Netflix: The Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming in 2023

“Grace and Frankie”

Howard J. Morris and “Friends” co-creator Marta Kauffman enjoyed a stroke of pure genius with “Grace and Frankie”: a sparkling LGBTQ sitcom set in SoCal, as sweet as it is sharp, which ran for seven seasons and remains one of Netflix’s most successful half-hour series.

The beloved odd couple comedy reunites “9 to 5” stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two very different (straight) women who learn their husbands — Sam Waterson and Martin Sheen — are leaving their wives for one another. As the gravity of the men’s deception sets in, the titular Grace and Frankie are forced to confront single life in their 70s together. Soon, the former beauty exec and hippy artist are rooming together in a beach house the couples once shared, while their exes embark on a new life in a hard-won queer home of their own.

From dating farmers and fraudsters to inventing a vibrator for women with arthristis, the sex-positive and innately feminist antics of Grace, Frankie, and their gay ex-husbands make for generally light fare. But the show also carefully and compassionately explores the changing dynamics of modern found family, the difficulties of coming out later in life, and the endless misogynstic obstacles facing older women in the 21st century. —AF

“Class”

Set at a wealthy private school in New Delhi, “Class” is a Hindi adaptation of Netflix’s Spanish-language original series “Elite” from producer Ashim Ahluwalia. Jumping on the tried-and-true raunchy rebellious teen setup, the series chronicles the unraveling of a delicately balanced coterie of upperclassmen after the addition of three new scholarship students. Months after their arrival, a student has been murdered, and everyone is a suspect. The addition of adorable queer couple Faruq and Dhruv make it one of the few shows from India to showcase queer romance.  

Though taken from “Elite,” the premise of “Class” fits seamlessly into urban India, where caste and religion absorb the upper classes, where subplots about crime and corruption draw on finely honed Hindi films of the same genre. Thanks to existing source material with an established tone — and the Netflix stamp with its global reach — “Class” exudes more confidence than adult-focused Hindi shows like “Four More Shots, Please” or movies like “Veere Di Wedding,” which also include freewheeling cursing, drugs, and sexual references. While those titles also dealt with privileged (and light-skinned) urban Indian socialites, “Class” has awareness baked into its premise and no interest in shying away from the ugliness of wealth disparity. —PK 

“Disobedience”

This forbidden romance between an Orthodox Jewish woman and her childhood best friend stars Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz engaging in a tense and tender dance of passion. Based on the novel by Naomi Alderman and directed by Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio (“A Fantastic Woman), “Disobedience” follows Esty (McAdams), a married woman from an ultra-Orthodox community who is in love with Ronit (Weisz), the rabbi’s daughter who left religious life as a teenager but returns upon her father’s death. Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) welcomes Ronit into his home warmly, but soon must confront his wife’s predilections.  

A perfectly balanced three-hander boasting finely tuned performances, the steamy film follows Esty’s tightrope-walk between tradition and desire, between the path she chose and the one she dreams of. While religious queer stories are often tame and full of repression, “Disobedience” flips the script to offer a passionate portrait of a courageous woman going after what she wants. While their spit-swapping sex scene may have turned heads at its premiere, the film’s staying power lies in its daring performances and sharp script. —JD 

“Call Me by Your Name”

How did Luca Guadagnino make a movie that looks, sounds, and feels like nostalgic summer love? Who knew it looked like the golden light of an Italian villa, or the smiling eyes of a father witnessing his child’s first heartache? Or that it sounded like shutters clattering in the wind, the heavy slam of a wooden door, or a spoon’s clumsy tap tap tap on a soft-boiled egg? And most of us certainly didn’t know know love felt like rolling casually into a fountain, or the gooey inside of a peach.

