Gay independent movies

Throughout the history of cinema, plenty of queer films have been able to go beyond the small indie movie theater and become worldwide hits. That is why I decided to put together a list of some small independent movies that managed to be successful box office stories or acclaimed award winners. Your online source for LGBTQ themed media news and information. Curated collections of movies, tv shows, and short films for the LGBTQ+ community.

From The Watermelon Woman to And Then We Danced, these are some of our favourite niche queer films. Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The definitive site for Reviews, Trailers, Showtimes, and Tickets. We all know that the LGBTQ+ offerings on the big streaming platforms can be both underwhelming and numbingly predictable — the same few classic films interspersed with a lot of dubious indies.

It was an experimental short made by William Dickson, designed to test syncing up moving pictures to prerecorded sound, a system that he and Thomas Edison were developing known as the Kinetophone. But since those two men first danced, there have also been scores of stories, characters, and filmmakers that have presented the varied, multitudinous aspects of LGBTQ experiences 24 frames per second that have gone past those stereotypes, or flipped them on their heads.

Rather, consider this a primer that helps illustrate the relationship between queer culture and the silver screen. Watch these films with a day free trial to Amazon Prime or a free trial to Hulu here. You could not ask for a more distinctively queer perspective on a traditionally straight, male genre. Long before the world at large awakened to what transgender means, director Kimberly Peirce showed us with this wrenching dramatization of the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a trans man who was raped and murdered in small-town Nebraska after locals discovered his biological gender.

What follows is a lot of camping it up, some dancing, and a good deal of tearing each other to pieces. Writer-director Robin Campillo and his co-writer Philippe Mangeot based this film on their own experiences in the ACT UP movement in the s — and their commitment to realism shows in this achingly raw drama, set during the depths of the AIDS crisis in Mitterrand-era Paris. The men end up finding intimacy on the plains and, despite both of them marrying, carry on a clandestine relationship for decades.

Their flirtations are teasing and playful, their eventual union joyous. Audiences and critics were swept up by the romance — making the film an awards-season juggernaut and anointing Chalamet, whose performance is full of precocious charm and gutting emotion, a bona fide star. Where so many gay love stories are tinged with violence and sorrow see: Brokeback Mountain , this one is pure exhilaration.

That also means you can feel the bravery in their electric moments of veiled flirtation: a look that lasts a second too long, a grin that fights its way across their faces. A spur-of-the-moment road trip gives them the freedom to explore their desire, playing house in the privacy of hotel rooms, until a vicious custody battle forces Carol back into the closet.

The lingering last shot proves how good a reason that can be. Filmmakers, actors, and screenwriters weigh in on the joy of seeing gay characters visible, if sometimes veiled, on film, as well as the way Hollywood aided in perpetrating negative stereotypes. And clips of everything from silent two-reelers to Oscar-winning blockbusters demonstrate how the movies have reflected, refracted, and eventually come to broaden public attitudes about gay life.

It remains a highly divisive film. There was a debate as to whether it should have been included on this list. For decades, cinematic lesbian stories tended to end in tragedy — a not-so-subtle reminder of where Hollywood stood when it came to depictions of same-sex relationships. Just when you think it could not get more anti- Masterpiece Theater delirious, Annie Lennox shows up to sing a Cole Porter song.

Marina is a Santiago, Chile-based waitress by day and club singer by night; she and her significant other, Orlando, are planning a nice, long vacation. She is a fantastic woman, indeed. Directed by Rose Troche and co-written by Troche and star Guinevere Turner , this low-budget, black-and-white film became a Sundance breakout and a minor indie hit; in the days before The L Word, their portrait of the lives and loves of modern lesbians felt downright revolutionary.

Wendy McMillan , a mature professor, tells Max Turner , a young woman who is on the prowl. She gets set up with Ely V. Brodie and the sparks began to fly.

foreign gay films on netflix

So these two men decide to travel from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires to give their relationship one last shot in the arm, and soon realize that not even a change of scenery can save their curdling bond. Most modern movie musicals have a canned quality — a slick, artificial sheen that sucks all the air out of the stage shows they adapt. Twelve years later, Cholodenko would garner a heap of Oscar nominations for The Kids Are Alright , her portrait of a lesbian couple worn down by time and parenthood.

Zachary Booth plays Paul, an attorney with a drug problem who falls for Erik Thure Lindhardt , an artist and filmmaker. Told in bits and pieces over 10 years — and charting how Paul and Erik intersect and fall apart and intersect again over time — this romantic drama is startlingly clear-eyed about the struggles of its gay characters to accept themselves as well as their partners.