LGBTQ+ movies are an important part of cinema, because they give voice to the queer community. Whether it’s through a thought-provoking documentary, sweeping romance or light-hearted comedy, there’ve been many great LGBTQ+ films over the years. But what does Rotten Tomatoes consider the best?
1. Welcome To Chechnya (2020) – 100%
Coming at No. 1 of Rotten Tomatoes’ best LGBTQ+ movies of all time is HBO’s documentary about the mass persecution of the LGBTQ+ community which occurred in the republic of Russia in the late 2010s. It particularly follows the daring work of activists in the late 2010s as they risked their lives to rescue survivors of torture and secretly shot footage of themselves doing this. As the Rotten Tomatoes score suggests, Welcome To Chechnya, received universal acclaim, as reviews called it a “collective profile in courage,” “a chilling undercover thriller” and “urgent call to arms.”
2. Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (2020) – 100%
The life of famed Puerto Rican astrologer, psychic and queer icon Walter Mercado was explored in the 2020 documentary Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado. This uplifting telling of the vibrant and intriguing individual was released just months after Mercado died at the age of 87. The movie that is available to watch with a Netflix subscription has been hailed a victorious tribute to Mercado’s story and legacy.
3. A Secret Love (2020) – 100%
The 2020 Netflix documentary, A Secret Love, tells the story of a lesbian couple who has been keeping their relationship private for seven decades. Terry Donahue is a former All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player in the 1940s. The movie was conceived out of the director, Chris Bolan taking a trip to visit his two great aunts and asking them their life story.
4. We Were Here (2011) – 100%
2011’s We Were Here is a documentary that told the story of the HIV/AIDS crisis in San Francisco, California through interviews with five key people who were affected or involved in the epidemic. Examples of people interviewed: an HIV-positive man who lost two partners to AIDS, a political activist, a counselor to the gay community there, a man who had a flower stand who often supplied his inventory to funerals and a nurse who assisted in administering clinical trials for the management of HIV/AIDS.
5. Mädchen In Uniform (1931) – 100%
The oldest movie on this list (by far) is the 1931 German film, Maedchen In Uniform, which translates in English to “Girls In Uniform.” The movie reportedly includes the first “real” lesbian kiss in a movie, per The Criterion Collection. It’s about a teenager who is sent away to a boarding school and forms a romantic bond with her teacher, leading to a school-wide scandal.
6. BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017) – 99%
BPM (Beats Per Minute) is a French drama set in the early 1990s that debuted at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and won one of its most prestigious prizes, the Grand Prix. It’s about a young man who joins a group of Parisian HIV/AIDS activists only to learn about a particularly radical approach they take to their protests. The movie’s screenwriters were inspired by their own experiences being involved in ACT UP during that time.
7. Girl Picture (2022) – 99%
In 2022, the Finnish film Girl Picture dazzled the Sundance Film Festival by earning the Audience Award in its World Dramatic Competition. The coming-of-age movie centers on three teens’ experiences across three consecutive Fridays. The movie has been praised for its performances and “honest” and “realistic” portrait of girlhood transitioning into womanhood.
8. Moonlight (2016) – 98%
Moonlight is probably best known for its viral Oscar moment with La La Land, but the movie itself lives up to it being Barry Jenkins’ masterpiece. Moonlight’s cast is stacked full of talented actors led by Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris’ profound performances. The movie tells the story of Chiron across three defining chapters of his life and through him discusses toxic masculinity and its intersection with being a Black queer man.
9. Flee (2021) – 98%
2021’s Flee received high acclaim for telling the story of a queer man from Afghanistan who leaves his home country for Denmark as a refugee through a beautifully animated film. Flee is actually a documentary about a real person, but the name Amin Nawabi is a pseudonym that was used to protect his identity.
10. God’s Own Country (2017) – 98%
In 2017, Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu starred in God’s Own Country, from writer/director Francis Lee. The British movie is about a sheep farmer living in Yorkshire whose life changes when a Romanian migrant worker comes into his life to help out during lambing season. The movie is based on Lee’s own experiences growing up in Yorkshire.
11. All About My Mother (1999) – 98%
Pedro Almodóvar is one of the most celebrated queer filmmakers the industry has, as illustrated by having multiple films on this Rotten Tomatoes list. The first is 1999 Oscar-winner, All About My Mother, which weaves in some important conversations about the LGBTQ+ community and AIDS epidemic after a mother who loses her teen son to a car accident seeks out her son’s other parent, who is a transgender woman.
12. How To Survive A Plague (2012) – 98%
Along with Welcome to Chechnya topping the list, director and investigative journalist David France also made an LGBTQ+ documentary in 2012 about the early years of the AIDS epidemic after covering it for decades. The movie compiles over 700 hours of archived footage, mostly regarding activist groups like ACT UP and TAG standing up for the cause.
13. Paris Is Burning (1990) – 98%
1990’s Paris Is Burning delves into and celebrates the diverse subculture of the 1980s known as ball culture or the voguing scene of New York City. These balls feature LGBTQ+ people (mainly of Black and Hispanic ethnicities) as they take part in fashion competitions, dance battles, and such. The subculture remains influential today, including being a major influence on RuPaul’s Drag Race, which has since amassed big winners across sixteen seasons.
14. Disclosure (2020) – 98%
The 2020 Netflix documentary, Disclosure, takes a look at how Hollywood has presented transgender people over the years with examples such as Tootsie, Bosom Buddies, and Victor Victoria. The movie features a ton of interviews with notable people in the trans and Hollywood community like Laverne Cox and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez.
