The 10 Best LGBTQ Movies of the 21st Century | Pride

10. “The Handmaiden”

When South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook chose as source material the lesbian historical fiction novel “Fingersmith,” by Welsh author Sarah Waters, it seemed a little out of left field. But changing the setting from Victorian England to Japanese-occupied Korea was a brilliant move and one that infused this cold mystery about a con man and the two women he seduces into his plot with untold beauty. Chan-wook elevates the book’s tawdry elements to fetishistic extremes, churning out an erotic thriller every bit as gorgeous as it is sinister. Min-hee Kim is prim and alluring as Lady Hideko, never fully dropping the facade even as she falls for her spirited handmaiden, Sook-Hee (Tae-ri Kim), who is tasked with conning her out of her inheritance. As both women make do with the hand life has dealt them, they discover passion in the shared struggle.

9. “Tomboy

One of the few truly perfect films of the 21st Century, Céline Sciamma’s “Tomboy” is a succinct and unforgettable look at the purity and confusion of growing up. Crucially, it’s also one of the most forthright and empathetic movies we have about gender identity in the modern sense. Starring Zoé Héran as an androgynous-looking kid named Laure who’s given a blank slate on which to draw their own identity when their family moves to a new housing bloc, “Tomboy” needs only 82 minutes to offer a moving, organic, and remarkably humane narrative about the relationship between sex and gender, and also between gender and identity. Laure keeps their anatomy like a secret, but in doing so reveals volumes of truth regarding how little it matters. —DE

8. “Tropical Malady”

Like many of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films, “Tropical Malady” is split into two halves that don’t immediately quite resemble one another, until they do. In the first, Keng (Banlop Lomnoi) is a soldier, stationed in rural Thailand during a mysterious killing spree of cows, who meets and falls for Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee). They embark on a bucolic romance far removed from a society that prohibits their love affair. In the second, Keng’s character is reinvented as another soldier who loses his way in the woods, and becomes beguiled by the spirit of a tiger shaman, played by Kaewbuadee. The movie becomes two different ways of looking at the same relationship. It’s a maddening, luxuriously beautiful classic.

7. “God’s Own Country”

There is no “I can’t quit you” moment in writer-director Francis Lee’s expertly crafted cinematic debut, only the bleak but beautiful landscape of the Yorkshire countryside. Gorgeously shot and engaging from beginning to end, “God’s Own Country” is the kind of gay film more people should be making. The documentary-style farm scenes elevate it far beyond traditional gay dramas, and it doesn’t make the mistake of confusing tragedy with quality. It’s the story of a young man named Johnny (Josh O’Connor), who is stuck (in many ways) managing his family’s livelihood in the wake of his father’s stroke. To help with lambing season, the family hires a Romanian migrant worker named Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu). While Johnny is well-versed in soliciting random sex at livestock auctions, he isn’t prepared for the intensity of real human connection—much less Gheorghe’s puppy dog brown eyes. When the two head up the mountain to birth the lambs, things get muddy.

The country setting and restrained storytelling have led to inevitable “Brokeback Mountain” comparisons, but “God’s Own Country” has the benefit of two fresh faces in the leads to fully inhabit the roles with no prior associations, as well as the freedom to buck Hollywood tropes (including that pesky one where every gay romance must end in tragedy). What might have tread familiar ground instead knits a verité pastiche out of the rigors of farm life, artfully binding Johnny’s quiet drama with the drama of the landscape that entraps him.

6. “Weekend”

Andrew Haigh’s breakout feature takes a tried-and-true romantic trope — the unexpected romance, writ over the course of a limited period of time — and turns it into one of the genre’s most stirring examples of the power of love in its most literally immediate forms. Centered on the shiftless Russell (Tom Cullen) and the alluring Glen (Chris New), what first functions as a spur-of-the-moment one-night stand soon blossoms into a full-blown love affair. Taking place over the course of that eponymous weekend, Haigh and his stars cram the full force of a life-changing romance into just a few short days, and “Weekend’ manages the near-impossible: charting a full relationship in the minimum of time.But that doesn’t dilute the power of the relationship, and Haigh still finds time (after time after time) to pay attention to the small shifts, the so-called “little things” that add up to big emotion. Few on-screen couples have the kind of chemistry that Cullen and New display without any artifice, and the believability and naturalism of their bond pushes the film to an even higher level. While “Weekend” functions just beautifully as a love story, Haigh doesn’t shy away from exploring the elements that fuel a closer bond between the men, including their very different statuses when it comes to who is aware of their sexual identity (and how that may impact a future that may or may not be possible).

