Queer Love: LGBTQ Movies You Can Watch Now on Popflick

Once, it was called "the love that dare not speak its name." Now, you can shout it from the roof. The LGBTQ community has dramatically advanced their right to express themselves and their feelings through art. There is still a long road to travel towards equal rights and acceptance. In the meantime, you can celebrate inclusion with these Queer-themed feature films and shorts.

Brief Encounters

P-Town

Director Giovanni Lampassi serves a suspenseful short that contemplates the effects of homophobic violence. Worlds collide when a Neo-Nazi follows a Muslim man into a dark alley. You think you know what will happen, but you don’t. The urban atmosphere is cannily conveyed with limited resources, and the performances go to the heart of the drama in preciously few minutes. It contains a lifetime of experience in just 7 minutes. Or perhaps, two lifetimes.

Colour Me Queer

A compilation of 8 fantastic animated shorts that explores every facet of queer life. Style and quality may vary, but the accumulated effect is powerful. Joy, despair, and franks depiction of sex are on the menu: a young man struggles with coming out; two nuns make a surprising discovery when they accidentally enter a drag club; two samurais in medieval Japan, former lovers, end up facing each other in a life-or-death duel. Those are just some of the stories you will find here. And if one does not catch your fancy, hold on. The next one might do the trick.

Edvard Takes a Lover

A 3-minute, animated dark comedy with puppets! The pandemic shutdown is bringing Edvard down. The mature gay bachelor can’t do anything but stalk out-of-reach hunks on Puppet Grind and watch movies on TV until he decides to take a look around his house to pick a suitable lover. This movie gives new meaning to the insult “fruit.”

Prism

An anthology of seven short films meditating on the subject of love. At least one of the stories deals with queer love, as two old friends reunite to reminisce about the good old days. How intimate were they? Can this reencounter lead to something more? “Prism” qualified for the Official Selection of the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival.

Foreign Films Fit for the Art House

Where Are You Going, Habibi?

Ibo (Cem Alkan) is the German-born son of a conservative Turkish immigrant family. Having recently graduated from college, he is contemplating the next chapter in life. He keeps his gay identity on the down low, but his two separate worlds threaten to collide when he falls for a petty criminal who may or may not return his affection. He follows him into a gym where the man trains for a wrestling league akin to a non-pro WWF. 

The Man Who Surprised Everyone

Yegor (Evgeniy Tsyganov) is a forest guard in contemporary Siberia. He is strapping and manly, happily involved with Natalia (Natalya Kudriashova), at least until one day, he receives a cancer diagnosis and the prognosis of having just two months left to live. His reaction to the dire news is to embrace a woman's identity, much to Natalia's chagrin. The hostility of the world around him does not seem to work as a deterrent.

This fascinating drama was written and directed by Aleksey Chupov and Natasha Merkulova. It had a great run in international film festivals, winning a special jury mention at the OUTshine Film Festival. It was nominated for the Queer Lion and Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. Kudryashova took the award for Best Actress at the Venice Horizons sidebar.

The Grand Bolero

The constraints of the Covid shutdown add a distinctive layer of extra repression to this unexpected thriller. Roxanne (Lidia Vitale), a musical instruments restorer, is pretty much locked in a dilapidated church with her new assistant, Lucia (Ludovica Mancini). She is mute, with no apparent qualification for the job. The priest overseeing the project took pity on her. She is homeless, and her brother must hustle for odd jobs. As the work progresses, the young woman is seduced by the power of music. Roxanne lowers her guard and falls into something like love. Or is it obsession?

"The Grand Bolero" won the Copper Wing Award for Best Director at the Phoenix Film Festival and the Best Director Film Award at the Beverly Hills Film Festival. Nominated for Best Narrative Feature at the Austin Film Festival and Best Feature Film at the Rome Independent Film Festival, among other awards. Read our full review.

Our Love Story

A heart-warming drama about two girls in love: Art student Yoon-ju (Lee Sang-hee) and bartender Ji-soo (Sun-young Ryu) fall for each other in modern Seoul. Will they be able to prevail over social pressure and their own biases?

