The 15 Best LGBTQ+ Movies to Stream on Netflix

Enjoying queer movies is not a simple task. It takes work. A lot of work. As in, we should probably be paid financial compensation for the amount of time it takes to find a good LGBTQ+ film on Netflix that isn’t exploitative, needlessly tragic, or campy in a bad kind of way.

Wading through the endless sea of cringe-worthy fare like Q-Force, AJ and the Queen, and Jenny’s Wedding (my apologies to the fans) can be disheartening for even the most seasoned gay binge-watcher. But don’t tap out! Keep your Netflix subscription (or just don’t delete your ex’s password off your TV yet) and feed the famished queer media maven inside.

We got our hands dirty and mined the depths of the premier streaming behemoth to uncover a breadth of fresh, interesting and woefully overlooked queer films you need to add to your watch list, like, yesterday. — Sadie Collins

Click here to jump to a section: Coming of Age, Documentary, Slice of Life, Romance, Thriller and Horror.

Alice Wu, you’ve done it again. The Half of It initially got lost amid all the shrapnel of the teen rom-com melee between Kissing Booth, Sierra Burgess is a Loser, and the To All the Boys series. In contrast to those broader films, Wu’s film is quiet, and ruminative, and doesn’t have all the answers. For a young queer person unsure of themselves, it’s the perfect watch.

Leah Lewis stars as Ellie Chu, a shy, smart Chinese-American teen fighting through high school in a small Pacific Northwest town. When she finds herself writing letters to her crush while pretending to be her himbo friend Paul (Daniel Diemer), a Cyrano-esque tale unfolds that forces her out of her shell and into an uncertain, and potentially very sapphic, future. — Sadie Collins

Sometimes a good story can simply be about a drag queen boxer, his boyfriend, and his clearly bisexual twin sister stuck in rural Alaska.

Leo (Martin L. Washington Jr.) is an aspiring drag queen who moonlights as a boxer while working at a fishing cannery. Which, if anyone can make that situation glamorous, it would be a gay person. Leo dreams of leaving his claustrophobic hometown behind and going to L.A., but familial duties, fear, and the weight of the past hold him back. Though understated and at times a bit elementary, Alaska is a Drag is such a fascinating story, with Martin L. Washington Jr. shining as the lead, that you can’t help but fall in love with it, fish guts and all. — Sadie Collins

Okay, I’ll admit it: I don’t know much about Belgian pop stars. So when I clicked “play” on this documentary about Angèle, a mononymous singer who broke out in 2017 with the single “La Loi de Murphy,” I wasn’t prepared for how understated, fascinating, and intimate it would be.

There are some interesting discussions to be had surrounding Angèle’s privilege, but that’s also part of what makes the film fascinating. She’s one of the most popular artists in France and Belgium, and yet, this documentary about her life feels like a therapy session — in a good way. It’s filled with clips of her reading tough sections of her journal, scanning scraps of old diaries on our screens, and taking us through the rocky road of coming out, being outed, and living queer while also being Britney Spears deux point zéro. — Sadie Collins

This essential documentary unpacks the complicated history of trans representation in media, from the early days of silent films all the way up to contemporary trans narratives in works like Orange is the New Black and Pose. Featuring interviews with trans actors, filmmakers, and activists like Laverne Cox, Jen Richards, Lilly Wachowski, and Chaz Bono, Disclosure provides a comprehensive guide to how trans media representation has evolved in just over century — and how far Hollywood still has to go. — Abby Monteil

Get lured in by Alaska Thunderfuck on the thumbnail, and stay for the whirlwind story of a religious Jewish couple who operated Circus of Books, a gay bookstore and porn distributor in Los Angeles, for over 30 years. (And yes, Ms. Thunderfuck worked there.) Through the lens of one of the biggest cruising spots in Los Angeles, Circus of Books builds an untold, interesting story about the city in the ’80s and ’90s, while also charting the ways in which queer people have thrived and blossomed in the corners of urban life. — Sadie Collins

Don’t let this film’s rom-com-esque title fool you; Dear Ex is an incredibly poignant and offbeat Taiwanese family drama involving a grieving widow, a gay lover, and a preteen son all dealing with the fallout of a loss that has impacted each of them differently.

Cheng-xi (Joseph Huang) is a 13-year-old boy caught in the middle of a feud between his mother San-lian (Hsieh Ying-xuan) and his late father’s lover Jay (Roy Chiu), who is his surprise insurance benefactor. There are many reasons to love this film, including the excellent performances and cinematography by Jhih Peng LinTK, but the most resonant is its nuanced depiction of modern familial struggles. San-lian and Jay start out at each other’s throats, mirroring the much-more apt Chinese title of the film, Who Fell In Love With Him First? But as the plot unfolds, Cheng-xi moves to the center, as the last meaningful thing left behind by the man they both loved. — Sadie Collins

Stories that center LGBTQ+ characters are relatively new in Bollywood, and the clever, twisty Badhaai Do sets an excellent early example. As the film begins, a gay man named Shardul (Rajkummar Rao) and a lesbian named Sumi (Bhumi Pednekar) decide to enter into a lavender marriage to please their families. However, things get a lot more complicated when Sumi’s girlfriend Rimjhim (Chum Darang) shows up unexpectedly. Apart from infusing the film with plenty of screwball-esque comedy, director Harshavardhan Kulkarni gives the characters plenty of room to challenge each other’s perceptions of what it means to be queer in present-day India, and the movie is all the better for it. — Abby Monteil

The nuances of Lingua Franca are as rare as Isabel Sandoval. Serving as writer, director and producer, she crafted an astonishingly honest and gorgeous film that draws upon her own experiences to give us something wholly original and breathily raw.

