The 20 most important LGBTQ+ films of the past 20 years

Twenty years ago, two cowboys cozied up in a tent and changed everything.

That is to say, in 2005, when Ang Lee’s gay romantic drama Brokeback Mountain premiered to great acclaim, went on to gross over $170 million worldwide, and earned more Oscar nominations than another other movie from that year, it seemed to signal a tectonic shift for LGBTQ+ cinema in the mainstream—that films by, for, and about us could not only be accepted by broader audiences, but also embraced and celebrated.

That same year, Queerty was born, a (to toot our own horn) trailblazing website dedicated to covering LGBTQ+ news and entertainment. Was it a coincidence we arrived simultaneously with such a milestone film for queer culture? Well, yeah, it was! But that makes us uniquely positioned to look back on the past two decades and explore the movies that continued to push our stories into new territories and expanded the definition of what “queer film” could be.

More than a sub-genre or a niche interest, these features prove that queer film encompasses the whole of cinema itself, and have made, each in their own ways, an impact on the progress of representation and the evolution of the medium. These are the 20 most important LGBTQ+ movies of the past 20 years…

2005: Brokeback Mountain

Are you surprised? It’s hard to say where the culture would be had cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) not wandered up that mountain to herd sheep in the Wyoming wilderness and fallen in love, but Brokeback Mountain undoubtedly broke new ground in the way it tackled masculinity and repression on the scale of a Western epic. Never mind the fact that it’s heart-wrenching romance still has the power to make us sob, decades on—we never want to know how to quit you, Brokeback!

Honorable Mention: The 21st Century saw a renewed interest in bringing hit musicals to the big screen, and while Rent might not have been the sensation it was on Broadway, it still made our hearts sing.

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2006: Shortbus

Where Brokeback felt designed for mainstream acclaim, John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus veered in the other direction entirely, presenting an erotic ensemble dramedy that tackled the fluid nature of sex & sexuality head-on, positing carnal connection as humanity’s common denominator. The provocative film features a real who’s who of NYC’s queer underground nightlife, from Mx Justin Vivian Bond to Murray Hill, and explicit scenes to titillate all kinds of pleasure-seekers. We’ll never hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” the same way again.

Honorable Mention: For a different kind of raunch-fest, the satirical & frankly ridiculous Another Gay Movie sought to reclaim the teen sex comedies du jour (a la American Pie) for the gays.

2007: Water Lilies

Known in its native France as Naissance des Pieuvres (“Birth Of The Octopuses”) Water Lilies is the feature directorial debut of Céline Sciamma, which announced the auteur onto the global cinema scene when it premiered to great acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. Following the lives of three teen girls on a Parisian synchronized swimming team (including Sciamma’s future partner & frequent collaborator Adèle Haenel), it felt revolutionary for the way it treated burgeoning sapphic feelings with sensitivity and sensuality.

Honorable Mention: Okay, hear us out: I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. Problematic and cringe-y? Oh sure! But a big-budget, star-studded comedy about gay marriage would still feel progressive today.

2008: Milk

One of the most important out politicians in our country’s history, the late Harvey Milk receives the empowering, invigorating biopic he’s always deserved in Gus Van Sant’s Milk, which thankfully doesn’t try to sand the rough edges of his life and legacy. Though it’s one of countless instances where a straight actor plays gay, Sean Penn miraculously eschews caricature to deliver a carefully observed, tender portrait of a great man who finds his place not just in 1970s San Francisco, but at the forefront of a revolutionary movement to change the world.

Honorable Mention: Two years after Patrik-Ian Polk’s groundbreaking Logo series came to an end, the beloved group of Black queer friends faces the next chapter of life in Noah’s Arc: Jumping The Broom.

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2009: A Single Man

Fashion icon Tom Ford turned his stylish eye to the big screen with this handsomely mounted adaptation of gay author Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel of the same name. Colin Firth is never better as a closeted professor still mourning the loss of his partner a few months earlier, who we follow for one fateful day as he converses with his hopelessly devoted friend (Julianne Moore), strikes up an unexpected connection with a handsome young student (Nicholas Hoult), and prepares to say goodbye. Grief has never looked this gorgeous.

Honorable Mention: The devilishly witty high-school horror Jennifer’s Body might’ve landed with a thud upon release, but there’s a reason it’s gone on to inspire many young women’s queer awakenings!

2010: The Kids Are All Right

Many films have explored queer coming-of-age stories & tales of new romance, so it feels like a rarity to find one about same-sex parents, who happen to be many, many years into their relationship. But all is not right for married couple Nic (Annette Bening) & Jules (Julianne Moore), whose romance has gone cold, and hits a snag when their teen kids bring their biological father (Marc Ruffalo) into their lives. Lisa Choldodenko’s dramedy warmly embraces all the complexities of committed partnership that even the gays have to contend with.

