloths.
As with Hitchcock’s Rope, Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson was inspired, in part, by murderous couple Leopold and Loeb when he created the movies-and-murder-obsessed duo of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Even before he spoke about it explicitly in interviews, however, queer fans got it; at the very least, Stu is obviously way into Billy.
Start with the generally camp sensibilities of gay director Joel Schumacher (who once claimed to have had sex with tens of thousands of men during his life; not that queer cred is a function of mathematics...but damn), and throw in a batsuit with pronounced nipples, a massive codpiece, and deeper-than-strictly-necessary ass cleavage, and you’ve got a recipe for the gayest superhero epic ever. And that’s all before George Clooney’s Batman adopts a nearly grown man only nine years his junior.
There’s a point at which hyper-masculinity starts to look an awful lot like homoeroticism, and you have to wonder how many sweaty, shirtless men you can literally toss together in a space that excludes women entirely before it starts to look like a gay club. Oh, and let’s make sure not to mention anything that goes on here to our wives, girlfriends, or co-workers.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Rumor has long held that, as originally conceived, football teammates Jess (Parminder Nagra) and Jules (Keira Knightley) were intended to end up together in a romantic sense, but that changes were made in deference to more conservative American and Indian audiences. Even without that, though, the chemistry between the two star players is palpable, and the moments of hand-holding and even kissing allow for more romantic readings of this above-average entry in the underdogs-win-at-sports genre.
If the characters of Sam and Frodo were of different genders, it would be almost impossible not to view their relationship through a romantic lens. Even if we dodge queer readings, though, it’s certainly the case that their story (as in the novels) is a model of male intimacy rare enough in film as to be almost nonexistent. The trilogy is full of male relationships that are almost shockingly supportive and healthy—Sam and Frodo hold hands, cuddle, and literally carry each other at various points. The wise old drag-queen-as-mentor is an age-old trope of explicitly gay movies, and, though his wardrobe is limited, Ian McKellen’s Gandalf, with his luxuriant hair and mid-trilogy glow-up, fits the role flawlessly.
300 practically screams “no homo!” whenever Leonidas or some other nearly naked character talks about the general hardness of the Spartans, but Zack Snyder’s comic book-based breakthrough is also literally every fetish party I’ve ever been too. We’re meant to see the queer-coding in the heavily made-up and bejeweled Persians (Snyder has been explicit in interviews about his intention to make the Persians scarier to his intended male audience by making them gayer), but that feels like a movie missing its own point, while also wildlyoverestimating the heterosexuality of the ancient Spartans.
The story of four young men (oddly old for high schoolers) who are descended from witches and have to fight some kind of evil or something...the plot doesn’t really matter, and the movie’s not very good. But it is an unintentional cult classic, one in which a series of soon-to-be-famous guys do a Craft-lite, but with more locker room scenes. A movie doesn’t have to be good to subvert the typical male gaze of the genre; it’s nice to see the camera leering at the men for once.
Let it go, Elsa. It’s partly that Elsa is hiding a secret about which she’s terrified that people will discover, and the subsequently joyous sense of liberation that she experiences when she finally does own her power. That all speaks to queer people, but there’s also the fact that there’s no love interest for Elsa in Frozen, when the story of pretty much every other Disney princess has been centered around getting a boyfriend. Frozen 2 left the question of Elsa’s romantic interests open, which feels like a teeny-tiny step forward for a company that’s notoriously desperate not to offend its straight audience. Plus, that climax where she races across the sea on her magic horse is super gay.
The Babadook became a gay icon quite by accident. Though there had been a bit of social media discourse on the topic previously, it all exploded when Netflix lumped the movie into its LGBTQ category for no particular reason. Queer readings were suddenly validated—and fairly, I think. Though on the surface, The Babadook represents grief and the dangers of trying to sweep trauma under the rug, he works every bit as well as a metaphor for closeting. With flawlessly goth style, he torments a mother and young son who try to ignore him and pretend he isn’t real. The more mom tries to shove him back into the metaphorical closet, the more horror he inflicts. It’s only through acceptance that their small family has any hope at all of moving forward.
Fans felt a great disturbance in the Force around the release of The Force Awakens in 2015, but the millions of voices that were set to applaud the acknowledgement that gay people might exist in Star Wars were slowly, agonizingly silenced. The chemistry between then-new characters Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega) seemed to go well beyond friendship, and the movie (and it's direct sequel, The Last Jedi) left open the possibility that there might be more. Alas, the final film in the trilogy introduced heterosexual love interests for both the men, despite both actors strongly suggesting that they would have preferred to play a romantic relationship; given that The Rise of Skywalker almost entirely wrote out Kelly Marie Tran's Rose following "fan" resistance to the franchise's first woman of color and targeted harassment of the actress, the sudden appearance of girlfriends for Poe and Finn feels...very convenient. Bones thrown to the very worst type of SW fan. Still, if one ignores that last movie (not the worst idea), it's still possible to see the seeds of what might have been a groundbreaking moment for the franchise.
Where to stream: Disney+
Venom (2018)
Tom Hardy broods his way through Venom, the story of a couple of "roommates" who happen to share a body. Possessed by an alien symbiote, Eddie Brock bickers incessantly with his newfound partner before the two start to learn to appreciate, and maybe even love each other. Just a couple of bros out to fight crime? Maybe, but the chemistry is real, and, when Venom takes over the body of Eddie's girlfriend Annie (Michelle Williams) in the final act, it's unclear who exactly is kissing who. Real throuple energy there.
You’ll never convince me that the story of two men who meet-cute during an impromptu coordinated bridge rescue and then proceed to spend every waking minute together except for the ones they spend agonizing over the secrets that might tear them apart is not an action-packed rom-com. These guys love three things: taking off their shirts, fighting colonialism with tigers, and each other.
Just a few short years ago, the pickings were extremely slim for horror movies with explicitly queer characters and themes—plenty of great movies with subtext (some of which we’ll get to), but very few that made that subtext into text. That, despite horror movies having legions of queer fans (seriously, the biggest horror movie lovers I know are anything but straight, including me). A recent rise in horror films with queer characters isn’t just a matter of diversity; it’s about giving audiences what they want. Some of these movies work distinctly queer coming-of-age stories (or metaphors) into their narratives, while others offer LGBTQ leads without fanfare. There’s “elevated” horror here, as well as serial killer movies and slashers.
And, hey, since we’re not about being exclusionary, straights are welcome to scream along. No one’s judging your lifestyle with a killer hanging about.
Knife + Heart (2018)
There are layers upon layers in director Yann Gonzalez’s slick and stylish slasher set in the world of ‘70s gay porn. Anne Parèze (Vanessa Paradis) runs a production company that makes the exploitation movies Knife + Heart centers on, but the series of murders that occurs on set barely draws the attention of the local police, who aren’t terribly torn up about the deaths of gay porn actors. Anne decides that her next film will be about the murders themselves, unfolding a movie-within-a-movie that only draws the attention of the killer (and his spiked dildo). The movie celebrates giallo, with plenty of deep cuts for fans of classic Italian horror, and ‘70s sleaze more generally, but with a look and feel that’s entirely unique.
Where to scream: Shudder, Tubi, Kanopy, Freevee
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
M. Night Shyamalan’s mind-bender sets up an impossible choice for married couple Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge): One of them will have to sacrifice the other, or the world might end. What looks like a home invasion lead by Dave Bautista becomes, increasingly convincingly, a warning of the necessity of the sacrifice. The movie’s growing sense of existential dread is heightened by the sense of cozy domesticity of the couple at the movie’s center, who just want to raise their daughter and relax in their cute little cabin.
I’ve seen Rocky Horror at least a dozen times (in various states of undress), and I still couldn’t really tell you what it’s about—something to do with Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) stopping at a creepy old house full of queers (lead by Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter) from outer space. The movie went from being a cult classic to a rite of passage for young queers, full of gleefully over-the-top characters who either start out as sex- and gender-fluid, or who get there by the end. It plays with a ton of old horror movie tropes and, while it might not be the most terrifying movie in queer cinema history, it’s a ton of fun, and a pretty good way to freak out the squares in your life.
Problematic? Sure! But queer horror kids of the 1980s (give or take) knew how to take our fun where we could get it. As a slasher, the one is particularly weird, with over-the-top goofy moments contrasted with some genuinely impressive kills. Somehow the fact that no two actors seem to be performing in exactly the same movie helps with the camp (pun intended) vibe. The ending, which, fair warning, I'm about so spoil, is the best and worst part: Our killer is revealed to be Angela (Felissa Rose)—who is then revealed to be Peter, who'd been traumatized after finding her father in bed with another man, and then further traumatized when goofy Aunt Martha (Desiree Gould) raised Peter as the girl she'd always wanted. Angela has been referred to as a trans villain—though I'm not sure it's possible to tell what's going on here. The movie's politics are not so much, but as a wild bit of slasher horror with enjoyably messy queer characters? It hits plenty of the right notes.
Where to scream: Peacock, Tubi, Crackle, Shout Factory TV, Fubo, The Roku Channel
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Like father, like daughter in this direct sequel to the Bela Lugosi film, with Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden) running afoul of Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing from the original. The two vampires share in common not just an archnemesis, but an eye for the ladies, as well, with Countess Zaleska seducing first despondent Lili and then kidnapping Janet. Producers and censors were worried about the lesbian of it all in the lead-up to the film's release, but also chose to hype it up in the marketing...especially with the tagline: "Save the women of London from Dracula's Daughter!"
Nicole Maines (Supergirl) stars here as Laurel, a trans teenage girl moving in with her brother in LA following her transition. A club afterparty leads to lots of making out and then some blood—it’s not long before Laurel is offered the chance to join a group of vampires dedicated to taking care of the many predatory men walking the city’s streets.
Where to scream:Prime Video, Tubi, Freevee, The Roku Channel
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The queer coding in the eerie, frequently hilarious Bride of Frankenstein is so over the top that you can hardly even call it subtext. There’s too much gay going on here to ignore. The plot revolves around gloriously flamboyant Dr. Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), a mentor of Victor Frankenstein’s from his school days who sweeps in on the eve of Victor’s wedding night to drag him away (with only mild convincing required) so that the two can conduct some experiments to determine if they can make life together. With that plot, and the queer rep in front of and behind the camera (including Thesinger and director James Whale) this one’s very much a gay horror fever dream.