It’s hard to know where to focus in “Call Me by Your Name,” between each gorgeous frame of the Italian delights and its impossibly good-looking young lovers. Armie Hammer is an ’80s Adonis in his short shorts and billowing Oxford shirts, towering awkwardly over the androgynous beauty of the soon-to-be-everywhere Timothée Chalamet. Their bodies, which Guadagnino graciously (but tastefully) puts on display, skip and tousle across the screen. Though some will lament the spareness of the their more intimate acts, this film is so gorgeous that to see anything else would have yielded sensory overload. —JD 

“Heartstopper”

A coming-of-age teen romance equal parts adorable and heartwarming? Sign us up. Based on the graphic novel of the same name, “Heartstopper” centers on British teen Charlie (Joe Locke), who has a crush on classmate Nick (Kit Connor). In order to get closer to Nick, Charlie joins the rugby team and kicks off quite literally a guessing game over whether or not Nick is gay. While Charlie vents to newfound friend Nick over his own relationship woes, the duo deepen their “will they, won’t they” love story. Half coming-out story, half unrequited romance, “Heartstopper” clearly has the opposite effect, making our hearts beat faster as we wait to see if Nick will similarly fall for Charlie. Thankfully, the series has been renewed for two more seasons at Netflix as of May 20. —SB

“Badhaai Do”

Queer representation in mainstream Bollywood is still in its early stages, but Harshvardhan Kulkarni’s “Badhaai Do” (written by Kulkarni, Suman Adhikary, and Akshat Ghildial) offers a cheeky twist with less heavy-handed messaging than most.

Shardul (Rajkummar Rao) and Suman (Bhumi Pednekar) couldn’t be less interested in the heterosexual marriages their parents keep pushing on them, so they get married to appease their families and continue pursuing queer relationships. But being married presents its own challenges, including living in Shardul’s strict police quarters and mounting pressure from their parents who want grandchildren. When Suman starts seeing Rimjhim (Chum Darang), they find themselves dodging question after question and losing steam to maintain the facade that she’s a visiting cousin. 

The film depicts two fleshed-out queer characters at its center, and they challenge each other and themselves on what it means to live an authentic life. It’s clear that Shardul is not immune to societally ingrained misogyny, which he must reckon with when Sumi suffers on his behalf. Rao and Pednekar are known for appearing in groundbreaking and innovative films, and “Badhaai Do” is no exception. —PK

“Sex Education”

Netflix’s endlessly charming high-school comedy about sex, love, and friendship is winsome from the start — not least because of how well the show handles queer stories, starting with Eric (Ncuti Gatwa). He’s not in the closet at school or with his family, which offers a positive depiction of how living out and proud can look with a supportive community. His bullying at the hands of Adam (Connor Swindells) serves the narrative rather than exploiting LGBTQ trauma; we learn that Adam himself is closeted and coming to terms with his identity, and their relationship evolves over the course of three seasons.

Best of all, Eric alone doesn’t carry the burden of telling queer stories on “Sex Education.” There’s popular snob Anwar (Chaneil Kular), French poet Rahim (Sami Outalbali), Otis’s former girlfriend Ola (Patricia Allison), self-assured class weirdo Lily (Tanya Reynolds), and Cal (Dua Saleh), whose rejection of the gender binary forces school golden boy Jackson (Kedar Williams-Stirling) to reconsider his own sexuality. Each of these characters is endearing and flawed and endlessly hilarious as only “Sex Education” can deliver. —PK

“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”

David France’s follow-up to “How to Survive a Plague” follows the extraordinary life and mysterious death of transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson. A village fixture and one of the driving forces in the Stonewall Riots, Johnson’s body was found in the Hudson river in 1992. The film traces her life, but spends more time on her death — and Johnson’s friend the activist Victoria Cruz’s labyrnthine search for justice. —JD

“Special”

Netflix shut down Ryan O’Connell’s semi-autobiographical comedy series “Special” after just two all-too-short seasons, a shame considering that Season 2 left on such an open-ended note for its lead. Also named Ryan, and played by O’Connell, he’s a writer with CP wading into the choppy waters of dating in Los Angeles. He experiences love and sex for the first time — often to alternately crushing and comic results. O’Connell and Punam Patel, who plays his best friend and co-worker at a Buzzfeed-like content farm called Eggwoke, are a dream small-screen team. The series has humor and heart but isn’t too saccharine sweet as O’Connell takes on the often alienating experience of image-obsessed queer LA life. —RL

“The Andy Warhol Diaries”

Executive producer Ryan Murphy takes Andy Warhol enthusiasts and neophytes alike into a melancholy immersion of the man’s life and work — using his own words and voice reconstructed with artificial intelligence — in “The Andy Warhol Diaries.” While Warhol was seemingly scrupulous about keeping his private life private — often flippantly telling journalists he was “asexual” — there’s plenty beneath the surface of his groundbreaking 20th-century art to suggest otherwise. That’s one of the achievements of “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” which melds talking-head testimonies from those who knew him (Julian Schnabel, John Waters, Fab Five Freddy, Jerry Hall, Debbie Harry, and many, many more) with impressionistic montages of his work and archival snippets from his New York scene at the Factory.

