(a foto acima é uma piada e é vendida no próprio site autostraddle. Por favor, entendam o meu humor esquisito!)
A presente lista foi feita pelo site
AUTOSTRADDLE e publicada em 11 de fevereiro de 2018, então, qualquer filme mais recente, como
DISOBEDIENCE, pode não está nela.
Não há links para download dos filmes mas, quem sabe eu faça uma gigantesca busca e sane este problema num futuro próximo :P
Mais uma vez lembrando que não faço parte do mundo deste blog, seja LGBT ou POLI, tento não dar opinião pessoal... mas, como adoro cinema, vou indicar o que EU acho que é GRANDE CINEMA, ou o que eu SIMPLESMENTE GOSTO :D da lista, independente de serem cis, trans, hetero, lesbo, gay, poli, jacaré, flamengo, frentista, alien, etc:
- THE HUNGER;
- HEAVENLY CREATURES;
- THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO (versão original Sueca é melhor!);
- MONSTER;
- MULLHOLAND DRIVE (este é esquisito, confuso e GENIAL. Talvez o melhor filme do David Lynch);
- V FOR VENDETTA (não adoro o filme, prefiro o original em quadrinhos, mas tá valendo!);
- THE HOURS (gostei tanto do filme que li o livro do Michael Cunningham que o originou!);
- BOUND (primeiro filme dos irmãos wachowski, de Matrix, a fazer sucesso!).
Eu colocaria um filme ÓTIMO que faltou na lista,
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN , a versão original sueca do americano
LET ME IN ( pq todo o filme é um tanto queer e o personagem principal no livro que deu origem ao filme é um GAROTO, não uma GAROTA , a troca foi boba e inútil, pois a relação das duas "crianças" independe do seu sexo.
Algo importante a ser dito em defesa da lista feito pelo Autostraddle: alguns filmes podem ter péssimas críticas como "cinema", só que, ao mesmo tempo, serem muito bons para o público alvo deles... então, o importante é ver, se assim lhe aprouver !
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 51%
Directed by: Léa Pool
Written by: Judith Thompson
Starring: Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré and Mischa Barton
Most of us agree that
this film was terrible, but its not without its merits. Like that cast, and those uniforms?
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 23%
Directed By: April Mullen
Written By: Stephanie Fabrizi
Starring: Erika Linder, Natalie Krill
This film earned high marks for going all-in with lesbian sex, and
gets a spot on this list for that alone, despite being, at times,
utterly insufferable. However, if we’d seen this in high school when we
were figuring out our sexualities and weren’t already bored by its stale
tropes, excruciating dialogue and the utter cliche of the lead
character, it’d probably change our lives and make us all the lesbians
we are today; but much earlier!
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 77%
Directed by: Lawrence L. Simeone, Rose Troche
Written by: Donnie Jarman, George LePorte, Rose Troche, Guinevere Turner
Starring: T. Wendy McMillan, Guinevere Turner
It’s a classic. It holds a special place in the hearts of so many
lesbians who remember a time when this was all there was, and its legend
leaves many modern viewers stuck scratching their heads about why it
was ever a thing. Well: while coming out stories are wildly important,
it’s always lovely to see a lesbian story that focuses on what happens
next.
Go Fish is a fun, spunky film about the frustrating experience of finding love, even when it’s right under your nose.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Alex Martinez Kondracke
Written by: Angela Robinson
Starring: Michelle Lombardo, Gabrielle Christian, Mandy
Musgrave, Rose Rollins, Kate French, Clementine Ford, Malaya Rivera
Drew, Jessica Chaffin
There was a lot of drama around the release of this film, and we do
stand with Angela Robinson, who did not approve the final cut of the
movie. But it’s still pretty cute and worth a mention — it’s a rock
musical chock-full of ladies you love to see play gay, like the lead
actresses from
South of Nowhere and Kate French, Malaya Rivera Drew, Clementine Ford and Rose Rollins from
The L Word.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Nicole Conn
Written by: Nicole Conn
Starring: Barbara Niven, Jessica Clark
Nicole Conn is a prolific lesbian filmmaker and, to be honest,
usually her name on a title is a pretty good indication that we’re not
watching a good movie. But a lot of queer women swear by her movies and
love the heck out of ’em so we felt obligated to include at least one!
If
Pretty Woman had a baby gay baby with Nicholas Sparks, the result would be
A Perfect Ending,
a drama about a call girl with a heart of gold and an artist’s
temperament who falls in love with a “straight” WASPy housewife who is
dying of cancer. The ending may be perfect, but it’s sad as heck.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score:
Directed by: Diane Kurys
Written by: Olivier Cohen, Diane Kurys & Alain Le Henry
Starring: Miou-Miou, Isabelle Huppert, Guy Marchand
This story of two young married women who realize how unfulfilled
they are in their marriages when they fall in love with each other takes
place in the 1950s, with flashbacks set in World War II, when one of
the women was placed in an internment camp for Jews. Nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 51%
Directed by: Maria Maggenti
Written by: Mari Maggenti
Starring: Gretchen Mol, Justin Kirk, Elizabeth Reaser
This “screwball comedy of sexual confusion with lesbian inclinations” was made by Maria Maggenti, who also made
The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls In Love. It’s not a masterpiece, but out actress Sarah Croce and her two friends
enjoyed watching it while eating Italian food, so.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 8%
Directed by: Sue Kramer
Written by: Sue Kramer
Starring: Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh, Bridget Moynahan, Molly Shannon, Saffron Burrows
Heather Graham stars in this cheesy, adorable rom-com about a ballroom dancer who falls in love with her brother’s girlfriend.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Nana Neul
Written by: Nana Neul
Starring: Anjorka Strechel, Lucie Hollmann
Just your classic German tale of a tomboy who assumes the identity of
a Portuguese guy named Miguel after she plows down a pretty girl in the
street.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Kelli Herd
Written by: Kelli Herd
Starring: Keri Jo Chapman, Teresa Garrett
In
It’s In The Water, the whole town of Azalea Springs,
Texas loses its damn mind when someone makes an offhand comment about
having their water tested for The Gay. This film hits all the 90’s queer
g-spots: beards, leather bars, AIDS, and anti-gay protesters foaming at
the mouth. Plus some ladies making out in a supply closet, if you’re
into that sort of thing.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 38%
Directed by: Anne Wheeler
Written by: Peggy Thompson
Starring: Wendy Crewson, Karyn Dwyer
Better Than Chocolate is not without flaws. It’s cliched and
over-the-top; there’s a trans woman character played by a cis man; and
the poster looks like some kind of Lisa Frank fever-dream, all of which
we can probably chalk up to it being a film from the ’90s. If you can
get around that, you can enjoy this endearing and charming love story
about a girl who drops out of college to work at a lesbian bookstore,
much to the adorable confusion of her chocolate-addicted mother. Fun
fact: the actor who played the trans woman character also played Bob
Corbett on
Bomb Girls and Henrik on
Orphan Black.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Kate Johnston, Shauna MacDonald
Written by: Kate Johnston, Shauna MacDonald
Starring: Kate Trotter, Peter MacNeill
The May/December romance at the heart of
Tru Love is but one
of the many complex relationships in this surprisingly layered film.
