31 Best Lesbian Films Movies to Watch (Page 2)

Watching Carol is like reading a really interesting book while relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. It is one of those movies that you probably heard about during its Oscar run, and have since delayed actually viewing it. Well now that it is on Netflix and other streaming services you have no excuse! It’s refreshingly unique, incredibly charming, and features a kind of story that hasn’t been told very often – a love story between two women. Both characters played by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara attempt to live true to their own principles while facing unjust yet severe backlash from society. If you are open to it, the love story in this will stay with you forever.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Amy Warner, Anita Farmer Bergman, Ann Reskin, Annie Kalahurka, Carrie Brownstein, Cate Blanchett, Chelsea Carnder, Christine Dye, Chuck Gillespie, Colin Botts, Cory Michael Smith, Deb G. Girdler, Douglas Scott Sorenson, Gary Chinn, Giedre Bond, Greg Violand, Jake Lacy, John Magaro, Kay Geiger, Ken Strunk, Kevin Crowley, Kk Heim, Kyle Chandler, Liberty Fraysure, Linnea Bond, Michael Haney, Michael Joseph Thomas Ward, Mike Dennis, Nik Pajic, Pamela Evans Haynes, Robert J. Ashe, Rooney Mara, Ryan Wesley Gilreath, Sadie Heim, Sarah Paulson, Steven Andrews, Tanya Smith, Taylor Marie Frey, Todd Haynes, Trent Rowland, Wendy Lardin, William Cross

Director: Todd Haynes

Rating: R

After winning Oscars for their documentary work, filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin make their narrative feature debut with Nyad. The move to narrative fiction isn’t a monumental jump for the director duo, whose cinematic documentaries (among them Free Solo and The Rescue) play like nerve-shredding action thrillers and intense human dramas. Nor does Nyad’s subject — another extreme feat of human daring and endurance — make this feel a million miles away from their most famous works.

The most obvious departures from the directors’ documentary strengths — Nyad’s flashbacks and hallucination scenes, for example — do sometimes highlight their newness to narrative filmmaking, however. These scenes feel shallow and therefore disconnected from the movie’s otherwise deeper treatment of its subject, just as the performances dip into outsized cliches at times. Mostly, though, Nyad manages to float above the trap of trying too hard to be an inspirational sports drama thanks to its confrontation of Diana’s prickly personality. This flips the film’s perspective onto that of Diana’s team (including her coach and former girlfriend, played by Jodie Foster), who ultimately suffer the consequences of her stubbornness. That refusal to submit to hagiographic impulses gives the film a documentary-like edge of truth, making the rousing moments here feel genuinely earned.

Genre: Drama, History

Actor: Anna Harriette Pittman, Anne Marie Kempf, Annette Bening, Belle Darling, Carolyn McCormick, Diana Nyad, Elizabeth Chahin, Ellen DeGeneres, Eric T. Miller, Erica Cho, Ethan Jones Romero, Garland Scott, Grace Subervi, Harraka Eliana, Iván Oleaga, Jeena Yi, Jodie Foster, John Bartlett, John F. Kennedy, Johnny Solo, Karly Rothenberg, Kate McKinnon, Katherine Klosterman, Lilo Grunwald, Luke Cosgrove, Marcus Young, Melissa R. Stubbs, Nadia Lorencz, Orpha Salimata, Pearl Darling, Rhys Ifans, Samantha Gordon, Sophia Hernandez, Stephen Schnetzer, Tisola Logan, Toussaint Merionne

Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin

Rating: PG-13

Led by Rosy McEwen's commanding performance brimming with fear and self-loathing, Blue Jean pours all of the anguish and defiance felt by the LGBTQ+ community under Margaret Thatcher's administration into a single character. Writer-director Georgia Oakley keeps her plot light, but through conversations with other beautifully portrayed queer women (especially those played by Kerrie Hayes and Lucy Halliday), she piles on one conflicted emotion after another about what this lesbian woman's responsibility is toward herself and her community when they find themselves threatened. But even as the film takes a definite stance, it validates every response as authentic—borne out of a need to protect the people whom one loves.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Amy Booth-Steel, Aoife Kennan, Becky Lindsay, Deka Walmsley, Edmund Wiseman, Farrah Cave, Gavin Kitchen, Kate Soulsby, Kerrie Hayes, Lainey Shaw, Lucy Halliday, Lydia Page, Rosy McEwen, Scott Turnbull, Stacy Abalogun

Director: Georgia Oakley

Named after the Celtic concept of heaven, Summerland is a rare queer period drama that feels hopeful rather than despairing. The film takes us to the countryside in World War II, where our protagonist, the reclusive writer Alice Lamb (Gemma Arterton), studies the folklore about Summerland. We know that her isolation wasn’t fully chosen; her refusal to marry causes adults to gossip and causes children to speculate that she’s a witch. But this all changes when a young evacuee is entrusted to Alice’s care.

Gemma Arterton shines as a reluctant guardian stifled by repressed grief, and she makes Alice’s dynamic with Frank (Lucas Bond) and her former lover Vera (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) incredibly believable. And while it would have been lovely to see more of Vera, even just their first meeting easily captures that heady sense of pure enchantment with another person. It’s no wonder that Alice has to cling to folklore the same way we do. For many of us, it’s the only way we can express our hopes, fears, and dreams.