“The Andy Warhol Diaries” offers an unusually intimate vantage point into understanding the artist as a person, a shy closeted kid raised in Pittsburgh by Austro-Hungarian immigrant parents who concealed his shyness in adulthood behind the artifice of makeup and, of course, his many wigs. Directed by Andrew Rossi (“Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times” and “The First Monday in May”), the six-part documentary series is a must-see for Warhol fans and newcomers looking to understand his work’s impact then and now. —RL

“EastSiders”

What began as a darkly funny queer YouTube series became a Logo TV streaming series that then sold to Netflix, premiering its final season in 2019. But through all the shifts in format and delivery platform, Kit Williamson’s “EastSiders” maintained its cynically humorous take on a self-destructive friend group living in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. At the center of the show is up-and-down relationship between Cal (Williamson) and Thom (Van Hansis), for whom opening things up only leads to infidelity and further substance use. The series is also an early showcase of Constance Wu as Cal’s sidekick best friend, who got a fully formed hilarious arc of her own with her boyfriend Ian (John Halbach). —RL

“The Haunting of Bly Manor”

The second installment of Netflix’s anthology series from Mike Flanagan, coming off “The Haunting of Hill House,” “Bly Manor” brings the gothic drama to the U.K. as Victoria Pedretti stars as Dani, an American au pair for two orphaned children. “The Haunting of Bly Manor” is told in reverse by a narrator (Carla Gugino), recalling a mysterious haunted mansion that forces Dani to confront her own metaphorical ghosts — plus a few very real ones. As Dani relives her personal trauma and guilt for being engaged to her now-deceased fiancé Eddie (Roby Attal) despite being gay, she finds solace in groundskeeper Jamie (Amelia Eve). Their romance blossoms as Bly Manor sours under adulterous affairs, possessed children, and restless souls, leaving Dani and Jamie to narrowly make their escapes while saving the children. —SB

“Alex Strangelove”

Craig Johnson’s “Alex Strangelove” felt like a rarity on Netflix in 2018, a John Hughes-style, throwback high school teen romance with a queer twist. Now, that’s standard fare for the streamer with series like “Sex Education” and “Heartstopper,” but here the coming-out story of teen Alex (Daniel Doheny) is well-told in feature-length size. Though Alex has plans to lose his virginity to his best friend Claire (Madeline Weinstein), a queer ex machina arrives in the form of openly gay Elliot (Antonio Marziale), who leads him to question his sexuality. Alex thinks at first he might be bi (we’ve all been there), but his attraction to Elliot becomes overwhelming, causing even more confusion. This is a smart and refreshing film about teen sexuality that doesn’t shy from its uncomfortable moments, but also takes a celebratory approach to its subject matter at a time when many coming-out stories still felt bogged by pain. —RL

“Crashing”

The erotic entanglements and serious personal baggage of six 20somethings living as property guardians in an abandoned hospital are mined for hilarity in the Channel 4 series “Crashing.” It’s created, written by, and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge in her pre-“Fleabag” early days. There are a number of queer and straight characters whose sexual borders get blurred within the walls of this flophouse, but look especially for a young, bleach-blond Jonathan Bailey as hypersexual narcissist Sam, who ignites sparks with Fred (Amit Shah) to much messiness in the friend group. “Crashing” has the same acid-tongued humor of “Fleabag” — and characters just as lovably floundering and restless. —RL

The “Fear Street” Trilogy

Filmmaker Leigh Janiak’s ambitious, time-spanning “Fear Street” trilogy giddily unpacks and twists all manner of horror ideas, but finding a new way into a central love story is perhaps its most subversive concept. Based on R.L. Stine’s YA horror novels of the same name, “Fear Street” doesn’t treat its teen audience or characters with kid gloves. That extends into both the gore level (high) and the honesty with which it tackles even the non-scary stuff, like its love stories, including a queer relationship that endures across three entire films.