Sandoval stars as Olivia, an undocumented Filipina transgender woman who falls in love with Alex (Eamon Farren), the grandson of the elderly woman she cares for. Olivia is an undocumented citizen in Brooklyn, living under the constant fear of deportation, which leaves her searching for safety and for any feeling of home, even when it feels impossible. When Olivia meets Alex, they find kindred spirits in each other – with limits.

Lingua Franca has more heart in one minute of screen time than the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s entire filmography, with Sandoval’s entire soul written into the script. It’s a gorgeous watch. – Sadie Collins

Dyke drama and gay yearning have been around since basically the beginning of time, a truth that is wonderfully captured in Summerland. The film unfolds in the English countryside during World War II, as reclusive writer Alice (Gemma Arterton) reluctantly takes in a young boy evacuated from the London Blitz… only to discover that he’s actually her ex-girlfriend Vera’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) son, and she has purposefully arranged for him to live with her old flame. As any sapphic knows, the line between being exes, friends, and lovers is complicated, and watching Alice and Vera slowly reconnect and form a family with Vera’s son Frank (Lucas Bond) makes for a refreshingly modern, hopeful queer period drama. — Abby Monteil

Never underestimate the two most powerful Rachels in Hollywood, dear reader. If you do, you might miss out on this heartwrechingly tender exploration of religious queerness.

Disobedience follows ex-Orthodox Jewish photographer Ronit (Rachel Weisz) as she re-enters the London-based community she left behind. Though she’s initially in town to pay respects at the funeral of her estranged father, Rav, Ronit finds herself reconnecting with childhood friends Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) and Esti (Rachel McAdams), who have married in Ronit’s absence. Once she returns, all three of them are forced to face the beast of the past, with Ronit and Esti’s long-dormant relationship serving as the film’s beating heart. — Sadie Collins

With The Power of the Dog, legendary director Jane Campion masterfully explores repressed queerness and the masculine ego through a mythic, mesmerizing Western. Set in 1920s Montana, the film centers on brutish, closeted cowboy Frank (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose volatility is challenged when he forms an unexpected connection with his brother George’s (Jesse Plemons) beguiling young stepson Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Based on Thomas Savage’s novel of the same name, Campion avoids falling into lazy tropes about “gay homophobes,” instead capturing the complex shades of vulnerability and hostility between the two. In doing so, she challenges the boundaries of what prestige LGBTQ+ cinema and neo-Westerns can accomplish. — Abby Monteil

Finally, a superhero group that puts a Sapphic immortal in charge. This movie swept through the Netflix Top 10 list in 2020, disguised as a brotastic thriller despite being an extremely thoughtful, queer rumination on found family.

Andy (Charlize Theron) heads a ragtag team of undying warriors who protect humanity, even when we don’t deserve it. Not only does The Old Guard have an incredibly sweet and magnetic on-screen depiction of gay love between two of its leads, Nicky (​​Luca Marinelli) and Joe (Marwan Kenzari), the film itself is a refreshing metaphor for all that queer people have given society from the sidelines, even, again, when it doesn’t deserve it. — Sadie Collins

Do you love Gone Girl but wish you could watch Rosamund Pike (and her razor-sharp bob) eat up the screen as a queer character? Then I Care A Lot is the film for you. Pike stars in the film as Marla Grayson, a crooked legal guardian who swindles big bucks from her elderly clients alongside her girlfriend, Fran (Eiza González). But when things go sideways after her latest mark reveals an unexpected connection with the mafia, the duo’s grift turns into a bonkers crime caper. — Abby Monteil

A history lesson: In 1980s Poland, the government instituted a secret taskforce to log and track all non-straight Polish citizens. It was known internally as Operation Hyacinth. This Polish film by the same name nestles itself right in the midst of that fraught queer history, following undercover officer Robert Mrozowski (Tomasz Ziętek) as he seeks information about others while hiding his own truth from everyone else. Equal turns bittersweet, chilling and engrossing, this is the perfect flick to watch if you need more stress in your life. — Sadie Collins

As a rom-com fanatic, horror doesn’t really do it for me. Despite that, I was riveted by the sapphic love story that bookends the Fear Street slasher trilogy.

There’s an evil force residing in Shadyside and its wealthier sister city Sunnyvale, and our protagonists have to solve the supernatural mystery before more people are, well, slashed. Fear Street Part One: 1994 is the first installment of the series, and it introduces our hero Deena (Kiana Madeira), as well as her forbidden love interest Samantha (Olivia Scott Welch). However, I prefer the culminations of things, both story-wise and romance-wise, which is why the final movie is my official recommendation.

If you love horror, ’90s aesthetics, and overt gayness, then the Fear Street series is your match made in heaven! Or, in this case, hell. – Sadie Collins

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