Well, we’ve all been there. Romantic night, popcorn in hand, hot date snuggled up to you on your sofa. You’ve just hit Netflix or the DVD store for some hot new queer cinematic masterpiece you’ve heard is adored by critics.
You know the one. It’s from that fancy French director who won every award going in Cannes, and who thanked his muse, a 90-year-old model who quotes Voltaire when asked for her drinks order.
So you hit ‘play’.
By about the seventieth minute, you really, really regret that you didn’t read the queer press reviews on this pile of noxious noir as well as the mainstream ones. Because, oh look, another dead lesbian, killer dyke, or psychotic gay. They’re beautifully ruining your evening in a river of blood, poetic wails, teary eulogies, and arty music, complete with billowing silk curtains.
Well, you’ve probably already had it up to your hind teeth with the “bury your gays” trope, after surviving all those beautiful dead lesbians on Buffy, The 100, Pretty Little Liars, Last Tango in Halifax, The L Word, Wentworth, and beyond. You’re also likely just as exhausted from all those campaigns and blogs explaining why they have got to stop doing this over and over to our protagonists, not that most of Hollywood seems to even get a clue.
What you do know, when you glance at your hot date, whose adorable nose is now running and affixed to a tissue, and whose eyes are red and big and sad, is that you’ll be getting no nookie tonight. And it’s that awful movie’s fault.
Well, fear not lovers of beautiful, lesbilicious, still-alive-at-the-end queer cinema (you see how low that bar is set?).
In honor of February being romance month at Ylva Publishing, I have dug through the vaults to list – in no particular order – my favorite top-ten films where all lesbians are both sane and have pulses by the time the end credits roll.
Feel free to drop any of your own favorites not listed here in a comment at the end.
BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE (1999) Comedy/drama romance
Official blurb: Two attractive young lesbians meet in Vancouver, develop a passionate romance, and move in together. Meanwhile, one woman’s well-meaning but naive mother gets divorced and decides to join the household.
Lee’s gay blurb: A lesbian’s fab sex life with her new girl gets a crimp when her mother moves in. Awkward.
Why watch: Remember those earnest lesbian flicks where you wait an hour before the first kiss and another hour before there’s a furtive clothing fumble? This isn’t one of those. There’s joyful, wonderful, affirming sex in the opening of this Christina Cox star vehicle, some relatable dealing-with-mom issues in the middle, and a few friend side stories that are terrific. Contains less navel gazing and more fun than most queer flicks. Refreshing.
Bonus points: The two second bananas are tied as MVPs. Transgender friend Judy’s character evolution is powerful and honest. And neurotic, stern LGBT book store owner, Frances, is simply hilarious.
Watch with: All your friends. Play a drinking game every time an enraged Frances complains about Customs seizing her queer books.
DESERT HEARTS (1985) Drama romance
Official blurb: A woman on the precipice of divorce becomes drawn to a ranch owner’s daughter.
Lee’s gay blurb: An uptight, always-in-control professor waiting out her divorce in Reno in 1959 is seduced by a sexy casino worker.
Why watch: The ice queen melteth …. plus skirt suits. This is one of the most seminal lesbian films in existence, with a blazing hot sex scene to match the dusty desert backdrop. There are fears, fights, and fabulous, fabulous chemistry between its smoking age-gap leads. A happy ending for lesbians, even in 1985, was rarer than gold dust. THE classic lesflick.
Bonus points: A jaded Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar from Star Trek: Next Generation) among the womenfolk, in one of her first roles.
Watch with: Your soulmate and the phone off the hook.
IMAGINE ME AND YOU (2005) Comedy/drama romance
Official blurb: A newlywed bride becomes infatuated with another woman, who questions her sexual orientation, promoting a stir among the bride’s family and friends.
Lee’s gay blurb: Girl meets boy, girl marries boy, girl runs off with the wedding florist.