At the heart of the trilogy is the relationship between Deena (Kiana Madeira) and Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), former girlfriends recently torn apart by Sam’s meddling mom and Sam’s move to tony Sunnyvale from the more downmarket Shadyside. Without spoiling what follows in the series, we’ll say this: Deena and Sam’s love story is key to the entire series, and emblematic of both the fresh spin Janiak puts on the stories and the classic sense of “otherness” often found in the genre’s greatest heroes. —KE

“Pretend It’s a City”

More than just a style icon, Fran Lebowitz is the living embodiment of every striving New Yorker’s dream: to sustain long-term cultural relevance while doing very little work. With the help of influential friends like Martin Scorsese, who filmed and edited Lebowitz’s musings on life, literature, and New York City into half-hour bite-sized diversions, she received the equivalent of a lifetime extension. The avowed bachelor notoriously suffers from writer’s block, though she can rattle off pithy anecdotes and one-liners better than most stand-up comedians. There’s so much wit and wisdom packed into each episode that, though they fly by much too quickly, you’ll be jazzed to start all over again. —JD

“The Power of the Dog”

Jane Campion’s chiseled Western features Benedict Cumberbatch in a career-high performance as a repressed cattle rancher who likes the smell of his own stink, Jesse Plemons as his more civilized but obviously codependent brother, and Kirsten Dunst as his inward-coiling wife who finally explodes. But the real deal in “The Power of the Dog” is the promise of Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee as Peter, Dunst’s lithe and otherworldly son whose gimlet eyes conceal wells of mystery, pain, and rage. Draped across this tapestry of fine actors is Ari Wegner’s sinister vision of 1920s Montana.

It comes as no surprise that Campion — the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind such movies as “The Piano” and “In the Cut,” and TV series including “Top of the Lake” — could turn out another masterful flaying of the masculine ego, and the flickering feminine inside of it. Going straight back to Thomas Savage’s 1967 source novel, Campion threads the needle between queer repression, desire, and violence. A psychosexual current starts to vibrate between Smit-McPhee and Cumberbatch, who wears his cowboy ego like a costume that starts to shed in Peter’s hands. It’s possible to read “The Power of the Dog” as a kind of acid-dipped love story, thanks to the queer sensibilities of its filmmaker, who uses her portent-filled approach to visually and aurally articulate the desires her emotionally sheltered protagonists can’t. —RL

“Call My Agent!”

This boisterous French workplace comedy about a scrappy firm of Paris movie agents returned this year for its fourth and final season, just in time for this highbrow “Entourage” to finally land across the pond. Where “Entourage” drops names like James Cameron and Mark Wahlberg, “Call My Agent!” features cameos from the likes of Juliette Binoche and a running Jacques Depardieu joke. While any film lover will enjoy the show’s cinematic pedigree, queer audiences get not one but two fabulous queer characters. There’s cutthroat agent and seducer Andrea Martell (Camille Cottin), who could give Bette Porter a run for her money. She’s both lovable and fun to hate, but it’s flamboyant and fanciful assistant Herve (Nicolas Maury) who is easily the fan favorite. In many ways, “Call My Agent!” represents the best of what Netflix offers — access to the top international shows and films one would otherwise miss. —JD

“I Care a Lot”

Rosamund Pike returns to her icy-cool “Gone Girl” character Amy Dunne in “I Care a Lot,” where she plays a high-falutin con artist who swindles elders while disguised as a care person — with the added intrigue of playing a lesbian. Pike plays Marla Grayson, a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards whose assets she seizes and bilks through dubious but somehow legal means. It’s a well-oiled racket that Marla and her business-partner and lover Fran (Eiza González) use with brutal efficiency on their latest “cherry,” Jennifer Peterson (two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest) — a wealthy retiree with no living heirs or family to call her own. But when Jennifer turns out to have an equally shady secret of her own, along with connections to a loose cannon of a gangster (played by Peter Dinklage), Marla has to up her game. —RL

“Feel Good”