5. “Stranger by the Lake”

In French director Alain Guiraudie’s perfect sensual thriller, a lakeside cruising beach becomes a site of untold pleasures and lurking danger. Expertly crafted around this single compelling setting, the film begins and ends with cars arriving in the parking lot. As Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) begins a friendship with an older man, he observes a younger one with a dark side, and the two stumble into strangers amongst the trees. Lazy summer days stretch untethered, as Guiraudie infuses the glorious boredom of laying in the sun with an indelible tension.The film captures the erotic charge and potential danger of soliciting anonymous sex — an experience that, for the most part, is only available to gay men. The metaphor rankled some viewers for perpetuating the “gay sex equals death” trope, but “Stranger by the Lake” is far too good to deserve such criticism. If ever there were a case for ignoring the dos and don’ts of queer cinema, “Stranger by the Lake” is it. Giuraudie strikes a delicate balance as he breathes a languorous summer vibe into his concise erotic thriller. The movie gives the viewer that alluring feeling of witnessing something you’re not supposed to see. By drawing his audience into the dreamy European cruising scene, in all its sun-soaked gritty glory, Giuraudie makes the base voyeurism of all movie-watching into a divine narrative device.

4. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

Celine Sciamma’s luscious tour-de-force has only four characters, all women: A painter, her elusive subject, her mother, and their maid. The setting is a damp and nearly empty manor house on an island in Brittany, the part of France that bears the closest resemblance to England.

A British austerity permeates the film’s first act, all cold shoulders and sidelong glances between the women, but Sciamma delivers the French passion by the film’s fiery conclusion — and then some. While the romance is undoubtedly the heart of “Portrait,” Sciamma also seamlessly infuses the film with evidence of women’s limited options, or rather, the endlessly creative ways they learned to skirt the rules. Shut out by a home country that stubbornly refuses to honor its great women filmmakers, the film itself stands ablaze in defiance of — and in glaring contradiction to — the dominance of men. Burn it all down.

3. “Brokeback Mountain

Sixteen years later and we still haven’t quit “Brokeback Mountain.” And while Heath Ledger’s untimely passing has made watching Ang Lee’s adaptation of the short story by Annie Proulx especially tragic, the movie is plenty sad on its own. “Brokeback Mountain” helped cement not only Ledger but also Jake Gyllenhaal (who likewise received an Oscar nod), Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway as dramatic actors in their own right, and we’ll continue reaping the benefits for a long time to come. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, so too does the knowledge that you aren’t allowed to have that which you most desire and that pursuing it could be the end of you — there’s a reason that so many of the best romances have unhappy endings.

2. “Carol”

Whenever Todd Haynes’ unspeakably beautiful Patricia Highsmith adaptation comes to mind, it brings some of the novel’s last words along with it: “It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and hell.” In that light, a spot on a list of the decade’s best films hardly seems like much of a reach.

Brought to life by the careful genius of Phyllis Nagy’s script, the supple glow of Ed Lachmann’s 16mm cinematography, and two of the most extraordinary performances ever committed to celluloid (which isn’t to sweep old Harge under the rug where he belongs), Haynes’ Carol is more than just a bone-deep melodrama about a mutual infatuation during a repressive time. It’s more than a vessel for Carter Burwell’s swooning career-best score, or Sandy Powell’s seductive costumes, or the rare queer romance that gave its characters a happy ending — an ending that resonates through Cate Blanchett’s coy smile with the blunt force of every impossible dream Carol Aird has ever had for herself. It’s more than just an immaculate response to decades of “if only” dramas like David Lean’s “Brief Encounter,” or a heartstopping series of small gestures that build into the single most cathartic last shot of the 21st century. It’s all of those things (and more!), but most of all it’s an indivisibly pure distillation of what it feels like to fall in love alone and land somewhere together.

1. “Moonlight”

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of “Moonlight” — as a cinematic masterpiece, as inspiration to independent filmmakers like Barry Jenkins, but primarily for black gay men — who deserve so many more examples of profound art that mirrors their experience. (For now, the best queer film of the 21st century will have to do). “Moonlight” was about so much more than representation, but it landed like a shot of adrenaline into the awards season release schedule because there are far too many stories we’ve heard a million times and far too many left woefully unexplored. Adapted from a short play by Tarrell Alvin McRaney, “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” Jenkins’ triptych film explores a young black boy’s identity at three crucial stages.Jenkins has said he wasn’t interested in making a film about his Miami childhood, but McCraney’s play allowed him to tell the story at an emotional distance through the lens of queerness. “Moonlight” is emotionally wrought, finely tuned, and beautifully executed. Perhaps its biggest triumph is the extent to which Jenkins was able to poignantly render a queer story by placing himself inside another’s experience. With any luck, more filmmakers of all stripes can emulate this success story, and “Moonlight” portends good things for the future of queer cinema.