A horror movie with echoes of the sexy thrillers of yore. Here, Pierre Deladonchamps plays Franck, a regular visitor to a nude beach and the surrounding woods, both popular cruising spots. Franck begins a passionate relationship (meaning: lots of fairly explicit sex in the woods) with Michel (Christophe Paou), who Franck later spots drowning someone in the lake. Which: awkward. As the investigation into that event heats up, Franck finds himself struggling to give up a good thing, even in the face of murder. As with the lead in any good erotic thriller, the better the sex, the more Franck will risk.
Where to scream: Kanopy
High Tension (2003)
Arguably the best film of the “New French Extremity” canon, High Tension does the seemingly impossible: It’s a slasher movie that doesn’t feel like a cliche, and is packed with brutal, tense, uncompromising, packed with references to 1970s horror classics—and it’s French, so you can pretend it’s elevated. The movie comes with a mega-twist ending that complicated (to put it mildly) what had seemed like a pretty progressive view of its lesbian main character—but complicated, problematic characters are nothing new for queer horror fans.
Where to scream: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Hoopla, Kanopy, Freevee, Plex, Pluto
Seed of Chucky (2004)
Gay Child's Play creator Don Mancini, who's written, directed, and/or produced every film in the main series, was sneaking in queer subtext from the beginning. The addition of Bound star and icon Jennifer Tilly as the voice of doll Tiffany in 1998's Bride of Chucky was a step in the right direction in terms of making the subtext text...but it wasn't until Seed of Chucky that things went really wild, with Tiffany teamed up with Chucky (Brad Dourif) to raise their non-binary child Glen-or-Glenda (referencing an Ed Wood film) while they try to possess the bodies of the real-life Tilly and Redman (playing themselves). If that's not enough camp appeal, there's an appearance by John Waters himself to provide a stamp of approval.
Where to scream: Starz
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
A lot of queer horror turns on the challenges of being other than straight, but Bodies Bodies Bodies leads with a queer couple, front and center: Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova) are a pretty normal couple who find themselves in the middle of a pretty fucked-up scenario when Sophia brings her girlfriend home to meet her old friend. A murder-in-the-dark-type game takes a turn when someone actually turns up dead, and it very quickly starts to look like Sophie and Bee are the most well-adjusted people in the entire group.
Where to scream: Netflix, Paramount+, Fubo, Showtime
The Jessica Cabin (2022)
OK, it’s not terrifying—and it’s not really meant to be—but The Jessica Cabin is a brisk, slight sad, but mostly charming ghost story that’s pretty perfect if you’re looking for something horror-adjacent, but aren’t in a mood for gore. Couple Nicky (Chase Williamson) and Preston (Will Tranfo) arrive at the title Airbnb—which we eventually learn was named for just one of the people who’ve been found dead there—and it’s quickly clear that their relationship is less than ideal. They’re also being observed by best friends Jackson (Daniel Montgomery) and Taylor (Riley Rose Critchlow), two ghosts haunting the cabin, living afterlives of endless boredom and monotony—at least until dead Jackson becomes enamored with living Nicky. It’s all a lovely, low-budget story about love and longing, as most of the best ghost stories are.
Erotic bisexual vampire movies had a moment in the 1970s, but few (if any) more successful, and more genuinely sexy, than Daughters of Darkness. While others were very into the hot-lesbians-for-straight-guys vibe, Daughters has a look and feel that borders on arthouse, with a grand and elegant style, as well as a willingness to go deeper. Delphine Seyrig plays Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who happens upon a newlywed couple honeymooning in a remote region, and immediately sets about seducing the wife away from human sexual and moral conformity.
Where to scream: Shudder, Tubi, Vudu
Spiral (2019)
Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman stars as Malik, who moves to a new town with his white partner, Aaron, and their teenaged daughter, each of them hoping for a little peace and quiet. Naturally, things get weird—first in recognizable ways (barbed comments, casual greetings not returned), and then in a more alarming fashion. Malik, both more assertively out and also Black, seems to be the only one who really notices the worst of it, and begins to question both his relationships with his family and his sanity. (Don't confuse this with the 2021 Saw movie of the same name.)
Where to scream: Shudder, AMC+
The Lost Boys (1987)
Directed by out gay director Joel Schumacher (several years before he made the gayest superhero movie, Batman & Robin), The Lost Boys finds brothers Sam (Corey Haim) and Michael (Jason Patric) Emerson moving with their family to sunny, sweaty Santa Carla, California just in time for Michael to be seduced into joining a sexy vampire gang by its blonde leader David, played by Kiefer Sutherland. The vamps bait Michael with Star (Jamie Gertz), but his desire with the girl gives way to a fascination with David, made very clear when a blood-drunk Michael's vision of Star fades in favor of David. Even the movie's theme song reminds us, repeatedly, that "Love is with your brother."
Where to scream: AMC+
The Babadook (2014)
The Babadook's place in the queer pantheon came as a bit of an accident: Netflix listed the movie in its LGBT section one time, probably by accident—but it kinda stuck, even if "the Babadook is gay" was mostly a joke at first. When looked at through that lens, the film works extremely well as queer allegory: Well-meaning but harried widow Amelia (Essie Davis) is struggling to raise her son Sam by herself, finding his behavior increasingly troubling. The imaginary monster that soon becomes real can represent grief, in that fighting it is far less effective than accepting it—but that's also a very potent metaphor for the experience of parents of queer children. The more Amelia tries to change her son and bury his behavior, the more powerful The Babadook grows, and the more eager to escape. It's only through acceptance, and by coming to terms with unchangeable reality, that Amelia's able to find some peace for herself and her son.
Where to scream: Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, AMC+
Rope (1948)
Fussy, fastidious roommates (if you know what I mean) are hosting a dinner party for friends, but there’s a twist: They’ve just strangled an old prep-school pal to death, and plan to serve the food off of the gorgeous antique wooden chest in which they’ve concealed his body. Like the worst upper-class gays you’ve ever met, Brandon and Phillip (John Dall and Farley Granger) are doing this pretty just to prove that their intellectual superiority. Filmed in one take (well, sort of), Hitchcock’s claustrophobic atmosphere and sharp dialogue rachet up the suspense nicely; the thriller was loosely based on a real-life murder committed by lovers Leopold and Loeb in the 1920s.
Taking on the essential role of the pop-culture savvy member of the “core four,” Jasmin Savoy Brown joined the Scream requel as Mindy Meeks-Martin, the one who might not know who the killer is, but who definitely understands the rules they’re playing by. She’s also an out lesbian, adding the first canonically queer character to a series that kicked off with a couple of murderers loosely based on lovers Leopold and Loeb. With a sense of humor and some brutal kills, the fifth Scream movie rebooted the franchise whose queer fans are legion, setting the stage for an even better follow-up.
Where to scream: Paramount+, Hulu
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Only the real ones knew what to do with Jennifer’s Body in 2009, and the film took a long time to become the cult classic it was probably always destined to be. Here, popular teenager Jennifer (Megan Fox) is turned into a succubus by abusive men, gleefully killing boys around school to the general horror of her friend, Needy (Amanda Seyfried). The movie’s main characters aren’t explicitly gay, but there’s a gleeful rejection of both toxic masculinity and heteronormativity about it that’s made it particularly beloved among queers. It also uses horror and violence to empower its teenage women characters.
The stop-motion animated ParaNorman was justifiably critically acclaimed (it’s fantastic), but only a modest box office success. The plot revolves around the titular Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who can communicate with the dead; nobody believes him, and he’s bullied for his claims about his abilities. Norman’s best friend’s older brother Mitch (Casey Affleck), is a stereotypical dumb jock in many ways, but we discover he’s gay at the same time as Norman’s sister. In contrast to Norman, who struggles with the best way to express his abilities in a hostile world, Mitch is entirely comfortable with who he is. It’s all-ages horror, for sure, but the movie is surprisingly smart and charmingly creepy.
Where to scream: Starz, The Roku Channel
The Fear Street Trilogy (2021)
We’re doing three movies at once here, as each film in the trilogy, adapted from the R. L. Stine books, shares a tone, quality, and director (Leigh Janiak, best known for Honeymoon prior to Fear Street). They also share lead characters: Deena and Sam (Kiana Madeira and Olivia Scott Welch), star-crossed girlfriends fighting an ancient curse across time. Fear Street Part One: 1994 kicks off the films by introducing the town of Shadyside, which the local kids call “Shittyside,” and has a dark history of multiple murders, most of them covered up. A group of teens upsets the grave of a witch, kicking off the revival of a murderous cult. The vibe here is a little bit Stranger Things, with some legit gore and scares (it’s YA, but definitely not kids’ stuff) as Janiak pays homage to a wide range of horror movies past. The series continues in Fear Street Part Two: 1978 and concludes (for the moment) with Fear Street Part Three: 1666.
Where to scream: Netflix
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
If it seems like a bit of a stretch to consider this movie—based on the Tennessee Williams play—a horror movie, consider that the entire plot turns on revelations of cannibalism and threats of forced lobotomies. It’s a wackadoo Southern Gothic mystery that involves a young man, the son of Katherine Hepburn’s memorably named Violet Venable, who dies under mysterious circumstances on a holiday in Spain. Though Violet had been happy to be his wingwoman in helping him to meet other men for sexual encounters, she’s less keen on the world finding out precisely how he died. She’s also perfectly happy to lobotomize one of her son’s best friends just to make sure she won’t talk; it’s a wild time, right up to the memorably off-the-wall finale.
Where to scream: The Criterion Channel
Titane (2021)
In a sea of superhero movies, be the film about a gender-fluid erotic dancer (Alexia/Adrien, played by Agathe Rousselle) who fucks a car, gets pregnant as a result, and is then taken in by a man (Vincent Lindon) who believes that he's found his long lost son. Oh, and our lead character is also a serial killer. There's a lot going on in writer/director Julia Ducournau's wildly unconventional love story, but what stands out is the ways in which Alexia/Adrien's gender nonconformity is not treated as a subject of horror, but, ultimately, one of love.
Where to scream: Hulu
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
The subtext here comes through so strongly that it can hardly even be considered subtext, but back in 1985, plenty of straight audiences still missed it. There’s a role reversal in the film’s basic premise, which puts Jesse (Mark Patton) in the position that would be taken up by the “final girl” in most slasher films of the era. Freddy toys with Jesse, at one point caressing his lips with those finger blades; Jesse flees from danger and his girlfriend in equal distress, and nearly always half-clothed. He runs into his gym teacher in a leather bar, and that same jerk later gets bare-ass spanked to death in a locker room. As a metaphor for the torments of being a closeted teen, you could do a lot worse.