Swoonworthy comedian Mae Martin writes and stars alongside Lisa Kudrow in this bitingly clever six-episode show about chasing straight girls and chasing highs. Hilariously crafted, thrillingly paced, and brimming with the kind of raw honesty rarely found on TV, “Feel Good” will certainly make you feel, if not necessarily good, then something refreshingly real. Eshcewing “Fleabag” vibes wrapped up in an authentically queer dark comedy about addiction, “Feel Good” is a delightful surprise after decades of two dimensional queer characters written as an afterthought. —JD

“Disclosure”

Directed by Sam Feder and executive produced by Laverne Cox, “Disclosure” plays like the next chapter in “The Celluloid Closet,” though it stands entirely on its own. The film gives trans representation the full consideration it deserves, offering a fascinating excavation of an often painful history with moments of levity and personal reflection. Each touchstone is filtered through the lens of the interviewees, all of whom are trans. The simple pleasure of viewing a film with an entirely trans cast is nothing short of revelatory, making “Disclosure” another positive entry into the very history it is seeking to rewrite. —JD

“Funny Boy”

Intimate and beautifully rendered, “Funny Boy” is a visually lush coming-of-age drama set amidst a vicious ethnic conflict that is regionally specific but tragically universal. It is the latest feature film from revered Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, who first rose to international renown in 1996 with “Fire,” a groundbreaking lesbian romance that was censored in India after screenings led to violent protests and the destruction of movie theaters. Though “Funny Boy” is a far more chaste film, it may find more controversy for its portrayal of the 1983 riots, or Black July, the anti-Tamil pogroms that began the 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War. As if with the breezy wave of a hand, Mehta has woven these intricacies with a painterly touch, stacking the opposing forces of sexual and cultural identity into a whirl of color and emotion and memory. —JD

“The Boys in The Band”

Director Joe Mantello, who first revamped Mart Crowley’s 1968 play on Broadway three years ago with an all-star cast of out-gay male actors, brings that exact same troupe, and sensibility, to the not-quite-big-screen with his new film adaptation produced by Ryan Murphy for Netflix. The result is a sophisticated, tart-tongued revival, and a gayed-up “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” that surmounts the challenges faced by stage-to-screen adaptations, specifically the utter confinement to a single space. Mantello preserves the narrative’s period-specific repartee and brings the stage script to life in sublime ways. The performances are all superb, and the fact that the cast comprises solely out-of-the-closet gay men creates for a special alchemy here, as these actors, first established in their summer 2018 Broadway run, have a familiarity and comfort with each other you’d be unlikely to see in a mixed cast of straights and gays. Crowley, who died last March, didn’t live to see this film, but you can feel his blessing gliding over it all. —RL

“Douglas”

Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby became an international sensation almost overnight when “Nanette” premiered on Netflix in 2018. She followed that explosive special up with another delight, knocking it out of the park again with a slightly lighter special that packs just as much punch as her first. She turns some of the half-baked critiques (“a bit of feedback”) of “Nanette” into comedic fodder for “Douglas,” snapping back at her haters with surgical precision. Where “Nanette” addressed sexual trauma with unexpected wit, Gadsby turns to her autism diagnosis for another unmined comedic topic. The results are just as fresh, and impactful, as ever. —JD

“Mucho Mucho Amor”

OK, so we don’t know exactly how Walter Mercado identified. Whether spoken out loud or not, there’s no world in which an astrologer who owns that many capes can’t be read as queer — no matter what his longtime assistant says about their relationship. Though Latinx folks have known his name for decades, the late Puerto Rican icon reached new renown with the release the entertaining and uplifting Netflix documentary, “Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado.” The first and most widely televised astrologer in the world, Mercado graced TV screens and radio stations in every Spanish-speaking market for nearly four decades beginning in the 1970s. After disappearing from public view amidst an arduous legal battle over the rights to his name and work, he retreated to a fortress-like villa in San Juan. His outsized personality, dazzling capes, and uplifting message of love earned him the arduous devotion of millions of fans the world over.