"Our Love Story" is first-time director Hyun-ju Lee's acclaimed debut. It splashed at the influential San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain, getting nominations for the Sebastiane Award and the New Directors Award.

Carmen & Lola

Carmen (Rosy Rodriguez) is a very feminine beauty whose sole ambition is to get married and become a beautician. Lola (Zaire Romero) is a tomboy dedicated to painting graffiti all over town. They could not be more different, but in the eyes of white society, they are equals. Both of them are gypsies in contemporary Spain. They can’t help but fall in love, even if giving in to their desires puts them at risk of turning into outcasts from the Roma people.

"Carmen & Lola" is Arantxa Echeverria’s sterling feature film debut. It was nominated for 8 Goya Awards, including Best Film. It won Best Supporting Actress for Carolina Yuste, as the understanding teacher who aims to help the girls out. Nominated for the Queer Palm and the Golden Camera Award for Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival, 2018. Read our full review.

Boys To Men

Discretion

This ambitious short film offers a compelling look at a longtime gay couple falling prey to the doldrums of routine. Derek (Colin Lawrence) and Franz (Tim McCord) are set in their ways, doting on their little daughter and fretting about work and the future. Things take a turn when Derek takes a shine to Trysten (Zach Gillette), a good-looking student in his creative writing class. Can Derek stave off temptation? Can his relationship survive betrayal? The borderline softcore quality of a couple of scenes can be seen as problematic, or perhaps not!

Tommy Garcia’s California-set indie drama "Discretion" played into the Official Selection of the BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival and the Rio Gender & Sexuality Film Festival.

The L-Word Speaks Her Truth

Maybe Someday

After a breakup, Jay (Michelle Ehlen), a middle-aged gay woman, tries reconnecting with her past before jumping into the next chapter of her life. The movie jumps between past and present with abandon and achieves a casting coup, finding Eliza Blair to play young Jay during her college years as she comes to terms with her sexual identity. She finds support - and pressure - on a new best friend, snarky failed stand-up comedy Tommy (Charlie Steers). Ehlen is not just the lead performer and the writer-director.

"Maybe Someday" won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature, Outstanding Performance, and Audience Award at the Long Beach Film Festival. Winner of the Jury Award for Best LGBTQIA at the 2023 Oxford Film Festival, Mississippi, USA.

The Perfect Family

Kathleen Turner shines as a pious mother in the run for the Christian Woman of The Year Award. She is the perfect candidate. The only problem is that she must receive a Bishop in her home for an interview, and her family is far from the church’s standard. Her husband is a recovering alcoholic; her son is cheating on his wife, his high-school girlfriend and baby mamma, with another woman. But perhaps more egregious, her daughter (Emily Deschanel) is a lesbian, visibly with the baby, she will procreate with her lesbian lover, soon-to-be wife. It will be hard, but that does not mean she won’t try!

Turner won the Jury Prize for Outstanding Performance at the Santo Domingo OutFest. Read our full review.

Real Life Trump Fiction

Kidnapped for Christ

The ruse of “conversion therapy,” promoted by ultra-conservative groups as a “cure” for gayness, is a scam. Furthermore, it is legally considered as torture. This hard-hitting documentary by Yada Zamora, Paul A. Levin, and Kate Logan follows three teens sent to the Caribe Vista School in the Dominican Republic. One of them is a boy committed by his parents after he revealed to them that he was gay. The movie also sheds light on the nefarious influence that US-based, conservative evangelical groups exert in foreign countries, pushing their anti-LGBT agenda under the guise of sharing their religion.

“Kidnapped for Christ” won the Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival. It also won the Special Jury Prize and the Prize of Youth at the Nashville Film Festival.