Where to scream: Netflix
The Perfection (2018)
There are shades of Suspiria (and Black Swan) here as Charlotte Willmore (Allison Williams) returns to her prestigious music academy after an absence and finding that another woman (Logan Browning) has taken her place at the head of the class, the two beginning a sexual relationship—if that sounds a little tame, the intentionally disjointed narrative quickly careens into wildly claustrophobic body horror. It might not be the first film to mine dark thrills and gore out of arts education, but it goes as far as any of them, and even beyond.
Where to scream: Netflix
The Latent Image (2022)
Making the most of its budget, The Latent Image is one of those isolated-cabin-in-the-woods slasher movies, but with a few artful and surreal twists. Ben (Joshua Tonks), a novelist in the throes of writer’s block and away from his boyfriend, is visited by a stranger who maybe just needs a place to stay for the night (Jay Clift)? Ben’s active imagination blurs the lines between what’s real and what isn’t, and the maybe sexual/maybe murderous chemistry between the two leads.
Where to scream: Tubi, Dekkoo, Vudu
Diabolique (1955)
Diabolique involves a married woman and her husband’s mistress, who both conspire to murder the man and to conceal his death—the sexual tension, and the sense of a love triangle, is just barely beneath the surface. He’d been headmaster of a gossipy boarding school, and the two are pressed to keep things on the down-low through a deliciously twisty-turny plot. Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot play one of cinema’s most enduring couples, even if their more explicit relationship in the original novel was stripped out of the film version. Still, the closeness between Nicole and Christina is remarked upon by the students and faculty of the boarding school where the two live. They travel together, sharing rooms and even a bed. A climactic moment is played very much as a breakup scene. The movie’s gritty realism inspired Hitchcock to make Psycho.
Where to scream: Max, The Criterion Channel
They/Them (2022)
It’s a little more tame, perhaps, than its forthright title (pronounced “They Slash Them”) might suggest, but only because of its commitment to treating its queer characters with respect. That doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and flowers, though, at the conversion camp (lead by Kevin Bacon’s appropriately unpleasant Owen Whistler) where a serial killer is stalking the woods, likely out for a bit of bloody revenge.
Where to scream: Peacock
What Keeps You Alive (2018)
It starts when a young married couple, Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) and Jules (Brittany Allen), head off to a remote cabin belonging to Jackie’s family. Everything seems fine until a childhood of hers calls her “Megan.” Jules becomes suspicious, with good reason, and comes to learn, gradually, that her wife might not be who she says she is—and might not have her best interests at heart. That premise is chillingly executed.
Where to scream: AMC+
Pitchfork (2016)
Listen: gays deserve silly little slashers, too, and this stylish one is a cut (ahem) above. What starts as a coming-of-age story about Hunter returning home to come out to his conservative father gets bloody fairly quickly, as Hunter and his supportive friends are hunted through the woods by the title killer.
There are as many paths to exploring queer history as there are people who have lived it, and many legends we’ve nearly forgotten about who, in a more just world, would be household names. History can provide inspiration, and can also help us to avoid making the same damn mistakes again and again—mistakes like forgetting that trans people of color were at the vanguard of gay liberation.
Pride is a time to celebrate, honor, and remember all of it, whether you’re trans, bi, ace, poly, pan, intersex, nonbinary, or anywhere else on the gender and sexual identity and expression spectrum... or just proud to support your queer friends.
These 50 movies reflect elements of modern queer (LBGTQIA+) history—sometimes dramatized, sometimes documentary, and sometimes because the film itself made history. They reflect decades of love, sex, activism, and artistry. Some call for tolerance, while others throw up a middle finger in response to narrow-minded bigotry. Many ask us to love one another, but others demand that we take up the battle cry: BE GAY, DO CRIMES.
Or just put on your cha-cha heels and watch some good movies. You do you.
Salomé (1923)
In the roaring ‘20s, the rules governing depicting queerness in film were a bit looser than they would be later on. Germany produced a handful of queer-positive films, even as several American movies played fast and loose with gender and sexual roles. Case in point: Salome, a biblical epic produced by, and starring, queer provocateur Alla Nazimova.
Nazimova (usually referred to as just “Nazimova") was one of Hollywood’s early power players, and an accomplished artist with a take on Oscar Wilde’s play that included female characters played by men in drag, overt sexuality, and silver lamé loincloths. It’s all wonderfully campy and stylized, and it didn’t make a penny, but it’s a reminder that there were queer folx making movies that your great-grandparents may have enjoyed.
With the rise of the Hays Production Code in America, and the Nazi party in Germany, it would be decades before movies could again do much more than hint about unsanctioned relationships.
Where to stream: Readily available on YouTube, or for digital purchase via KinoNow (under Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers)
Paris is Burning (1990)
Like Faulkner said: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It’s especially true when it comes to queer history, as Paris is Burning makes plain. Exploring New York’s drag ball culture in the late 1980s, director Jennie Livingston’s documentary shines a particular spotlight on the Black and Latinx gay, trans, and genderqueer experience, with aspects both joyous and heartbreaking. So much of what was transgressive here has worked its way into pop culture, for better and for worse: Madonna gets credit for voguing, but the style has roots in Harlem ballrooms. Much of the language and culture here will make perfect sense to RuPaul or Pose fans, and many of the doc’s darker elements will also be familiar: Racism, poverty, and anti-trans violence are all still very real parts of the queer BIPOC experience. All the more reason to appreciate authenticity and self-expression, and to throw up a middle finger to gender expectations.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
The story of troubled schoolgirl Manuela (Hertha Thiele) who quickly gets hot for teacher at her all-girls school, Mädchen in Uniform arrived at a pivotal moment in German history: Paragraph 175, outlawing homosexuality, had been received its first significant legal challenge a few years earlier, and what would later be seen as the “decadent” Weimar era was in full swing. With queer women behind the camera and plenty of lesbian longing, and snogging, onscreen, the movie was a hit in much of Europe, while lobbying by no less than Eleanor Roosevelt ensured that American audiences got to see the film (a detail I adore). It’s a beautifully realized film about romantic longing that never devolves into melodrama; it also invites us to imagine the kinds of female-centric movies we might have had if there had been more women behind the camera during the golden age of cinema—and also what might have been had the Nazis not made anti-queer crusading a centerpiece of their rise to power.
Where to stream: Plex
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Look, we’ve all had those nights. You get down. You feel had. So why not put on some makeup, turn up the tape deck, and pull that wig down from the shelf? There’s a fair chance you’re already singing along, but, if not, Hedwig’s about a musical about a genderqueer German rock singer whose botched gender reassignment surgery left them with the titular angry inch. Anticipating a much-needed cultural conversation about gender binaries by over two decades, it is also an old-school rock opera par excellence, of the kind they just don’t make anymore. Based on the stage musical of the same name, the movie made no money whatsoever, but has earned a well-deserved status as a cult classic.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Director James Whale (whose later life was dramatized in Gods and Monsters) followed up what would have been the greatest of the monster movies with one of the most impressive feats in American cinema history: something altogether funnier, weirder, and far more queer, with gay icon Ernest Thesiger prancing through the Gothic sets, offering bitchy rejoinders and seducing his old protegé into reanimating the dead just one more time. His Dr. Pretorius comes back into the life of Frankenstein (Colin Clive) just as the doctor is about to begin life married to Elizabeth—but, given the choice, runs off to make life with Pretorius, instead. That’s all before Elsa Lanchester trades her Mary Shelley outfit for the Bride’s wire-cage wig, giving birth to an icon.
At the peak of Japan’s New Wave, writer/director Toshio Matsumoto created this classic that blends ultra-realism with hauntingly beautiful, occasionally psychedelic imagery. The plot takes inspiration from, and flips, the story of Oedipus Rex, seamlessly blending the mythic with the mundane in following Eddie (Shinnosuke Ikehata) and other transgender women in the very swinging, very gay Tokyo of the 1960s ("Roses" being a sort of pun relating to pansies). At the time, the movie had no trouble securing a Japanese release, but struggled to get past American censors.
Where to stream: Kanopy, Night Flight
The Boys in the Band (1970)
William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist and, slightly more notoriously, Cruising) directs the film adaptation of the controversial off-Broadway play—controversial for the fact that every character is gay or bisexual, and controversial among queer audiences for, often, portraying its characters as self-pitying. It’s not entirely an uplifting portrait of being a gay man in America, but it reflects something real, if not always pretty, as a pre-liberation period piece. And there are plenty of aspects here that still feel sadly relevant.
This 2013 French film plays like an homage, in part, to the erotic thrillers of decades past, in much the same way that some of the better thrillers of the ‘80s paid tribute to film noir. Here, Pierre Deladonchamps plays Franck, a regular visitor to a nude beach and the surrounding woods, both popular cruising spots. Franck begins a passionate relationship (meaning: lots of sex in the woods) with Michel (Christophe Paou), who Franck later spots drowning someone in the lake. Which, OK: red flag. But the D is just that good. As the investigation into that event heats up, Franck finds himself struggling to give up a good thing, even in the face of murder. We're firmly entering an era when queer people can be both prey and predator, without resorting to exhausting tropes.
Where to stream: Kanopy
Querelle (1982)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's dreamy queer film is about a handsome young sailor who finds himself caught up in a web of sex, sibling rivalry, and lightly sublimated lust at a French brothel. The plot here is almost entirely secondary, though: It's all horny vibes, full of sweat and completely shameless sexuality.
Where to stream: Max, Tubi, The Criterion Channel
Nighthawks (1978)
It's maybe a little too believable in its faux-documentary stylings to modern audiences—a little narrative pep might go a long way—but what's here is still compelling as both a drama and a time capsule. Offering up a realistic (or so I'm told) portrait of gay London nightlife, the film follows Jim (Ken Robertson) teaching geography by day and hitting the clubs at night. An almost entirely positive portrait of the gay scene of the time, with a latter portion of the film dedicated to a frank conversation between Jim and his class about his life.
Alfred Hitchcock worked with queer (out and otherwise) performers from the earliest days of his career, having his first big hit with Ivor Novello in 1927's The Lodger. I'm not sure that he gave a lot of thought to queer identity, and that actually works to Rope's advantage: it doesn't feel like there's any type of pro-or anti- gay framing here, just a murder involving a couple of...let's say "flamboyant" roommates. Based on real-life lovers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who murdered a 14-year-old just to prove that they could, and a subsequent play, the movie removes any direct references to a same-sex relationship, but it's all pretty hard to miss, especially when the leads were played by the openly (later in life) bisexual Farley Granger and gay actor John Dall.
