LGBTQ+ Movies that Don't Blow

Nic and Jules are in a long term, committed, loving but by no means perfect same-sex relationship. Nic, a physician, needs to wield what she believes is control, whereas Jules, under that control, is less self-assured. During their relationship, Jules has floundered in her "nine to five" life, sometimes trying to start a business - always unsuccessfully - or being the stay-at-home mom. She is currently trying to start a landscape design business. They have two teen-aged children, Joni (conceived by Nic) and Laser (by Jules). Although not exact replicas, each offspring does more closely resemble his/her biological mother in temperament. Joni and Laser are also half-siblings, having the same unknown sperm donor father. Shortly after Joni's eighteenth birthday and shortly before she plans to leave the house and head off to college, Laser, only fifteen and underage to do so, pleads with her to try and contact their sperm donor father. Somewhat reluctantly, she does. He is late thirty-something Paul, a co-op farmer and restaurateur. Despite his seemingly successful businesses, Paul has always shirked responsibility, most specifically in his personal life. After Joni and Laser meet with Paul, Nic and Jules learn what their children have done and, although they don't want Paul infiltrating their lives, want to meet him - especially as Joni and Laser seem to want to maintain some sort of relationship with him. As Paul's relationship with the entire family grows (which includes his hiring Jules to design and construct his backyard), they have an effect on what he wants in life. In turn, he affects their family dynamic as well as each person's relationships outside of it.

In the small southern town of Azalea Springs, the country club set still rules. Here, being a member of "The League" is a must, big hair is still favored by the ladies who lunch, and only hair-dressers and interior designers are supposed to be gay. The addition of an AIDS facility in Azalea Springs has The League unsettled. And the announcement that their charity work will include contact with "those people" leaves them stunned. But the real frenzy begins with a drunken comment regarding the local drinking water. Rumor has it that the water is contaminated with something that actually "turns" people gay. Mix in Brother Daniel's "Homo-No-Mo" meetings, the local newspaper, and a group of rabid homophobic picketers, and you've got a recipe for panic. Heads reel. Women weep. Mothers, hide your children! In the midst of it all, we find Alex Stratton, a young woman dealing with a distant husband, an overbearing mother, and the tedium of meaningless society chatter and endless shoe critics. Going against her husband's and her mother's wishes, Alex accepts a job at the Hospice where she is reacquainted with Grace Miller, her best friend from high school who has returned to Azalea Springs after a nasty divorce. It is here that Alex falls out of 'grace' with society when the two are caught kissing in the Hospice supply room. Mark Anderson works at the local newspaper his father owns and regularly attends Brother Daniel's Turn-or-Burn meetings. As the rumor about the water and the protesters get plenty of front page coverage, Mark finds himself becoming involved with Tomas, a Latin house painter who mistakes the ex-gay meeting for an A.A. meeting. The events that unravel as a result of these two love affairs bear witness to what happens when hysteria and homophobia take control of their lives.

Meeting your girlfriend's family for the first time can be tough. Planning to propose at her family's annual Christmas dinner - until you realize that they don't even know she's gay - is even harder. When the mentally challenged Abby (Kristen Stewart) learns that Harper (Mackenzie Davis) has kept their relationship a secret from her family, she begins to question the girlfriend she thought she knew.

A shy, introverted, Chinese-American, straight-A student finds herself helping the school jock woo the girl they both secretly love. In the process, each teaches the other about the nature of love as they find connection in the most unlikely of places.

In Manhattan, the brilliant Chinese-American lesbian surgeon Wil is surprised by the arrival of her forty-eight year old widow mother to her apartment. Ma was banished from Flushing, Queens, when her father discovered that she was pregnant. The presence of Ma affects the personal life of Wil, who is in love with the daughter of her boss at the hospital, the dancer Vivian Shing. Once her grandfather has promised that her mother would only return to Flushing remarried or proving that it was an immaculate conception, Wil tries to find a Chinese bachelor to marry Ma.

A chance meeting brings a nearly perfect couple together in L.A., except that he's gay and she's not. Compounding this is that he suffers OCD. As he house sits and she struggles to be accepted as an actress, their otherwise rightness is obvious, but friends - especially those in the gay community - believe in clear lines of sexuality being drawn.

