41 Queer & Trans High School Movies All Teens Should See

They can drown in the water and “die,” and they can also undergo mental stress. Some characters are literally haunted by the ghosts of their past. While others jump around in frustration when thinking about a mistake that might have led them to this point.

But it’s a capstone speech from Elio’s father (A Serious Man’s Michael Stuhlbarg) to his son that will linger in your mind for days, if not live on in film history. Directed by Sebastian Lelio, A Fantastic Woman is a fantastic Chilean film that follows a transgender woman, Marina , in the wake of her partner’s death. In addition to loss, Marina endures many hardships and indignities, facing eviction, suspicion, and rejection from the family of her loved one. International audiences have embraced Marina’s story, and it even won Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. Despite the sex scenes that had audiences squirming with either schadenfreude or delight, Blue Is the Warmest Color is a heartfelt coming-of-age and love story about young French women that boasts stellar performances from its leads.

Tangerine, a 2015 dramedy directed by Sean Baker was shot on an iPhone 5s camera with a budget of $100,000. This innovative approach to filmmaking, which sparked many headlines for its thriftiness, is all the more remarkable considering the historic nature of its subject matter. Tangerine is the first film in awards contention to star two trans women of color portraying trans lives. Taylor and Rodriguez portrayed Los Angeles sex workers — a profession they themselves had engaged in. And the film not only spoke to the hardships trans women can face in this work, but the joy and humor found in the friendship between these women.

She moans the typical “family porn” dirty talk lines and finishes the job with what looks like the fakest orgasm ever! I think that even that damn gold digger Melania Trump couldn’t steal the trophy from her when she’s busy with “The Donald” in the Penthouse of his Trump Tower. Diana, who’s looking more jealous than when Hillary Clinton lost the presidency to the Trumpzor in the meantime, can’t resist the forbidden fruit any longer, and the teen boy begs her to fuck him. Before the epic threesome continues, she immortalizes the legendary words, “Oh well, I might as well keep it in the family!”. There’s an immediate, scuzzy, street-side energy to director Ana Kokkinos’ blistering adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s first novel, Loaded.

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When a jock named Paul asks Ellie to help him get a girl named Aster with romantic letters, Ellie starts catching feelings for her, too. When it comes to major annual social events like these, queer women seem to be willing to turn out in droves. Then it made what turned out to be a massively successful decision. Olivia founder Judy Dlugacz seized on the idea and in 1990 chartered a cruise ship to the Bahamas. Today, Olivia averages revenues of around $20-$30 million a year.

In the second stage, Chiron is a teen and explores his sexuality. This is one of the best movies of the 21st Century, and one that you can’t miss. Tad Hilgenbrink stars as an out-of-the-closet gay teen who earns the support of an eclectic group of friends while contending with a homophobic bully at an international high school. The film reunites Lanthimos’s Lobster stars Colman and Rachel Weisz as Queen Anne and her confidante or “favourite,” Sarah, the Duchess best lesbian novels of Marlborough. Anne and Sarah happily engage in wicked role-playing that borders on sadomasochism until Sarah’s cousin Abigail — a lady who’s fallen from grace and will stop at nothing to regain her position — arrives at court. Soon the rivalry between Sarah and Abigail is in full bloom and the women play at politics, sexual and otherwise, to garner the queen’s attention in what has gone down as one of the queerest films about women of its year, 2018.

‘Its Okay’- Short film (LGBT)

Heart-wrenching performances center Holding the Man, an achingly beautiful portrayal of love and death that may be too real for some. Rocky Horror Picture Show brings its quirky characters in tight, but it’s the narrative thrust that really drives audiences insane and keeps ’em doing the time warp again. A time capsule assembled with honesty and sensitivity, Edge of Seventeen overcomes youthful fumbles to capture a time of life — and an era. Steven spends his school days longing for all-star athlete John . An authentic portrayal of homosexuality in high school, Get Real is an engaging dramedy that doesn’t sermonize its audience nor trivialize its characters.

João performs as a cross-dresser in gay bars, also taking small parts in plays, movies, and TV shows. Tormented by his past, he lives a complex life that is part reality, part fiction. All of these films stand on the shoulders of other LGBTQ+ films that have come before.

And while it’s quite something to behold, Disobedience is really a meditation on freedom, choice, and remaining true to one’s self. Sam is an assistant editor at Seventeen, covering pop culture, celebrity news, health, and beauty. When she isn’t draping her cheeks in blush, you can probably find her live-tweeting awards shows or making SwiftToks. In this musical directed by Ryan Murphy, big-time Broadway stars make their way to small-town Indiana, where high school student Emma has been banned from attending the prom with her girlfriend. Introvert Ellie Chu helps her non-English speaking father pay the bills by ghostwriting papers for other students at her school.

In part because of the code and in part due to centuries of ingrained homophobia, depictions of lesbianism in American film became shadowy and suggestive rather than overt. “You had to represent lesbianism as full of horror and abjection in order to pass the code, so everything is implied,” Halberstam said. “Maybe somebody doesn’t have a boyfriend at an older age or somebody is living alone with a much younger woman, but you never can depict lesbianism as such.” Halberstam calls this the “negative image” era of lesbianism in film.

While trying to free himself from his overprotective mother, he ends up falling for Gabriel, the new kid at school. This heartwarming coming-of-age film directed by Daniel Ribeiro presents the difficulties of growing up with more than one differentiating characteristic. No longer limited by minuscule budgets, films with gay and lesbian stories have flourished in the first two decades of the 21st century. There is something about the scrappy DIY aesthetic that will always be essentially queer — and the films below reflect a notable shift in the ambition and scope of contemporary queer films.

Nahuel Perez Biscayart plays Sean, a radical activist with AIDS who begins a relationship with HIV-negative newcomer Nathan . After decades of thoughtful films about HIV, including Parting Glances, Longtime Companion, Philadephia, and The Witnesses,BPM was revolutionary in its portrayal of men with AIDS as vital beings. The sex depicted between Sean and Nathan is honest and heartrending in its refusal to suddenly render the gay men who endured the epidemic as sexless. The film’s willingness to humanize its subjects as they fight for their lives is as radical as its characters.

Olivia started in 1973 as Olivia Records, a women’s record label founded by radical lesbian feminists and dedicated to empowering women in the recording business. In 1988, it hosted two sold-out 15th anniversary shows at Carnegie Hall, then the venue’s largest single-grossing event of all time. And yet despite this success, the company was sinking financially. Indeed, two famous case studies prove there can be big money to be made when companies pitch sales to the LGBT community to capture those pink dollars. American Airlines saw its earnings from LGBT customers rise from $20 million in 1994 to $193.5 million in 1999 after it formed a team devoted to LGBT marketing. With billions of pink dollars at stake, it’s no wonder that in recent years major corporations from credit cards companies to food companies to alcohol distillers have targeted ads to the LGBT community.