15. Circus of Books (2019) – 98%
The West Hollywood and Silver Lake neighborhoods of Los Angeles are home to Circus of Books, which is a bookstore and gay adult movie shop. The documentary of the same name tells the story of the store, which was taken over by a couple in 1976 before becoming the biggest distributor of gay adult films in the United States.
16. Call Me Kuchu (2012) – 98%
“Kuchu” is a word of Swahili origin that is used to refer to queer people in Uganda. In the 2012 documentary, Call Me Kuchu, the filmmakers explore the experiences and struggles of those in the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda, particularly through an openly gay man named David Kato, as he and other activists work to oppose new legislation that would make loving freely punishable by death.
17. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) – 98%
My Beautiful Laundrette is a love story between a young Pakistani man (Gordan Warnecke) living in South London and his childhood friend (Daniel Day-Lewis). The queer romance explores the culture-clashes that come with an interracial relationship along with speaking to the marginalization of the LGBTQ+ community in 1980s England.
18. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2019) – 97%
France’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a slow-burn love story between two women (played by (Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenell) living in the 18th century, one an aristocrat and the other the painter that has been commissioned to do her portrait.
19. The Half Of It (2020) – 97%
After writer/director Alice Wu previously brought queer representation to the screen with 2004’s Saving Face, the filmmaker made her first movie in 16 years with Netflix’s The Half Of It. The movie is loosely based on Cyrano de Bergerac and is about a loner high-schooler Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) who is approached by a football player (Daniel Diemer) to write love letters to Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire), a girl in school she also secretly desires.
20. Booksmart (2019) – 96%
Olivia Wilde’s 2019 directorial debut, is a hilarious teen buddy comedy about two best friends (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein) who are “booksmart” that decide to break all the rules on their last night as high schoolers by going to all the parties they can. Within the movie’s funny happenings, Dever’s Amy gets to have a romantic encounter with her female crush that feels honest and authentic.
21. Pain And Glory (2019) – 96%
Pedro Almodóvar’s 2019 movie, Pain and Glory, had the Spanish filmmaker once again teaming up with Antonio Banderas, this time to play a fictional director who is in the middle of a creative crisis reflecting on his past. The movie is an especially personal one for Almodóvar who drew on his own life experiences for Banderas’ role.
22. Parallel Mothers (2021) – 96%
Almodóvar followed up with Pain and Glory with Parallel Mothers, which stars Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit as two expecting mothers who share the hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and got pregnant by accident. After having their children, they go their separate ways, but keep in touch over the years.
23. The Handmaiden (2016) – 96%
Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is a Victorian thriller about a con man who plans to seduce a Japanese heiress, Hideko, in order to marry her and then steal her inheritance. He hires a pickpocket named Sook-hee to be the heiress’ maid and help him out. But, Hideko takes a liking to Sook-hee, unravelling into what has been called an erotic lesbian masterpiece.
24. Shiva Baby (2020) – 97%
Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby is a tense comedy that stars Rachel Sennott as Danielle, a young woman who finds herself in an awkward situation when the Jewish funeral service she is attending with her parents turns out to have both her ex-girlfriend and sugar daddy in attendance.
25. Tangerine (2015) – 96%
Sean Baker’s Tangerine is unique because it was shot completely on three iPhone 5S smartphones. It is about a trans woman who finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her. It was particularly celebrated upon release for its representation of transgender people, especially through openly transgender actress, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez’s performance.
26. Tomboy (2011) – 96%
Years before Portrait of a Lady on Fire, its filmmaker Céline Sciamma made Tomboy. The French drama is about a 10-year-old gender non-conforming child who experiments with their gender after moving to a new neighborhood over the summer.
27. Gods And Monsters (1998) – 96%
Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters imagines the last days of James Whale, the director behind 1931’s Frankenstein. Whale (played by Ian McKellan) was a queer man but as the movie delves into, he wasn’t accepted at the time for his sexuality. The movie follows Whale as he befriends his gardener Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser) in the wake of Whale suffering a series of strokes and battling depression.
28. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – 96%
Al Pacino’s crime film, Dog Day Afternoon is inspired by the true story of one man’s New York City bank robbery turning into a hostage negotiation. Pacino’s character of Sonny is a queer man who as we find out, is robbing a bank in order to pay for his partner’s gender reassignment surgery.
29. Good Manners (2017) – 96%
Good Manners is a 2017 Portuguese horror fantasy about a woman who takes a nanny job from a mysterious wealthy woman. It turns into a lesbian werewolf movie with things to say about class and racial divides in Brazil along with queer motherhood.
30. Pariah (2011) – 95%
Dee Rees’ Pariah is about a 17-year-old Black teen who comes to terms with her identity as a lesbian after hanging out with her similarly queer friend. The movie was chosen to be preserved in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” to film history.
31. Heavenly Creatures (1994) – 95%
Before Peter Jackson became famous for making the Lord of the Rings movies, he made 1994’s Heavenly Creatures starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in their first movies. It focuses on the relationship between two teen girls ahead of the notorious 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case.
32. Weekend (2011) – 95%
Andrew Haigh’s Weekend rounds out this list, though the entire list goes up to 200! Weekend is a British romance about two gay men who form a relationship just before one of them plans to leave the country for Oregon.
There’s been so many great LGBTQ+ movies to come out over the years. Hope you check one (or a few) out!