Winner of nearly a dozen awards across the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and
India, Tru Love might just make you want to believe in soul mates. Or
fall asleep. Depends on your style.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Donatella Maiorca
Written by: Donatella Maiorca
Starring: Valeria Solarino, Isabella Ragonese & Ennio Fantastichini
In this stunning 19th century period film, the powerful
quarrymaster’s daughter falls in love with her childhood friend Sara
when she returns to the remote Mediterranean island where they both grew
up. Their affair scandalizes the island.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Aaron Douglas Johnston
Written By: Cat Smits, Aaron Douglas Johnston
Starring: Cat Smits, Heidi M. Sallows, Jef Smith, John Watkins
Alexa moves from Amsterdam to a small U.S. town to film a documentary
to help her make sense of her gay best friend’s suicide. While she’s
there, she falls in love with a woman for the first time in her life. It
only takes one summer for Alexa’s life to change forever.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 50%
Directed by: Patricia Rozema
Written by: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Pascale Bussieres, Rachael Crawford
“My favourite film simply because it unashamedly clings to an impossible optimism,”
wrote commenter Marriane.
“I mean, come on … the dog comes back to life to the strains of the
Hallelujah chorus. It was this kind of optimism that saw marriage
equality germinate, take root and flower.”
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 67%
Directed by: Christina Zeidler & John Mitchell
Written by: Christina Zeidler & John Mitchell
Starring: Diane Flacks, Robin Duke
Elsie is a forty-year-old Jewish lesbian in Toronto who
— after getting her heart broken at the tender age of 12
— has
bounced from serious relationship to serious relationship all her life,
refusing to be single and perfecting her exit strategy. The film opens
with Elise breaking up with her current girlfriend of five years and,
for the first time in her life, finding herself unable to walk out the
door of one monogamous situation and into the arms of another one.
Heather Hogan called it “one of the best-written lesbian movies I’ve ever seen… incisive and very, very funny.”
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Koji Kawano
Written By: Hiroko Kanasugi, Ebine Yamaji
Starring: Asami Imajuku, Rei Yoshii, Ira Ishida
Based off the josei manga by Ebine Yamaji,
Love My Life was a
favorite of many commenters on our original list. “The joy of the film,
aside from the relationship between the main character and her
girlfriend,”
Rhea said, ”is the one between her and her father as she learns more about him and her mother’s past.
103. Almost Adults (2017)
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
A cute film that delivers some light charm with minimal
offensiveness, starring Elise Bauman of Carmilla as lesbian tomboy femme
Mackenzie and Natasha Negovanlis as her best friend Cassie, the last
girl in the world not to notice that Mack is gay as hell.
lgbtq ensemble characters // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 64%
Directed by: Marleen Gorris
Written by: Marleen Gorris
Starring: Willeke van Ammelrooy, Els Dottermans, Jan Decleir
This multi-generational film that explores the lineage of a World War
II widow named named Antonia, who returns to her hometown to take care
of her ailing mother. Danielle refuses to take a husband, but does want
to have a child. After getting pregnant and giving birth, Danielle
ultimately falls in love with her genius daughter’s tutor.
101. Daphne (2007) (UK)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Clare Beavan
Written by: Amy Jenkins, Margaret Forster
Starring: Geraldine Somerville, Elizabeth McGovern
Daphne is exactly the film you need, if the thing you’re missing from your life is
Downton Abby’s Elizabeth McGovern in a depressing-as-fuck period drama about the unrequited lady loves of novelist Daphne DuMauier.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 45%
Directed by:Daniela Féjerman, Inés París
Written by: Inés París, Daniela Féjerman
Starring: Silvia Abascal
Long-divorced Sophia gathers her three daughters to share the news
that she’s fallen in love! Hurrah! That love is the sapphic sort.
Not-so-Hurrah.
99. BFFs (2014)
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Andrew Putschoegl
Written By: Andrea Grano, Tara Karsian
Starring: Larisa Oleynik, Sean Maher, Pat Carroll
This fun buddy-movie-slash-romcom “takes female-driven to a whole new level,” according to out comedian Brittani Nichols,
who wrote in her review of the film,
“It’s a narrative that opens the doors for the discussion of sexual
fluidity without making it corny or annoying and the best part of all
is it’s funny.” It’s the story of two friends who fake being a couple to
use a free trip to a Couples Retreat and discover while pretending to
be girlfriends that there might be more to their friendship than they
previously considered.
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Fina Torres
Written By:
Starring: Patricia Velasquez, Mimi Lazo, Danay Garcia
An adaptation of the American play Last Summer in Bluefish Cove that
stars model/actress Patricia Velásquez as Liz, who takes a liking to
Eva, a traveler whose car broke down nearby, landing her at the hotel
owned by Liz’s friend Margot. All of Margot’s friends are lesbians, and
everybody’s coming to town for Liz’s 37th birthday.
Variety wrote that “this handsome romantic drama will be a crowdpleaser primarily among lesbian audiences in various formats.”
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Anna Margarita Albelo
Written By: Michael Urban, Anna Margarita Albelo
Starring: Agnes Olech, Carrie Preston, Guinevere Turner
A little bit quirky, and a little bit navel-gazey, this grown-up
comedy looks at what it means to really have it all. Plus it has an
all-female cast, one of whom literally romps around on stage wearing a
vagina costume. If that’s not what you’re looking for in a film, you’re
on the wrong list, my friend.
lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 46%
Directed by: Tony Scott
Written by: Tony Scott
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Susan Sarandon
Lesbian vampires? Check. Susan Sarandon? Check. David Bowie? Check. Major shoutout in
The Miseducation of Cameron Post? CHECK CHECK CHECK.
lgbtq ensemble characters // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 45%
Directed By: Lucia Aniello
Written By: Lucia Aniello & Paul W. Downs
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz
There’s a lot about this film, on the surface, that might turn you
off — but if you give it a chance, you might be surprised by how those
things actually play out! Yes, the writing is often clumsy and there are
some annoying, ridiculous plot holes. But it’s also a cute, funny and
surprisingly feminist movie entirely about women with a non-chalant
lesbian front-and-center (played by Ilana Glazer) who gets one of the
film’s only rewarding romantic storylines.
lgbtq lead ensemble // lgbtq romance //
our review //
Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%
Directed by: Clea DuVall
Written by: Clea DuVall
Starring: Clea Duvall, Natasha Lyonne, Cobie Smulders, Melanie Lynskey
Clea Duvall directed this weekend-at-the-summer-house film about four
couples of mostly old friends who plan a weekend away together to stage
an “intervention” on one of the couples, who they’ve agreed needs to
divorce. Obviously over the course of the weekend we realize that all
these couples are dysfunctional and probably shouldn’t judge. It’s worth
it to see Clea Duvall and Natasha Lyonne play a couple again and just
to witness excellent performances from your favorite actresses,
although the film’s central conceit never really earns its existence and
the backstories of the characters often ring a little hollow.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 71%
Directed by: Alanté Kavaïté
Written by: Alanté Kavaïté
Starring: Julija Steponaityte, Aiste Dirziute
Summer love blooms between two teenagers in Lithuania who meet at an
aerobatics show — a girl who dreams of being a pilot who’s spending the
summer at her family’s lake house and the bohemian photographer and
clothing designer she’s drawn to.