“A Secret Love”

As lovingly rendered as they are with each other, this tender documentary charts Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel’s nearly seven-decade-long relationship, offering a portrait of two lesbian elders as they make peace with their flagging health. The film offers a precious example of a committed long-term queer relationship, as well as a vital record of how different things were way back when. There are scant dramatic turns or shocking revelations, but “A Secret Love” is thoroughly enjoyable, heartfelt wholesomeness from start to finish. —JD

“The Half of It”

“Saving Face” filmmaker Alice Wu’s triumphant return to filmmaking is a queer riff on “Cyrano de Bergerac” that ultimately prioritizes friendship over romance. That’s a refreshing take for any movie, especially in the YA genre, and it sends a poignant message that is much more helpful — and relatable — for most kids than a fairytale ending. The film’s charming protagonist is Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), a precocious high schooler who lives with her widower father and keeps to herself at school. When boorish Paul (Daniel Diemer) clumsily enlists her help writing love letters to his crush, the two strike up an unlikely friendship that withstands whatever obstacles that come their way — even liking the same girl. —JD

“Circus of Books”

It’s hard to think of a better premise for a documentary than a gay porn shop run by a straight Jewish couple, but throw into the mix that their daughter is the filmmaker and you have one of the most surprising films of the year. Filmmaker Rachel Mason follows in the footsteps of hybrid documentarian Kirsten Johnson, but throws in a heaping dose of Borscht belt humor, Jewish tradition, and gay history. Her loving account of her parents Barry and Karen Mason and how they came to run one of LA’s most popular gay cruising spots is the perfect blend of personal excavation and engaging storytelling. Karen emerges as the film’s comic lead and quintessential Jewish mother, haggling at the sex expo and questioning her daughter’s artistic choices in the same breath. It’s the unexpected confluence of these eclectic elements that make it such a singularly delightful film. —JD

“Lingua Franca”

Isabel Sandoval’s masterful portrait of a trans Filipina immigrant is so intimately rendered it almost feels too close at times. Premiering at Venice Days, the film was entirely directed, written, produced, and edited by Sandoval, who also plays the film’s lead. Sandoval is the closest thing queer cinema has to a trans auteur working on such a level. The film follows an undocumented trans woman as she saves up for a green card marriage, which becomes complicated by newfound romance. Sharply edited and shot with an austere beauty, “Lingua Franca” is a profound example of what happens when marginalized voices are given full creative control. —JD

“Alice Junior”

Exuding charm, infectious energy, and unshakeable confidence, Alice is the teenage trans girl protagonist of your movie dreams. She’s a runner-up in a reality competition show for young models, which she never lets her adoring public forget via her bubbly YouTube updates. She’s living her best life in a chic Brazilian city when her father unexpectedly moves her to the more conservative countryside. As Alice contends with boys’ school uniforms and ignorant bullying, she also opens herself up to new forms of friendship. First-time feature director Gil Baroni makes a grand entrance with this flirty, heartfelt, and celebratory trans comedy. More trans films like this one, please. —JD

“Tales of the City”

In a new chapter of beloved San Francisco writer Armistead Maupin’s classic “Tales of The City”, buoyant heroine Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) is all grown up, but still making the same mistakes. Returning to 28 Barbary Lane twenty years after she first found herself in the land of magical fairies, Mary Ann must put back the pieces of her San Francisco life, including an estranged relationship with the child she left behind (Elliot Page). Olympia Dukakis reprises her role as Anna Madrigal, the magical and mysterious doyenne of Barbary Lane, and hunky Murray Bartlett plays Mary Anns best friend Michael “Mouse” Tolliver.  
While the show’s blatant attempts at keeping current (namely by including every identity from the LGBTQ+ alphabet soup) can feel a bit disjointed at times, there’s something undeniably comforting about its unconventional marriage between rose-colored nostalgia and progressive identity politics. Creator Lauren Morelli (“Orange Is the New Black”) and executive producer Alan Poul (“Six Feet Under”) found a way to honor the spirit of the original while celebrating the queer culture of today. Curling up with “Tales of the City” feels like stepping into your neighborhood gay bar, where everybody knows your name — and your pronouns. —JD 

“Sense8”

Queerness means seeing and experiencing the world differently, with a vibrance and texture unique to people existing in a society that others them and their expressions of gender and love. Created by J. Michael Straczynski and The Wachowskis — yes, of “The Matrix” fame — this brilliant sci-fi ensemble series explores the emotional depths and connective tissue of LGBTQ community through a lens that takes empathic perspective to its storytelling extreme. When eight strangers suddenly discover they are “sensates” — psychically linked to one another, but scattered across the globe — they must investigate their mysterious connection and the power it gives them together. 