Genre: Drama, Romance, War

Actor: Amanda Lawrence, Amanda Root, Casper Allpress, Daniel Eghan, David Ajao, David Horovitch, Dixie Egerickx, Fergal McElherron, Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jessica Gunning, Joshua Riley, Lucas Bond, Martina Laird, Nimmy March, Penelope Wilton, Rakhee Thakrar, Sally Scott, Siân Phillips, Thomas Coombes, Toby Osmond, Tom Courtenay

Director: Jessica Swale

Rating: N/A, PG

The sooner you accept that Bottoms is not, in fact, rooted in reality in any way, the easier it should become to get on its wavelength for its uniquely absurd brand of comedy. This is ostensibly a satire, though it isn't totally clear what exactly the film is trying to comment on. And its loosely defined world makes it challenging to get emotionally invested in any of the characters' failures or victories. But it does—more than any comedy we'll probably get in a while—capture this feeling of high school being its own heightened, insulated world, where the class system of strict high school stereotypes clashes with the unchecked id and ego of teenagers who think they're more grown-up than they really are.

Director and co-writer Emma Seligman gives this movie a certain sheen that you rarely find in comedies this lowbrow (care of lush cinematography by Maria Rusche, and a bumping electronic score by Leo Birenberg and pop star Charli XCX). This contrast between polished exteriors and unapologetically raunchy content makes the jokes all the more startling—which are delivered by a cast clearly having great fun. Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri stick to their cringe-comedy skill set to great effect, while Ruby Cruz and Havana Rose Liu shine with deceptively tricky material, and Nicholas Galitzine gets to be a himbo for the ages.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Alyssa Matthews, Ayo Edebiri, Bruno Rose, Cameron Stout, Dagmara Domińczyk, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Krystal Alayne Chambers, Liz Elkins Newcomer, Marshawn Lynch, Miles Fowler, Nicholas Galitzine, Punkie Johnson, Rachel Sennott, Ruby Cruz, Ted Ferguson, Toby Nichols, Virginia Tucker, Wayne Pére, Zamani Wilder

Director: Emma Seligman

Rating: R

Funny, sweet, and tropey, Badhaai Do is a unique Hindi dramedy about a lavender marriage. Gay policeman Shardul (Rajkummar Rao) and lesbian teacher Sumi (Bhumi Pednekar) agree to wed in order to satisfy their family’s wishes without exposing their sexual orientations. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop their family from other expectations, such as that of maintaining their marriage and having a child. After their immediate connection, Shardul and Sumi’s continuous bickering, through Rao and Pednekar’s chemistry, is hilarious, leading to elaborate lies about each other for their family. However, underneath their funny back-and-forth is an understanding between them that almost feels freeing. Their platonic partnership feels like a lifeline in an isolating closet. While India is portrayed here to have a thriving LGBTQ+ community, microaggressions, harassment, and legal discrimination are still present. Despite this, the film carves up moments where Shardul and Sumi actively seek connection, with each other and with other people, including their eventual lovers. The most touching of these moments come when they both allow themselves to be honest.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Apeksha Porwal, Bhumi Pednekar, Chum Darang, Gulshan Devaiah, Loveleen Mishra, Nitesh Pandey, Rajkummar Rao, Seema Pahwa, Shashi Bhushan, Sheeba Chaddha

Director: Harshavardhan Kulkarni

Rating: PG

If there are parts to Rookie's story that seem too easily resolved—for the sake of making this more of a feel-good movie—these shortcuts still serve a genuinely romantic central relationship that develops in the most organic way possible. Besides the school's stifling conservatism, there's nothing that really stands in the way of Ace and Jana's blossoming connection. By immediately advancing its depiction of queer love beyond the self-acceptance stage (where so many other films get stuck), Rookie is allowed to show us two girls in love and supporting each other, as the normal and beautiful thing it should be. It doesn't hurt either that the movie is pretty entertaining as a sports film, with just enough flash in its editing and sound design to sell the frantic energy of a game wherein you want to impress the person you have a crush on.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Agot Isidro, Alyssa Valdez, Aya Fernandez, Che Ramos, Jelaica Gajero, Mikoy Morales, Pat Tingjuy, Simon Ibarra

Director: Samantha Lee

A beautiful and subtle masterpiece exploring the life of Alike, a teen in Brooklyn navigating her identity as a gay black girl. Caught between the traditional world of her family and the butch and sexual world of her friend who has already come out, director Dee Rees allows the audience to see the trials and tribulations of Alike's attempts to be comfortable and sure of herself.  It's a moving and raw coming-of-age story with many characters in the film being quite lovable and relatable making it easy for the viewer to become attached.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Aasha Davis, Adepero Oduye, Afton Williamson, Charles Parnell, Jeremie Harris, Joey Auzenne, Kim Sykes, Kim Wayans, Ozzie Stewart, Pernell Walker, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Rob Morgan, Sahra Mellesse, Samuel Encarnacion, Shamika Cotton, Stephanie Andujar, Zabryna Guevara

Director: Dee Rees

Rating: R

After Nimona's long journey to the big screen (involving the shutdown of animation studio Blue Sky, and Disney's resistance to LGTBQ+ themes), the fact that the movie has been completed and allowed to tell its story at all is something to be celebrated. The film itself is pretty standard fare for American children's animation, with a script that spends far too much time on quips, and visuals that don't take advantage of the movie's science-fantasy world. But if you can get beyond its more ordinary aspects, Nimona becomes a surprisingly thorough metaphor of Otherness and queerness—best represented in the title character's shapeshifting abilities, and how people fear and become violent with her before even trying to understand her. It's a film that's sadly become more relevant than ever now, addressing how prejudice is something that's taught and passed down, packaged in an easy, entertaining manner for younger audiences.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Science Fiction

Actor: Beck Bennett, Chloë Grace Moretz, Cindy Slattery, Eugene Lee Yang, Frances Conroy, Indya Moore, Jarrett Bruno, Julie Zackary, Julio Torres, Karen Ryan, Lorraine Toussaint, Matthew J. Munn, ND Stevenson, Nick Bruno, Riz Ahmed, RuPaul, Sarah Sherman, Tim Nordquist, Troy Quane

Director: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane

Rating: PG