The best gay movies of the past decade you need to watch now
It’s twenty gay-teen everyone. Well, it was until December 31st last year. But even if the best decade is over, the effect of LGBTQ+ media stays forever. The 2010s brought us some amazing progressive content, and some huge jumps in terms of LGBTQ+ representation in front and behind the camera in Hollywood.
But the growth of LGBTQ+ stories on screen was the biggest achievement in the 2010s. So many people got to see stories on screen, from a cheesy teen comedy, to a dramatic tale told across three separate ages in a man’s life, to a historical drama where LGBTQ+ British citizens found unlikely allies. You don’t have to look too far to find representation in the gay community anymore.
Moonlight
You can just look at the 2016 Oscars. While Moonlight will be forever overshadowed by the fiasco surrounding Best Picture, that doesn’t lessen the story being told. Chiron’s story is one of growth, struggle, and yet a beautiful love story ends up coming out even through all this. Plus, it’s a great story on how those around you can be your family if you don’t have the proper family support.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Conversion therapy is, unfortunately, a reality many American teenagers face thanks to their homophobic parents. But the story of Cameron Post isn’t one of tragedy, but strength. Even through everything thrown at her through this horrible program, she continues to believe in herself and finds refuge in two other attendees. The three strive to stay true to themselves as they’re taught their sexuality is a sin.
The Imitation Game
While not an LGBTQ+ story in the traditional light, this historical drama tells the truth of how criminalized sexuality was and what the world lost because of it. For years, no one knew who Alan Turing was, except for the fact that he was a homosexual convicted for it. Yet this man was part of a team who single-handedly turned World War 2 in the Allies’ favor and became the father of the modern day computer, and he was a gay man.
G.B.F.
While obviously a lot of kids got bullied for being gay, G.B.F. was a unique take on that, by having the outed Tanner shoot up to the top of the popularity chain. But the kicker? He only got there because the popular girls were claiming him as their GBF, or gay best friend, like some kind of hot accessory. It’s not necessarily groundbreaking, but a gay teen comedy was certainly needed.
Rocketman
Both Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman tell the stories of two of music’s biggest rockstars and their journeys dealing with their sexuality. One of them was directed by a sexual predator and honestly was crappy except for their lead. The other told the man’s story with great performances, an interesting spin on the bio-pic style, and not by a pedo. Also one had the first gay sex scene in a mainstream movie in years!
Pride
The year is 1984, and miners in the UK are on strike trying to save their jobs in the face of coal mine closures. LGBTQ citizens begin realizing this means the police are going to leave them alone as they have to deal with the miners’ strikes. And so, the “Lesbians and Gays Support Miners” campaign was born. This is a historically accurate film, and a very interesting story about oppressed groups coming together against a common enemy.
Tangerine
Proof that you don’t need a million dollars to make a movie, sometimes it just takes an iPhone. Seriously, shot on an iPhone, Tangerine, tells the story of a transgendered sex worker, fresh out of prison, going after her boyfriend and pimp who was cheating on her. It’s a great comedy film that shows that it doesn’t take a whole lot to tell a great story.
BPM (Beats per Minute)
ACT UP has always been a group about action, not policy. In the height of the AIDS epidemic in France in the 90s, BPM tells the story of Paris’ ACT UP chapter and their way of trying to help the AIDS crisis. Between the urging of the French government to speed up their efforts to fight the disease, to storming a pharmaceutical company to release the results of their medication trials, it shows the stakes are as high as possible when fighting AIDS.