“Sense8” is a good show, but notable at Netflix for a historic cancelation decision, and its subsequent partial reversal. Fans were left on a cliffhanger at the end of “Sense8” Season 2. Netflix announced it would cancel the series at the start of Pride 2017: a decision met with near-immediate blowback. Critics argued that abandoning the series was reflective of Netflix’s lack of committment to championing queer stories longterm. The platform then gave the show a finale in 2018, considered the final installment of Season 2. —AF

“Mars One”

Set in the wake of the election of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, “Mars One” follows a single working-class family as they long for more, love each other, self-reflect, and struggle to make ends meet. “Mars One” nimbly centers each of its four main characters, including rebellious and magnetic queer student Nina (Camilla Damião), elegantly weaving their stories into a poignant familial whole.  
Gabriel Martins’ elegantly personal portrait is both grand and delicate in scope, weaving four human stories into a tender family drama. All relatable, flawed, and charming in their own ways, they antagonize each other without anyone losing their humanity. The frame drips with sensuality when Nina meets a girl at a club, the slow approach to a tender first kiss sexier than anything more explicit could be. Nina’s exploration of queerness is a part of her journey, but not its entirety; and her parents are shocked but sweetly accepting in the end. Thanks to the deeply skilled actors and Martins’ reserved approach to plot, Martins strikes a delicate balance that’s unusually satisfying. —JD 

“Edge of Seventeen”

Like a John Hughes era scored by Boy George and Annie Lenox, this late-‘90s American indie is about growing up and coming out in 1980s Ohio. Directed by David Moreton and written by Todd Stephens, this hidden gem of the New Queer Cinema was critically embraced at the time, playing the Sundance Film Festival in 1999. The romantic comedy/drama hasn’t quite reached the cult status of its contemporary “But I’m a Cheerleader,” possibly due to a lack of big names (though it does feature a young Lea Delaria as butch bar manager Angie). 

The film follows sensitive high schooler Eric (Chris Stafford) as he explores, and then nearly renounces, his queerness. Featuring unsentimental sex scenes that don’t overly glamorize early sexual encounters, Eric is seduced and left brokenhearted by slightly older casanova Rod (Andersen Gabrych) before attempting straightness with his best friend Maggie (Tina Holmes). As Eric fumbles towards a queer identity that includes eye liner and a Moog synthesizer, the charming “Edge of Seventeen” presents a relatable and naturalistic portrait of queer youth. —JD 

“Do Revenge”

This juicy dark comedy is a feminist satire inspired by “Strangers on a Train,” the Alfred Hitchcock film based on lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith’s novel. The romp stars Camila Mendes (“Riverdale”) and Maya Hawke (“Stranger Things”) as two unlikely allies in a battle for high school justice, with Hawke as the loner queer who must infiltrate the popular crowd. Touching lightly on class awareness and gender politics, the girls are firmly in control of this candy-coated world — though only one can come out on top. As their Machiavellian quest for revenge leads to some unlikely revelations, the self-righteous antiheroines prove that boys aren’t the only toxic ones. It’s all part of the sickly fun and games of this quippy romp through the steely cunning of that universally feared group: teenage girls. —JD 

“Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story”

Pro skater Leo Baker kickflips the script on the tedious trans athlete “debate,” shredding preconceived notions about trans athletes with the same swagger he uses to attack the half-pipe. Beginning in 2019, the film follows Baker and his teammates on the U.S.A. National Team when they find out skateboarding will become an Olympic sport for the first time in the 2020 games.  
Shot over roughly three years, the film follows Baker through the journey of coming out to himself, his friends and family, and then the world. Taking an empathetic and respectful approach, the film allows him the grace and space to explore who he is without needing concrete answers, neither overly focusing on Baker’s transition nor minimizing the difficulties therein. As he weighs the professional benefits to delaying transition against the joy and relief of being himself, the film offers an important window into the daily indignities all trans people face, one that many will recognize. Hopefully, those who don’t will feel it just as deeply, and come away with a little more empathy. —JD