Many key LGBT film directors released excellent work, even though the films themselves did not feature queer storylines. Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures and Janis: Little Girl Blue. Brent Spiner’s delightful performance as an eccentric scientist who helps save the day in Independence Day: Resurgence was the highlight of that rather wearisome movie, but he is denied any intimate contact with his male lover in the film. Custody, directed and written by James Lapine. One of the highlights of the year was Théo and Hugo, a sweet and very sexy tale from Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau (Drôle de Félix, Born in 68). Even if it was an uneven year in queer representation in fiction films, a handful of documentaries revealed some fascinating queer stories. Carol should have won a clutch of awards but left with nothing – it wasn’t even nominated for best picture. The best lesbian film to get a UK release was Summertime, Catherine Corsini’s powerful romantic drama set in early 1970s France when sexual revolution was in the air. As we bid farewell to a terrible year, at least we can remember some excellent films telling lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender stories, says Alex Davidson. A visit to an army recruiting office appears to provide a path, but when she meets and falls in love with Rayna (Breeda Wool), that path diverges in ways that neither woman anticipates. Califórnia, directed by Marina Person, written by Marina Person, Mariana Veríssimo, and Francisco Guarnieri. It’s a romance about two gay men who meet in the famous Parisian sex club L’Impacte. Starring Viola Davis as an embattled family court judge with a fraught marriage of her own; Hayden Panettiere as a recent law-school grad flung into a custody case; and Catalina Sandino Moreno as the single mother at the center of the case who risks losing her two children over an ill-timed argument. Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures was a warts-and-all study of the difficult and provocative photographer Robert Mapplethorpe – the anecdotes about his more spiteful moments add spice to an enlightening tribute to his talent. Her incredible body of work remains shamefully inaccessible. A biopic of the great Sergei Eisenstein, the gay Russian genius who invented the action film, seen during his sexual and artistic exile in Mexico. Michalina Olszanska is too mannered in the role, and the film never really considers how Olga’s sexuality contributed to her isolation under a repressive regime. As well as confirming her extraordinary singing talent, the palpable charisma in archive interviews with Joplin herself reveal her to be a great raconteur. Xavier Dolan returns with his flawed but entertaining chamber piece It’s Only the End of the World. Behind the scenes they were an impressionable group of young dancers whose lives were forever changed by her influence. Strike a Pose, directed and written by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan. North Carolina’s bathroom bill, a state-wide law determining that people must use the public restroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate, was a disturbing and blatantly transphobic act. It tells the tale of a lonely, artistic gay boy who, longing to flee his unstable father and conservative hometown, retreats into a fantasy world. It’s one of the best, if saddest, films of the year, and despite off-putting reviews that suggest audience patience is needed for its slow pace, I found it constantly gripping.
Reviews aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has drawn up a list of its 200 most highly-ranked LGBT movies. Director Paul Feig confirmed that Kate McKinnon’s zany character in the Ghostbusters reboot was gay, but Sony neutered the script until only the most devout queer theorist could read her as lesbian. While she is focused on keeping her grades up, her life is complicated by romance, sex, and social pressures.
Watch now. Don’t believe the hype. In 2016, Carol earned six Oscar nominations, and just a year later, for the first time in history, Moonlight became the first LGBTQ-themed movie to win Best Picture. Now, decades after his death, his niece Cecilia locates Miguel’s estranged lover to understand the truth and in the process opens up long-dormant family secrets. Julianne Moore and, especially, Ellen Page were good in Freeheld as lovers who are faced with homophobic legislation when one of them falls terminally ill and is unable to transfer her pension benefits to her partner. (USA) — World Premiere. Years after Isaac Julien, Patrik-Ian Polk, and Carl Franklin’s trailblazing movies about black gay life, this film caters to politically correct self-pity and liberal condescension, mainly through its affecting black male actors . The film takes off when the men reach adulthood, however, as a devastating HIV diagnosis changes the dynamic of their relationship, and it’s a hard heart that won’t be moved by the film’s ending. What starts as an erotic thriller develops into one of the touching romances of the year. Strike a Pose reunites the men 25 years later, providing the chance to learn about the emotional truth behind the glamorous facade. It was still a lot better than The Girl King, a potentially fascinating biopic of the lesbian Kristina, Queen of Sweden, previously immortalised by Greta Garbo in the Hollywood classic Queen Christina (1933). And the word is very strong on The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook’s erotic adaptation of Sarah Waters’ lesbian classic Fingersmith – it’s one of my top priorities for 2017.
It’s a relentlessly bleak, occasionally brilliant film that I never want to see again.
