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From awards honorees defending trans people at the podium to musical acts designing their live performances as tributes to their gay and genderqueer fans, entertainers of all kinds came together to remind audiences that Hollywood is still mostly run by allies.

However well-intentioned, that political contrast made LGBTQ representation on screen feel more dire than celebratory.

—WC

  • “Sauna”

    Mathias Broe’s steamy (pardon the couldn’t-resist pun) Danish romance “Sauna” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival as a modest gem in the World Cinema section — but the honest emotions it packs are anything but. Buy on Amazon UK

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    38) Power Of The Dog (2021)

    This is Benedict Cumberbatch as you've never seen him before.

    The Living End is his best picture, a so-called 'gay Thelma & Louise', as film critic Jon (Craig Gilmore) and drifter Luke (Mike Dytri), both diagnosed as HIV-positive ("the Neo-Nazi Republican final solution," says Jon about AIDS), kill a homophobic cop and go on the lam, offing any bigot who stand in their way.

    Those same groups were simultaneously championed on many of the world’s most powerful pop culture stages. It's shot beautifully, with great music and a close look at Havana in all its run-down and colorful glory.

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    46

    Desert Hearts (1985)

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    The quintessential '80s lesbian romantic drama, Desert Hearts follows an English professor and a young sculptor as they fall in love at a Nevada ranch in the 1950s.

    Queer stories continued to thrive where risk and imagination are valued, from indie films that brilliantly explored queerness as both an identity and lived culture, to TV series that embedded LGBTQ characters into smart ensemble storytelling without apology.

    film gay

    Buy on Amazon UK

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    26) And Then We Danced (2020)

    "There's no sexuality in Georgian dance," teacher Aliko (Kakha Gogidze) tells his class in the opening moments of Levan Akin's glorious debut. She takes it all off on the bus home, donning earrings and transforming into an acceptable form of femininity so that her devoutly religious parents can maintain their sense of denial and ignorance regarding her sexuality.

    The two lead actresses are magnetic, and feel at once like equals and opposites – Carol is more assured when it comes to life and her sexuality, whereas Therese seems to be discovering everything for the first time. Conversion therapy is no joke, but Jamie Babbit's satire perfectly skewers puritanical homophobia—and it has a joyful, happy ending.

    That's it". The instant, intense media fame Sonny earns feels more relevant than ever, and things turn surprisingly tender when we learn he plans to use the stolen money for his lover's gender-confirmation surgery.

    31

    My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

    Apple TV

    A Pakistani Brit and his former lover, who has become a fascist street punk, reunite and run a family laundromat.

    Full of iconic imagery, heart-wrenching needle drops from Sufjan Stevens, and chemistry so tangible you can almost feel it radiating heat from the screen, this coming-of-age story charts the whole cycle of young love, all the way from initial infatuation to tearful grief. The three are linked by a fluid sexuality, but it's the notion of keeping up appearances whilst unravelling inside that truly binds them.

    The camera focuses on dust particles floating in the air; it zooms closer until they morph into spiky molecules of the virus that devastated LGBTQ+ communities throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Luca Guadagnino's story of teenage longing stars Chalamet as Elio, who falls for research assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer) when the latter comes to work with his father (Michael Stuhlbarg).

    But the real hook is its bait-and-switch premise, revealed only as mainstream conservative scandal gives way to a lesbian network operating in plain sight. Rather than pity themselves, these characters unleash their nihilism on the world, tempered by a kind of freewheeling anarchy and enhanced by Araki's eye-catching images and jump cuts.

    Written, directed, and also starring Cheryl Dunye as a version of herself, the film blends a standard narrative with faux documentary segments, invented archival material, and interviews with talking heads – a style dubbed hereafter as the 'Dunyementary'. The screenplay does not hold back on the homophobia of the movement and the moment, but out actor Colman Domingo brings Rustin's charisma, confidence, passion, and humor to vivid life.

    Franck observes Michel drowning a man, but is so consumed with him that he lies to the cops.

    The flawed friendship between the nonbinary police officer and queer youth suffering under the wilderness-driven education methods of Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette) was earnest and endearing. For all the moments of toughness, Moonlight is an incredibly tender work – deeply emotive, deftly navigating the intersecting forces of masculinity, Black identity, and sexuality that shape Chiron over the course of his young life.

    In many ways, Go Fish's importance lies in what it doesn't show.

    As he mulls over his change in fortune at the bar, he spends a lot of time talking shit and attempting to pony up to a young crush, Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), by playing the role of her gay best friend.