A lot of early queer-positive movies were aimed squarely at a straight audience—depicting gays as angelic figures or as poor victims of society’s cruelty. John Waters skipped all of that well-intentioned nonsense by creating films in which there’s no greater crime than being dull. Though Pink Flamingos (with its memorable climax set to the tune of “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window”) is more famous, Female Trouble refines the Waters style with its story of high school reprobate Dawn Davenport (played by the drag queen Divine), who turns to a life of crime when her totally square parents won’t get her what she really wants for Christmas: “Nice girls don’t wear cha-cha heels!” Their cruel denial of such an essential accessory sends Dawn on a spree of sex and crime that plays a bit like a tribute to Mildred Pierce—if Joan Crawford had conceived her daughter on camera.
On a rotted old mattress.
At the dump.
It’s all appropriately outrageous, and audiences were outraged—but only the dull ones.
Where to stream: Digital rental via Fandango at Home
Un chant d’amour/A Song of Love (1950)
Two prisoners are tormented by a voyeuristic prison guard in Jean Genet’s short film, full of homoerotic imagery that might be less shocking now, but no less effective. The two never touch, except in a fantasy sequence, but seeing the two men share a bit of smoke from a single cigarette remains one of cinema’s hottest images. If you're searching under the film's English title, don't get confused by the slightly more straight 1947 Katherine Hepburn film of the same name.
Where to stream: Kanopy, Vimeo
Victim (1961)
It was sometimes called the “blackmailer’s charter.” Since 1885, English law had allowed for the criminal prosecution of homosexual acts, though by the 1960s, it was little enforced. Still, the mere threat of arrest, and the very public proceedings that would follow, made it distressingly common for blackmailers (gay and straight) to take advantage of well-off marks—in this case, a married London lawyer played by Dirk Bogarde. Approaching the social issue by way of neo noir thriller, Victim was an early instance of a major director and star taking a sympathetic approach to portraying gay characters, inevitably shocking audiences and censors by even acknowledging that such people even existed. It wasn’t a huge hit, but it came at a crucial moment: The ‘60s were well and truly underway, and attitudes were beginning to change.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Before Stonewall (1985)
If Stonewall occasionally seems like ancient history, it’s important to remember that queer history didn’t begin there—not even remotely. Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg’s 1985 documentary looks at the earlier part of the 20th century by interviewing activists and writers who help chart the evolution of what would become a movement among people who were fighting to live their lives authentically at a time when the broader culture preferred to pretend they weren’t there.
The film is an important document, having captured so many important voices while they were still with us, but it’s also inspiring, and often joyous. It’s hard not to smile thinking about what these legends were getting up to while the rest of America was sleeping. (It underwent an HD restoration a couple of years ago, so it’s a particularly good time to check it out.)
A fascinating time capsule, and frequently entertaining soap opera about a gay bar on Christmas Eve, filmed and set just a few years after Stonewall. A huge cast of characters wander through, some affecting, some just loosely sketched character types, but representing broad swathes of the community. It was made at a transitional time, when queer activism and visibility were on the rise, but hadn’t yet had the impact that was to come, and so the film gives off a vibe that alternates between joyous and terrified of what’s outside the door of the welcoming space of the bar.
(If all that weren’t enough to secure the movie’s place in queer history, it also features an early screen appearance from Rue McClanahan herself, just a year before she teamed up with Bea Arthur on Maude.)
A beautifully dark triumph from Wong Kar-wai, Happy Together follows a stunningly mismatched couple (Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) as their relationship falls apart during a trip to Argentina. The very hot but deeply codependent couple keep being drawn back into each other's orbits—and they make being young, gay, and in sweaty love look so cool that you can't help but hope they make it. The cinematography here is stunning, with every single frame feeling and looking like a mini work of art. There's also a lot of subtext here having to do with the handover of Honk Kong from the U.K. to China, occurring right around the time that the film was made—a reminder that queerness involves layers of identity.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Knife+Heart (2018)
Foul deeds are afoot on the set of a French gay erotic film shoot during this ultra-stylish, colorful, psychedelic tribute to not only Italian gialli of yore, but also to the golden age of 1970s porn. Director Yann Gonzalez crafted a film in which the queerness is far more than incidental: it's rather the whole point (starting with the opening's switchblade dildo), but it's nonetheless one of the most effective and beautiful horror movies of the past decade.
Where to stream: Shudder, Tubi, Freevee
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
I’ve seen Rocky at least a dozen times, and can recite every line, but I still couldn’t tell you a thing about the plot. (That might have less to do with the movie itself than the state in which one traditionally watches it... but let’s say it’s both.)
On one level, it’s a celebration of many, many forms of queerness, and offers even the very straightest straight people an excuse to do a little gender role-play. It’s weird, and a little sloppy, and doesn’t make a ton of sense—and it's more fun for all of that.
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria (2005)
Stonewall had been building for a long, long time. It might have been the explosion of the modern queer liberation movement, but there were sparks for decades—one of which was the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966. Transgender people in San Francisco had been largely barred from gay bars (transphobia has never been an exclusively cis, straight phenomenon), and the all-night Compton’s Cafeteria had been a gathering place, a cheap coffee stop, especially for trans sex workers. Their very presence, of course, also made it a convenient for the local police, who found ready targets of harassment among the cafeteria’s trans and cross-dressing patrons. The iconic image of Stonewall remains a brick through a window, and the Compton’s Riot has a similar bit of iconography: a cup of coffee in the face of a cop who grabbed and tried to arrest a patron. What followed was one of the first public queer protests in U.S. history, and the beginning of trans activism in San Francisco.
By the mid-1980s, the tropes were already beginning to solidify: We were beginning a long run of movies (many of them brilliant) about HIV/AIDS, and square in the middle of an era of major films (Dressed to Kill, Cruising, Silence of the Lambs, Basic Instinct) that associated queer identity with extreme violence. In the middle of all that, Desert Hearts was an absolute breath of fresh air: Vivian, an English professor in the middle of a divorce, meets Cay, an uninhibited sculptor, at a ranch in Reno. The course of true love never did run smooth (or, in this case, straight), and so Vivian struggles a bit with the unexpected lesbian attraction. This romantic drama never veers toward tragedy, and is all the better for it.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
The best queer-themed movies understand that nobody is all one thing, and that any type of queer identity intersects with all of the other labels that we choose for ourselves (or that others choose for us). That’s why My Beautiful Laundrette isn’s just a great gay film, it’s also a great film about class, racism, and provides a vivid portrait of life in the Thatcher/Reagan-era 1980s.
Where to stream: Pluto TV, Hoopla
Edward II (1991)
You want queer history? Fine. Let’s take it back to England in the 14th century for the story of Edward II, famously infatuated with courtier Piers Gaveston. Gay filmmaker, provocateur, and activist Derek Jarman removes any historical ambiguity from the relationship between the two and imagines medieval Europe as a postmodern fantasia, rife with intentional anachronisms and Annie Lennox on the soundtrack. Think Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, but much, much gayer. It also made a star of Tilda Swinton, who followed this up as the title character of another queer classic, Orlando.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Freevee, The Roku Channel, Hoopla
Rafiki (2018)
The first Kenyan film to be screened at Cannes was also banned in its own country, as it challenged Kenya's legal ban on gay sex. The romantic drama follows young women Kena and Ziki (Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva) as they develop a romantic relationship among the pressures to conform from family and community. The love story is joyous and charming, but the movie doesn't shy away from the very real challenges.
Where to stream: Hoopla, Kanopy
The Birdcage (1996)
A slick, funny, charming, and quotable bit of Hollywood entertainment starring some of the biggest names of the era, The Birdcage made real money selling a message of acceptance (in spite of a weird and entirely unnecessary R-rating). Unlike many of the earnest queer-adjacent films of the ‘90s, this one actually made it look like being gay could be kinda fun. And funny. And generally not tragic. Though the characters play into particular stereotypes, the movie makes clear that it’s way better (and totally OK) to be an outsized drama queen à la Robin Williams’ Armand than to be tedious and narrow-minded like the senator played by Gene Hackman. It’s all so scrupulously good-natured that it couldn’t help but draw in a broad audience, and thereby help pave the long, winding road to future queer-positive movies.
The mid ’90s saw a string of gay-themed Hollywood movies. These were movies with good intentions and big-name stars, even if they were largely male, straight, and white: the aforementioned The Birdcage, plus Philadelphia and In & Out, to name the biggies. But, even more significantly, it was a golden age for indie filmmakers who were beginning to make more personal, authentic, and idiosyncratic movies that move rejected heteronormativity—what came to be known as New Queer Cinema. Director/actor Cheryl Dunye plays Cheryl, who goes on the hunt for a fictional Black actress from Old Hollywood, exploring the life of someone who lived on the margins.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Bound (1996)
Bound announced major new directorial talents in Lily and Lana Wachowski, a pair of siblings who would go on to create The Matrix and other imaginative successes (along with some equally imaginative flops). The noir-inspired thriller mixes violence and humor in a story that also presents a lesbian relationship that feels real, and an unashamed sexuality that never feels gratuitous—the chemistry between leads Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly is off the freaking charts.
The directors remain among Hollywood’s highest-profile transgender filmmakers, and it all started with this instant classic.
Where to stream: Pluto TV
All About My Mother (1999)
It’s not the queerest film in Pedro Almodóvar’s very queer filmography—that’s probably 1987’s Law of Desire, involving a complex love triangle between two cis gay characters and a trans woman. But All About My Mother solidified Almodóvar’s status as one of the world’s top filmmakers, blending his earlier, campier sensibilities with more dramatic material. When Manuela’s son is killed in a car accident, she sets out on a quest to find his other parent, a transgender woman named Lola whose identity Manuela had kept secret. On the way, she gets involved in the lives of other women, including scene-stealing trans sex worker Agrado and Rosa, an HIV+ nun also carrying Lola’s child. The movie was way, way ahead of its time in depicting queer themes, and it’s still a wildly entertaining and thoughtful movie about motherhood in all its forms.
Where to stream: Max
Tongues Untied (1989)
An experimental tour de force from Black, gay poet and filmmaker Marlon T. Riggs, Tongues Untied approaches the silencing of the experience of gay, Black males by both mainstream white and Black cultures, as well as gay white society. With interviews, poetry, and a non-linear style, Riggs examines the expectations around people like him, starting a discussion that continues to this day, for better and worse.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Saving Face (2004)
The success of The Joy Luck Club in 1993 lead to a huge boom in movies with Chinese-American themes. And by “huge boom,” I mean that Hollywood only waited 11 years for the next movie to center Chinese Americans.
