LGBTQ+ Voices
You don’t have to go out of your way to celebrate the contributions that queer people have made to world cinema; film history is unavoidably, ineradicably, and undeniably queer. But those contributions haven’t always been out in the open, we’re spotlighting some of the most brazenly, brilliantly queer movies we can think of, with films from Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman, Yvonne Rainer, and other marvelous mavericks.
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4 Days in France
Directed by Jérôme Reybaud | 141 mins | 2016
Parisian Pierre (Pascal Cervo) impulsively leaves his boyfriend Paul (Arthur Igual) behind and hits the backroads of rural France in Reybaud’s droll, sexy road movie for the dating-app age. Pierre makes his way between Grindr dates and cruising destina... -
A Bigger Splash
Directed by Jack Hazan | 106 mins | 1973
Jack Hazan’s intimate and innovative film about English-born, often California-based artist David Hockney and his work honors its subject through creative risk-taking. The improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid features Hockney—a wary participant—as wel... -
BloodSisters
Directed by Michelle Handelman | 69 mins | 1995
A headlong plunge into the thriving “leatherdyke” BDSM community of ’90s San Francisco, Handelman’s film lets its eight subjects—all active participants in the leather scene—discuss private fantasy and public activism before the camera, as well as l... -
Funeral Parade of Roses
Directed by Toshio Matsumoto | 105 mins | 1969
Part of the storied output of Japan’s radical Art Theatre Guild, Matsumoto’s dazzling voyage through Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood centers on two gender-nonconforming divas at “Bar Genet” but also doubles as a record of Japan’s avant-garde and subcul... -
Poison
Leaving November 1
Directed by Todd Haynes | 85 mins | 1991
With his first feature, Haynes took his influence from the patron saint of all queer outlaw art, the French writer and director Jean Genet. The result, a landmark of New Queer Cinema, was a trio of intercut, stylistically distinct stori... -
So Pretty
Directed by Jessica Dunn Rovinelli | 83 mins | 2019
Two young queer couples in New York City—transgender artist Tonia and her American academic boyfriend Franz; transwoman musician Erika and her political radical transmasculine partner Paul—find their daily lives gradually merging with the action... -
Stranger by the Lake
Directed by Alain Guiraudie | 100 mins | 2013
Lauded and laureled at Cannes, Guiradie’s understated, simmeringly sensual thriller explores the proximity of Eros and Thanatos in an idyllic, lakeside nude beach/cruising spot—shot for maximum pastoral splendor by DP Claire Mathon—where regular Franc... -
The Queen
Directed by Frank Simon | 68 mins | 1968
Welcome to the 1967 Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, held at New York’s Town Hall! Simon’s essential document of queer history takes us backstage to rehearsals and dressing rooms at a drag competition organized by Flawless Sabrina, and judged by a pa... -
Totally F***ed Up
Directed by Gregg Araki | 79 mins | 1993
The first film of Araki’s “Teenage Apocalypse” trilogy, which the director once described as a “cross between avant-garde experimental cinema and a queer John Hughes flick,” "Totally F***ed Up" focuses on six gay adolescents who, rejected by their families... -
Tropical Malady
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul | 114 mins | 2004
Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, this is the movie that gained Apichatpong’s distinctive, dreamy vision a new level of recognition on the international stage. A bifurcated narrative, with no clear connection between the film’s two halves,... -
Zero Patience
Directed by John Greyson | 101 mins | 1993
Toronto New Wave fixture and queer activist Greyson’s wildly original work—part-protest film, part-comic musical fantasy—depicts the most unlikely romance between immortal Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton (now employed at the Toronto Natural History...