92. Drool (2009)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Nancy Kissam
Written by: Nancy Kissam
Starring: Jill Marie Jones, Laura Harring, Ashley Duggan Smith
A dark comedy that touches on abuse, assault and murder, but manages to be fun about it all.
91. Lovesong (2017)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%
Directed By: So Yong Kim
Written By: So Yong Kim, Bradley Rust Gray
Starring: Jena Malone, Riley Keough, Brooklyn Decker, Ryan Eggold, Rosanna Arquette
Sarah, a young mother left lonely by her marriage, is talked into a
road trip with her college friend, Mindy, and their intense longtime
friendship is shot through with “
stolen kisses and college confessions [that] indicate there’s so much more between Sarah and Mindy than a best friendship.”
90. Red Doors (2007) (China)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 59%
Directed by: Georgia Lee
Written by: Georgia Lee
Starring: Jacqueline Kim, Tzi Ma, Elaine Kao, Freda Foh Shen
Red Doors tells the story of Ed Wong, a Chinese-American
retiree who is coming to terms with his three daughters growing up. One
of his daughters, Julie, falls in love with an actress. They struggle to
reconcile their sexuality with their parents’ demands on their romantic
lives.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Directed by: Thom Fitzgerald
Written by: Thom Fitzgerald
Starring: Olympia Dukakis, Brenda Fricker, John Dunsworth
Ever wonder what would happen if Thelma and Louis were elderly lesbians? Cloudburst is the answer.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Sijie Dai
Written by: Sijie Dai, Nadine Perront
Starring: Mylène Jampanoï, Xiao Ran Li
Li Ming, an orphan of the Tangshan earthquake, finds a home with
renowned and reclusive botanist. Li instantly connects with her new
benefactor’s daughter, An. Soon their friendship turns into a secret and
sensual love affair.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 38%
Directed By: Jamie Babbit
Written By: Tina Mabry, Abigail Shafran
Starring: Nicole Vicius, Clea DuVall, Melonie Diaz, Daniela Sea, Marissa Ramirez
After getting dumped by her girlfriend, Anna meets a young feminist
named Sadie who invites her to join Clits In Action (CiA) and forget her
romantic woes. As Anna embraces radical activism, she also finds
herself falling for Sadie, who is in a longterm relationship with an
older woman who belongs to a more mainstream feminist organization.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%
Directed by: Kaspar Munk
Written by: Kaspar Munk
Starring: Julie Andersen, Frederikke Dahl Hansen, Emilie Kruse
Laura and Christie are best friends forever, until a rebel named Maria arrives on the scene and starts stealing Laura away.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 84%
Directed by: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
Written by: Heather Juergensen, Jennifer Westfeldt
Starring: Heather Juergensen, Jennifer Westfeldt
Jessica Stein is frustrated by her dating experiences with men and
decides to give women a shot when she connects with another woman who’s
also never been in a lesbian relationship before. Funny, honest and
down-to-earth, this romantic comedy was written by the two best friends
who also star in the film.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Directed By: Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich
Written By: Christa Winsloe, Friedrich Dammann
Starring: Emilia Unda, Dorothea Wieck, Hedwig Schlichter
Considered by many to be
the first lesbian film,
Mädchen in Uniform
explores the relationship between a teenage boarding school student and
one of her female teachers. Does that sound like the plot of
Loving Annabelle to you? That’s because it is!
Rotten Tomatoes score: 75%
Directed By: Robert Aldrich
Written By: Lukas Heller
Starring: Beryl Reid, Susannah York, Coral Browne
Based on the 1964 play, The Killing of Sister George sees an aging
television actress who has just lost her popular television role and is
losing her relationship with a much younger woman. It was the first film
to portray the interior of a lesbian nightclub. The film was given an X
rating from the newly-formed MPAA due to its lesbian content, and thus
failed at the box office. In The UK and Italy, some lesbian scenes were
cut. The lesbian stereotypes prevalent in this film did none of us one
single favor.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Lee Rose
Written by: Lee Rose
Starring: Stockard Channing, Ellen Muth
We loved Stockard Channing as Rizzo, and we loved her as First Lady
Abigail Bartlett. Now we have to love her as a mother unable to believe
that her daughter Jane is in fact not too pure to be pink. Stockard
delivers yet another knockout performance in
The Truth About Jane,
earning a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding
Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries. This
may have been the first queer movie you ever saw — it was for many of
us!
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 16%
Directed by: Shamim Sarif
Written by: Shamim Shaif, Kelly Moss
Starring: Lisa Ray, Sheetal Sheth
This is another film that lesbians either love or hate, but this is
the film that opened our hearts forever Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth, as
they played Tala and Leyla, two women from very different backgrounds
that fall in love on accident. Tala is a Jordanian Palestinian woman
living in London and planning her wedding. Leyla is a British-Indian who
is dating Tala’s BFF. They fall in love, fall apart, and fall back
together again. It’s very sweet and pretty dang sexy.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Directed By: Jennifer Reeder
Written By: Lisa Donato, Fawzia Mirza
Starring: Fawzia Mirza, Shabana Azmi, Sari Sanchez
A Pakistani-American lawyer’s widowed mother has just moved in, and
spends her days watching television and badgering her daughter about
finding a nice man to marry. But Zaynab has other things on her mind —
like Alma, the Mexican-American woman she’s falling for. Alma’s mother,
it turns out, is a former professional Luchadora, which is of great
interest to Zaynab, who has just taken up wrestling herself.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Ligy J. Pullappally
Written by: Ligy J. Pullappally
Starring: Suhasini V. Nair, Shruiti Menon, K.P.A.C. Lalitha
In an Indian village where arranged marriages are just a way of life, Kiran falls in love with her friend Delilah.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 65%
Directed By: Bruno Barreto
Written By: Julie Sayres, Matthew Chapman
Starring: Miranda Otto, Gloria Pires, Tracy Middendorf
Reaching For The Moon
is based on the relationship between American poet Elizabeth Bishop and
Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares, whose passionate, tumultuous
love affair took place in Petrópolis between 1951 and 1967.
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Katherine Brooks
Written By: Olivia Bohnhoff, Katherine Brooks, Karen Klopfenstein
Starring: Diane Gaidry, Erin Kelly, Ilene Graff
A Catholic boarding school teacher falls in love with one of her students. It’s the plot of
Mädchen in Uniform with more on-screen lesbian sex shenanigans and electric guitars.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Directed by: Peter Strickland
Written by: Peter Strickland
Starring: Chiara D’Anna, Sidse Babett Knudsen
The “lesbian BDSM movie you’ve been waiting for” details the daily
sexual routines between the very kinky Evelyn and her lover Cynthia, who
wants a more conventional relationship with Evelyn.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: : Sarasawadee Wongsompetch
Written by: : Sarasawadee Wongsompetch
Starring: Sucharat Manaying, Suppanad Jittaleela
This Thai film looks at a relationship between two students from
different backgrounds: Kim, a masculine-of-center lesbian, and Pie, who
hails from a traditional family that doesn’t approve of gay people.
