Queer Movies

I started to write a post about my favorite queer movies — with the important caveat that I have not seen the film spectrum of queer cinema and prefer happy endings — but hit a roadblock. There are not enough of them. Really, even though it seems like there is more queer representation in media (I’ve been happy to see the amount of queer YA books in recent years), and TV shows are slowly getting more rep too, Hollywood still feels like a barren landscape.

So here are a few queer movies that I love, while at the same time calling out that we need so much more. Especially in the vein of happy endings, romcoms, and movies where queer characters don’t fucking die:

Call Me By Your Name – The one with Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet based on the novel of the same name (that I also love). Set in the 1980s Italy, a romance starts between a student and the older man hired as his father’s research assistant. Bittersweet.

Shelter – gay surfing movie. I’ve watched this four or five times since I discovered this a few years ago, usually after I come back from vacation where I’m seen surfers and big waves. It’s emotional and fluffy and serious all at the same time. And has a happy ending.

God’s Own Country – Set in Yorkshire, a young troubled farmer and a Romanian migrant worker start up a relationship. Happy ending.

The Handmaiden – Korean adaption of the book The Fingersmith now set in the 1930s. A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her. Happy ending.

Love, Simon – Basically the only gay teenage romcom we’ve gotten in theaters recently?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire – I saw this on Friday and adored it. On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman. Gorgeous and heartbreaking, but no one dies and an excellent exploration of the female gaze.

Imagine Me & You — This is actually the women who love women romantic movie we deserve. More of this please.

Others on my shortlist include:

• But I’m a Cheerleader
• Brokeback Mountain
• Booksmart
• Alex Strangelove
• The Way He Looks
• North Sea Texas
• Jongens

There are so many movies I have not seen and love recommendations (I think a lot have scared me off because again — the death and unhappiness). Queer people can be happy? I just want every trope we get in romance reinvented for the queer community.

With Love,

Natalie