Autostraddle’s 2023 Pride theme was Rage Party. That’s also how I would describe the best queer cinema of 2024.

While I love an easy-to-digest comedy or an unapologetically heavy drama, something is lost when our cinema treats fun and importance as diametrically opposed. Queer cinema can be about the challenges we face, the oppression we experience, the microaggressions and aggression aggressions and all the rest, and still be fun and sexy. In fact, fun and sexy are two of our greatest tools.

Even though Hollywood has pulled back from “diversity” this was still an excellent year for queer cinema. Below, I’ve written in-depth about my ten favorites, and also felt the need to shout out 20 more queer titles. (Plus 10 non-queer movies I loved too.) But as long as we’re living in complexity, I think it’s important we reflect on which queer people are able to create in the absence of more mainstream support. The vast majority of directors who released queer films this year are white — even more than most years. There’s plenty to complain about in the mainstream as Emilia Pérez will likely be the only queer film in the Best Picture Oscar race, but I think it’s also important to look at what’s missing in the indie world. And then to go deeper! There are so many film artists working on shorts or in gallery spaces or who made indie films in the last ten years that you may have missed. There’s always more to discover as we continue to fight for a more equitable world and a more equitable queer cinema.

But for now join me in celebrating some of the best queer films of 2024.

The 10 Best Straight Movies of 2024:

10. Dahomey (dir. Mati Diop)
9. Last Summer (dir. Catherine Breillat)
8. Tótem (dir. Lila Avilés)
7. Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)
6. The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet)
5. No Other Land (dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor)
4. La Chimera (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)
3. Nickel Boys (dir. RaMell Ross)
2. Alam (dir. Firas Khoury)
1. Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Ryūsake Hamaguchi)

3 Great Movies With Minor Queer Characters but Major Queer Sensibilities:

Babygirl (dir. Halina Reijn)
How to Have Sex (dir. Molly Manning Walker)
The Room Next Door (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)

The 5 Best Queer Documentaries of 2024:

5. Chasing Chasing Amy (dir. Sav Rodgers)
4. Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (dir. Erin Lee Carr)
3. Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All (dir. Alexandria Bombach)
2. Swan Song (dir. Chelsea McMullan)
1. Hummingbirds (dir. Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía “Beba” Contreras)

12 More Queer Movies You Should Check Out:

Backspot (dir. D.W. Waterson)
Drive-Away Dolls (dir. Ethan Coen)
Fitting In (dir. Molly McGlynn)
Housekeeping for Beginners (dir. Goran Stolevski)
I Saw the TV Glow (dir. Jane Schoenbrun)
In the Summers (dir. Alessandra Lacorazza)
Rez Ball (dir. Sydney Freeland)
Slow (dir. Marija Kavtaradzė)
Stroking an Animal (dir. Ángel Filgueira)
Summer Solstice (dir. Noah Schamus)
T Blockers (dir. Alice Maio Mackay)
You Are Not Me (dir. Marisa Crespo, Moisés Romera)

The 10 Best Queer Movies of 2024:

10. Good One (dir. India Donaldson)

The trailer for India Donaldson’s feature debut escalates like it’s advertising a horror movie. And, in a way, it is. What’s scarier than being faced with the humanity of a parent? But rather than leaning on genre conventions or forced dramatic turns, Donaldson trusts her environment, her performances, and her filmmaking. This is a rare feat in American cinema: a movie that understands the immense drama that happens in life’s quietest moment. Lily Collias, James Le Gros, and Danny McCarthy deliver a trio of grounded, charismatic performances that allow the film’s patience to come alive. While there have been many queer girl coming-of-age movies in recent years, few have matched this film’s sharp yet casual approach to its protagonist’s identity. It’s a film of immense power that continues to grow long after its final moments.

9. Problemista (dir. Julio Torres)

In addition to making my favorite TV show of the year, Julio Torres was also responsible for one of my favorite movies. While his feature debut is more focused than the series, Problemista still has plenty of Torres’ idiosyncrasies. It’s a movie about the impossibilities of the American immigration system that portrays the cruelty of bureaucracy, privilege, and power through cinematic imagination rather than didacticism. Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as Torres’ rich, eccentric boss and the two bounce off each other in ways that are hilarious and surprisingly poignant. He’s able to take the worst parts of our world, highlight them in all of their misery, and then provide an emotional antidote through immense creativity. Nothing is sugar-coated, yet it tastes so sweet.

8. Kinds of Kindness (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Confession: I’m not a big Yorgos Lanthimos fan. While I’ve seen all of his movies since Dogtooth, and even liked Alps and The Lobster well enough, my disdain for The Favourite and Poor Things have left me baffled among so many people whose opinions I trust. Well, that finally changed this year. I loved this nearly three hour triptych of stories about desperate love and sinister control. This film is so smart about the ways people hurt themselves and others for a false sense of security — be it in relationships or in life — and it does so without dwelling on these themes with any self-importance. It’s just a really funny, really challenging, really weird collection of stories that are as thought-provoking as they are entertaining. Even Lanthimos’ films I disliked have had flashes of brilliance, and this felt like all those flashes stitched together. Alas, I don’t think this one will be winning any Oscars.

7. Power Alley [Levante] (dir. Lillah Halla)

If you’re an English-speaking queer person dissatisfied with American media, please look to the rest of the world — especially South America, especially especially Brazil. Power Alley is the latest Brazilian film to blow me away with its combination of craft and storytelling we’d never see told in Hollywood. At least not in this way. The film is about abortion access and trans kids playing sports and draws a line between these two issues of bodily autonomy. It’s a film I feel comfortable labeling important even though it’s also just a really fun queer friendship sports movie. Every chance the film has to make an easy narrative choice, it does something more interesting, and the result is a movie as complex as its messages deserve.