Jenn and Matt are best friends from college who are now in their thirties. Single by choice, Jenn spends her days teaching hot yoga and running errands for her boss. Matt suffers from comic-book writer's block and can't get over his ex-boyfriend. They decide to fulfill a promise to have a child together... the old fashioned way. Can they navigate the serious and unexpected snags they hit as they attempt to get their careers and dating lives back on track in preparation for parenthood? 'Gayby' is an irreverent comedy about friendship, sex, loneliness, and the family you choose.

Funny and provocative, Boy Meets Girl vividly captures the giddy excitement, sexual heat, and inherent heartache of "non-traditional" love in a small town. Ricky (Michelle Hendley) is a 21-year-old trans girl living in Kentucky. Her only real friend, straight-laced Robby, has been her trusty, totally platonic, confidant for over 15 years. Her day job slinging lattes is merely a stepping-stone toward her goal of being a famous New York designer. She's confident, cool, and completely ready for something new - and then her world is transformed when an enchanting debutante saunters into her life. Triggering fresh feelings and experiences, this unlikely connection conjures up intense questions about identity while uncovering ghosts from Ricky's past. Indie-film veteran Eric Schaeffer (My Life's in Turnaround, If Lucy Fell) builds a compelling, compassionate world that focuses on the emotions and messy challenges of complex people navigating complicated relationships. Schaeffer creates a thoroughly authentic small-town atmosphere, capturing the cozy and claustrophobic ambiance of a place where everyone knows your name - and your sexual partners.

After jointly winning a local Drag Queen pageant in New York City, Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes) and Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze) win the right and are given the round trip airfare to compete in the Drag Queen of America pageant in Hollywood, California. Noxeema sees herself as the next

Two school friends decide to start a pretend straight relationship in an effort to fit in.

In 1973, 18-year-old Beth Bledsoe moves from her home in Creekville, South Carolina, to attend college in New York City. Her uncle Frank Bledsoe is a college professor there, and is the relative she feels closest to as he is more refined and thoughtful than the rest of the family.

Max is a trendy, pretty, young lesbian, who is having trouble finding love. A friend sets her up with Ely, whom Max likes, but Ely is frumpy, homely, and older. Nor do they have much in common. Can Max learn to look past the packaging?

A 16 year old Louisiana girl moves in with her homosexual half-brother and immediately starts coming on to his sexual partner, finally forcing him into an affair in which she becomes pregnant. The whole affair blows into a scandal exposing her school teacher brother and the true parent of the child is called into question as it is revealed that there have been a series of lovers.

For Shirin, being part of a perfect Persian family isn't easy. Acceptance eludes her from all sides: her family doesn't know she's bisexual, and her ex-girlfriend, Maxine, can't understand why she doesn't tell them. Even the six-year-old boys in her moviemaking class are too ADD to focus on her for more than a second. Following a family announcement of her brother's betrothal to a parentally approved Iranian prize catch, Shirin embarks on a private rebellion involving a series of pansexual escapades, while trying to decipher what went wrong with Maxine.

Cheryl is young, Black, and lesbian, working in Philadelphia with her best friend Tamara and consumed by a film project: to make a video about her search for a Black actress from Philly who appeared in films in the 30s and was known as the Watermelon Woman. Following various leads, Cheryl discovers the Watermelon Woman's stage name and real name and surmises that the actress had a long affair with Martha Page, a White woman and one of Hollywood's few female directors. As she's discovering these things, Cheryl becomes involved with Diana, who's also White. The affair strains Cheryl's friendship with Tamara. More discoveries bring Cheryl (and us, her audience) to new realizations.

Awkward teen Adam spends his last high school summer with his big sister, who throws herself into NYC's lesbian and trans activist scene. In this coming-of-age comedy, Adam and those around him encounter love, friendship and hard truths.

Anna is a young lesbian high school graduate who still lives with her parents, and works as a receptionist in a plastic surgeon's office. She embarks on a wild ride when she hooks up with a cadre of ultra-radical feminist lesbians hell-bent on raising hell. But things get even more complicated when Anna falls in love with Sadie, the radical group's leader who's already involved with an older woman named Courtney.

Jessica Stein is a single, straight, successful, journalist, part of a bonded Jewish family living in New York City, who finds herself not as straight as she thought when Jessica meets and begins an intense friendship with career woman Helen Cooper which ultimately leads to romance.