LGBTQ+ Favorites
30 Episodes
Proud, rebellious, colorful, intimate, and frank, these essential visions of LGBTQ+ life find boundary-pushing filmmakers turning the richness of the queer experience into indelible art. From taboo-shattering art-house classics to defining works of the 1990s New Queer Cinema explosion to contemporary showstoppers from emerging talents, these films represent just a sample of the wide world of queer cinema, but they offer a taste of its breadth, creativity, and defiance in the face of adversity.
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1:33:34Episode 1All Shall Be Well
Episode 1
Directed by Ray Yeung • 2024 • Hong Kong
Starring Maggie Li Lin-lin, Patra Au Ga-man, Tai BoWhat happens to a lifetime of love when it collides with the harsh realities of a bureaucratic system that doesn’t recognize your relationship? That’s the question at the heart of this profoundly poignan...
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2:06:28Episode 2Daughter’s Daughter
Episode 2
Directed by Huang Xi • 2024 • Taiwan
Starring Sylvia Chang, Karena Lam, Winston ChaoA stunning performance by Taiwanese-cinema legend Sylvia Chang anchors this elegant exploration of motherhood, grief, and regret from rising director Huang Xi. Executive-produced by Chang and filmmaker Hou Hsiao...
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1:19:34Episode 3Fresh Kill
Episode 3
Directed by Shu Lea Cheang • 1994 • United States
Starring Sarita Choudhury, Erin McMurtry, Abraham LimA disturbingly prescient ecofeminist parable and a brain-wave-scrambling cyberpunk fantasia, the debut feature from new-media pioneer Shu Lea Cheang merges a bold vision of resistance with an ...
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1:44:21Episode 4Misericordia
Episode 4
Directed by Alain Guiraudie • 2024 • France, Spain, Portugal
Starring Félix Kysyl, Catherine Frot, Jacques DevelayA web of secrets, suspicions, and desires ensnares the inhabitants of an insular French village in this tantalizing comic thriller from ever-audacious auteur Alain Guiraudie. Return...
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1:13:19Episode 5The Aggressives
Episode 5
Directed by Daniel Peddle • 2005 • United States
Starring Kisha Batista, Marquise Vilson, Octavio SandersFilmed over the course of five years, this bold, candid documentary follows the journeys of six masculine-presenting, genderqueer New Yorkers who defy labels in their quest to live authentic...
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Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later
Episode 6
Directed by Daniel Peddle • 2023 • United States
Twenty-five years after Daniel Peddle’s groundbreaking documentary THE AGGRESSIVES introduced the world to an inspiring group of trailblazing transmasculine heroes, BEYOND THE AGGRESSIVES: 25 YEARS LATER catches up with four of the film’s original...
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1:42:52Episode 7Orlando, My Political Biography
Episode 7
Directed by Paul B. Preciado • 2023 • France
Starring Oscar-Roza Miller, Yanis Sahraoui, Liz Christin“Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.” Taking Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando: A Biography” as his starting point, academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Pr...
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1:15:11Episode 8Regrouping
Episode 8
Directed by Lizzie Borden • 1976 • United States
Starring Kathryn Bigelow, Ariel Bock, Marion CajoriWhile Lizzie Borden’s features BORN IN FLAMES and WORKING GIRLS have taken their place as landmarks of feminist cinema, her debut—the fascinating experimental documentary REGROUPING—has gone larg...
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1:08:53Episode 9Pink Narcissus
Episode 9
Directed by James Bidgood • 1971 • United States
Starring Don Brooks, Bobby Kendall, Charles LudlamWorking over the course of eight years in his downtown Manhattan loft, artist James Bidgood crafted this luxuriant queer fantasia, a crimson-saturated idyll of camp excess and erotic spectacle. Wh...
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2:00:43Episode 10Kiss of the Spider Woman
Episode 10
Directed by Héctor Babenco • 1985 • United States, Brazil
Starring William Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Sônia BragaFeaturing indelible performances from Raul Julia and an Academy Award–winning William Hurt, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN is a work of radical compassion that boldly expands notions of love, gende...