Despite Pie’s prejudices toward Kim, they grow closer and closer and
ultimately fall in love.
mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 77%
Directed by: Robert Towne
Written by: Robert Towne
Starring: Mariel Hemingway, Scott Glenn, Patrice Donnelly
Fun fact: This is the movie Ellen cited as making her gay when she
came out on her sitcom in 1997. This classic film tells the story of
track and field star Chris Cahill who meets an more experienced athlete
at the ’76 Olympic trials. Their gal pal-ness quickly turns to romance.
Like most older lesbian films, it doesn’t have a happy ending.
72. Lianna (1983) (Canada)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
Directed By: John Sayles
Written By: John Sayles
Starring: Linda Griffiths, Jane Hallaren, Jon De Vries
Lianna is dated, absolutely. It hails from the same year Mr. T joined
The A Team, for crying out loud. But the story of self-discovery and
general gal-palling stands the test of time, even if you do have to put
up with some really (
really) bad hair to get to it.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 83%
Directed by: Yee Chih-yen
Written by: Yee Chih-yen
Starring: Joanna Chou, Bo-Lin Chen, Shu-hui Liang, Lun-Mei Guey
According to commenter
Jelena,
this “tender, unusual” story of a love triangle between two teenage
girl best friends and a boy swimming champ features a refreshing and
unexpected teen lesbian awakening.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Zero Chou
Written by: Zero Chou
Starring: Rainie Yang, Isabella Leong
Spider Lilies won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at
the Berlin Film Festival. It tells the story of Jade, a cybersex worker,
and Takeko, a tattoo artist, who awaken each other’s repressed
sexuality and fall in love. Take that, cursed tattoo!
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: James Kent
Written By: Jane English
Starring: Maxine Peake, Anna Madeley
Following the success of the miniseries
Fingersmith and
Tipping the Velvet,
BBC filmed another queer period piece, this time about real-life
lesbian lady Anne Lister. Lister was a Yorskshire landowner in the 19th
century and an early industrialist. She also loved the ladies. The
screenplay is based on the 4,000,000 words Lister wrote in her diaries
in her lifetime. (The lesbian exploits were written in cipher!)
mainstream movie // lgbtq ensemble character
Rotten Tomatoes score: 68%
Directed by: Lisa Cholodenko
Written by: Lisa Cholodenko
Starring: Frances McDormand, Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale
Kate Beckinsale plays Alex, a young MD student who leaves her husband
to get into a polyamorous relationship with her husband’s mom and his
mom’s boyfriend. Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko says the film was
inspired by the Joni Mitchel’s “Ladies of the Canyon.”
mainstream movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
Directed By: Peter Jackson
Written By: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh
Starring: Kate Winslet, Melanie Lynskey, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent
Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed film details the obsessive (and
ultimately) fatal relationship between Juliet and Pauline, who meet when
they are 13 years old and fall in immediate love with each other. They
spend most of their time writing about their fictional world, Borovnia,
and projecting themselves into it. In real life, Juliet grew up to
become famous novelist Anne Perry.
66. Karmen Gei (2001) (Senegal)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 79%
Directed By: Joseph Gaï Ramaka
Written By: Joseph Gaï Ramaka
Starring: Jeinaba Diop Gai, Magaye Niang, Stéphanie Biddle
Pansexual “social outlaw” Karmen surprises her captors at a women’s
prison when she seduces warden Angelique and flees for the Dakar
underworld. Eventually, a love triangle emerges between Karmen,
Angelique and police corporal Lamine and things get progressively more
complicated from there.
mainstream movie // lgbtq lead
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
Directed By: Niels Arden Oplev
Written By: Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg, Nicolaj Arcel
Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace
Adapted from Stieg Larsson’s best selling trilogy of novels,
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
focuses on bisexual hacker Lisbeth Salander, who suffers brutal sexual
abuse at the hands of her foster care supervisor and ultimately becomes
the investigative partner of Mikael Blomkvist, a famous newspaper
reporter who is hired by an eccentric millionaire to solve the decades
old case of his missing granddaughter. Their trail leads them to
(surprise!) more sexual abuse. (Larsson’s novel was titled
Men Who Hate Women in the native Swedish version.)
64. AWOL (2016)
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Deb Shoval
Written by: Deb Shoval, Karolina Waclawiak
Starring: Lola Kirke, Breeda Wool, Dale Soules
“Talking about class can be ugly,” wrote Sarah Fonseca in her
glowing review of AWOL,
a love story set in a rarely-portrayed rural landscape and confronts
new conversations issues of class, race and gender. “Yet as AWOL
asserts, when you dare to comment, sometimes it frees up room for beauty
to unfurl.”
mainstream movie // lgbtq leads
Rotten Tomatoes score: 32%
Directed By: Marcos Siega
Written By: Skander Halim
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Ron Livingston, Jane Krakowski, Selma Blair
Evan Rachel Wood sparkles like a narcissistic little diamond in this mindfuck of a
Mean Girls film.
Pretty Persuasion
hits all the triggers—sexual assault, racism, and suicide to name a
few—and plenty more taboos besides. It’s got some important things to
say about agency and sexuality, if you can make it through the racist
rants to get there.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Jacob Chase, Samantha Housman
Written By: Marja-Lewis Ryan
Starring: Marja-Lewis Ryan, Daniel Carlisle, Todd Kubrak
Four-Faced Liar spends
most of its time hanging out in an area that makes me every so slightly
uncomfortable: straight girl in a committed relationship with a guy
starts fooling around with the nearest lesbian. Too often, the lesbian
is a screeching vulture flapping around the edges while the straight
girl actually ends up with the boy, but
Four-Faced Liar is actually nuanced enough to make it work.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Marialy Rivas
Written By: María José VieraGallo, Marialy Rivas, Pedro Peirano, Maria-Jose Viera Gallo, Sebastián Sepúlveda
Starring: Alicia Rodríguez, Aline Küppenheim, María Gracia Omegna
Despite being raised by strict Evangelicals, Daniela gets kicked out
of her church for being a fornicator. Young and Wild may be a Chilean
film, but its authenticity is universal. Nothing is tied up in a neat
little bow, but then life rarely is. Daniela is sexy, gorgeous, and
likes to kiss pretty girls. Count us in.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 67%
Directed By: Maria Maggenti
Written By: Maria Maggenti
Starring: Laurel Holloman, Nicole Ari Parker
Before she was
The L Word‘s Tina Kennard, Laurel Holloman
landed on our screens as Randy Dean, an underachieving high school
student who falls in love with an affluent girl from her high school.
