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The “Drag Race” main stage responded not with solemnity, but with the same charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent it always brings. Tom Blyth plays Lucas, an undercover police officer in 1997 Syracuse assigned to entrap gay men. This tender, slow-burn romance was beautifully made and delicately performed. That includes both low-budget indie films like “Things Like This,” as well as high-profile Oscar bait like out gay filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s button-pushing “After the Hunt.”
The best places to see and discover queer films this year were film festivals.
The set-up is stagey and very imagined: Hart is at the bar for the afterparty of the Broadway opening of “Oklahoma,” the musical sensation his former writing partner Richard Rodgers (an exasperated Andrew Scott) made with Oscar Hammerstein.
Here is an idiosyncratic rundown of some of the best — or at least most memorable — LGBTQ films that screened in New York this year, albeit some only at festivals.
Grab a blanket, make some popcorn and enjoy.
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best gay movies of 2025, gay romance movies 2025, queer movies 2025
The Best LGBT Movies and TV Shows of 2025
We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re… getting used to it.
Over the summer, Pride marketing declined across major movie brands, and by the fall, streaming services had announced several cancellations of well-loved queer TV shows. In 2025, identity is treated as a declaration and silence is regarded as assumed erasure. 2025 has been a standout year for queer cinema. As his gay twin Rocky, O’Brien has sex with Dennis, in a scene that was just hot.
—AF
“Women Wearing Shoulder Pads”
One of the goofiest, most delightful new shows of 2025, “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” combines the camp appeal of a Pedro Almodóvar movie with the charm of an Aardman stop motion film.
BEST QUEER FILM: “Kill the Jockey” Bold, fabulous, and very queer, this absurdist Argentine import was one of the most original films this year.
By centering familial partnership and artistic resilience in a time of hostility, “Come See Me in the Good Light” became more than a sensitive look at sickness and instead debuted as a rebellious and soft-hearted act of queer reflection.
Over eight 11-minute episodes, the Adult Swim show crams buckets of plot and more plot twists than can be counted on both hands into the wild tale of a Spanish guinea pig entrepreneur and her rivalry with a butcher shop mogul for control over the rodent’s fate in Ecuador. You can rent or buy it on Amazon Video, Apple TV and Fandango At Home.
Plainclothes
Plainclothes marks Carmen Emmi’s directorial debut, and it’s a strong one.
Meanwhile, his sister-in-law Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) begins her own secret romance with a woman, Sandra (Sasha Calle). (A240, and Jacob Elordi and Diego Calva in On Swift Horses (Sony Pictures Classics).
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The holiday break is upon us, which means one thing: time to disappear onto the couch with a solid lineup of films.
The documentary arrived last winter amid renewed national attacks on LGBTQ rights and countered the vitriol of that moment with a deeply empathetic portrait of genderqueer poet Andrea Gibson. What follows is a year-long Dom/Sub relationship that is tender, funny and surprisingly moving.
BEST COMING-OF-AGE FILM: A staple of queer cinema, there were several affectionate entries in this genre this year, including “Bonus Track,” “Griffin in Summer,” “Young Hearts,” and “Little Trouble Girls.” But trans actress Tommy Dorfman’s auspicious debut as a writer/director, “I Wish You All the Best,” about Ben (Corey Fogelmanis), a non-binary teenager, has its heart in the right place even if it was as messy as its teen protagonist.
BEST FILM DEBUT:“Cactus Pears,” by out gay writer/director Rohan Kanawade has Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) falling for Balya (Suraaj Duman) when he returns to his family’s villages for a mourning ritual.