Top 10 LGBTQ Movies You Can Stream while recovering from Mardi Gras
Regardless of age, or how long you’ve been out of the closet, or if you’re out of the closet at all, it’s easy to recollect a time during which you found yourself feeling validated while watching a movie. Cinema itself, since the very beginning of the craft, has relied on one major element and that’s the ability to reflect ourselves back at ourselves. When it comes down to it, isn’t that the main pleasure of watching a movie? The ability to see something and think “Hey! That’s me!” Representation is important and now, perhaps more than ever, having a selection of movies at the ready which allow us to sink into the fantasy, or reality, of our own gay as hell lives, is not just a luxury, but a necessity. Here are ten of our favorites that you can stream right now. Get your popcorn ready. Or wine. Or both.
1) Milk (Netflix)
Get your facts in order with Gus Van Sant’s 2008 biopic on the life and death of Harvey Milk, played here by a convincing Sean Penn. Milk, California’s first openly gay official, was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and was one of the foremost advocators for gay rights ordinances. He was assassinated only one short year after taking office. Bonus: Emile Hirsch is in this and he’s very attractive.
2) Moonlight (Amazon Video)
This Academy Award winning film by Barry Jenkins came out in 2016 and is an emotional reminder that “gay” comes in many different packages. There are a million different ways to tell a story, and this story of an urban youth coming to terms with his sexuality is both subtle and jaw-cracking at the same time. Just like the LGBT experience itself.
3) Brokeback Mountain (Amazon Video)
It still seems a little bit amazing that a big-budget film about gay cowboys, starring two A-List actors (Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger) was green lit all the way back in 2005, but we’re so lucky it was. If you can make it all the way through this movie without 1) Online shopping for a denim and sherpa jacket or 2) Crying for a full week, then you’re made of literal stone.
4) D.E.B.S. (iTunes)
Picture it: The year is 2004 and a $3.5 million budget film about lesbian criminals and secret agents starring Jordana Brewster and Holland Taylor is given wide release. What did we do to deserve this beautiful gift back then? And how can we make it happen again? People will fight and try to say that Blue is The Warmest Color is the best lesbian movie, but they’re wrong. It’s D.E.B.S. Period. Bonus: It has an amazing soundtrack
5) Lost & Delirious (iTunes)
This movie trolls itself by being one of the first of many lesbian films in which all of the main characters are either “crazy,” “murderous,” or “secretly straight.” But that being said, it somehow pulls off being both high drama, and low-key hilarious. Bonus: It’s the first of two lesbian movies that non-lesbian (that we know of) actress Piper Perabo stars in. Three, if you count Coyote Ugly.
6) Imagine Me & You (Amazon Video)
Seriously though … Piper Perabo is a very convincing lesbian. Bonus: Her love interest in this film is played by Lena Headey (Aka, Cersei Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones.) No shame in that.
7) Foxfire (iTunes)
Remember when Angelina Jolie was queer? This movie does too. Oh, the 90s. We miss you.
8) My Own Private Idaho (Amazon Video)
Another Gus Van Sant classic, this 1991 release stars the late, and tragically beautiful River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as male prostitutes. It’s stunning and heartbreaking from beginning to end. There’s really no other film like it and it captures the heart break of falling in love with someone who can’t love you back, or at least not in the way you’d like, extremely well.
9) But I’m A Cheerleader (Hulu)
This 1999 gem has it all: Natasha Lyonne, OG lesbian powerhouse Clea DuVall, RuPaul, and enough hilarious lines to fill the awkward silences in your next 25 Tinder dates.
10) Basic Instinct (iTunes)
Speaking only for myself here, I saw this movie three times in the theater when it came out in 1992 and still feel funny in my pants about Sharon Stone to this day. While, plot wise, the movie itself is only really 15% gay, it’s gay enough.
Bonus Film: UPSTAIRS INFERNO (DVD & Blu-ray)
2018 marks the 45th Anniversary of the deadly Up Stairs Lounge Arson.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly 5 years since the community came together for New Orleans Pride’s emotionally charged Remembering the Upstairs Lounge: 40th Anniversary event. For many, the wreath laying, the reading of the victims’ names and the family members who spoke, provided a large measure of healing. Yet, a lot has happened in the world since then, including another LGBTQ community forced to endure its own gay mass murder. That’s why we believe that in these uncertain and challenging times, we must stay vigilant in the fight for LGBT equality and remain steadfast in the preservation of our history.
The critically acclaimed documentary, UPSTAIRS INFERNO debuted at the Prytania Theater on the 42nd Anniversary of the fire to sold out crowds and rave reviews. It screened again during New Orleans Pride in 2016.
Narrated by New Orleans’ own New York Times best-selling author Christopher Rice, UPSTAIRS INFERNO is a mesmerizing mix of crime drama and human connections that captures the heartbreaking feelings of unconditional love and overwhelming loss. An unsettling snapshot of what was, until the early hours of June 12, 2016, the deadliest single event to affect the gay community in American history, UPSTAIRS INFERNO gets inside the hearts and minds of a handful of vibrant people who experienced one of the most important and underreported moments in LGBT History. Not only is it a story about New Orleans and its LGBTQ community, but it’s about the resiliency of the human spirit and its capacity for forgiveness.
I think you will agree now, more than ever, this film is essential viewing. Even if you saw the film at one of the screenings, this is a “must add” for your home library. The discs are packed with Bonus Features that you didn’t see on the big screen. http://www.UpstairsInferno.com