(Sighs audibly.)
But! On the bright side, Alice Wu’s Saving Face is a charming triumph, telling a love story between a closeted surgeon and her boss’s daughter. The backdrop is the traditional families and community of the two women, but ultimately it’s one of those romantic comedies where you can’t help but cheer on the leads.
Where to stream: Fubo, Pluto TV
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
There are several films on this list that involve a bunch of straight people making queer-themed movies, with mixed results. While Brokeback Mountain leans a bit too heavily on tragic tropes (by 2005, we’d seen more than enough movies about gays doomed to die), there’s an undeniable well of talent both behind and in front of the camera—more than enough to make for an affecting experience. The movie’s place in queer history, though, rests as much on the backlash it inspired as on the acclaim it received. By the time the movie lost Best Picture at the Oscars to Crash (her?), the discussion was more about homophobia in Hollywood’s old guard and among movie audiences in general than about either film’s virtues. Brokeback started a discussion, and, just as significantly, reminded studio bosses that queer content could get mainstream attention and make major bank.
Where to stream: Starz
Bent (1997)
Set largely at at the Dachau concentration camp, Bent follows Max (Clive Owen), arrested by the Nazis in the wake of the Night of the Long Knives, and as part of the Nazi's targeted persecution of homosexuals. It's harrowing and heartbreaking, of course, but with moments of real beauty. it also received an NC-17 for no good reason, which has a lot to say about how we treat any film with queer content.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Hoopla
Paragraph 175 (2000)
An essential documentary about the experience of queer Germans during the Nazi years, made just in time to capture interviews with survivors. There's joy in the recollections of a more open and liberal Berlin in the pre-war years, which naturally and horrifically turns to heartbreak as the Nazis move to target queer identities. It's very specific in its way, but feels timeless in its warning that progress can disappear with frightening ease.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Tropical Malady (2004)
This utterly unique Thai film bills itself as a "romantic psychological drama art film," and I suppose that gives you some ideas of its weird and wonderful nature. At the outset, we think we're in a romance involving Keng (Banlop Lomnoi), a soldier stationed in a quiet village who meets local Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee), kicking off a love story. That's before the narrative splinters, and we're following a soldier searching the jungle in the face of a troublesome spirit. It was the first Thai film to debut in the main competition at Cannes, and the first to win the Jury Prize.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Pariah (2011)
It didn’t break out in a big big way, but Pariah still feels like the start of a new, more assured era in queer cinema. For one thing, it’s absolutely gorgeous, with stunning, expressionistic cinematography and confident, assured direction from Dee Rees. It’s a world you can get lost in. Pariah manages to tell a coming of age, coming out story that’s so deeply personal that it never feels like a queer message movie, even though it has plenty to say about identity through the journey of its young, black, lesbian lead Alike.
Where to stream: Starz
Pride (2014)
During the British mineworkers strike in the ‘80s, activist Mark Ashton and others realized that there existed a real opportunity to forge an alliance between the miners and the queer community, both of which had found themselves shafted (ahem) by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Pride reworks the story of the resulting movement (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) into a genuinely delightful comedy-drama (think The Full Monty) about the personalities behind the unlikely team-up that would ultimately bring queer issues to the forefront of British politics.
Where to stream: Hoopla, Pluto TV, Showtime
Drunktown’s Finest (2014)
There’s much about Drunktown’s Finest that we’ve seen before: Set around a Navajo community near Gallup, New Mexico, it foregrounds poverty, alcoholism, and clashes between tradition and modern life. Rather than do away with those stereotypical themes, trans Navajo filmmaker Sydney Freeland explores their reality as part of the broader scope of the lives of three young Native Americans, including a transgender woman who dreams of becoming a model. It’s one of several successful films of the last few years to approach characters at the intersection of queer and Native identities.
In 2006, seven out Black lesbian women were harassed and violently threatened in Greenwich Village. When they fought back, the ensuing brawl led to years-long prison sentences for four of the women, who were charged as though they were gang members. The press called them the “New Jersey Four,” and a “lesbian wolf pack.” One headline warned of an “Attack of the Killer Lesbians,” though, of course, no one was killed. The queer community has always had a fraught relationship with the American judicial system, as have women and people of color. The documentary speaks to the ways in which that long history lives on, especially where identities intersect.
He was the absolute epitome of mid-century, mid-American ideals of masculinity and good looks: a slightly bland but undeniable hotness. With his blond hair, killer smile, and chiseled features (as well as a voice that landed him a couple of hit pop singles), he was a movie star deliberately branded to make suburban teenage girls go nuts. His public romances with stars like Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood gave fans something to fantasize about when they weren’t actively swooning. Of course, even then there was gossip about Hunter’s sexuality, and he confirmed those rumors in the 2005 memoir upon which this award-winning doc is based. It’s a very personal look into the actor’s life in Hollywood, and at the lengths to which the studio system went to keep some of its biggest stars hidden in the closet.
Modern tech has opened up opportunities for filmmakers that they could only dream of back in the day. Imagine if queer directors of earlier generations had been able to shoot a movie on their phones with professional-looking results? The stories that could have been told? Director Sean Baker and company make a virtue of the intimacy and immediacy of that shooting on a couple of iPhones brings, and the results don’t feel shoddy nor cheap. It’s a girlfriend/buddy/revenge comedy about Sin-Dee Rella and Alexandra, two trans sex workers on the hunt for the man who did Sin-Dee wrong. It’s a ton of fun.
Two words: Best Picture. Moonlight actually won a ton of awards, but the most groundbreaking by far was that Oscar. And, yes, they did accidentally read the wrong card and make everyone think that La La Land won—but after 89 years of Academy Awards, it was worth an extra few seconds to learn that the first film with a lead queer character (as well as an all-Black cast) had claimed Hollywood’s biggest prize. Good movies don’t always make history (and this is a great one), but Oscar winners sure do.
Where to stream: Max, Kanopy
Kiki (2016)
Picking up where Paris is Burning left off, Kiki looks at the current state of the drag ball scene. It’s not a sequel, but in examining kiki culture in New York City more than a quarter century after that earlier doc, it provides a fascinating glimpse of everything that has, and hasn’t, changed for a community whose influence has only grown. Many of the same struggles remain: HIV/AIDS hasn’t gone away, especially for those without the money to pay for treatment, nor have over-policing and discrimination. But a broader cultural acceptance of queerness and the mainstreaming (to some extent) of drag have opened doors for many of the young, often trans people of color the film focuses on, who also manifest a fierce and inspiring strain of activism.
Where to stream: AMC+, Kanopy
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)
There are as many perspectives on the Stonewall uprising as there were people who were there, but if you’re looking to educate yourself on those events, you could do worse than to start with a close look at Marsha P. Johnson. Coming into the spotlight during an era when labels were very much in flux, Johnson self-identified as gay and as a transvestite who generally used female pronouns. She was also a sex worker and a drag queen, as well as an activist, model, and mentor—a generally fascinating person who was on the frontline when Stonewall went up in flames in 1969. Director David France’s film explores not just Johnson’s life, but also a recent investigation into her tragic and mysterious death in 1992, which the NYPD ruled a suicide without much examination.
Where to stream: Netflix
120 Beats per Minute (2017)
Director and screenwriter Robin Campillo, alongside co-screenwriter Philippe Mangeot, used some of their own experiences with the grassroots ACT UP organization in crafting this 2017 film. It’s a fictionalized exploration of an era of activism that’s alternately joyous and harrowing, capturing some of the electric energy of the members of a movement who were literally fighting for their lives.
Where to stream: Tubi, Dekkoo, Fubo, Crackle, Hoopla
Happiest Season (2020)
They crank these things out by the dozens. There’s an entire, year-round industry dedicated to feeding an entire nation’s insatiable appetite for schmaltzy, made-for-TV holiday movies, very frequently involving a hard-driving career woman who discovers the true meaning of the season while visiting her hometown for Christmas. There’s comfort in conformity, and so there’s been surprisingly little variety to the form in spite of the sheer volume of these movies—at least until the last couple of years. Non-white faces have become just a bit more common, and 2020 saw the sudden appearance of not just one, but at least seven holiday movies centering queer romances (and queer actors). Which only makes sense—is there a better audience for campy, cheesy, over-the-top love stories than gay people? Hulu’s Happiest Season had better marketing, slightly bigger stars, and an overall better pedigree than some of the others, and therefore became the biggest focus of attention. If you’re asking if it’s any good, you’re missing the point entirely: It’s dorky TV comfort food, sure, but it’s dorky TV comfort food with and about lesbians—and damned if that doesn’t feel like progress.
Where to stream: Hulu
Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)
In the Happiest Season vein, this rather successful adaptation of the Casey McQuiston feels schmaltzy in all the right ways—a rom-com about a prince and a President's son for the gays. A glossy and competently made romance for the rest of us. Where Royal Blue goes a bit further, though, is in the heat its two leads (Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine) generate. The sex might be PG-13 at most, and would hardly make a stir in a straight movie, but this feels like a leap forward for the mainstreaming of cisgender man-on-man action.
Representation on screen isn’t everything, but it matters. For most Americans, everything they know about transgender people comes from media representations, and that’s also true for trans youth, who may have no other role models than those they get from TV. Disclosure takes a look at over a century of transgender stories in film and on TV (going way back to A Florida Enchantment in 1914), an era of very, very, very slow progress that’s taken a giant leap forward in just the last few years with the rise of popular trans celebrities, many of whom are interviewed here. While focusing on celebrities, the film also acknowledges that added visibility carries dangers as well, and that the spotlight hasn’t necessarily made life safer. Disclosure investigates those generally problematic, often quite hurtful old movies and shows to figure out how they’ve tracked with the realities of trans lives, and how far we’ve come.
Where to stream: Netflix
Queen Christina (1933)
The real-life Queen Christina of Sweden, like Greta Garbo who portrays her, enjoyed a well-earned reputation for gender ambiguity and queerness, some of which is on display in this pre-code film that sees her entertaining several suitors, both male and female. To some, she’s a weak-willed woman; to others, she’s unsuitably domineering. The old story: too horny for some; too frosty to others. This was 1933, before the Hays production code took a hammer to much of the sex and nearly all of the overt queerness in American movies, and it would be decades before we'd start to claw back some of what they stole from us.
Smart and humane where it might have been salacious, director Ira Sachs crafts a lovely, moving portrait of the disintegrating marriage between Martin and Tomas (Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski). Though long in coming, the precipitating event is unexpected: Tomas meets Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), with whom he develops an instant connection. Not only is it a brilliantly acted film, it's also a refreshing, matter-of-fact take on modern sexual fluidity.