It’s so sweet and the ending is so happy it’s hard to believe this movie
even exists, let alone was filmed a decade before
The L Word.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
Directed by: Kerem Sanga
Written by: Kerem Sanga
Starring: Dylan Gelula, Brianna Hildebrand, Mateo Arias
A Sundance award-winning coming-of-age film about a misfit who falls
for the cute softball star at her high school — and her best friend
Clifton feels threatened by their budding connection. “It captures the
heart-pounding terror of becoming someone, the one-way nausea of
committing to yourself,”
writes Indiewire.
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kate’s review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%
Directed By: Abdel Kechiche
Written By: Julie Maroh, Abdel Kechiche, Ghalya Lacroix, Ghalia Lacroix
Starring: Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos
Perhaps the most
controversial lesbian film of this century,
Blue Is the Warmest Color was decried as pornography by some, an
exploitative film dominated by the male gaze by others and heralded as the
greatest queer film of all time by others. It is based on
the graphic novel
of the same name, and while it embraces the coming of age queer themes
of the source material, it zigs in a completely different direction in
the end.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 74%
Directed By: Stacie Passon
Written By: Stacie Passon
Starring: Robin Weigert, Maggie Siff, Jonathan Tchaikovsky
When you were watching
Mad Men, did you wish Maggie Siff would get off Don Draper’s D and get under a hot girl? If so,
Concussion is the film for you!
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Campbell Ex
Written By: Campbell Ex
Starring: T’Nia Miller, Kyle Treslove, Robyn Kerr
Not even an obviously teensy budget can break this gorgeously acted
film about a stud finding love, grappling with shifting friendships, and
figuring out what it means when the rules you set for yourself are the
very things that stop you from getting what you want most.
55. Fire (1996) (India)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%
Directed By: Deepa Mehta
Written By: Deepa Mehta
Starring: Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
I’ve heard it said that the best way to write a good story is to put
your favorite character in a tree and throw rocks at them. For Radha and
Sita, two Indian women stuck in loveless and demeaning marriages, rocks
are the least of their problems. One of the first Indian film to
explicitly portray homosexuality, Fire has faced an avalanche of
controversy. Banned books (and films!) do it better.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Peter Anthony, Sharon Barnes
Written By: Peter Anthony, Sharon Barnes
Starring: Shawna Elizabeth, Annie Danger, Tanya Wischerath
A once in a life time collaboration,
Valencia The Movie/s is
what happens when twenty-one (!) queer filmmakers each create a short
film depicting one chapter of Michelle Tea’s 2000 Lambda Literary Award
winning novel of the same name. It’s almost too cool to be believed, and
Gabby declared it “the most masterful dyke-centric artsy-weirdo film I’ve ever seen.”
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 77%
Directed by: Céline Sciamma
Written by: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Pauline Acquart, Adèle Haenel, Louise Blachère
Perhaps more than any other film on this list,
Water Lilies
perfectly captures the heart-wrenching truth of sexual awakening,
jealousy, and lust. And if that’s not enough to make you sit down with
this gorgeous French film, how about the fact that Adele Haenel, who won
a César Award for her portrayal of Floriane, fell in love with her
female director Celine Sciamma on the set of
Water Lilies and they’re still together to this very day?
mainstream movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 82%
Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Written by: Patty Jenkins
Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern
Based on the real-life story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos,
Monster is
an Academy Award-winning crime drama about a sex worker who killed six
men during the late ’80s and early ’90s. Charlize Theron plays Wuornos,
and Christina Ricci plays Tyria Moore, Wuornos’ girlfriend. It’s an
excellent film, but it’s not ranked higher because its portrayal of
lesbiansim isn’t exactly the most flattering!
mainstream movie // lgbtq leads
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed By: Benoît Jacquot
Written By: Chantal Thomas, Benoît Jacquot, Gilles Taurand, Gilles Taurant
Starring: Diane Kruger, Léa Seydoux, Virginie Ledoyen, Xavier Beauvois
If you’re looking for a fictional account of the last days of Marie
Antoinette, in which she seduces the young woman who reads to her, well,
this movie is for you! It features Diane Kruger and a pre-
Blue Is the Warmest Color Léa Seydoux as Sidonie Laborde, Marie Antoinette’s reader.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed by: Catherine Corsini
Written by: Catherine Corsini & Laurette Polmanss
Starring: Cécile de France, Izïa Higelin, Noémie Lvovsky
This gorgeous film set in 1971 tells the story of a young woman from
the French countryside who moves to Paris to get away from her parents,
where she falls in with a group of politically engaged feminists and
eventually falls in love with Carole, their leader.
49. Rent (2005)
mainstream movie // lgbtq female ensemble characters // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 46%
Directed By: Chris Columbus
Written By: Stephen Chbosky
Starring: Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin
Based on the long-running Broadway musical of the same name,
Rent
explores the lives of several East Village artists — many of them queer
— living during the AIDS crisis in New York City in the late ’80s. The
show-stopping “Take Me (Or Leave Me)” is a rousing number between
Maureen, a bisexual performance artist who loves to flirt and get wild,
and her girlfriend, Joanne, a lawyer who loves lists and stability.
lgbtq leads
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81%
Directed By: David Lynch
Written By: Joyce Eliason, David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller
It’s tough to describe this neo-noir mystery beyond alerting you that
it’s a David Lynch film with a non-linear narrative and lots of twists
and turns: complicated, weird, smart, compelling. Naomi Watts plays
Betty Elms, an aspiring actress new to Los Angeles who becomes friends
with Rita, an amnesic played by Laura Harring, who’s been hiding from
the world in Elms’ aunt’s apartment. Everything that happens next is too
intense and bizarre to sum up, but rest assured: women have sex in this
movie.
mainstream movie // lgbtq ensemble characters
Rotten Tomatoes score: 63%
Directed By: F. Gary Gray
Written By: Takashi Bufford, Kate Lanier
Starring: Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vivica A. Fox
Four women fed up with the options available to them as black women
band together to damn the man and perform their own bank heists. Queen
Latifah plays lesbian character Cleo, and the film also shows the
relationship between her and her girlfriend, Urusula.
AfterEllen called it “one of the greatest girl-power/female-solidarity flicks around and a true trend-starter from 1996.”
mainstream movie // lgbtq female ensemble characters
Rotten Tomatoes score: 30%
Directed By: Annette Haywood-Carter
Written By: Elizabeth White
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Hedy Burress, Jenny Lewis, Jenny Shimizu
If
My So-Called Life took
Dawson’s Creek out behind the gym and put a baby in it, and that baby was a slightly unhinged Angelia Jolie, it would be called
Foxfire.
Jenny Shimizu plays a lesbian and Angelina Jolie’s character is pretty
queer, too — the set of this film is where those two actresses fell in
love and Jolie realized she was bisexual. The story of the close bonds
groups of female friends from, especially in the face of adversity, is
something we all understand on a bone-deep level.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 83%
Directed by: Eric Schaeffer
Written by: Eric Schaeffer
Starring: Michael Welch, Alexandra Turshen, Michelle Hendley
Mari found
Boy Meets Girl imperfect, but also
groundbreaking and heartwarming:
“Ricky is sweet and smart and quirky and cute, and I dare you all not
to have a crush on her by the end of the film. She’s also a whole
person, with feelings and dreams and heartbreaks and desires all her own
that don’t necessarily have anything to do with being trans. While she
is feminine, she’s far the hyper-femme stereotypes, with a definite
tomboy spirit. She’s perhaps one of the most nuanced, least
stereotypical trans characters that has ever been portrayed in film.”