Honorable Mention: Another focused on a unique stage of queer life, the whimsical Beginners follows a man (Ewan McGregor) coping with his elderly father’s (Christopher Plummer) late-in-life coming-out.

2011: Pariah

The first feature from lesbian filmmaker Dee Rees, Pariah is a remarkable debut that places the traditional coming-out narrative within the Black, queer experience and by extension breathes new life into the sub-genre. Though it doesn’t shy away from the fraught realities of growing up gay in a Christian home, the film finds joy in the small moments of self-discovery and affirmation, and it features a revelatory performance from Adepero Oduye whose authentic portrayal of teenagerdom makes you forget you’re not watching a documentary.

Honorable Mention: It’s impossible not to fall for Weekend, Andrew Haigh’s sexy, soul-searching romance about a one-night-stand that evolves into a profound meditation human connection.

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2012: How To Survive A Plague

A time capsule of an era we can never forget, How To Survive A Plague remains an urgent and timely call for queer fellowship, community, and activism in the face of incalculable tragedy and loss. Using hours and hours of archival footage, documentarian David France revisits the early days of the AIDS crisis and the organized efforts—through activists groups like ACT UP & TAG—to fight for compassion at a time when it felt like the rest of the world was willing to leave us behind. It’ll leave you angry, yes, but also deeply inspired to keep fighting.

Honorable Mention: Set within the Latino community of southeast Los Angeles, Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita Y Mari is a stirring ode to the formative friendships that set us down the path to discovering our true selves.

2013: Blue Is The Warmest Colour

Though this Palme d’Or-winning French romance has proven controversial, especially in light of the allegations made against its director Abdellatif Kechiche, it’s hard to deny the kinetic spark of this sweeping love story, thanks largely to the vulnerable performances from Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos as two young woman who fall for each other hard. And while its sex scenes have been criticized as products of the male gaze, there’s an undeniably authentic passion to them that makes this whirlwind love affair hard to shake.

Honorable Mention: Passion feels even more dangerous in Stranger By The Lake, Alain Guiraudie’s lurid erotic thriller about one man’s beach cruise that goes very, very wrong.

2014: Love Is Strange

The great, gay filmmaker Ira Sachs delivers a bittersweet look at long-term co-dependency in Love Is Strange, which begins with couple Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) finally tying the knot after 39 years together. But when word of the marriage gets George fired form his job as a Catholic school teacher, the pair can no longer afford their NYC apartment and are forced to spend their newlywed period crashing on separate couches of friends & family. Alternately tense and tender, this sexagenarian romance never gets old.

Honorable Mention: Based on the true story of gay activists who helped support small-town Welsh miners during their ’84 labor strike, Pride is a crowd-pleasing ensemble period piece about solidarity.

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2015: Tangerine

This lo-fi indie is as captivating as its firecracker protagonist Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), a trans sex worker who embarks on an overnight odyssey through LA, looking for the man who broke her heart. Earning acclaim & awards—including a history-making Indie Spirit Award for co-star Mya Taylor—it felt like a major win for trans representation, but the fact that director Sean Baker’s career is bigger than ever, while the trans cast remains criminally under-booked tells you all you need to know about how far the industry still has to go.

Honorable Mention: It’d just feel wrong to not include Carol, Todd Haynes’ sumptuous, sapphic period piece drama about two women (Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara) who meet at the right place, but wrong time.

2016: Moonlight

Barry Jenkins’ unforgettable triptych tracing the journey from boyhood to manhood casts three actors (Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes) who beautifully weave together the story of young, Black Chiron, showing us the subtle ways both nature and nurture—or lack thereof—can lead us to denying our true self, culminating in a heart-swelling diner date that might be the most romantic scene ever. Its shock Best Picture win felt like the culmination of what Brokeback started while launching a new queer cinematic legacy all its own.

Honorable Mention: Icon of South Korean cinema Park Chan-wook helms the knotty, naughty psychological thriller The Handmaiden, which features delicious sapphic twists we wouldn’t dare spoil any further.

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2017: Call Me By Your Name

Somewhere in northern Italy… teen Elio’s (Timothée Chalamet) lazy summer days at his family’s stately villa get disrupted by the arrival of the handsome, older Oliver (Armie Hammer), there to work for his academic father. Luca Guadagnino’s engrossing coming-of-age tale perfectly captures the feelings of a new crush and dawning desire, putting us in Elio’s woozy headspace at a formative moment. It’s all so alluringly lush that you can practically sense every ray of the sun, feel every graze of skin-on-skin, and taste every bite of that peach!

Honorable Mention: An enthralling dramatization of the ACT UP movement’s early days in 1990s France, Robin Campillo’s BPM (Beats Per Minute) takes you to the frontlines of the righteous fight for humanity.