Where to stream: Mubi, or digital rental via Apple TV
The Celluloid Closet (1996)
Once you've watched all of the films on this list, get some added context via the essential documentary about the history of queer Hollywood. The film examines the stereotypes, the hidden messages, the secret codes—everything that made the movies queer, in spite of the restrictions placed upon them.
In the same way that cranking up blues music can serve as a balm to a troubled soul, sinking into a deeply sad movie can be just the thing to give you a sense of catharsis. After all, everyone loves a good wallow once in a while—and in an era of highly calculated blockbusters designed not to offend anyone, it’s oddly refreshing to watch a movie that’s unafraid to make you feel bad.
It takes more than a mere unhappy ending to join the ranks of the all-time most depressing movies, however. These 30 flicks favor a pervasive sense of existential gloom, whether they are drawing attention to the plight of people facing unimaginable true-life circumstances, or simply inviting us to explore a breadth of emotions the Avengers can’t quite channel.
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
A Czech immigrant and factory worker in the 1960s is losing her eyesight and desperate to pull together the money to secure an operation for her son that will spare him the same fate. In spite of the fantasy musical numbers that sustain Selma (Björk), and her own best intentions, fate and the greed of those she trusts conspire to bring her to a tragic end. The musical interludes are spectacular, but the contrast between Selma’s dream worlds and her real life circumstances only serves to heighten the sense of tragedy and injustice. On the bright side: this is a period piece, and we know that the American healthcare system could never force anyone into such dire straights today. Phew.
Sticking with the problematic master of mirth, Lars von Trier, it’s hard to argue that you’re not getting exactly what it says on the tin when you sit down to watch a movie called Melancholia. (No refunds.) Here, von Trier adds a science fiction-ish twist to a story of modern malaise. The titular rogue planet is on a collision course with Earth, and two sisters handle that destiny in very different ways. The result is a string of depressive episodes, infidelity, and death by suicide that all eschew the hope that we might make some sort of wary peace with death.
Where to stream: Netflix, Hulu, The Roku Channel
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
A symphonic ode to the misery of addiction, Darren Aronofsky’s second feature plays like an X-rated version of the anti-drug films you watched in high school. Over the course of two punishing, stylishly filmed, and artfully edited hours, we watch as four characters’ lives fall apart as they try to use drugs—from heroin to diet pills—to fill the empty places inside. It doesn’t work out: Jared Leto gets gangrene from an infected injection site, Jennifer Connelly turns to prostitution to get the money for her next score, and Marlon Wayans winds up in prison, abused by the guards. And then there’s Ellen Burstyn, who starts the film a lively, red-headed retiree and ends it a vacant-eyed, ashen amphetamine junkie in a squalid nursing home. Drugs are bad, mmmk?
Where to stream: Paramount+
Speak No Evil (2022)
I get that horror films are supposed to be scary, but then there are those than are less scary than they are unrelentingly bleak. Which is distressing in a different way? Regardless, this 2022 Danish film is as grim as they come. It follows a young family that meets a nice couple and their son while traveling and accepts an invitation to stay at their home. TO tell you what happens next would be a big spoiler, but I'd almost like to save you the angst of experiencing it. Needless to say, only bad things happen, and in the cruelest manner imaginable—including to young children. Bad feelings all around, and one of the most hopeless endings ever. For some reason it's getting a Hollywood remake with James MacAvoy?
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+
Sophie’s Choice (1982)
In flashbacks from just after the war, we learn the story of titular Holocaust survivor Sophie (Meryl Streep), who during those years, had been forced to decide which of her children would live and which would die. As with the William Styron novel on which the film is based, it’s a powerful, fact-based narrative that, unfortunately, has become a sort of shorthand for any difficult decision.
Where to stream: Hulu, Peacock, Tubi, Crackle, The Criterion Channel
Come and See (1985)
Director Elem Klimov fought Soviet censors for nearly a decade to release his film, a truly harrowing look at the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of a Belarusian teenager who joins the anti-Nazi resistance following the invasion of his village. As the occupation continues, even survival for Flyora comes to feel like a curse; the accumulated horrors (including the deliberate burning of a church with dozens of people inside, an event that really took place) makeCome and See one of the best war films ever made—because all the greatest war films are really anti-war.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Nicholas Cage won an Oscar for portraying a suicidal alcoholic who drives to Vegas with a trunk full of booze and an intent to drink himself into oblivion in this critically acclaimed and horrifically bleak film from writer/director Mike Figgis, adapting the semi-autobiographical novel by John O’Brien (who died by suicide shortly after selling the movie rights). I saw it once more than a decade ago, and to the best of my recollection, it involves nearly two hours of watching Cage guzzle hard liquor in a dingy hotel room while scream-crying, intercut with scenes of a sex worker (Elisabeth Shue, also Oscar-nominated) being subjected to a horrific sexual assault. I might have some details wrong, but it'll be a while yet before I can watch it again to verify.
Where to stream: Max
The Mist (2007)
The titular mist (not to be confused with The Fog) settles over a town in this nihilistic Stephen King adaptation, putting a bunch of locals at each other’s throats after they become trapped in a grocery store at the end of the world. Frank Darabont’s film makes clear that there’s no outside evil that can remotely compete with the ignorance, fear, and religious extremism that we’re faced with on a daily basis. Once that’s clear, the movie pushes things 10 steps further, ending on a note that’s either a perfect summation of its message or unbearably cruel. Probably it’s both.
Where to stream: Freevee, Starz
Cure (1997)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s serial killer drama feels a bit like Seven early on, but grows increasingly more philosophical and esoteric as it goes, despite maintaining a chilly detachment from all of the murders it depicts. Police detective Kenichi Takabe is on the hunt for a killer, even as his own home life is imploding. The killer, we eventually learn, is no killer at all, instead someone adept at manipulating others into doing his work for him. The movie toys with the idea that there might be something otherworldly at play, but that’s less horrifying than the case it makes that we are, each of us, capable of incredibly dark acts, provided we’re given just enough of a push.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
The Road (2009)
An unnamed man and his son wander through a bleak, desolate, post-apocalyptic America in search of a rumored safe haven to be found near the coast. Where other stories of this type invite us to have some fun with the idea that we might be clever enough to survive (and often throw in some zombies for good measure), The Road (as with the Cormac McCarthy on which it’s based) makes clear there’s unlikely to be much to appreciate about the collapse of civilization.
Where to stream: Starz
Children of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men suggests that we’re not much more than five years away from civilization’s collapse after a period of war, natural disaster, and economic depression. So the idea that we still have five years on all of that is pretty hopeful, but otherwise, the world depicted here—in which infertility has become an epidemic—is one of deep desperation and a total absence of hope. As much as any film here, and thanks to Cuarón’s careful eye as a director, the sense of a world over the brink is in every shot.
Where to stream: Starz
Alien 3 (1992)
While the first two Alien films were hardly laugh riots, David Fincher’s (troubled) sequel is almost certainly the most boldly disturbing franchise entry in the history of Hollywood sequels. The movie begins with the deaths of almost all the survivors from the previous film (and the gruesome autopsy of a beloved character) before dropping Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) into a prison colony in which the most likable character (Charles S. Dutton) is a serial murderer and convicted rapist. In an era of franchises increasingly calculated to be as inoffensive as possible, I’m a big fan of its risk-taking, but hoo boy is it dark.
Where to stream: Starz
Triangle (2009)
A twisty-turny film that at first plays like a slasher-movie at sea, but then quickly turns into something far more disturbing. Jess is off on a boat trip with some friends, offering a slightly sketchy explanation for the absence of her autistic son, who was meant to join them. A sudden storm finds the group seeking shelter about a strangely empty ocean liner—empty except for the person who keeps killing everyone. The film soon evolves into a time-loop science-fiction thriller, before revealing itself to be a punishment of mythological proportions.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi, The Roku Channel, AMC+, Crackle, Freevee
Timecrimes (2007)
Another sci-fi mind-bender involving messing about with time, this Spanish thriller follows the tragic temporal fate of Héctor (Karra Elejalde) and his wife Clara (Candela Fernández). Héctor spots a woman in the woods, naked and unconscious. Going to investigate, he's attacked by a mysterious man covered in bloody bandages. Fleeing, he winds up in the middle of a bizarre time travel experiment, one which sends him back in time and into a past that he only makes worse. And then makes worse again. And again. The fiendishly clever film from Nacho Vigalondo suggests that neither our best intentions nor all the time in the world can erase our most selfish mistakes.
Where to stream: Hoopla
Man Bites Dog (1992)
Plenty of films tweak audiences for our willingness to wallow in onscreen horrors (see Rear Window for a cheerier example). Belgian mockumentary Man Bites Dog puts us through the wringer by putting us in the place of a film crew following a vicious serial killer. There’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek style here, which does nothing to lessen the impact of the film crew’s increasing sympathy with the killer, who ultimately become accomplices to his actions. Man Bites Dog asks deeply uncomfortable questions about not just our tolerance for on-screen violence, but about the extent to which we’ll stand aside in the face of real-world horrors, or even join in given the right incentives.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
Heather Matarazzo made a brilliant debut in Todd Solondz’ Welcome to the Dollhouse Dawn Weiner, an extremely unpopular middle schooler whose life becomes a series of rejections, assaults, bullying, and disappointments. While the character is charming, this isn’t a movie about a plucky nonconformist who beats the odds, it’s about the psychological trauma faced by those who don’t fit in, and the terrible choice between staying true to yourself and accepting the resulting abuse, or hiding your light with in a bushel in the hope you’ll find a little peace.
Where to stream: Tubi
Precious (2009)
Gabourey Sidibe’s 16-year-old Precious can neither read nor write and, as the movie opens, is pregnant for the second time as a result of a series of rapes by her father, even as her uncaring mother subjects her to physical and verbal abuse on a regular basis. Unlike many characters in these movies, there’s a hint of hope for Precious—a transfer to a new school; the attention of a well-meaning teacher—but there road to (maybe) get to a better place is a dark and rocky one.
Where to stream: Tubi
Revolutionary Road (2008)
The horror in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road is in the white-picket-fence conformity of the 1950s. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite post-Titanic in a story that sees the walls closing in on a young couple trying to make a go of it in a stifling world, before their efforts to escape into something more spiritually fulfilling threaten their relationship and eventually, their lives. The bright, clean streets of the title’s Revolutionary Road come to feel as dystopian as those in another movie’s apocalypse.
