We all have a bit more free time than we are used to, so why not spend some of that time watching something new? Here are 12 highly rated LGBTQ+ TV shows and movies to give a chance.
But I’m a Cheerleader (R)
Description:
Confident and opinionated, 17-year-old Megan is far too strong-willed for her unsupportive parents, who begin to worry she is a lesbian. Their solution is to send Megan to ‘True Directions,’ a “rehabilitation camp” run by homophobic counselor Mary Brown. Soon Megan meets the equally defiant Graham, and the two form a fast friendship. Ironically, the more time Megan spends at the camp, the more she begins to question just how fixed her sexuality really is. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Prime Video
Apple TV
The Birdcage (R)
Description:
Armand Goldman owns a popular drag nightclub in South Miami Beach. His long-time lover, Albert, stars there as Starina. “Their” son Val (actually Armand’s by his one heterosexual fling, twenty years before) comes home to announce his engagement to Barbara Keeley, daughter of Kevin Keeley, US Senator, and co-founder of the Committee for Moral Order. The Senator and family descend upon South Beach to meet Val, his father and “mother.” What ensues is comic chaos. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Prime Video
Apple TV
Call Me By Your Name (R)
Description:
Call Me By Your Name, the new film by Luca Guadagnino, is a sensual and transcendent tale of first love, based on the acclaimed novel by André Aciman. It’s the summer of 1983 in the north of Italy, and Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a precocious 17- year-old American-Italian, spends his days in his family’s 17th-century villa transcribing and playing classical music, reading, and flirting with his friend Marzia (Esther Garrel). Elio enjoys a close relationship with his father (Michael Stuhlbarg), an eminent professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture, and his mother Annella (Amira Casar), a translator, who favor him with the fruits of high culture in a setting that overflows with natural delights. While Elio’s sophistication and intellectual gifts suggest he is already a fully-fledged adult, there is much that yet remains innocent and unformed about him, particularly about matters of the heart. One day, Oliver (Armie Hammer), a charming American scholar working on his doctorate, arrives as the annual summer intern tasked with helping Elio’s father. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of the setting, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will alter their lives forever.” (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Prime Video
Apple TV
Dallas Buyer’s Club (R)
Description:
Matthew McConaughey stars in Dallas Buyers Club as real-life Texas cowboy Ron Woodroof, whose free-wheeling life was overturned in 1985 when he was diagnosed as HIV-positive and given 30 days to live. These were the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and the U.S. was divided over how to combat the virus. Ron, now shunned and ostracized by many of his old friends, and bereft of government-approved effective medicines, decided to take matters in his own hands, tracking down alternative treatments from all over the world by means both legal and illegal. Bypassing the establishment, the entrepreneurial Woodroof joined forces with an unlikely band of renegades and outcasts – who he once would have shunned – and established a hugely successful “buyers’ club.” Their shared struggle for dignity and acceptance is a uniquely American story of the transformative power of resilience. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Prime Video
Apple TV
Euphoria (TV-MA)
Description:
Euphoria follows a group of high school students as they navigate love and friendships in a world of drugs, sex, trauma, and social media. Actor and singer Zendaya leads an ensemble cast including Hunter Schafer, Jacob Elordi, Algee Smith and Sydney Sweeney. (HBO)
Where to Watch:
HBO
Glee (TV-PG)
Description:
Musical comedy-drama about the misfits who make up a high-school singing club and teacher Will Schuester, the one-time glee-club star who leads them and must constantly protect his charges from the malevolent schemes of the diabolical cheerleader coach, Sue Sylvester. A “High School Musical” with bite created by Ryan Murphy (“Nip/Tuck”), “Glee” was one of the breakout hits of Fall 2009 and ran for five more entertaining seasons. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Netflix
Orange Is The New Black (TV-MA)
Description:
Convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting drug money to an ex-girlfriend, normally law-abiding Piper Chapman is sentenced to a year and a half behind bars to face the reality of how life-changing prison can really be. (IMDb)
Where to Watch:
Netflix
Paris is Burning (R)
Description:
Jennie Livingston’s documentary offers a behind-the-scene glimpse at the golden age of New York “Drag Balls” where rival fashion houses come together to celebrate, vogue and compete for bragging rights. Shot between 1985 and 1989, the narrative inter-cuts between individual stories that chronicle the experiences of the African-American and Latino, gay and transgender subculture in a time when the city was consumed by the ideals of wealth and glamour. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Apple TV
Pose (TV-MA)
Description:
Upon receiving an HIV positive diagnosis, Blanca Rodriguez (MJ Rodriguez) is forced to confront her mortality and dedicates herself to leaving a legacy. With the encouragement of her friend Pray Tell (Billy Porter), the fierce patriarch and emcee of the house balls, Blanca breaks from Elektra (Dominique Jackson), mother of the House of Abundance, and starts her very own “house,” a self-selected family that provides support to LGBTQ youth rejected by their birth families. Blanca’s newly formed House of Evangelista becomes a haven for anyone searching for a home, and Blanca’s new family soon includes streetwalker “Angel” (Indya Moore), aspiring dancer “Damon” (Ryan Jamaal Swain) and his boyfriend “Ricky” (Dyllón Burnside) and street-wise “Lil Papi” (Angel Bismark Curiel). (Rotten Tomatoes)
Where to Watch:
Netflix
Sense8 (TV-MA)
Description:
A group of people around the world are suddenly linked mentally, and must find a way to survive being hunted by those who see them as a threat to the world’s order.
Where to Watch:
Netflix
Transparent (TV-MA)
Description:
Transparent centers around the Pfeffermans, a Jewish-American family residing in Southern California. Life within the Pfefferman clan is drastically changed when the patriarch, Mort, decides to live as a woman.
Where to Watch:
Prime Video
The Umbrella Academy (TV-14)
Description:
On the same day in 1989, forty-three infants are inexplicably born to random, unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. Seven are adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a billionaire industrialist, who creates The Umbrella Academy and prepares his “children” to save the world. But not everything went according to plan. In their teenage years, the family fractured and the team disbanded. Now, the six surviving thirty-something members reunite upon the news of Hargreeve’s passing. Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Vanya, and Number Five work together to solve a mystery surrounding their father’s death. But the estranged family once again begins to come apart due to their divergent personalities and abilities, not to mention the imminent threat of a global apocalypse. (IMDb)
Where to Watch:
Netflix