Straight to gay movies

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And yet, could a gay director have shepherded a mainstream gay film like this to cinemas worldwide? — but it’s Rotten.)

For now, join us as we celebrate the work of hundreds of filmmakers whose talents and risks have opened up the possibilities of cinema.

Critics Consensus: An illuminating and urgent call to action, Welcome to Chechnya portrays the horrors of the mass persecution of the LGBTQ+ community in the Chechen Republic with tenacity and tenderness.

Synopsis: In 1976 a couple take over an adult book store, and the store becomes the biggest distributor of gay porn [More]

Starring: Karen Mason, Rachel Mason, Larry Flynt, Jeff Stryker

Directed By: Rachel Mason

#19

Critics Consensus: Alternately horrific and uplifting, Call Me Kuchu exposes heinous systematic brutality with a clear eye and admirable precision.

But thanks to convincing performances from Julia Lester as Hannah, who dumps her clingy boyfriend the night before prom because she’s a lesbian, and Ginny and Georgia’s Antonia Gentry, whose character Jess dumps her prom date after she catches him cheating, the night of high jinks mostly works.

Synopsis: A gay man's (Tom Cullen) weekend-long encounter with an artist (Chris New) changes his life in unexpected ways.

Synopsis: The Ranas--a happily patriarchal joint family--yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line. The [More]

Starring: Maddie Ziegler, Emily Hampshire, Djouliet Amara, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

Directed By: Molly McGlynn

#44

Critics Consensus: Elevated by a remarkable Franz Rogowski performance, Passages adds another smart, deeply humanistic film to director/co-writer Ira Sachs' estimable filmography.

Synopsis: Set in the iconic Pines, Andrew Ahn's "Fire Island" is an unapologetic, modern-day rom-com showcasing a diverse, multicultural examination of [More]

Starring: Joel Kim Booster, Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho, Conrad Ricamora

Directed By: Andrew Ahn

#58

Critics Consensus: Affectionate without sacrificing honesty, Behind the Candelabra couples award-worthy performances from Michael Douglas and Matt Damon with some typically sharp direction from Steven Soderbergh.

After meeting at a bookstore, they quickly fall in love and then must deal with the respective traumas creating tension in their relationship. As an adult, he falls in love with Clara (Aida Leiner), but their romance doesn’t go easily. Considering that trans directors — and to that end, trans actors — are still widely marginalized in Hollywood and beyond, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched for straight men to be directing movies like this right now.

Actually, it wasn’t just my brain that exploded. And personally, if I’m going to watch a bad movie, I’d prefer it to be at least a little bit gay.

Synopsis: Realizing that they share common foes in Margaret Thatcher, the police and the conservative press, London-based gays and lesbians lend [More]

Starring: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine

Directed By: Matthew Warchus

Believe it or not, queer people have not always been able to tell their own stories.

Without the social or financial resources to truly break into the mainstream before the early 2000s, queer people have historically remained at the margins of Hollywood, quietly nudging straight creators to make the queer movies that they wanted to see on the screen.

But alas, this movie’s director, writer, and co-star Robin Williams were all straight.

Synopsis: Naveen Gavaskar is a self-effacing, soft-spoken doctor with a boisterous mother, seemingly perfect sister and quiet father. I don’t just mean queer subtext, of which there has always been plenty; I mean overtly queer characters as early as Zapatas Bande in 1914, Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein in 1918, and Anders als die Andern in 1919, all of which were German films made during the country’s Weimar period.

Synopsis: A former baseball player keeps her lesbian relationship a secret from her family for seven decades. The two [More]

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy

Directed By: Todd Haynes

#54

Critics Consensus: Lust and violence collide to powerfully pulpy effect in Love Lies Bleeding, a well-acted addition to writer-director Rose Glass' growing body of exceptional work.

Amid the strife, there are moments of goofy levity, and the story is told with unwaveringly gorgeous cinematography.

Stream on Apple TV+.

This rom-com by Alice Wu deals with cultural clashes among multiple generations of a Chinese American family.

Everyone involved has impeccable style, and, yes, of course they all live in Paris.

Stream on Mubi.

Photo: Mubi/Courtesy Everett Collection

This drama from Georgian Swedish director Levan Akin centers on Lia, a retired teacher who heads to Istanbul to search for her long-lost transgender niece in the company of a charismatic teenage boy trying to escape from his own family troubles by acting as her translator.

The result mostly avoids road-trip-movie clichés for a fun and ultimately heartfelt time.

Stream on HBO Max.

Photo: James Clark/2022 Warner Bros. [More]

Starring: Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, Alexxis Lemire, Enrique Murciano

Directed By: Alice Wu

#24

Critics Consensus: Sensitively written and beautifully acted, Girl Picture captures the whirlwind of teenage emotions without sacrificing narrative maturity and depth.

Even more notably, the movie centered on a hilariously brassy trans sex worker as she discovered that her pimp had been cheating on her.