From modern classics to neo love-stories, these are the Top Ten LGBTQ+ films to watch this winter.
1) Call Me By Your Name (2017)
The tentative romance at the heart of Call Me By Your Name is one of the most moving and convincing coming-of-age love stories Hollywood has produced in the last 10 years. Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer both deliver timeless performances and the pair’s love story is as intoxicating as the heat of the woozy Italian summer it’s set against.
2) God’s Own Country (2017)
This critically-lauded story of a Yorkshire farmhand who develops an unexpected and profound relationship with Romanian migrant worker made a big impact upon its release in 2017, featuring one of the most tender romances in recent memory. The film also cleaned up at the Evening Standard film awards where it won the Best Film prize.
3) Moonlight (2016)
This semi-autobiographical tale from Barry Jenkins is a profound portrait of burgeoning sexuality and masculinity in poverty-stricken Miami. The movie follows a young black man discovering his identity against the backdrop of personal and socioeconomic struggle and it was one of the most moving film experiences of 2017.
4) Bent (1997)
Bent shines a harrowing light on how gay people were treated under Nazi rule. Based on Martin Sherman’s play, Clive Owen stars as a gay man living in 1930s Berlin, sent to Dachau concentration camp where he falls in love with a fellow prisoner. The star-studded cast is completed by Sir Ian McKellen, Jude Law, Mick Jagger and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
5) My Own Private Idaho (1991)
River Phoenix gives one of the most memorable performances of his tragically short career in 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, playing a gay hustler and sex worker suffering with narcolepsy who falls for Keanu Reeves’ conman Scott Favor. It has to go on record as one of the most significant LGBTQ+ films of the decade, which takes a closer look at those on the margins of society.
6) Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain proved a landmark moment in cinematic history when it came out in 2005 as one of the first major LGBTQ+ movies to prove a big success at the box office, with worldwide takings of $178m. It was a scandal that the movie missed out on the Best Picture to Crash at the Oscars.
7) Weekend (2011)
What starts as a fling escalates into something much more meaningful in this 2011 British indie drama, which has found a cult audience in the years following its release. British newcomers Tom Cullen and Chris New star as two men who meet shortly before one is due to leave the country, falling for each other in the most inconvenient of circumstances.
8) Pride (2014)
British underdog stories don’t get much more inspiring than Pride, which focuses on the members of London's queer community who pledge their support for the striking Welsh miners in 1984. It’s become a cliche to describe British films like this one as "feel-good", but no movie is more deserving of the description than Pride.
9) A Single Man (2009)
Colin Firth delivers an Oscar-nominated performance as an English professor in the grips of depression after losing his partner of 16 years in this adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood novel. While many LGBTQ+ classics centre around coming-of-age stories, Tom Ford’s directorial debut takes a thought-provoking look at long term queer relationships and living with loss in middle age.
10) Tropical Malady (2004)
The first half of this 2004 drama focuses on the fledgling romance between a Thai soldier and a young boy, before the film flips in surreal style to focus on a man entering deep into the Thai jungle to recover a lost boy. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s movie is bizarre, baffling and yet somehow all the more affecting as a result.