Why watch: On paper this sounds trite, dreadful, and a remorseless cheaters’ playground. On screen it’s surprisingly delightful, helped by Lena Headey in her most laid-back, likable role as the florist who catches the eye of girl-next-door, Piper Perabo. Piper’s character, Rachel, has “settled”, marrying her best friend and deciding maybe this is just how love is. That’s until the proverbial queer toaster oven lands on her head and Rachel finally grasps why she never felt any hetero butterflies. The marriage side is handled with great sensitivity. We feel the nice-guy husband’s pain, too, amid Rachel’s guilt, conflict, and growing love. Contains a liberal dusting of humor, too.
Bonus points: Anthony Head (Giles in Buffy) having a comic cameo or two as Rachel’s drunk father. And No. 9 being a wanker. You’ll hear that in your head for months.
Watch with: Your parental units. They’ll come away understanding why that high school boyfriend never clicked with you and why you and your housemate seem so very close.
D.E.B.S. (2004) Action comedy
Official blurb: Plaid-skirted schoolgirls are groomed by a secret government agency to become the newest members of the elite national-defense group, D.E.B.S.
Lee’s gay blurb: Sexy lesbian supervillain falls for sweet secret agent and stages a kidnapping that is more fun for the willing “victim” than her friends searching for her.
Why watch: This gloriously funny and silly spoof will either be a big hit or a wide miss for viewers. Most of the critics fixated on the girls’ tiny miniskirts and big guns, and didn’t seem to grasp it was all a huge send up of the spy genre, complete with a bad-girl with an atrocious Russian accent. This is PG-rated, parent friendly, with great rewatchability for young and old.
Bonus points: Holland Taylor’s cameo. She should be mandatory in every gay film.
Watch with: Popcorn and your bestest BFFs.
SAVING FACE (2004) Comedy/drama romance
Official blurb: A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.
Lee’s gay blurb: A sweet Asian lesbian romance about a cute doctor, the dancer she wants to date, and cultural expectations.
Why watch: The feel-good factor is through the roof on this one. What’s excellent is the family issues aren’t glossed over but are picked through, dealt with, and then accepted. What makes it even better is having a humorous acting tour de force in the form of veteran actress Joan Chen, who plays an eccentric, unwed pregnant mother.
Bonus points: Cultural diversity. Plus Joan Chen. We’re not worthy.
Watch with: Any romance lover, straight or gay, plus gooey-centred chocolates.
BOUND (1996) Crime/thriller romance
Official blurb: Corky, a tough female ex con and her lover, Violet, concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet’s crooked boyfriend Caesar.
Lee’s gay blurb: Sexy grrl lovers decide to steal from a mobster, who also happens to be the boyfriend of one of the women. He may have a slight problem with that.
Why watch: This Wachowski siblings’ mainstream-marketed flick is slick, sexy, with great pace and tension that keeps ratcheting up. The building seduction scenes between Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon are a master class in how to steam up screens. The film comes with a gross-out warning due to torture, but it’s nothing the fast-forward button can’t fix. In sum: a ripper thriller.
Bonus points: Despite being a mob story, the women aren’t bumped off, nor are they disposable or dispensable to the plot.
Watch with: Your thriller-loving lesbi-leaning friends. (Avoid serving meat or any finger-shaped food. For reasons.)
BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER (1999) Comedy/drama romance
Official blurb: A naive teenager is sent to rehab camp when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being a lesbian.
Lee’s gay blurb: Lesbians in conversion therapy mock the hell out of it and figure out love, life, and themselves.
Why watch: I know, I know, fun and hijinks involving conversion therapy? Well, this is heavily in satire/surrealism territory so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Plus the cast is incredible, including Clea Duvall and Michelle Williams. Besides, if anything deserves a mockery, it’s this invidious topic. Straight critics generally panned the movie as it made many uncomfortable. So an added tick for that.
Bonus points: Brave topic, and a fine line in getting it right.
Watch with: A few friends, funky cocktails, and a good mood.
CAROL (2015) Drama romance
Official blurb: An aspiring photographer develops an intimate relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York.
Lee’s gay blurb: Repressed 1950s lesbian seduces a shop girl amidst a Vogue catalogue back drop.