6. Stress Positions (dir. Theda Hammel)

During a moment in trans film where most of our stories — some good, some bad — still revolve around transition, Theda Hammel’s feature debut feels like a relief. While this film is too thought-provoking and beautifully constructed to be reduced to its representational value, it is about the stories we tell. More specifically, it’s about the stories its group of Brooklynites tell about themselves as they attempt to make sense of who they are and who they are to each other. At times pointedly unlikeable, I understand why this film didn’t hit for everyone. But, for me, this was the trans film of 2024. Within the confines of its Covid setting and low budget, it takes bold artistic swings. It’s a farce that’s as funny as it is challenging. It’s not going to teach any cis people about transness, it’s not going to inspire any trans people to come out — it’s just a really great movie about recognizably fucked up adults.

5. Janet Planet (dir. Annie Baker)

Annie Baker’s feature debut joins a small group of films — Eve’s Bayou, El Sur, Aftersun — that really capture childhood. It has all the wonder, all the magic, all the loneliness. Considering she won the Pulitzer for a play all about movies, it’s no surprise Baker was able to translate her many talents to this medium. But it’s still thrilling to witness the arrival of such a fully formed cinematic voice. Yes, the writing is excellent, yes, all the performances are excellent, but they’re both enhanced by a clear grasp on film language and the unique possibilities of the screen. I’ve talked to so many people who saw themselves in this movie, not because it achieves some sort of universality but because that’s what great art makes possible. It holds a reality so much more recognizable than real life.

4. Queer (dir. Luca Guadagnino)

I’m not all that invested in whether or not queer filmmakers cast openly queer actors in their work. But this is the rare film where the hetero ambiguity of its famous lead and the stated heterosexuality of its ingenue enhance the work itself. This is, after all, less a queer romance and more about the self-hatred that can arise within queer romance. Daniel Craig is so charming and pathetic as his William Burroughs stand-in and Drew Starkey is a perfect empty vessel for projection. This is a far nastier and more challenging film than the melancholy summer romance of something like Call Me By Your Name. But it also contains some of Luca Guadagnino’s boldest and most revealing work. I’m in awe of its craft and its clarity of perspective. It seduces us with sex and comedy before breaking our hearts — and our brains — wide open.

3. Love Lies Bleeding (dir. Rose Glass)

Rose Glass’ sophomore feature is what happens when a queer actor rebukes assimilation and uses their celebrity to help great work get made. Kristen Stewart has never been better than she is here stepping into her dykey self with total confidence. She’s a perfect neo-noir anti-hero, seduced and seducing, toxic and bold. She’s matched by Katy O’Brian in a role that feels made for her, villain Ed Harris chewing scenery, Anna Baryshnikov as a comically thirsty lesbian, Jena Malone as a straight sister worth fighting for, and a sleazy Dave Franco I assume playing some version of his brother. This is the kind of bigger budget lesbian genre cinema we haven’t received since Bound. It’s sexy and weird and takes seamless risks. This kind of work may not get you Oscars or mainstream acceptance but I hope famous queer actors look at this film and see the artistic possibilities of integrity.

2. Bird (dir. Andrea Arnold)

Rewatching Andrea Arnold’s latest masterpiece Bird, I thought of poet Joshua Jennifer Espinoza’s belief that personhood is a scam, that it merely exists to grant humanity to some while denying it from others. Arnold has always approached her characters with a personal touch, opting for energy, sensuality, and complexity where other filmmakers find maudlin self-importance. While others are arrogant enough to “humanize” those who are plenty human already, here Arnold boldly animalizes. Throughout history groups of people have been compared to animals in ways that are derogatory — in this film it’s celebratory.

Since her shorts, animals have played a prominent role in Arnold’s work, sometimes as metaphor, sometimes as texture, sometimes as protagonist. Here, they are all that and more. This is a celebration of otherness, the euphoria of feeling out of place and then finding someone else like you. To be an animal is to fight, to scrounge, to scavenge — it’s also to protect, to fly, to feed. Sometimes a “ring of keys” moment involves seeing who you aspire to be, but sometimes it’s just seeing someone be themself. In a film that literalizes its protagonist’s gaze through her Gen Z filmmaking, seeing is everything. Eyes ablaze, we animals look and look.

1. Challengers (dir. Luca Guadagnino)

Desire is an action. If Queer showed want as pained longing, Luca Guadagnino’s other masterpiece let it be propulsive. The want to be the best tennis player. The want to touch the prettiest girl. The want to get so close with your best friend you consume each other…’s churros. While some found this film’s trio unlikeable, I found it enthralling to watch people who want and want and want.

I could talk about Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ perfect score that is magic on its own — shoutout to them making my Spotify wrapped — and even better in context. I could talk about the cinematography of Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, a long-time favorite of mine due to his work with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose camera is bold and beautiful. I could talk about Justin Kuritzkes tight and hilarious script structured like a tennis match, so wise about love and ambition. I could talk about madman Guadagnino who took that 90 page script and blew it up to over two hours with character-driven style. Or I could talk about the trio of actors — no, STARS — who make the whole thing come alive.

The Red Shoes has been one of my very favorite movies since childhood and this is like The Red Shoes sponsored by Uniqlo. Challengers is a movie for people who hunger, a movie for people who understand that the need to be the best is a way of life. For all my fellow Tashi Duncans, I shout a hearty COME ON!!!

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