Where to stream: Paramount+
La Strada (1954)
Federico Fellini was known for films filled with color and fantastical imagery, and there’s a bit of that in his story of simple-minded Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), purchased by widower and street performer Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), previously married to Gelsomina’s late sister. Gelsomina bright spirit and kind heart are gradually ground down by the cruel treatment of her new husband; when she finds a companion in another street performer (a clown, in this case), Zampanò’s jealousy leads to tragedy, even though the strongman can’t be bothered to show his wife any affection. It’s a beautiful film, and a shattering one.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
The Plague Dogs (1982)
Snitter (John Hurt) and Rowf (Christopher Benjamin) escape from a cruel animal testing laboratory in this adult animated feature adapting the novel by Richard Adams (Watership Down). I'll skip over details of the experiments to which the two were subjected, except to say that they're both thoroughly cruel and also entirely reflective of real-life animal testing practices. The world at large is, unfortunately, not much kinder to the two escaped dogs than their former prison was. It's rather lovely, in its way, and beautifully animated...but animal lovers, especially, will find it rough going. Which is certainly the point.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee, Shout Factory TV
The Father (2020)
Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Anthony, the titular father, at the end of his life and living with severe dementia. It's a brilliant performance in a movie that tells its story entirely from Anthony's perspective, his disorientation playing out as frequently horrifyingly disjointed moments in a life losing all connective tissue. In privileging the point of view of the patient, rather than the family or caregivers, the movie is intensely humane, but it doesn't soft-pedal the experience, and there's little comfort to be found.
Where to stream: Starz
All of Us Strangers (2023)
A romantic ghost story on the surface, All of Us Strangers follows lonely screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) as he starts a relationship with his very mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), the two of them the only residents of an imposing new apartment building. It's a relationship that draws Adam to return to his family home, where he finds his parents seemingly alive and well, despite them having died decades earlier. Without offering too many spoilers beyond that, the movie goes to very dark places from there, providing a strong reminder that loss is an inevitable part of life, yes, but also that the only real comfort is in forgetting and moving on.
Where to stream: Hulu
Threads (1984)
A particularly effective take on the nuclear-war-is-bad-actually genre of the early and mid 1980s (see also: Testament and The Day After), this British film takes a chilling, faux documentary approach to the end of days. A young couple in Sheffield is getting ready to build a life and a family together when war breaks out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, with a nuclear attack occurring on a NATO base about 20 miles from the city. The two are separated, and that is only the beginning of the horrors faced by Karen Meagher's Ruth Beckett. The emphasis is on the resulting breakdown in law and social order, with an ending shot that's a genuine punch to the gut.
Where to stream: Tubi, The Criterion Channel, Shudder, Mubi
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
There are moments of light in Manchester by the Sea, and it doesn't build to an ending that'e entirely crushing...but there's an awful lot of pain and anger along the way. Casey Affleck plays Lee, who is surprised to find out that he's been assigned custody of his deceased brother's son. The situation forces him to confront his past in the title town and, as we come to understand why sullen, alcoholic Lee can barely get through a day, it becomes clear why his past is holding him back, and will continue to do so. (It's that bad.)
Where to stream: Prime Video
Aftersun (2022)
Initially, and on a surface level, Aftersun is a bright and charming look at a vacation at a cheap resort in Turkey involving a divorced dad (Paul Mescal, whom we've already discussed) and the daughter (Frankie Corio) he doesn't really see enough of. But there are unsettling elements from the very beginning, and a growing unease creeps into our perspective as an audience. We soon understand that what we're seeing is a memory, a grown woman's attempts to understand her father's life and death with only a child's memories to work from. That fun trip soon becomes something melancholy, and deeply poignant.
Where to stream: Paramount+
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Robert Bresson’s film opens with the gift of a donkey named Balthasar to a sensitive farm girl, Marie. The two are separated following a family tragedy, with the once-beloved beast of burden winding up as nothing more than a pack animal for a family that doesn’t care for him beyond his ability to perform labor. Marie, meanwhile, ends up in a deeply abusive relationship, and, though fate reconnects woman and donkey at intervals over the years, neither is having a particularly good life, and neither winds up with a particularly happy ending. It’s a lovely movie, in many ways, but it’s definitely a banger in the depressing animal-story genre (and just maybe, the donkey is supposed to be a metaphor, but let’s try not to think too much about that).
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Cries and Whispers (1972)
While I’d never describe Ingmar Bergman as maudlin, it’s certainly the case that his best films, while masterpieces of acting, directing, and screenwriting, are deeply depressing, if not entirely pessimistic. Here, Agnes (Harriet Andersson) slowly dies of cancer while her sisters struggle with their own problems and insecurities, finding themselves unable to provide the needed support. The good work and genuine care of the maid, Anna, further exacerbates the feelings of inadequacy that keep the family from connecting when it’s most truly needed.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
The Rapture (1991)
A young swinger (this is 1991, when such terms were still in the parlance) played by Mimi Rogers becomes a born-again Christian after a sect convinces her that the Rapture is imminent. Her new piousness is challenged when her husband is murdered, and her despair leads her to contemplate taking her own daughter’s life (to get her to heaven faster, naturally). And that’s not even the depressing part. Fearlessly depicting her character’s transition from hedonism to zealotry to unimaginable despair, Rogers gives the best performance of her career; too bad it’s in a film you’ll almost definitely only want to watch once.
In assembling this list, I struggled with how many Holocaust films to include; there are many, enough to populate an even longer list than this all by themselves. For better or worse, I will let Roman Polanski’s The Pianistrepresent the whole, and certainly it is one of the most unsparing in its depictions of that particular historical horror. Based on the memoir by the Polish-Jewish musician Władysław Szpilman (played by Adrian Brody, who won the Oscar), the movie takes us through the entire span of the war; as things get worse and worse and worse for the Polish Jews, Szpilman loses everything, including the love for music that is his only lifeline. Though its legacy is tarnished for being directed by Polanski, The Pianist remains a stunning accomplishment in the artful depiction of the worst of humanity.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi
Umberto D. (1952)
Any movie can be sad, but it takes a special flavor of cinematic hopelessness to get a film banned by the government for being too depressing. Yet that’s exactly what happened to this story of an elderly Italian man (Carlo Battisti) struggling to keep a roof over his head after he is evicted; when that proves too tall an order, he elects for finding a home for his beloved dog before he ends his own life. Performed by a cast of mostly non-actors, Umberto D.’s grim realism proved a bit too much for the Italian government, which felt it painted too bleak a picture of the state of the nation in the wake of World War II, and subsequently “banned the export of films deemed unflattering to Italian society,” according to Peter Becker, film historian and president of the Criterion Channel.
The 2000s, in some ways, feel, culturally, neither here nor there: They don’t have the strong neon vibe we associate with the 1980s, and lack the grunge appeal of the ‘90s. There’s plenty to appreciate, however, in movies over the decade that was bookended by blockbusters: Lord of the Rings in the early years, and Iron Man, Dark Knight, and Avatar at the end. None of those feel particularly cookie-cutter in the way that their successors would often be, and, in the middle years, there were many successful movies of the kind they don’t really make anymore: mid-budget movies with personal, rather than galactic, stakes, that still managed to do brisk business at the box office. It was a decade on the cusp of our mega-blockbuster era, and that tension between the indie-loving ‘90s and the present kept things interesting.
What are some of your favorites?
Ghost World (2001)
Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) face high school graduation, and a crush on Steve Buscemi, in Terry Zwigoff’s indie dark comedy.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, MGM+, The Roku Channel
Dreamgirls (2006)
The cast here is incredible: Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Beyoncé, just for starters. Even more incredible are the absolutely electric musical numbers, including, and especially, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”
Where to stream: Paramount+
Almost Famous (2000)
Cameron Crowe’s ‘70s-era comedy/drama about a young music journalist going on the road with a major band is a funny, touching crowd pleaser that’s not afraid to veer off in some unexpected and idiosyncratic directions. Hold me closer, tiny dancer.
Where to stream: Paramount+
The Incredibles (2004)
This Pixar triumph hit before the superhero movie wave really crested, and is all the better for it. If only they were all this good.
Where to stream: Disney+
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Ang Lee’s cowboy drama has a big heart and a minimal understanding of the mechanics of gay male sex, while also deserving far better than its fate as an Oscar also-ran to the inferior Crash.
Where to stream: Starz
Love & Basketball (2000)
Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps play next-door neighbors who, over the course of several years, struggle with their growing attraction to each other, even while their basketball ambitions pull them apart. Off-the-charts chemistry here.
Only the real ones knew what to do with Jennifer’s Body in 2009, and the film took a long time to become the cult classic it was probably always destined to be. Here, popular teenager Jennifer (Megan Fox) is turned into a succubus by abusive men, gleefully killing boys around school to the general horror of her friend, Needy (Amanda Seyfried).
Given the movie’s impressive longevity, it’s tempting to call Mean Girls a cult classic—except that it made boatloads of money back in the day, as well. When Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) gets accepted into the cool clique at her public school, she quickly realizes that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Where to stream: Paramount+, MGM+
Barbershop (2002)
Everything from sex, to relationships, to O.J. and civil rights is on the agenda in this comedy/drama, and the cast of lively and entertaining characters make it a fun place to spend time.
Where to stream: Max
American Splendor (2003)
Starring greats Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis as underground comic creators Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, Splendor is a stylish portrait of a couple of everyday people who also happen to be great American artists.
Where to stream: Max
The Departed (2006)
Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs finds Leonardo DiCaprio going undercover in a crime organization, while Matt Damon infiltrates the police. It’s all very twisty-turny, and provides a last, great performance from Jack Nicholson (barring a surprise un-retirement).
Or you could watch the Hong Kong original from directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak—a smart, emotional crime thriller in its own right.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Casino Royale (2006)
Daniel Craig’s first Bond outing is one of the series’ very best, introducing a leaner, meaner 007 in the first formal adaptation of the very first Ian Fleming book.
There’s genuine heat here between Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader—but also a sense of humor that makes the passionate intensity of their relationship that much more titilating.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee, Plex
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Proving there’s still a place for traditional animation at Disney, the gorgeously animated film set in New Orleans of the 1920s introduced Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) to the pantheon of Disney princesses.
Where to stream: Disney+
Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Two teenage boys set out on an impromptu road trip with the slightly older (and married) woman on whom they both have a crush. Alfonso Cuarón’s film is a sweet, funny, and sad coming-of-age movie.