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 72%
Directed By: Lisa Cholodenko
Written By: Lisa Cholodenko
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Ally Sheedy, Patricia Clarkson
Syd’s boyfriend James isn’t nearly as intriguing as the tragically
talented lesbian drug addict photographer Lucy who lives in her building
— with her girlfriend, German actress Greta. A relationship between Syd
and Lucy begins brewing, changing both of their lives forever.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 38%
Directed by: Angela Robinson
Written by: Angela Robinson
Starring: Jordana Brewster, Sara Foster, Meagan Good
Carly said of this queer take on a crime caper,
“D.E.B.S. is like the Little Engine That Could of lezzy films. D.E.B.S.’s
small budget and subsequent green screen overdose gives it a campy and
silly look which I totally love. The script and the acting are decent
and the soundtrack is fantastic. Unfortunately it’s pretty tame as far
as the girl-on-girl action goes, but what we do see is adorable and
feels realistic. Did I mention Jordana Brewster? Yow. If you like girls
with guns, you’ll love this coming-of-age girl-meets-girl love story,
set amongst spy missions and national security.”
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Directed By: Madeleine Olnek
Written By: Madeleine Olnek
Starring: Susan Ziegler, Susan Ziegler, Jackie Monahan, Cynthia Kaplan
It’s super weird and super super smart. Even after it’s over, you’re not sure what you watched, but you’re glad you watched it.
Note: We did not include the film
Foxy Merkins, by the same creators, as several of our writers found it to contain horrifying racist violence.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Lucía Puenzo
Written By: Lucía Puenzo
Starring: Inés Efron, Mariela Vitale
La Guayi is working as a live-in maid for Lala’s wealthy Argentinean
family when Lala falls in love with her — and grows increasingly jealous
of and angry at La Guayi’s other paramours. When Lala’s father is
killed and Lala flees her home in search of La Guayi, she begins
learning the truth about the girl she’s so obsessed with. Based on Lucía
Puenzo’s novel of the same name, the film is a dark and engrossing
drama.
TV movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Cheryl Dunye
Written By: Catherine Crouch, Cheryl Dunye
Starring: Yolonda Ross, Davenia McFadden, Rain Phoenix, Mary Mara
Stranger Inside is a hard, gritty, look at life inside a
women’s correctional facility, and it’s not all Norma toast and Laverne
Cox doing your hair. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but it almost
made me miss Piper.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Directed By: Cheryl Dunye
Written By: Cheryl Dunye
Starring: Cheryl Dunye, Guinevere Turner, Valarie Walker
The Watermelon Woman is the first feature film to be
directed by an out black lesbian, which is reason enough to give it a
shot. But beyond that, it’s a warm and sexy film that explores several
lesbian relationships while peeling back some of the layers of how we
think about race, how we have historically thought about race, and the
intersectionality of both of those with queer culture. Not too bad for a
film made with a $300,000 budget.
38. Pride (2014)
//
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story (mostly gay men) // lgbtq female ensemble characters
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed By: Matthew Warchus
Written By: Stephen Beresford
Starring: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West
A British historical dramedy based on the true story of LGBT
activists who came together to support British miners during their 1984
strike. The B-story of the film focuses on the real-life activist
group, Lesbians Against Pit Closures.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Zero Chou
Written by: Zero Chou
Starring: Pai Chih-Ying, Serena Fang, Chao Yi-lan, Yi-Ching Lu
Drifting Flowers seamlessly weaves together three
stories—stories of love, of jealousy, of loss, to create a lush and
visually stunning film. It can edge towards cliché at times, but it’s
filled with so many tender and funny moments that a little cliché is
easy to forgive.
mainstream movie // lgbtq lead
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed by: Paul Weitz
Written by: Paul Weitz
Starring: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner
Lily Tomlin plays Elle, a writer and academic who spends a day with
her granddaughter triyng to find $600 for an emergency abortion directly
after breaking up with her much younger girlfriend. Lily Tomlin shines,
because Lily Tomlin always shines, because she is perfect.
//
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq leads //
Rotten Tomatoes score: 68%
Directed By: Floria Sigismondi
Written By: Floria Sigismondi
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon
Based on Cherrie Curie’s memoir
Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway,
the film explores the relationship between Currie and Joan Jett during
the time they spent together on the road in their all-girl 1970s
rockband. It passes The Bechdel Test many times over.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed by: Nilesh Maniyar, Shonali Bose
Written by: Nilesh Maniyar, Shonali Bose
Starring: Kalki Koechlin, Revathy
“Yes, this is a ‘disabled person discovers their sexuality’ movie,
but Laila is never healed (literally or figuratively) by that
discovery,” wrote
Carrie Wade in her review of Margarita With a Straw, a love story between two disabled women of color, “presented without sensationalism or pandering.”
//
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Directed By: Lisa Cholodenko
Written By: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
Starring: Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson
Nic and Jules are a successful lesbian couple living in Los Angeles
with the two kids they each had from the same sperm donor. The kids
track down the sperm donor and he weasels his way into their lives and
into Jules’ pants. The movie has a (gay) happy ending, and critics loved
it. It was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Queer
women, however, engaged in heated debates about the film all over the
internet. It is loved and loathed by our community in equal measure.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85%
Directed By: Alex Sichel
Written By: Sylvia Sichel
Starring: Alison Folland, Tara Subkoff, Wilson Cruz
Ah, the ’90s. When riot grrrl was in full swing and hating your best
friend (who makes out with you) for having a boyfriend was all the rage.
Come for the amazing soundtrack, stay for Leisha Hailey with pink hair.
//
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq lead
Rotten Tomatoes score: 62%
Directed By: Susanna Fogel
Written By: Joni Lefkowitz, Susanna Fogel
Starring: Leighton Meester, Gillian Jacobs, Kate McKinnon, Gabourey Sidibe
Leighton Meester is absolutely adorable in this comedy about two
co-dependent best friends — one straight, one gay — who have to learn a
new way to navigate their relationship after one falls in love.
//
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 83%
Directed By: Robert Louis Stevenson, Donna Deitch
Written By: Jane Rule, Natalie Cooper
Starring: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley, Andra Akers
This was one of the first mainstream movies to have a lesbian
storyline, which means it was pretty controversial and is a bonafide
CLASSIC. Based on the classic novel by Jane Rule, this understated drama
is the story of straightlaced Columbia professor and divorcee Vivian,
who escapes her life and ends up falling for cowgirl Cay.
Rachel wrote of the film,
“One of the best and most moving things in the entire movie is the way
that, through the voices of all the women in the film, heterosexual
relationships are subtly critiqued – not for the sake of some big gay
agenda, but because this is set in 1958 and truthfully there was a whole
lot the institution of marriage just didn’t do for women back
then. Being gay isn’t presented as the answer to relationship or
matrimonial issues, but there is a way in which Vivian and Cay’s
relationship feels honest and genuine because it’s outside of the
structures of patriarchy that can sometimes make it hard to really
respect or support a partner of the opposite sex.”
