What makes a movie queer? Enhance your mind, and the answers grow more expansive. Does it mean the characters on screen like to taste the rainbow, or consider themselves part of the LGBTQ+ family? Sure. Could it also boil down, like so much of life does, to vibes? Particularly when you’re partaking in a bit of THC TLC, the answer is absolutely yes. Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams elaborately enjoying red lollipops embossed with the word “Dick”? That’s gay rights!
Of course, movies that are overtly queer can become even more so when you’re viewing them from a higher plane. What is a bromance but an expression of same-sex love? Is taking a “hoe trip” with someone you just met all that different than U-Hauling? We think not, especially when we are maybe squinting a little bit. Claiming and reclaiming culture as queer is our right, even when we do it from deep inside the folds of our sofa cushions. Here, for your hazy enjoyment, are seven movies that only become more queer the higher you get.
This trippy tribute to David Bowie is billed as “a cinematic experience,” which is code for “pairs nicely with a fat blunt.” Not that you need to be high for Moonage Daydream to make you feel like you’re riding a rocket to Mars dripping in fuchsia eyeshadow and white leather. Director Brett Morgen’s visionary documentary assembles footage of the queer iconoclast doing what he did best, wowing fans who are hungry for a more expansive vision of how the world could be. Bowie’s lesser known foray into expressionist-style oil painting, while living in West Berlin, is especially worth appreciating from an elevated state.
Once upon a time, two heart-eyed teens (Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst) tamed White House security with weed cookies, ended the Vietnam War, and made a prank call that brought down the most powerful man in the world. Director Andrew Flemming’s revisionist history of the Watergate scandal and the anonymous informant Deep Throat imagines if President Richard “Dick” Nixon (Dan Hedaya) were exposed as a crook by roller-skating high schoolers. It’s an utter gem of a cannabis-driven teen flick — and newly resonant in a decade of impeachments, indictments, and porn star hush money. Any movie with this many “dick” puns and Kirsten Dunst is honorary gay canon.
“I’m your best friend and I want to go on this gay journey with you” is something that Nicholas Braun, aka Succession’s Cousin Greg, says in this overlooked teen sex comedy written by Master of None showrunner Alan Yang. The premise is a classic one — high school BFFs try to lose their virginity before graduation — but this gay spin is unexpectedly silly and sweet. After Matty (Hunter Cope) comes out, his best bro Michael (Braun) does his homework to be supportive, surfing gay porn online and accompanying Matty to a bubble-filled dance club. Their bromance peaks at prom, when they share a tray of pot brownies covered in frosting dicks. Did we mention there’s a Dakota Johnson love triangle involved?
You love him as one half of the Disgusting Brothers, but did you know that Cousin Greg is a queer movie icon? Braun plays to type in this chaotic-good caper based on the viral Twitter thread written by A’Ziah “Zola” Wells King. The instant (and ultimately toxic) sapphic vibes between Zola (Taylour Paige) and Stefani (Riley Keough) hit like a bong rip from the start. After meeting at a diner, they roadtrip to Florida for purposes best expressed by Stefani when she coos, “Money, titties, money, titties,” while snapping selfies with Zola in a strip club dressing room. Directed by Janicza Bravo and co-written by Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris, the movie also features beacons of queer excellence Colman Domingo and Ts Madison.
With Kal Penn’s momentous coming out last year, this early aughts stoner classic assumed fresh resonance. John Cho’s Harold and Penn’s Kumar are literally ride-or-die, surviving several near-death antics on a blazing quest to quench their munchies with steam-cooked beef. Their bromance has always been one for the books, especially given their defiance of hypermasculine norms and stereotypes that feminize Asian men. As if that weren’t queer enough, recall Neil Patrick Harris’ now-ironic turn as a douche-bag womanizer, a role that led the openly gay actor to play a very straight man on nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother. A joint may help to wrap your mind around that one.
What is it about the wild goose chase that makes it an ideal narrative to blaze to? Tangerine is perfect at any time and under any circumstances, but the adventures of Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor) are especially delightful when paired with a puff. Maybe because the chill of it balances out Sin-Dee’s complete lack of chill as she turns Los Angeles upside down in search of her cheating boyfriend and pimp Chester (James Ronsone). Director Sean Baker’s famously iPhone-shot film is both a riotous rollercoaster and a rare instance of unflinching, unglossed storytelling about trans women and sex work. We’ll take any excuse to revisit these friends and their fierce commitment to each other — and to the truth.
While technically a Christmas movie, this substance-fueled sleigh ride through the raver scene in ‘90s Los Angeles pairs well with Mary Jane at any time of year. Want to see teen heartthrobs Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr play soap opera studs who are also secret boyfriends? How about Oscar winner Sarah Polley scamming a skeezy but sexy drug dealer played by Timothy Olyphant? Or Katie Holmes serving stick-in-the-mud realness? Be sure to catch the blink-and-you’ll-miss-her cameo by an unknown Melissa McCarthy, and Taye Diggs looking especially fine as a much-needed voice of reason. Well… what are you waiting for? Go.
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