1. Paris is Burning (1990) by Gianni Livingstone
Gianni Livingstone's documentary Paris is Burning focuses on the circle of influential drag queens in Harlem in 1987, a masterpiece that not only captures the pearlescent of drag queens, but also shows that although they have been harassed by anti-gay people and often lost their lives, they still create epic fantasies.
2. Moonlight Boy (2016) Barry Jenkins
Barry Jenkins wrote in his screenplay:
"This is a small fragment of anthropology, anatomy, about two boys struggling in isolation by the simple, unfinished movements of their half-concealed bodies. They are all still children. Sexual orientation is invisible in the picture, but sensory cues lurk in the surface."
3. "Spring Breaks" (1997) Wong Kar Wai
Wong Kar-wai uses his unique editing, stealing stamps, omitting ups and downgrades, and Godard's inspired jumping cuts to depict the simple back-and-forth between the two protagonists in order to express what they have in mind.
So, for example, when two people smoke a cigarette together, the rhythm slows down, every bit of emotion is displayed on their faces, the smoke of cigarettes rises into the air behind them, and under the cold faces of the two is a slowly formed romantic sexual tension, and the solid surface is inevitably defeated by tears.
4. "The Bitter Tears of Botina" (1972) by Reiner Werner Fassbinder
It took the director ten days to make the film, and the script was based on the director's past plays on a twelve-hour flight from Berlin to Los Angeles. The film pays homage to George Cook's Women (1939), an entirely female comedy set in a manhattan apartment full of high society.
5. My Own Idaho (1991) by Gus van Sant
Halfway through the film, the two protagonists camp in a field in Idaho, Potato. The dramatic use of orange throughout the film (most of the walls are painted red, and most of Mike's clothes are also orange) seems to reach its peak in this scene, with sparks bursting between the two protagonists, but weakened by the different directions of their lives.
The scene is largely a Phoenix improvisation, in fact most of the scene is written by himself, and the tense scene showing the truth is filmed at the end due to Phoenix's personal request, and he wants to make the film reach an emotional climax.
6. My Beautiful Laundromat (1985) Stephen Fres
The 97-minute, 16mm film was shot over six months, and the comedy was initially fully sponsored by Channel 4 and made as a TV movie. Things changed, and the film was not released in theaters according to the original production plan, becoming the first British film to publicly depict same-sex love. It was also Frese's first international hit, and it also propelled Daniel Day-Lewis on the road.
7. Love Crazy (2005) Jean-Marc Varé
Varley spent a decade writing the film, along with Francis Bly, which was also based on Bly's personal experiences. The film brilliantly depicts the homophobic mentality of a punk teenager internalized by his religious beliefs, and he tries to hide the fact that he is mentally tormented by his sexual orientation.
8. Call Me By Your Name (2017) luca Guadagnino
This LGBTQ+ film spares no effort to depict the purity and beauty that is destined to be annihilated by established social standards in sexual attraction, especially in the not-so-distant days when homosexuality was illegal (and some 71 countries still regard homosexuality as illegal).
Because of this environment, the film uses Greek symbolic male vision and ancient Greek sculpture to present unspeakable desires, and very well uses classical ideology to find the unique charm of people.
9. Carol (2015) todd Hynes
The film is based on Patricia Highsmith's 1952 romance novel The Price of Salt, a true experience in which Highsmith had a relationship with Virginia Kent Kaiserwood, a slightly older Philadelphia celebrity in the 1940s, which inspired her in part.
A tape was recorded next to the hotel room where Kaiserwood lived to prove her same-sex behavior, and it was because of this tape that Kaiserwood lost custody of her daughter.
10. The Tomboy (2011) by Serene Seaamma
This coming-of-age film may be the only one that depicts a transgender story that happens to children. Shockingly, transgender people often begin to experience their own gender perception and biological gender disunity at this age, which makes it very urgent to have more films to show their inner struggles in this chaotic moment.
11. "Miss" (2016) Park Chan-wook
Park Chan-wook's psychological thriller is a mystery divided into three, each part unfolding from the perspective of a different character. The film was inspired by Sarah Waters' novel The Finger Pick, but the Victorian British scene in the original book was adapted into South Korea, which was ruled by Japan in the 1930s.
12. "Pink Narcissus" (1971) James Bigold
The 8mm fantasy film was filled with pink, purple and blue; the American art film was described as "a fantasy poem by young male prostitutes," and after watching it, people often left the words: "A unique journey of vision and fantasy!"
The film makes use of a wide variety of images as well as recurring floral and green plant motifs, especially the use of plant shapes called daffodils.
13. The Life of Adele (2013) Abu Dai Kosciusz
Spielberg commented: "This film tells a great love story that makes us feel like a fly on a wall, looking at a deep love story, and from the very beginning, this love slowly turns into heartache. The director didn't put any restrictions on the narrative, and we were completely fascinated by the wonderful performances of the two actors, especially the way the director observed the characters during the period, and he completely let them breathe freely."