Why watch: This is an ethereal film, high art, containing longing, secret gazes, dropped gloves, green palettes, and ultra-cool lesbians. It’s Important Cinema™. I find it a little too removed, personally, given I like my ice queens to melt a lot more than Cate Blanchett’s character does while road-tripping with Rooney Mara. But what is valuable about Carol is it is based on The Price of Salt, a classic Patricia Highsmith book from 1952 that broke the mould by giving lesbians a happy ending. Now that’s definitely worth the price of admission. Well, that and Cate Blanchett’s stunning cheek bones.
Bonus points: Cate snogging Rooney with gay abandon. Obviously.
Watch with: Arty gay boys with vicious tongues and dry martinis.
LOVING ANNABELLE (2006) Drama romance
Official blurb: Annabelle is the wise-beyond-her-years newcomer to an exclusive Catholic girls’ school. Sparks fly between her and her teacher, Simone.
Lee’s gay blurb: Lesbian student pursues her repressed hot teacher at Catholic high school and it ends about as well as you’d expect.
Why watch: This movie falls in the category of liking a thing even though you know you probably shouldn’t. In that sense this is so bad. But still. Sigh. The thing is… teach is hot. Her student, Annabelle, looks and acts much older than she is. And she’s the pursuer in this romantic tryst or it’d be a creepy, predatory power play like Bloomington (don’t start me). The sex scene here is lovely. The chemistry is great. And if you like naughty, out-of-bounds stories, this is probably the best of them. Also… it’s so bad.
Bonus points: Ilene Graff as the stern (possibly closeted) Mother Immaculata does a phenomenal job at ramping up the stakes.
Watch with: Lots of red wine and a lapsed Catholic. They give the best running commentaries.
THE WELL (1997) Drama/thriller
Official blurb: An accident creates guilt, fear, and suspicion that tear at the relationship between two Australian women.
Lee’s gay blurb: A lonely older woman is attracted to her vibrant maid and does everything she can to make her want to stay at her isolated farming property.
Why watch: Okay, it’s cheating to call this a gay film, but it so deserves to be seen. Beneath this arty Australian movie lies an aching, beautiful tale of unrequited lady love. While it’s marketed to the mainstream, nothing that happens in this tense, award-winning thriller could occur if not for virginal, late-forty-something Hester falling for her spirited young maid. Hester (a young Pamela Rabe of Wentworth fame) will do almost anything to keep her maid (Miranda Otto) at her side – and the eccentric young woman seems only too aware of her own sexual power. The film has a gripping, taut plot involving a stranger, and is set on an isolated rural farm. Brilliant and evocative, it’s the sort of film you’ll think about for years.
Bonus points: The color palette, in blues and greys, is so evocative. Arts student porn. All the awards.
Watch with: Your angst-loving friends, straight and gay, who appreciate it when drama midi-chlorians are set to high. Bring chocolate in bulk.
Lee Winter is an award-winning veteran newspaper journalist who has covered courts, crime, news, features and humor writing. Now a full-time author and part-time editor, Lee is also a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist and a double Golden Crown Literary Award winner. She has just published The Brutal Truth with Ylva.
Copyright picture above: pexels.com/Expect Best
Ylva has declared February 2018 our month of firsts in romances – in celebration of the fact we never forget our first time! Get in on our sweet, sizzling romances sale by clicking here: www.dev.ylva-publishing.com/current-deals
Loving Annabelle yasssssssssssssss that dynamic is soooo bad but omg sooo very good! Bad KD…BAD. Groans…
Imagine You and Me… just le sigh
Carol? God the longing made me ache and that smile at the end…best thing ever.
Also I can’t believe you mentioned Bloomington…jesus what a shit show, a very creepy shit show.
I did mention Bloomington to pan it though. 🙂 Creepiest lesfic film I’ve seen set in a learning environment, and I include Cracks in that list.
Fucking Amal (or: Show me love, it depends where you live) is missing. Great movie with some drama and heartache in the middle but in the end a happy-ending – and a really cool soundtrack!
Yeah, the fact that the former child actress character in Bloomington was made to look so young made it uncomfortable viewing at times.