//
our review // mainstream TV movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Jane Anderson, Martha Coolidge, Anne Heche
Written By: Alex Sichel, Sylvia Sichel, Anne Heche, Jane Anderson
Starring: Ellen DeGeneres, Nia Long, Vanessa Redgrave, Sharon Stone, Chloë Sevigny
Like the original film, this HBO-produced sequel follows the lives of
three different couples who live in the same house in different time
periods. Only, this time, they’re lesbians! You know that clip
of Michelle Williams and Chloë Sevigny making out that you always see
all over Tumblr and YouTube? Yeah, that’s from this.
//
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%
Directed By: Desiree Akhavan
Written By: Desiree Akhavan
Starring: Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson, Halley Feiffer, Anh Duong
This film is so witty and smart and cool I can hardly believe it’s
real! Written by and starring bisexual actress Desiree Akhavan,
Appropriate Behavior
starts when its protagonist’s relationship ends, sending her into a
spiral as she tries to figure out what she’s doing with her life and how
that fits in with what her family wants for her.
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 80%
Directed by: Angelina MacCarone
Written by: Angelina Maccarone, Judith Kaufmann
Starring: Jasmin Tabatabai, Anneke Kim Sarnau
An Iranian woman, Fariba, is caught having an affair with a married
woman and flees to Germany to avoid using persecution, but once her
forged papers are uncovered, the only way she can stay in Germany is by
taking on the identity of a male refugee. And then she meets a girl.
Intense and authentic love scenes ensue.
26. Annihilation (2018)
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq female ensemble character
Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%
Directed By: Alex Garland
Written By: Alex Garland
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny and Oscar Isaac
In Annihilation, a biologist, psychologist, physicist,
anthropologist, and paramedic enter the shimmer — a mysterious and
expanding sector marked by increasingly unnerving mutations — and at
some point, Gina Rodriguez steals the show as a confident nd muscly soft
butch lesbian with an undercut who opens a beer bottle in that way
where you slam it against a table edge with your hand. (
Kayla)
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Avi Nesher
Written By: Avi Nesher, Hadar Galron
Starring: Adir Miller, Ania Bukstein, Fanny Ardant, Guri Alfi, Michal Shtamler
In Israel, two orthodox students fuck the patriarchy and learn a lot
about themselves in the process. It’s tender and feminist and
complicated and heart-wrenching and unlike any lesbian movie you’ve seen
before.
//
our reviews // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed By: Aurora Guerrero
Written By: Aurora Guerrero
Starring: Fenessa Pineda, Venecia Troncoso, Laura Patalano
Fans of Benjamin Alire Saenz’s
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe will love this tender, earnest story of friendship, attraction, and family. As
Gabby wrote, the film “find[s] the bits that makes us who we are and blast[s] them onto a screen.”
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Directed By: Pavel Pavlikovskiy, Pawel Pawlikowski
Written By: Pavel Pavlikovskiy, Michael Wynne, Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring: Natalie Press, Emily Blunt, Paddy Considine, Dean Andrews
My Summer of Love won not only a BAFTA, but also a place in
all of our hearts for casting Emily Blunt as a lesbian with some pretty
intense love scenes. A twisted lesbian with a warped sense of a good
time, but some people are into that. Each to their own, ladies.
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq lead // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 77%
Directed By: David Leitch
Written By: Kurt Johnstad
Starring: Charlize Theron, David Percival, Sofia Boutella, John Goodman
A stylish “high-stakes, global action-thriller” about spies that sees
Charlize Theron kicking a lot of men, rocking incredible hair, and
having a genuine relationship with another hot tough girl. It’s
definitely a certain type of movie — high-stakes, global action-thriller
about spies — but even if that’s not your jam, it’s sexy as hell, and
pretty incredible for a film like this to have a bisexual protagonist
like Lorraine.
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 32%
Directed By: Ol Parker
Written By: Ol Parker
Starring: Piper Perabo, Lena Headey, Matthew Goode, Anthony Head, Celia Imrie
In a sea of depressing, soul-crushing lesbian films,
Imagine Me & You stands alone as the mainstream rom-com where the girl gets the girl. Even the straight dudes are good guys in this movie!
mainstream movie // lgbtq female ensemble characters
The lesbian love story between Valerie and Ruth, persecuted for their
sexual orientation, is what inspires a closeted gay television host to
start a revolution that is eventually finished by Natalie Portman’s
Evey. In a dramatic departure from the usual state of affairs, the film
amped up, rather than toned down, the source material’s queerness.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 82%
Directed by: Stephen Cone
Written by: Stephen Cone
Starring: Jessie Pinnick, Rebecca Spence, Malic White
A character study of two women who clumsily and gently brush up
against each other and find new happiness because of it — and in the
process, one of them simply realizes she likes girls.
18. Dope (2015)
mainstream movie // lgbtq female ensemble character
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Directed by: Rick Famuyiwa
Written by: Rick Famuyiwa
Starring: Kiersey Clemons, Shameik Moore
Kiersy Clemons co-stars as Diggy, the masculine-presenting lesbian
best friend of protagonist Malcom and their other bestie, Jib. Together,
the trio of ’90s-loving geeks used to getting bullied on the daily are
invited to a cool party hosted by drug dealers, setting off a chain of
events that get the kids in real deep with criminal activity and
unsavory characters with no awareness of their own ridiculousness. It’s a
charming, entirely original, politically conscious coming-of-age tale
cast in dreamy California light and draped in eye-popping fashion with a
killer soundtrack to boot. If the lesbian storyline/character was more
central, it’d definitely be in the Top 10.
mainstream movie // lgbtq ensemble characters
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81%
Directed By: Stephen Daldry
Written By: David Hare
Starring: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman
Based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning book by Michael Cunningham,
The Hours uses
“Mrs. Dalloway” as a point of connection for three
interconnected stories happening in three different time periods,
including Virginia Woolf’s own. There are so many brilliant lines and
quotable monologues that the story is just the icing on this highly
literary cake. (And we’re making the cake so Daddy knows that we love
him, remember.)
16. Gia (1997)
our review // mainstream TV movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed By: Michael Cristofer
Written By: Jay McInerney, Michael Cristofer
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Mitchell, Eric Michael Cole
Like so many lesbian movies on this list, this HBO biographical
film about model Gia Marie Carangi is sexy and sweet and also harrowing
and miserable. The love scene between Elizabeth Mitchell and Angelina
Jolie, though, is one for the record books. It’s the reason half the
lesbians over the age of 35 realized they’re gay.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed by: Carly Usdin
Written by: Brittani Nichols
Starring: Jasika Nicole, Brittani Nichols, Brianna Baker, Lindsay Hicks
Jasmine and Penn, a brand-new couple, find themselves at a very
confusing lunch when they find a suicide note beneath the mattress of
their hosts, Jordan and Billie. This funny fresh feature was shot in a
few days on no budget, which says a lot about the raw talent on display
here and about how many talented women are just waiting in the wings
waiting to see what happens f the
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our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq lead // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85%
Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Written by: Simon Beaufoy
Starring: Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough
It’s a comedy about a charming, washed-up, middle-aged gambling
addict looking for a little notoriety and one more hustle. It’s a period
drama about a group of women athletes trying to get equal pay and a
little respect. It’s a sports movie, complete with breathless action
sequences, overwrought crowd reactions, and a soaring score. It’s a
biopic about a legend. And it’s one of the best lesbian films we’ve ever
seen.