2018: Love, Simon

For those well-versed in the past few decades of queer cinematic history, the story of an upper-middle class white, closeted teen struggling to accept himself and come out to his friends and family may have felt like nothing new. But as the first major studio film about a gay teenaged romance, Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon boldly asserted that our stories had universal appeal and were worthy of being told on as many big screens as possible. Filled with charm and insight, we can exhale now knowing this mainstream hit got it (mostly) right.

Honorable Mention: Melissa McCarthy gives her best performance to date in Can You Ever Forgive Me? an unglamorous true-crime tale of forgery with an authentic sense of queer loneliness & desperation.

2019: Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

Largely set on a remote French island, the world of this 18th Century romance might be isolated and intimate, but the whirlwind of love & longing it encompasses is boundlessly expansive as the simmering passion between a young noblewoman (Adèle Haenel) and the artist assigned to paint her (Noémie Merlant) comes to a boil. We didn’t intend for any one director to show up twice on this list, but it feels apt that it’s Céline Sciamma, whose evocative, soulful, and distinctly feminist queer work always manages to set our hearts ablaze.

Honorable Mention: Pain & Glory is the great, gay Spanish auteur Pedro Almódovar at his most vulnerable, with his muse Antonio Banderas as a similarly spiky-haired filmmaker reflecting on his own past.

2020: Disclosure

In ’96, the award-winning documentary The Celluloid Closet expanded on writer Vito Russo’s work to survey the history of LGBTQ+ representation in film & television. Building off that legacy, Sam Feder’s Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen provides a definitive appraisal of trans representation in the industry, uncovering its wildly vast roots—including the good, the bad & the Tootsie—and re-tracing the rocky road to progress, featuring thought-provoking commentary from visionaries like Alexandra Billings, Laverne Cox, and Chase Strangio.

Honorable Mention: Even the straightest Hallmark holiday rom-coms have a campy gay appeal, so it’s only fair we got one of our own in Happiest Season—starring icons like Kristen Stewart and Aubrey Plaza no less!

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2021: Flee

A cinematic experience unlike any other, Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s documentary Flee animates the astounding journey of his friend Amani, an Afghani refugee who was forced to flee his home in Kabul at a young age and experienced unthinkable tragedies and losses on the path that eventually brought him to Denmark. Even in animation, good luck fighting back tears of joy as Amin finds his place within European gay bars, and eventually beside his partner, Kasper, in this harrowing yet hopeful tale of the queer immigrant experience.

Honorable Mention: A thornier examination of the repressed cowboy tropes of Brokeback Mountain, Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog avoids easy answers as it prods at masculinity & femininity on the frontier.

2022: Fire Island

The same year that Bros was touted as a first-of-its-kind would-be-blockbuster gay rom-com, Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island felt unique in its refreshingly down-to-earth approach to the genre with an effortless blend of sexiness and wit, to boot. Written by and starring Joel Kim Booster, the bones of Pride & Prejudice are draped with the modern social hierarchy of its gay mecca setting, giving you everything you want in a sweeping romance—with Conrad Ricamora as a dashing Mr. Darcy stand-in—while never losing sight of the chosen family at its core.

Honorable Mention: Equally adored and criticized for making lesbian maestro Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) the villain of her own story, Todd Field’s Tár is a portrait of a troubled artist for the ages.

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2023: Red, White & Royal Blue

Its squeaky-clean sheen may not be for everyone, but Matthew López’s adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s hit novel deserves credit for the way it maintained real heart and horniness amid the larger-than-life love story between America’s “First Son” Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez) and the British Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine). Truthfully, we think we’re only just beginning to feel the impact of its success, which brought the lit world’s obsession with gay romance—and, by extension, the global Boys’ Love genre—to mass American audiences.

Honorable Mention: Okay, we cheated and picked two, but queer comedies Bottoms and Dicks: The Musical both boldly laughed in the face of the rules, whether by sacking the jocks or calling God a f*ggot.

2024: I Saw The TV Glow

In simplest terms, Jane Schoenbrun’s groundbreaking, genre-bending, and mind-melting I Saw The TV Glow is about two lonely suburban kids (Justice Smith, Jack Haven) who find their first sense of belonging in their fandom for a Buffy-esque dark fantasy TV show called “The Pink Opaque.” Yes, it’s an unsettling horror story about (metaphorically and literally) being buried alive in a body you don’t even recognize as your own, but it’s also cathartic “egg crack” movie that charts an exhilarating new frontier for trans storytelling.

Honorable Mention: As we follow the hilarious Will Ferrell and his newly out trans bestie Harper Steele cross-country, Will & Harper is a travelogue of friendship and allyship with the ability to change hearts and minds.

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What Did We Miss?

Of course, this is just one view on the past two decades of queer features that have moved us and left their marks on pop culture, so what did we miss? Are there new LGBTQ+ classics you feel like we snubbed? How about underrated or overlooked gems that should be worthy of consideration? And, with just a few months left in the year, what do you think will be the definitive queer film of 2025? Sound off in the comments below!