“Lots of red wine and a lapsed Catholic. They give the best running commentaries.” LOL 😀
I’m glad that those of us with Catholic upbringings have finally been recognized as experts! In Chocolat, for example Pere Henri is not at all believable, while I was taught by Irish versions of Sister Aloysius from Doubt. (Fucking terrifying)
While I like the film I must confess that the line, “you’re a wanker number nine” always grated on my nerves; no one says that. On my experience soccer fans like their insults to be much more personal.
Oh yes, lapsed Catholics are THE best lesbian movie night partners!
Yes! Fourteen years of religious education have not gone to waste. I must screenshot or bookmark this page so that the next time our school trustees decide we need an ‘Ethos Audit’ (a real thing) I can bring this up as an element of how I bring the Spiritian message into my teaching 😉
“Signature Move”, which I saw over the summer is my new favourite lesbian film. No death and a hilarious, curtain-twitching, matchmaking obsessed mother.
Too funny. And Signature Move sounds good… haven’t seen that one yet.
Excellent list Lee! I’ve to agree on creepy Bloomington, wish the child actress in that show look a lot less than a kid but it definitely felt predatory (university gathering scene of freshmen and professors.
Yes that mixer scene at the start felt like a deer hunt! Shudder
I really wish there’d be more… like, lots.
oh- and my favorite is missing! “I can’t think straight” – head2head w “Saving Face” – love them 🙂
thanks!
I Can’t Think Straight so very nearly made the list. Just missed out.
One of my favourite is sadly not on the list, Kiss Me. (Aka With Every Heartbeat). It’s a beautiful Swedish movie. Great acting, good story, beautifully filmed and HEA, with no deaths. There is infidelity, but …….just watch it. Heads up it has subtitles and two actresses you are going to love.
Elena Undone is a movie I can re-watch easily. A bit of a sleeper movie called Love On the Side with Jennifer Tilly, is always good also. Red Doors is set around America’s Thanksgiving and worth a look. Wonderful list, thanks Lee, especially glad to see The Well included along with some of my all time favourites. My Mother Likes Women is also worth a mention.
Great list! But it’s a little depressing they are all so old (i.e. from my misspent youth!). Wishing the contemporary film industry would learn from the success of Carol and step up – but I won’t hold my breath….
I loved “Saving Face.” A humorous and true-to-life/down-to-earth depiction of a lesbian romance between two WOC (two Asian women! I mean, to borrow the venacular of a relative: “Girl, where they do that at?” = you’ve never seen that on film before, which makes the rep in this movie top-notch); two parallel coming of age stories for a late 20s professional and her 40+ pregnant, umarried mother; the coolest love interest character in the lesbian dancer who always manages to drop ‘100% truth & knowledge’ on folks without being annoying or preachy; wonderful, funny and heartfelt depiction of mother-daughter relationships and of all sorts of friendship dynamics (especially the one between the lesbian doctor and her African-American male friend that has all the suppa-friend feels and none of the tokenism); wonderful and heartfelt and frustrating and affirming depiction of dating someone who is lovely and shy and beautiful and sucessful and sweet but who also needs to get their “ish” toegether when it comes to showing how much they are into you; showed gender, race and age politics that exist in POC communities, including depictions of prejudices that exist as POC vs POC and not just mainstream society vs POC so people can think about discrimination/racism/sexism in all its forms; nice rep in supporting characters from different races and ethnicities and sexual orientations and ages; AND hands-down one of the best reactions to a character (the doctor)–who is totally gunshy about PDA and super relunctant to allow people to know about her sex/romantic life–finding out her love interest (the dancer) does indeed discuss their relationship with someone else (the dancer’s mother) that goes a little something like this:
Doctor: Oh, my G-d. You talked to your mother about us?
Dancer: Yeah. So?
Doctor: So, does she know we have sex?
Dancer: [sighs] No, Wil. She thinks we conjugate Latin verbs.
Doctor: Really?
Just. About. Adore. This. Movie. To. Pieces. For. That. Exchange. Alone.