Cult Classics in the Making

The Unnaturals

A group of corrupt aristocrats seeks refuge from a storm in a dilapidated castle in the English countryside. There, they engage in spiritist seance with their sinister hosts. The results will be deadly. Italian director Antonio Margheritti offers a lurid cult classic with all the trappings of the genre. Among the group, you will find a stalwart prototype of the genre, the predatory lesbian that meets an untimely end.

Nobody will confuse "The Unnaturals" for awards-bait material, but that was never in the filmmakers’ card. This is bawdy, sinister fun for cult fanatics. You know who you are! 

Appropriate Behavior

Indie darling Desiree Akhavan took over the Sundance Film Festival by storm and jumpstarted her career with this autobiographical comedy. In a thinly veiled auto-biographical key, she plays a bisexual film student trying to navigate life in hipster Brooklyn while balancing the expectations of her conservative Persian family.

"Appropriate Behavior" is a frank, hilarious comedy nominated for the Best of Next Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Also, Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards and Outstanding Film in Limited Release at the GLAAD Media Awards.

Addicted to Fresno

Director Jamie Babbit, better known for helming the cult classic "But I Am A Cheerleader" (1999), reunites her with star Natasha Lyonne for a modern screwball comedy about two extremely different sisters. Lyonne is Martha, a good-natured lesbian girl working on the cleaning crew of a dingy hotel in the titular California city. Her life is turned upside-down when she takes in her sister Shannon (Judy Greer), a not-so-recovering sex addict ready to wreak havoc in her life. For one thing, she sucks up all of her attention, preventing Martha from responding to the love signals sent by Kelly, a beautiful trainer played by Aubrey Plaza. Things come to a halt when a suitor ends up dead. Can they dispose of the body, escape from the law, and find happiness? 

The stellar cast includes Kumail Nanjiani, Molly Shannon, and Fred Armisen. The movie was nominated for the Gamechanger Award at SXSW.  Check out our full review.

Coming of Age

Slash

Neil (Michael Johnston) is a questioning teen who takes shelter in his passion for writing sexy fan fiction. When his best friend Julia (Hanna Marks) pushes him into publishing his work online, it opens a world of opportunity and hazards. The kids run away to a convention where a world of creative - and sexual - possibilities opens up for them. Check out the legendary Michael Ian Black in a pivotal and curiously poignant supporting role.

"Slash" is a warm but prickly coming-of-age comedy nominated for the Futurewave Youth Jury Award at the Seattle International Film Festival.

White Lie

One of the pitfalls of the representation discourse is the implicit - or explicit - demand that queer characters onscreen must always be paragons of virtue to compensate for decades of erasure, prejudice, and slander. In the end, this is just another kind of erasure. Queer people can be as complicated and mischievous as heteros. “White Lie” follows Katie (Kacey Roll), a college student pretending to be a cancer patient, to score donations from fellow students and foundations. She even gets a girlfriend, the loyal and unsuspecting Jennifer (Amber Anderson). How much longer can Katey see her elaborate ruse working? The casting includes ‘90s moody dreamboat Martin Donovan as Katie’s no-BS father.

“White Lie” was nominated for Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie won the René Rodriguez Critics Award at the 2020 Miami Film Festival. Lead actress Kacey Roll won an Honorable Mention at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Low budget film does not get more daring than this.

Sublime

No, it's not a biopic on the '90s ska band. "Sublime" is a heartwarming Argentinian film about young love. Manuel (Martin Miller) and Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando) are friends going through the usual rites of passage of the teenage years: hooking up with girls, playing in a rock band, and having fun. So far, so common. Until they start to feel that their friendship may hide a deeper kind of love. Director Mariano Biasin keeps exploring coming-of-age stories in his first feature film - he has worked on several short films, including the charming "El Inicio de Fabrizio," also available to watch on Popflick, as part of our excellent selection of short films.

"Sublime" took the Grand Jury Award at L.A. Outfest and Best Latin American Film at Spain's Goya Awards. At the Berlin Film Festival, it amassed three nominations: Best Film in the Generation 14plus sidebar, Best Film on the Teddy sidebar for LGBTQ works, and the GWFF Best First Feature Award.