14. Mulholland Drive (2001) david Lynch
"They say that the teachings of others can give you inner knowledge, but the strange thing is that it is difficult to communicate this inner knowledge with others. As soon as you try to communicate, you will realize that you cannot find words, or do not have the ability to tell your friends your inner cognition. But you still have this perception! It's really frustrating. I think the reason you can't communicate is because this perception is beautiful and abstract... I think people know what Mulholland Drive means to them, it's just that they don't believe it. They want someone to tell them. I like it when people analyze the film, but I don't have to tell me what the film is about. It's wonderful to figure things out like a detective. To tell others is to deprive them of the pleasure of thinking, feeling, and finally drawing conclusions." —David Lynch
15. "120 Hits Per Minute" (2017) Robin Campillo
"This may be my last gay pride parade."
The film is interspersed with scenes of characters dancing in dark, flashing clubs with colorful lights. Music is playing in the club. Sad, angry people rely on dancing to drive away the frustration and growing fear of their current situation. "In the dancing scene, we heard Campillo's favorite 1992 song, 'What About This Love.'"
16. Love, Simplicity (2014) Daniel Ribeiro
What would happen to you if you had the clothes of someone you secretly liked in front of you? Such episodes have occurred in "Call Me By Your Name", "Fantasy Love", and "The Beast in the Cupboard", and this growing romance movie "Love, Simple" also tells the story of Leo's gradual love for Gabriel.
He put on the dress, sniffed his smell (the picture here is black), stroked him, or at least fantasized about himself stroking him. The film relies on smell and visible sensations to form a climax, at which point vision is less necessary to explore sexual attraction between the same sex.
17. Silma (2017) Joachim Thiel
Like Love Crazy, the film is driven by intense internal chaos and Freudian hysteria about Christian sin. You know, it refers to the burning of all eternity. Thiel recounts that her father once grabbed her hand and approached the burning flames, telling her to feel the power of the fire.
18. "Orange" (2015) Shaun Baker
The story time in the film is consistent with the real time, and the whole film shows the sun slowly setting in the west, presenting a beautiful orange glow (hence the film's name) and neon fading into the night. The film was shot entirely by three iPhone 5Ss, anamorphic footage of Moondog Labs clipped to the phone, the $8 FiLMiC Pro app, and a Steadicam Smothee Mounts stabilizer.
Beck shows the ease and quality of access to these materials, and his footage follows the girls who sway along the streets under the afterglow, accompanied by dramatic electric rhythms.
19. Two-Sided Lawrence (2012) Xavier Dolan
Dolan was deeply influenced by Wong Kar-wai, and he adjusted the speed of the film, choosing slower pictures and accompanying the music with the action, which is very similar to what we see in the MV. With these techniques, coupled with his clothing for movement, his turbulent popularity, and the red color of the darkroom, he ended up with some very beautiful (and often charmingly symmetrical) scenes.
20. The Weekend (2011) by Andrew Hagrid
The film is driven by dialogue. Green discussed his own purpose in understanding the art of understanding and connected the selves that each person has. Different social situations force individuals to relate themselves to the self activated by this situation. In the end, this constructs their dichotomy about the self: the ideal self (who they want to be) and the limited self (what others see as them).
21. The Crying Game (1992) Neil Jordan
The film's commercial success "helped" indie films transform from cult works into highly profitable merchandise. The 35mm film was extremely low-cost, but it eventually received six Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor and Best Director). Jordan also won the Award for Best Original Screenplay.
22. "Beach Rat" (2017) Eliza Hitman
In an interview with See & Hear, Hitman explained, "Part of my interest in the characters is that they transcend time and space. They retain hairstyles that feel like they were from the early sixties or late fifties. So shooting at 16mm is to give the whole film a texture that 'transcends time and space' – because the area in the film is isolated from the rest of the world."
23. The Duke of Burgundy (2014) Peter Strickland
Strickland was heavily influenced by Italian lead-yellow films, and he may have been particularly influenced by Corrado Farina's The Devil Witc ('Baga Yaga, 1973), which also focused on lesbian and tethered themes.
24. The Kingdom of God (2017) francis Lee
The only current between the two protagonists is their pulse. The two of them rarely spoke or had other real contact, but instead we cared about their mundane connections, such as the power of the mud, the flowing stream, the grass pile; these all emphasized the harsh and oppressive atmosphere of the country and reflected the bumpy emotional path between the two of them.
25. The Wound (2017) by John Trengov
Wounds was inspired by Sando Mkorozana's 2009 novel A Man Who Is Not a Man, and the screenplay was also written by Mkorozana and first-time director John Trengov.
The film depicts a community with a unique perspective never seen in previous films, and has been described by the state media as "leading the new wave of African cinema".
"Wounds" is both a coming-of-age movie and a love story, and it is also a nerve-wracking psychological thriller. The film is praised for its excellent handling of taboo issues of sexual orientation and its emphasis on generational differences in traditional customs, and it is particularly brilliant in questioning the increasingly old concept of masculinity.