Where to stream: IFC Unlimited via Apple TV
Brown Sugar (2002)
Brown Sugar finds Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan as friends, and sometimes rivals, in the music industry who very gradually come to recognize their mutual attraction.
Where to stream: Starz
Rec (2007)
This Spanish import is top-tier found footage, involving a group of firefighters on an emergency call who wind up trapped inside a building at the center of a creeping zombie infection. That limited, specific geography is key to the movie's brisk, efficient, and nerve-jangling effectiveness.
The filmmakers behind Shrek turned the Disney formula on its ear by blending some slightly crass, but very funny humor with a genuinely heartfelt story about self-acceptance. In the process, they won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and the movie picked up an Adapted Screenplay nomination—the first ever for an animated film. Not bad for a gassy ogre. Plus: The movie opens with a montage set to Smash Mouth, and it doesn't get more 2000s than that.
Where to stream: Netflix
Legally Blonde (2001)
Reese Witherspoon was charming and funny enough here as unlikely law student Elle Woods that it birthed a franchise that continues over two decades later. The fun here is that Elle only looks like a stereotypical dumb sorority girl...all she lacks is the confidence to show everyone how smart she is. Once you've seen the sequels, the reboot, the TV movie, the musical, and the reality show, c'mon back here to the still-superior original.
Where to stream: Max
How High (2001)
Pals Method Man and Redman get some help from their dead friend after smoking his ashes, acing their college entrance exams and winding up at Harvard. A goofy stoner classic.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
In plenty of other stoner-type comedies, Indian- and Korean-Americans are most likely to show up as secondary characters and broad stereotypes—here they’re in the lead. It doesn’t hurt that the movie is pretty damn funny.
A bona fide horror cult classic, Session 9 stars David Caruso as part of an asbestos abatement crew working at abandoned mental asylum. The location is appropriately creepy, but the movie is ultimately a psychological mind-bender, with the experiences of the work crew beginning to parallel those of former patients.
Bruce Campbell plays an aged Elvis Presley alongside Ossie Davis’ John F. Kennedy in a nursing home plagued by an ancient Egyptian mummy. For that offbeat premise, the movie can be surprisingly moving.
Where to stream: Tubi, MGM+
Eating Out (2004)
The kick-off to a series, this one’s a convoluted, Three’s Company-esque series of mix-ups involving gay guys pretending to be straight and straight guys pretending to be gay, with the right amount of dorky charm and nudity that this kind of movie needs to succeed.
Where to stream: Tubi, Here TV
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Sofia Coppolla's candy-colored historical drama is positively loaded with willful anachronisms—all of which serve to erase the distance between us and the story of France's clever, tragic queen (Kirsten Dunst).
Yeah, it's a monster movie—but, in Cloverfield, we got something unique. There are plenty of low-budget, scrappy found footage-style movies; this is a big budget spectacular, and a very effective one at that.
Where to stream: Max
Unbreakable (2000)
M. Night Shyamalan's take on superheroes was seen as a slightly disappointing follow-up to the director's breakthrough with The Sixth Sense. Time, though, has been kind to the distinct and deliberately paced story of a man (Bruce Willis) who discovers that he's nearly indestructible following a train crash. Samuel L. Jackson is fabulous as his extremely brittle counterpart.
Diablo Cody won an Academy Award for her screenwriting debut in this sweet and quirky story about a very independent-minded teenager dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and the various ways in which it complicates her life. Elliot Page stars, with Michael Cera, Allison Janney, and J. K. Simmons are among the pretty flawless cast.
Where to stream: Hulu
The Descent (2006)
Getting lost in those caves is scary enough, even before we discover that we're not alone down there. The ultimate in spelunking horror.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Gladiator (2000)
Ridley Scott's sword-and-sandals revival didn't spark a new flourishing of the genre, but it did make a ton of money and win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And inspire a two-decades-later sequel.
Where to stream: Paramount+, Apple TV+, AMC+
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
The Clint Eastwood-directed boxing picture felt like a throwback, even in 2004, but a good old-fashioned boxing drama is always welcome, especially as they've become more rare. The movie won four Academy Awards, including for lead Hilary Swank.
This Barbershop spin-off follows widowed hairstylist Gina Norris starting over in Atlanta with her daughter, and opening her own shop when a job doesn't pan out. Queen Latifah is as delightful as ever, and is joined by a great cast including Alfre Woodard, Della Reese, Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Kevin Bacon, and Djimon Hounsou.
Where to stream: Max
Pitch Black (2000)
The resulting franchise gets weird very quickly, but the first Riddick movie is a smart, and very effective sci-fi horror story. A prisoner transport goes down on a desolate planet full of creatures that feed after dark. And an eclipse is coming. Fortunately for the survivors, convict Vin Diesel also works better with the lights out.
Where to stream: Peacock
Ray (2004)
Jamie Foxx gives a memorable performance (and won an Oscar) in this biopic covering three-or-so decades in the life of legendary musician Ray Charles.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this memorable emo mind-bender about a troubled teenager who dodges disaster thanks to a bit of sleepwalking. An instant cult classic, it's the movie all the cool kids were talking about back in the day.
Where to stream: Tubi, Shudder, AMC+, The Roku Channel
Training Day (2001)
Director Antoine Fuqua and company crafted a tense, brutal crime drama that won Denzel Washington his single Best Actor Oscar. Is it his best performance? Probably not, but he's memorably over-the-top as thoroughly corrupt cop Alonzo Harris.
The sweetest, most charming movie about the romance between a man and his life-like love doll that you're likely to encounter.
Where to stream: Tubi, MGM+, The Roku Channel
Waitress (2007)
Before catching another performance of the popular musical adaptation, revisit the source material starring Keri Russell as a small-town diner waitress with a secret pregnancy and an obnoxious husband. An affair with town doctor Nathan Fillion might be just the thing.
Where to stream: Hulu, Starz
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
A fascinating cultural artifact, Napoleon Dynamite was a legit pop sensation for a year or two, and there wasn’t a soul on the planet who didn’t have a take on Jon Heder’s memorable line delivery. All that aside, it’s a cute, funny, and sometimes surprisingly astute take on high-school awkwardness.
Where to stream: Hulu
Spider-Man (2002)
In an era when superhero movies were mercifully fewer and far(ther) between, Sam Raimi’s inaugural Spider-film felt like a revelation: a fast-paced, enjoyably quirky story of a nerd who becomes a hero. Its 2004 sequel was even better.
Where to stream: Disney+, Fubo, FX Now
American Psycho (2000)
With an over-the-top satirical style, director and co-writer Mary Harron came to mock and bury misogyny, not to praise it. And yet still some audiences came away thinking that Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman was a cool guy.
Where to stream: Peacock
Super Troopers (2001)
A movie of patchwork scenes that somehow birthed not only a bevy of in-jokes but a couple of decades worth of sequels and side-quels (Super Troopers 2, Beerfest, Club Dread, The Slammin’ Salmon, etc.).
Where to stream: Starz
Cinderella Man (2005)
Teamed with Russell Crowe, director Ron Howard was at his crowd-pleasing best with this film inspired by real-life Cinderella Man, James J. Braddock.
Where to stream: Starz
Mulholland Drive (2001)
This love/hate letter to Hollywood has come to be (justly) regarded as one of director David Lynch’s best, and most oddly crowd-pleasing, works: an L.A. noir about murder and obsession and a blue box that’s very significant of, well, something or other.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Lost in Translation (2003)
A declining American movie star in the midst of a midlife crisis and a young grad student facing a similarly uncertain future meet while staying at an upscale hotel in Tokyo. The movie that cemented director Sofia Coppola’s spot in the filmmaker pantheon.
Where to stream: Max
Drumline (2002)
A classic comedy-drama set in the high-stakes world of college marching bands, starring Nick Cannon as a guy with more talent than social skills.
Where to stream: Starz
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
A movie musical about a gender-queer punk rocker with a title referring to the results of a botched gender affirmation procedure, the movie has a huge heart and a score that genuinely rocks.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
The Great Debaters (2007)
Set in 1930 and directed by, and starring, Denzel Washington, this genuinely engaging drama brings inspirational-sports-movie tropes to the more unlikely theme of college debate societies.
Where to stream: Freevee
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
It’s not necessarily Spielberg’s best-loved film, but this sweet and poignant story of a robot boy (Haley Joel Osment) searching for a family at the end of the world is as heartbreaking as it is humane.
Where to stream: Paramount+, Prime Video
Whale Rider (2002)
Pai is a 12-year-old Māori girl and the direct descendant of their tribe’s traditional notable ancestor, the Whale Rider—except that, traditionally, women can’t lead. Star Keisha Castle-Hughes became the youngest nominee for a Best Actress Oscar for her open, genuine performance.
Where to stream: Starz
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Josie gained an audience over time because of its goofy charm, but also because it came to feel increasingly more relevant in its satirizing of the crass commercialization of mass entertainment.
High school is awkward as hell, and Superbad is another classic of the genre: a movie about two nerds (Michael Cera and Jonah Hill), each looking to have sex before graduation, but with a surprising amount of heart.
Where to stream: Fubo, USA
Star Trek (2009)
J.J. Abrams’ kinda-reboot brought a blockbuster budget to Trek, giving the then-sleeping franchise the kick in the pants it needed to fly into the 21st century.
Where to stream: Paramount+
Children of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian thriller is a truly great high-concept science fiction film, and offers up as depressingly prescient a vision of the near future as we’ve seen. Still: it’s beautiful, exciting, and often moving.
Where to stream: Starz
High Tension (2003)
A slasher movie that kicked the “New French Extremity” genre into high gear, this one doesn’t feel like a cliche. It’s brutal, tense, and uncompromising—even if it doesn’t always make perfect sense.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee, The Roku Channel
District 9 (2009)
With parallels to South African apartheid, writer/director Neill Blomkamp crafted the kind of smart, pointed sci-fi film that studios think audiences don’t care for—except that District 9 was a blockbuster, earning many times its budget at the box office.
Where to stream: AMC+
Spirited Away (2001)
After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, 10-year-old Chihiro takes a job working in her bathhouse with the hope of finding a way to free them. This might be my favorite Hayao Miyazaki movie, but I say that a lot.
Where to stream: Max
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
Tyler Perry (who wrote and starred in this one, but didn’t direct) introduced the street-smart Madea, brought over from his stage plays featuring the character. The box office hit kicked off a franchise that’s still going strong.
People like to neg James Cameron’s film (right before buying tickets), but he’s the only director operating at this budget point who can make exactly the movie he wants. There’s something very cool about that, whether you love the finished product or not.
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