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our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%
Directed by: Angela Robinson
Written by: Angela Robinson
Starring: Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, Connie Britton
Writer/director/longtime lesbian favorite Angela Robinson did a
really subversive thing with the most talked-about period film of the
fall of 2017: she brought an ardent screenplay, a soaring score, and
unapologetically gauzy sunlight to bear on the story of the man, his
wife, and their lover who created the most iconic female superhero of
all time in the hopes that she would prepare the world for matriarchal
rule — with a healthy side of bondage.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: N/A
Directed By: Alexandra-Therese Keining, Therese Keining
Written By: Alexandra-Therese Keining
Starring: Liv Mjönes, Krister Henriksson, Lena Endre, Joakim Nätterqvist, Josefine Tengblad
Oh, you know, just your average 33-year-old straight-engaged woman
who accidentally falls in love with her soon-to-be stepsister when she
meets her for the very first time. Mia’s dumb boyfriend Tim never stood a
chance.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Written by: Chan-wook Park, Seo-Kyung Chung, Chung Seo-Kyung,
Starring: Min-hee Kim, Tae-Ri Kim, Jung-Woo Ha, Cho Jin-Woong
Inspired by Sarah Waters’ “Fingersmith,” this highly-decorated
seductive thriller takes place in 1930s-era colonial Korean and Japan,
where a young woman on a secluded estate develops a sexual relationship
with her new handmaiden.
10. Bound (1996)
our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Directed by: The Wachowskis
Written by: The Wachowskis
Starring: Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano
Violet and Corky decide the best way to be together and break free
from their pasts is to steal $2 million of mafia money. The plot and the
violence are cartoonishly over the top, but the lesbian sex scenes are
for real. They were choreographed by the legendary Susie Bright, who
received a cameo in the film for her help teaching Jennifer Tilly and
Gina Gershon how to scissor.
our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Directed By: Max Färberböck
Written By: Erika Fischer, Max Färberböck, Rona Munro
Starring: Juliane Köhler, Maria Schrader, Heike Makatsch, Johanna Wokalek
Set in Berlin during World War II,
Aimee & Jaguar is a
fictional account of the real lives of Lilly Wust and Felice
Schragenheim. One is a Jewish mother working with an underground
organization to fight the Nazis; the other is the wife of a Nazi
soldier. Their relationship is intense and wonderful and unspeakably
tragic. You’ll have to watch
Imagine Me & You ten times after you watch this to feel better.
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our review // mainstream TV movie // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%
Directed by: Dee Rees
Written by: Dee Rees, Christopher Cleveland, Bettina Gilois
Starring: Queen Latifah, Khandi Alexander
“Bessie is the role of a lifetime for Queen Latifah,” wrote Gabby
Rivera in her review. “She’s never been more poised, emotionally raw and
free in her skin in any other role.” In Dee Rees’ biopic about the most
popular female blues singer of pre-Depression America, Bessie’s
relationships with women aren’t glossed over or pushed aside.
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our review // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 48%
Directed by: Peter Sollett
Written by: Ron Nyswaner
Starring: Julienne Moore, Ellen Page
This tearjerker tells the true story of Laurel Hester, a New Jersey
police detective diagnosed with cancer who is prohibited from leaving
her pension to her domestic partner, car mechanic Stacie. They take
their case to court, struggle for equality, and look real cute together.
//
our coverage of pariah // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Directed By: Dee Rees
Written By: Dee Rees
Starring: Adepero Oduye, Pernell Walker, Wendell Pierce
Despite violent opposition from her mother, who wants her daughter to
dress femininely and be straight, 17-year-old Alike prefers to express
herself with androgynous clothes and liking girls. When her mother
refuses to accept her, she has to choose between staying and trying to
gain her mother’s approval or leaving for college early to start a new
life. We were
big fans of this one.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Directed By: Lukas Moodysson
Written By: Lukas Moodysson
Starring: Alexandra Dahlstrom, Rebecca Liljeberg, Rebecka Liljeberg
In the small town of Amal, Sweden, two girls with very different
personalities find that they have a pretty big thing in common. (Spoiler
alert: It’s liking girls.) Elin is a popular, social butterfly. Agnes
is an openly gay depressed recluse. The two of them decide to take a
five-hour ride to Stockholm to solve all their problems, and fall in
love along the way.
lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%
Directed By: Maryam Keshavarz
Written By: Maryam Keshavarz
Starring: Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy, Reza Sixo Safai
In Tehran, Atafeh and her orphaned best friend, Shireen, fall in
love, despite her brother’s growing obsession with Shireen and the
religious beliefs of her family. This story is full of youth but also
sexuality, and family and rules and an underworld where people can be
who they are. The two girls at the center are being torn really strongly
in a few directions, sometimes almost violently so, but can’t seem to
untangle from each other or from their familial obligations.
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%
Directed By: Alice Wu
Written By: Alice Wu
Starring: Michelle Krusiec, Joan Chen, Lynn Chen
A multi-generational romantic comedy about a lesbian surgeon and her
pregnant, unwed mother trying to find the courage to follow their hearts
instead of their family’s expectations. There is nothing to dislike
about this movie and if you haven’t seen it, you should remedy that
immediately.
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our review //
our extensive coverage of Carol // mainstream movie // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Written by: Phyllis Nagy
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson
Heather Hogan thinks that Carol is the best lesbian movie of all
time! In fact, she thinks it’s the best movie of all time, full stop!
It’s based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel
The Price of Salt, and
the only reason it didn’t win the Academy Award for Best Picture is
because it doesn’t focus on the feelings or pleasure of one single man
for one single second. Waterloo!
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our review // lgbtq story // lgbtq leads // lgbtq romance
Rotten Tomatoes score: 34%
Directed by: Jamie Babbit
Written by: Brian Wayne Peterson and Jamie Babbit
Starring: Natasha Lyonne,
Clea DuVall, RuPaul
We’re surprised that the critics didn’t fall for this charming, campy, smart and timeless lesbian movie because we sure did.
But I’m a Cheerleader
is so many things: a cute love story, an exploration of the coming out
experience, a delightfully wacky take on the real-life horrors of gay
conversion therapy and, above all, hilarious. It’s also legendary for
its battle with the MPAA, who wanted to slap an NC-17 on the film ’cause
apparently girl-on-girl culture and female masturbation are downright
obscene. After a few rounds of edits, it earned an R, hit movie
theaters, and began its legendary claim on our hearts.
