My Top 10 LGBT+ Movies and TV Shows

LGBT+ movies and series are what made me survive my teenage years. I didn’t know anyone I was gay for a very long time. All I had was movies showing me that being different isn’t wrong and that I am not alone. Today, I want to dedicate a blog post to my favorite gay movies and series.

#10 Call Me By Your Name

I’m sure everyone has at least heard of this movie that sparked so much joy among the LGBT+ community all over the world. The story is set in Italy and besides being a gay love story also debates topics like age gap dating and gay history. Call Me By Your Name is a beautiful movie I enjoyed very much even though I am not sure as to how realistic it actually is.

#9 Beginners

The movie Beginners is about a father (Christopher Plummer) coming out to his son (Ewan McGregor) as gay at an advanced age. It follows the two and their shifting dynamics and is an unexpected father-son story with many surprises.

#8 Brokeback Mountain

To get all the popular movies out early, I decided to give spot number 8 to Brokeback Mountain. Some might say it’s a cliché movie. To that, I say that this movie features gay cowboys Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger in one of his last roles and I don’t need more to be happy.

#7 Queer as Folk

Okay, this might be another cliché and I have to admit when I first heard of QAF being the ‘gay Sex and the City’ I didn’t believe it and ignored the series for years. When I watched it later, however, I found out how spot-on that description was. The show starts a little shallow but actually gets in deep about problems the LGBT+ community used to have – and sometimes still does.

#6 Transamerica

This movie stars Desperate Housewives actress Felicity Huffmann in one of her most intense roles so far. As a trans*woman (male to female) she has to go on a road trip to find a son she never she had and make peace with him before she can go forward with her final surgeries.

#5 Closet Monster

This is one of those movies that is really hard to describe because it is so different from others. Sometimes Closet Monster is really weird and artsy and sometimes it feels very familiar and comfortable. To avoid any spoilers I will just say that it is about a boy before his coming out – the rest you have to see for yourself.

#4 NEVRLAND

Nevrland is an Austrian movie that debuted at Diagonale film festival this year. It’s a techno horror thriller far away from the other movies on this list. The music, the visuals, the paranoia and last but not least the easiness of the portrayal of the gay main character make this movie a must-watch for everyone with strong nerves.

There are two more great German-speaking movies I wanna mention being Freier Fall und Die Mitte der Welt. This spot kinda belongs to all of these films.

#3 Dallas Buyers Club

If you haven’t seen Dallas Buyers Club, the movie which led to an Oscar and a Golden Globe for both, Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey, you better stream it now. It is the real-life story of some of the first HIV/AIDS patients in America, including Ron Woodroof who smuggled meds from Mexico to the USA to treat his own illness as well as others. Him being a rather homophobic straight dude it also tells the beautiful story of a straight man trying to find common grounds with the LGBT+ community.

#2 Weekend/Looking

Weekend is the movie that was used as the main inspiration for the short but awesome TV show Looking. Both are concepts and productions by Andrew Haigh and since I like them so much, I have written separate blog posts about both, Weekend and Looking, in the past.

#1 Shortbus

Shortbus is a movie by John Cameron Mitchell that sparked lots of controversies because the actors in the movie perform real sex scenes on screen. Besides that, it is a great movie about sexual liberation and finding yourself. It is not just for the LGBT+ community but does feature a lot of queer characters. I love this movie and when there is ever a real-life Shortbus, I wanna go there!

So much for my personal favorites when it comes to LGBT movies. Did I include your personal favorite too?

BenLeander

Title photo from NEVRLAND