We loved these queer films in 2023!
Images: SBS Productions; A24; IFC Films
As the year comes to an end and we look back on the culture we saw in 2023, we can see that it was a very strong year for queer film.
Many of the year's best performances came from queer actors. Luminaries like Colman Domingo, Jodie Foster, and Trace Lysette all delivered performances that are award-worthy and count among the best we've seen in some time. Queer directors like Andrew Haigh, Ira Sachs, Emma Seligman, and Todd Haynes had great years as well.
These are our picks for the 15 best queer movies of 2023, in descending order, counting down to our favorite queer movie of the year!
Scroll through our picks, and then VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BELOW!
15. Strange Way of Life
Image: El Deseo/Saint Laurent Productions
Pedro Almodovar’s stylish short Western follows Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, fully decked out in Saint Laurent, as two aging gunslingers who reunite one last time in their old age.
14. Passages
Image: SBS Productions
Ira Sachs’ sexy romantic drama stars Ben Wishaw and Franz Rogowski as a gay couple whose marriage hits the rocks when one of them begins an affair with a young woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos). It’s a sensual and beautiful film.
13. Cassandro
Image: Alejandro Lopez Pineda/Amazon Content Services LLC
Gael Garcia Bernal brought the story of real-life gay Mexican wrestler Saúl Armendáriz to our screens this year, absolutely shining in a performance that is both strong and sensitive. The entire cast, including Roberta Colindrez and Bad Bunny, are also terrific.
12. Mutt
Image: Quiltro LLC
Lío Mehiel had their breakout role in Mutt this year, becoming the first out trans actor to win the Sundance Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Acting. In the movie,they play a trans man named Feña who reconnects with his family and former friends for the first time after his transition.
11. Kokomo City
Image: Magnolia Pictures
D. Smith directed, produced, and edited this unflinching look at the lives of four Black trans sex workers living in New York and Georgia. The film gave a voice to people who are so often erased and so often have their stories told by others. It’s groundbreaking and brilliant.
10. Rustin
Image: David Lee/Netflix
Colman Domingo once again shows why he’s one of the best actors of his generation by stepping into the huge shoes of gay Civil Rights icon Bayard Rustin. Domingo delivers an Oscar-worthy performance and the movie is a wonderful biopic about queer and Black history.
9. NYAD
Image: Netflix
Another biopic is Nyad, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. Bening plays open water swimmer Diana Nyad, who became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without aid at age 64. Both Bening and Foster deliver award-worthy performances.
8. Red, White & Royal Blue
Image: Amazon Prime Video
This year we finally got the film adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s best-selling book Red, White, and Royal Blue and it did not disappoint! Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galatzine were both terrific as the son of the US President and a British Prince who fall in love. It’s a modern gay rom-com classic.
7. Theater Camp
Image: Searchlight Pictures
This heartwarming and laugh-out-loud mockumentary following a rag-tag crew trying to run a summer theater camp after the owner slips into a coma was one of our favorite movies of the summer. Filled with great songs, great performances from Ben Platt, Molly Gordon and the rest of the cast, and enough inside jokes to make any theater kid happy, we can’t wait to rewatch this one for years to come.
6. The Stroll
Image: HBO
This documentary focuses on the history of Black and Latina trans women who worked as sex workers in the New York City Meatpacking District in the ’80s and ’90s. Using archival footage, interviews, and news, The Stroll shines a light on a valuable part of history that is still having an impact today.
5. All of Us Strangers
Image: Parisa Taghizadeh/Searchlight Pictures
Andrew Haigh is a master of queer storytelling, and in his latest film, he tells the story of Adam and Harry, two neighbors who fall in love while one is seeing ghosts of his parents. Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are mesmerizing, as is the story. It’s a masterclass.
4. Monica
Image: IFC Films
Trace Lysette’s breakout role came this year in the stunning Monica. Following a trans woman who reconnects with her ailing mother who kicked her out decades earlier, the film dives deep into the humanity of trans people and our relationships with family. While the movie is largely a vehicle for Lysette’s understated performance, Patricia Clarkson also shines as her mother, and the directing from Andrewa Pallaoro gives the film a fable-like feeling full of signs, omens, and feelings.
3. Dicks: the Musical
Image: A24
Dicks is the most extreme gay movie this year, and that’s exactly why we love it! It’s got musical numbers, Gay God, Megan Thee Stallion, Nathan Lane, incest, and of course, the Sewer Boys. Every debaucherous moment of the movie will make you laugh out loud and get out of your seat to dance. This is the gay agenda.
2. Bottoms
Image: Orion Pictures Inc.
We loved this dark comedy that finally gives queers our own version of Mean Girls or Heathers. Full of blood, bruises, and bad flirting, Bottoms gives queer losers a chance to shine. One of the most hilarious movies of the year, Bottoms delivers in every scene. Filmmaker Emma Seligman along with stars Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri shine.
1. Nimona
Image: Netflix
This year, the best queer film was an animated Netflix movie about a shapeshifting teen girl and the gay supervillain she befriends. Nimona brings the fun, the action, and the comedy, but also reveals one of the most powerful messages about love of any movie in recent memory. It will make your heart fly, your spirits rise, and it will leave you a better person than when you began.
