What makes the perfect romantic film? In heteronormative rom-coms and romantic films, romance is often directly associated with passionate emotion and the romantic involvement between leading characters in their journey through love (or something like it). In these stories, protagonistsmay face one or many obstacles– illness or injury (A Walk to Remember), financial difficulty andclass differences(Titanic, The Notebook), parental disapproval (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Romeo and Juliet), infidelity or temptation (In the Mood for Love), or simply just the banal, day-to-day difficulties of relationships (Blue Valentine, Marriage Story).
While romance in the LGBTQ+ canon similarly contains these fundamental building blocks of narrative, they often go much further. Themes of empowerment, joy, resilience and strength in the face of adversity are all prominent features here. This is probably appropriate considering the contexts of history and the difficulties that the oppressed or marginalized in these communities faced while fighting to be accepted. Sometimes, the stories also take different forms, in retelling love from days past or in short whirlwind romances that burn brightly before burning into oblivion. In many parts of the world, LGBTQ+ individuals are still persecuted, and much of the love stories that represent the LGBTQ+ community are still censored or banned. There are also still so many more love stories yet to be told, particularly those of trans people and LGBTQ+ people of color,which are slowly entering the mainstreamas more diverse andinclusive filmmakerstell these stories.
This Valentine’s Day, you might be looking for a bingeworthy romantic movie marathon with a partner or some sultry viewing to get in the mood with your person of choice toNetflix and chillwith. Or maybe you’re flying solo for this one and fancy treating yourself to some consoling queer romance and intimacy to keep you company as you find yourself wistfully thinking about someone special or the possibility of finding one, or maybe you want to purely indulge in the fictional. Whichever circumstance you find yourself in this Feb 14th, read on to celebrate just a few of the best, most romantic LGBTQ+ movies of all time.
10Desert Hearts
Based on Jane Rule’s 1964 novel of a similar title,Desert Heartsis the queer women’s film you didn’t know you needed. This professor-come-cowgirl romance is set against the dusty blue skies and country landscapes of Reno, Nevada in the late 1950s. Straight-laced English literature professor Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) comes from New York to the ranch. Viv unexpectedly flickers into her true self in the company of a free-spirited young woman named Cay (Patricia Charbonneau). Cay’s fervor and spriteliness inspires Viv to blossom into a younger, happier form of herself. A love story ensues, and yes – it has a happy ending.
9The Watermelon Woman
This fabulous, seminal work of auto-fiction explores representation and authorship for black women. Director Cheryl Dunye’s funny and smart romantic comedy shines a light on black lesbian life from the perspective of Dunye’s character, a young aspiring filmmaker named Cheryl, who’s in search of the titular, forgotten black actress. This film was doing in 1997 what so many films are still trying to achieve today, and while it was a very DIY affair, it was a landmark work in queer, BIPOC filmmaking (and a funfilm about film). Greatly underrated,The Watermelon Womanhas become recently available to watch onBFI Playerin the UK and Hulu and Amazon Prime elsewhere.
Related:Best Movies About Black LGBTQ+ Characters
8Moonlight
This beautifully shotcoming-of-agefilm follows three key stages in the life of the main character, Chiron, who goes by the nickname ‘Little’ as a child.Moonlightfollows his journey as a Black, gay man from a deprived childhood, reasoning with rage and complexities of masculinity toward self-discovery. The story is based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s unpublished semi-autobiographical playIn Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, and the small, melancholic film took the world by storm by winning the Best Picture Oscar.
7La Belle Saison / Summertime
The French filmLa Belle Saison, orSummertime,spends the majority of its luminous running time with two independent sapphic women in the country, capturing theirjoie de vivrein this whimsical romantic jaunt back to the ’70s. Delphine, the daughter of farmers, moves to Paris to break free from the shackles of her family and to gain her financial independence. Carole is a Parisian, living with Manuel, actively involved in the stirrings of the feminist movement. Their encounter turns their lives upside down, and when they are brought back to the country farm, the film becomes a beautiful, intimate portrait of love in a time when it’s not accepted.
6Call Me By Your Name
Set in 1983, this nostalgic summer romance within beautiful northern Italy brings classical charm and the thick heat of a languid summer of love threatened by humdrum reality. Outside of romance, there is banality, butCall Me By Your Namelives within the romance, in a hedonistic summer of freedom, discretion between closed doors and reading between the lines.Timothée Chalametis utterly charming in this coming-of-age movie chronicling a summer of love, in which Elio realizes his sexual orientation and tries to come to terms with it.
5Fried Green Tomatoes
A charming favorite for many (and a surprisingly mainstream filmwith lesbian characters, for 1991) this novel-turned-movie tells the story of an unhappy housewife who befriends an elderly lady in a nursing home and is enthralled by the tales she tells of people she used to know. Tomboy Idgie Threadgoode’s close relationship with her charming older brother is cut short by his unexpected death. Devastated, she withdraws from society until Buddy’s former girlfriend, Ruth Jamison, intervenes. Idgie resists Ruth’s attempts at friendship, but gradually a deep attachment develops between them inFried Green Tomatoes.
Related:Explained: How X-Men is an Allegory For the LGBTQ+ Experience
Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) works at a department store in Manhattan where she encounters the beautiful, practically feline Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), with whom an unexpected connection develops, puncturing their respective loneliness. With elements ofThelma and Louise(had they been lovers trapped in the oppressive 1950s America) and Douglas Sirk’s classic ’50s melodramas, Todd Haynes’ work of art tells the story of these two women who find love when all odds are against them.Carolis a visually stunning, sumptuous delight.
3Imagine Me & You
This incredibly quintessential English rom-com based in London follows straight woman Rachel (Piper Perabo) who notices florist Luce (Lena Headey) in the audience of her wedding ceremony and feels instantly drawn to her, from whichan unexpected love storyunfolds. This heartfelt romance may be the closest to a queerLove Actuallyas audiences can get and, like that film, if you don’t mind some sentimental cheese and want to see the mainstream get queered,Imagine Me & Youis for you.
2Portrait of a Lady on Fire
This beautiful period piece byCéline Sciamma, the director ofTomboy, stars Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel as star-crossed lovers.Portrait of a Lady on Firehas beautiful textures and an intensity will burn with you beyond viewing. Set in France in the late 18th century, the film tells the story of an affair between an aristocrat and a painter commissioned to paint her portrait. Day by day, as her wedding approaches, tension builds as the sensual connection and desire between the two women grows, facilitated by a soundtrack of “thrumming strings’.” The film is focused on choices, and everything that may or may not be depending on what is decided, but every choice Sciamma makes as a director is perfect here..
1And Then We Danced
A male dancer and his partner have been training for years for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. The arrival of another dancer throws him off balance, sparking both an intense rivalry and romantic desire that may cause him to risk his future.And Then We Dancedmovie was premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where it received a fifteen-minute standing ovation. Though it may have some arthouse trappings, it is nonetheless an extremely compassionate, tender film, and a visually rich one.And Then We Dancedstarted a small movement forthe LGBTQ+ communityin Georgia (the European one), along with vicious antagonism from ultra-conservative groups; screenings of the film had to be surrounded with riot police to protect audiences, while bigoted protesters used violence to intimidate viewers. Nonetheless, fans attended the cinemas in solidarity, and the film has become a modern classic for queer representation.