Also enjoyed “Bound.” Because, yeah, Jennifer Tilly has a voice that just… does… things, and I enjoyed the fact that central to the film’s heist plot is two women being with each other AND their individual sexualities is a given to themselves–it’s more about the tension between their personalities and how they express getting what they both want from the heist and from each other–so that, ultimately, it’s more about finding out if Gina Gershon’s character and Jennifer Tilly’s character really are the way Jennifer Tilly’s character asserts they are: that they are the same (with a huge caveat she points out as her character being a lot smarter than Gina Gershon’s when it comes to reading people, reading situations and living life whereas Gina’s thinks they are different because Jennifer Tully’s character sleeps with men as part of her work and therefore, in her eyes, can’t possibly be a ‘real’ lesbian). It’s about different forms of trust (in their attraction, skills, smarts, desires, in their positions within the con) being tested with the ultimate reward if they succeed (a stronger relationship & money to start a new life together far from the violent crowd) and the most terrible punishment if they fail (death at the hands of the mob). Tight plotting, tight story, steamy discussions that are highlighted during steamy sexual encounters, tight characterizations of all characters, and superb acting across the board.
I’d add the Canadian-Indian film “Fire” by female director, Deepa Mehta (this movie is the first of a trilogy, but the other two movies in the trilogy, “Earth” and “Water,” while good, are not lesbian movies but are about women, one set during the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan and the other is about the treatment of widows in India, so the entire trilogy is deep and controversial and relevant). It’s a deep, lyrical film about a forbidden lesbian romance between married sister-in-laws that stars one of India’s best actresses of its mainstream (Bollywood) and parallel (art house) cinemas, Shabana Azmi, and the equally good actress, Nandita Das. It’s a May-December romance that explores how familial and societal structures oppress people whether it be by gender, religion, race, sexuality, age or nationality. One of the two Indian women in the romance is newly married via an arranged marriage to the younger of two brothers who is in love with a Chinese woman (whose family came to India to escape communist China, so being discriminated against as a POC in a non-Caucasian society while also harboring prejudices against that non-Caucasian society as a POC is explored) and who ignores her until he needs something. The other woman in the romance, whose husband is the eldest brother, faces a husband who has turned completely to a small religion where its leader states that sex is only for procreation, and since she is barren, he has not slept with her in something like 12 years. The younger woman is more of a “firecracker” who doesn’t readily accept her lot in the marriage. She does fun things like listen to rock-n-roll and asserts herself with her jerk husband; her fiery nature affects the other woman so much their association grows from tentative friendship into romantic love. There are heavy situations in the movie, several trigger warnings including one for abuse, though there is HEA and it affirms true love and personal agency.
I also second the plug for the Swedish film “Kiss Me.” But, yeah, that warning for cheating: one of the two women has a fiance and the other a girlfriend AND one of them will soon become the other’s stepsister. A lot of tangled webs woven here, folks. It’s based on the life of one of the people involved in the film who is a producer/writer/supporting co-star. The movie does address how awful that situation is and how the women need to get their “ish” together, but it really has a current of lyricism that runs through the film in how it’s filmed and the music it uses during romantic scenes and in the actresses’ acting.
I also second the plug for the Spanish film “My Mother Likes Women/A Mi Madre Le Gustan Las Mujeres.” It’s funny with a huge May-December age gap romance between pianists where there is also a slight language barrier; the three daughters all process their mother’s lesbian relationship in different ways and have a host of issues of their own; one of the daughters, played by the lovely Leanor Watling, is all flavors of hot mess on a platter; the three daughters go the idiot route of trying to end their mother’s relationship by scheming to fake-seduce their mother’s younger female lover. Yeah, it’s a Jerry Springer kray-kray fest, but the lesbian romance is endearing and the daughters, well, their personal issues make their mother shake her head (and, yeah, also upset and sad) but she also does not give up on them (which makes you, the audience, want to make the daughters do chores until they get their “ish” together and support their mom).
All that said, I’m looking forward to the following upcoming lesbian/bi women movies: “Becks” with Lena Hall, Mena Suvari, and Hayley Kiyoko and “Disobedience” with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams. Both seem as if they’ll be very good films where the lesbians don’t die.