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Poison
Episode 11
Directed by Todd Haynes • 1991 • United States
Starring Edith Meeks, Larry Maxwell, Susan NormanInspired by the writings of Jean Genet, Todd Haynes’s debut feature deftly interweaves a trio of transgressive tales—“Hero,” “Horror,” and “Homo”—that build towards a devastating climax. “Hero,” shot...
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1:13:25Episode 12Benjamin Smoke
Episode 12
Directed by Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen • 2000 • United States
Far from a standard music documentary, Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen’s loving portrait of underground musician Benjamin Smoke—speed freak, drag queen, and a true outsider artist in every sense of the word—captures his singular personalit...
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1:19:44Episode 13Totally F***ed Up
Episode 13
Directed by Gregg Araki • 1993 • United States
Starring James Duval, Roko Belic, Susan BehshidA delirious mix of punk nihilism and deadpan irony, the first film in Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy puts an audaciously queer spin on Jean-Luc Godard’s classic MASCULIN FÉMININ. Across fifteen ...
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Nowhere
Episode 14
Directed by Gregg Araki • 1997 • United States
Starring James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan BextonYou can practically smell the pheromones wafting off this kaleidoscopic odyssey, which finds director Gregg Araki crossing soap-operatic elements with blasts of science fiction, indie-kid cool, and sh...
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1:36:22Episode 15Happy Together
Episode 15
Directed by Wong Kar Wai • 1997 • Hong Kong
Starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Leslie Cheung Kwok WingOne of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheun...
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2:12:14Episode 16Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives
Episode 16
Directed by Mariposa Film Group • 1977 • United States
More than forty years ago, in 1978, WORD IS OUT: STORIES OF SOME OF OUR LIVES startled audiences across the country when it appeared in movie theaters and on television. The first feature-length documentary about queer identity made by gay f...
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1:47:36Episode 17Portrait of Jason
Episode 17
Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1967 • United States
Starring Jason HollidayOn the night of December 2, 1966, Shirley Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. For twelve straight hours, they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang,...
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1:26:31Episode 18Je tu il elle
Episode 18
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • France
Starring Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire WauthionChantal Akerman’s first narrative feature is a startlingly vulnerable exploration of alienation and the search for connection. In a performance at once daringly exposed and enigmatic, Akerman pl...
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Jubilee
Episode 19
Directed by Derek Jarman • 1978 • United Kingdom
Starring Jenny Runacre, Little Nell, Toyah WillcoxWhen Queen Elizabeth I asks her court alchemist to show her England in the future, she’s transported 400 years to a post-apocalyptic wasteland of roving girl gangs, an all-powerful media mogul, fa...
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Querelle
Episode 20
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
Starring Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne MoreauConjured from the unholy meeting of two iconoclastic queer artists, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film audaciously raises Jean Genet’s controversial novel to the level of myth. In an expressi...
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1:20:40Episode 21Born in Flames
Episode 21
Directed by Lizzie Borden • 1983 • United States
Starring Honey, Adele Bertei, Jean SatterfieldA blistering rallying cry issued loud, clear, and unapologetically queer, Lizzie Borden’s explosive postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a revoluti...
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1:28:16Episode 22The Times of Harvey Milk
Episode 22
Directed by Robert Epstein • 1984 • United States
A true twentieth-century trailblazer, Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised peop...
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1:31:40Episode 23Desert Hearts
Episode 23
Directed by Donna Deitch • 1985 • United States
Starring Helen Shaver, Patricia CharbonneauDonna Deitch's swooning and sensual first narrative feature, DESERT HEARTS, was groundbreaking upon its release in 1985: a love story about two women, made entirely independently, on a shoestring budget, ...
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1:17:58Episode 24Mala Noche
Episode 24
Directed by Gus Van Sant • 1985 • United States
Starring Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate, Ray MongeWith its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant’s debut feature MALA NOCHE heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant’s hometown ...