Watch Eisenstein in Guanajuato online on BFI Player, Watch Holding the Man online on BFI Player, Watch Closet Monster online on BFI Player, Watch Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures online on BFI Player. Young love in the south of France: Andrew Steggall on Departure, 10 great Canadian lesbian, gay and transgender films. Ghostbusters and Independence Day: Resurgence. Another interesting depiction of a gay woman could be seen in Nicolas Winding Refn’s flawed but entertaining The Neon Demon. Watch free lgbtq movies and TV shows online in HD on any device. A middle-aged man picks up young working-class men to strip for him, but when one of them assaults him, a weird friendship starts to blossom. Miami-based drama Moonlight looks set to receive a number of Oscar nominations and may even take home a trophy or two. The US has an openly homophobic vice president and an incoming president whose commitment to gay and trans rights, like so many of his policies, is unnervingly vague. Alexandra-Therese Keining (Kiss Me) spins a wild story of three bullied girls who discover that they change gender when they drink the nectar of a strange plant. Building on the award-winning short of the same name, director Deb Shoval crafts a clear-eyed love story and an impressive feature film debut. Meanwhile, Alex Lawther confirmed his reputation as one of the UK’s finest young actors in Departure, playing a pompous, rather pretentious young man exploring his sexuality on a grim family trip to France with his neurotic mother (Juliet Stevenson).
The very best of them—by Techine, Davies, Thomas, Jarman, Greenaway, and Solondz—aren’t just good, they’re the best movies of the year. A gay Brazilian teen’s (drag artist Naomi Nero) difficult self-realization is mirrored in the vicissitudes of family structure. A couple of lesbian films that sounded great on paper disappointed when they made it to the big screen. Peter Greenaway’s most inventive and accessible movie. In Portuguese with subtitles. Elmer Beck gives the performance of the year matched by Luis Alberti’s below-the-border heat. 2016 has been a lousy year for LGBT rights. Homophobic attacks rose by 147% in the three months after Brexit. With Tony Shalhoub, Raul Esparza, Dan Fogler, and Ellen Burstyn. Joey (Lola Kirke) is a young woman in search of direction in her small town.
A woman from the city meets a woman from the country at a feminist protest in Paris, and they begin a passionate affair. I, Olga followed the true life story of a young lesbian who would become the last woman executed in the Czech Republic, after ploughing her truck into a bus queue in Prague, killing eight people. 200 Best LGBTQ Movies of All Time. Find out about international touring programmes, BFI Film Academy: opportunities for young creatives, Get funding to progress my creative career, Search the BFI National Archive collections, Read research data and market intelligence, Search for projects funded by National Lottery, Apply for British certification and tax relief, Get help as a new filmmaker and find out about NETWORK, Find out about booking film programmes internationally. On a less tasteful note, Alice Wetterlund got some laughs as a cocky lesbian on the prowl in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, while Deadpool, although guilty of queer baiting, took a few risks in its pansexual superhero, played with relish by Ryan Reynolds. It’s brilliantly acted by its young cast and constantly surprises the audience. Janis: Little Girl Blue was a poignant take on Janis Joplin, and featured interviews from her lovers, male and female.
Great dialogue, great performances, but the ending didn’t work for me at all. In English, Hindi, Japanese, and Spanish with subtitles. These included Pedro Almodóvar (Julieta), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cemetery of Splendour), Ira Sachs (Little Men), Tom Ford (Nocturnal Animals) and, most poignantly, Chantal Akerman, whose final film, No Home Movie, a study of her elderly, dying mother, became one of her few films to get a UK cinema release. Barry Jenkins’ take on themes from Trayvon Martin doesn’t connect to Techine’s circle-of-life (or the other films listed here), it merely reinforces victimization as the gay and black social condition. Review: A Peppy, If Pithy History of Lesbian Cinema Sundance 2020: The LGBTQ Films … It’s been a big few years for LGBTQ films. Ingrid Jungermann’s whip-smart feature debut is an adept and wry comedy about modern romance’s hollow results, set in an LGBT Brooklyn. To the fans, they were the unforgettably talented men who supported the career of one of the world's most beloved and controversial music artists: Madonna. Nostalgic, sweet, and at moments poignantly funny, Califórnia is a coming-of-age tale about a high school student, Estela, growing up in São Paulo in the 1980s.
Women Who Kill, directed and written by Ingrid Jungermann. When Sean decides he’d be better off as a free agent, a cash-strapped pair of rival producers (James Franco and Keegan Allen) aim to cash in by any means possible. But this extraordinary turn in the history of movies and gay culture never made it to the mainstream media, which always distorts sex, politics, morality, and art.