Just wanted to further clarify that “Fire” by critically acclaimed director Deepa Mehta is hard to watch due to how it covers the various subject matters it explores that are not the love story between the two women. It’s an Issues film, so it depicts oppression and adversity unflinchingly. I am not Southeast Asian, so I can’t attest to Fire’s representation of life in India; however, the director is of Indian descent. Fire is not a romance in the ilk of the movies mentioned in Lee Winter’s list, but does have a lesbian love story at the core. The other two films in the trilogy are not lesbian films, are not romances, and are not love stories and they deal with violence against girls, women, the elderly, and people of differing religions. Steer clear of Fire if that exploration of women’s issues and other issues is triggering (the other two movies don’t fit the bill of this blog entry anyway, and I mentioned them solely to underscore that fact in case someone watches Fire and finds out it’s the first in a trilogy.) I wanted to elaborate on Fire’s subject matter in case someone does watch Fire: it has triggers including abuse and other harrowing situations (and also sexual content not involving wlw). The reason I mentioned the film is the lesbian love story is a powerful one set against the backdrop of adversity, such as the lesbian/bi situations depicted in Alice Walker’s “A Color Purple” and Shamim Sarif’s “Unseen World” (Shamin also wrote & directed “I Can’t Think Straight”) which both have triggering situations for abuse among other things. Another reason is: prior to watching Fire, I had not seen a depiction of a woman falling in love with another woman involving women of color who were not living in a European, Australian, Canadian, South American or American setting. I’m a WOC, so I felt that this type of rep in a movie was important. Also, they don’t die at the end. Upon further consideration, the ending’s is HFN than HEA, but it is about the power of real love that happens to be between two women. I watched the trilogy for a women’s movie group way back when, so I went in knowing the movies were Issue films, controversial in India, and dramas more than anything else. Felt it would be remiss if I didn’t mention all that about the film.
Actually there was an even earlier one than desert hearts. In u.s. they have a public broadcasting station that shows sesame street various bbc shows and news etc
Back in the early 70s there was a series called the vision series. Various short films and things. One was a movie called THE WAR WIDOW. It was set in ww1. And the wife left behind in the business of entertaining herself and doing typical wife stuff becomes acquainted with a woman photographer. She’s fascinated because it’s so unusual. And they do things together away from their mutual friends with the married woman being the assistant to the photographer. Her mother is more and more disapproving of their time together. Maybe picking up on the nature of their developing friendship. But they spend a weekend together at a friends cabin where the photographer let’s her feelings be known. Meanwhile a great deal of time has passed when she doesn’t hear from her husband. And she is very confused over her feelings for him and for this other woman. But that time spent in the cabin they kissed they made love.
Then the photographer announced she has to leave the country for her work and wants her to come with her. She hears from her husband finally and he says he is coming home. I think in his letters he discusses his feelings for her. Something he wasn’t in the habit of doing. But he is also expecting her to settle into certain roles when he comes home. After experiencing a certain amount of freedom she doesn’t feel like she can go back to the way it was before. But his confessions of all these feelings throws her into a spin. She can’t decide what to do. And it’s breaking the photographers heart because she feels she has lost her. the mother let’s her daughter know just what she thinks about the photographer being one of those kind of women. They get in a huge fight. And in the end she does leave with her. I was in my late teens when it first aired. I was becoming aware of my own sexuality and there were no positive things in the media. So when this aired I grabbed onto it like a lifeline. Back in those days the signals weren’t all that good. All fuzzy because we didn’t live close to the station. I think it was 2 or 3 years after that they showed a rerun of it and I tried to record it on videotape. But its a bad copy. It was released on a DVD back in the earlier days of DVD. But i didn’t have the money to purchase it. For those young ones…most of the dvds were 40 and 50 dollars. But it can be watched online now. I dont remember where right off The top of my head. But its well worth watching. It brought out so many of the problems with sexism and prejudices women even straight women were experiencing back then. And yet behind closed doors some were finding love and companionship.
THE WAR WIDOW was the first positive lesbian film in my opinion.
Ahhh! Thanks for mentioning THE WELL! Such a great film, even though I hate Miranda Otto’s character. That’s just me, though. Of course, I’m in love with Pamela Rabe, and this is such a great drama. Many difficult, heart wrenching scenes if you are really paying attention. I bought the DVD to watch it over and over.