Passages and other pictures: 9 of the best LGBT+ movies on MUBI

After a successful showing at international film festivals around the world and receiving critical acclaim across the board on its cinematic release, Ira Sachs’ latest movie, the drama Passages, is now available to stream at home on MUBI. 

Passages presents its audience with charismatic creative Tomas, played by Franz Rogowski, the man who has it all: a successful career as a film director; a beautiful home in Paris; and doting husband Martin, played by Ben Whishaw. However, after a drunken encounter with the beautiful Agathe (Adéle Exarchopoulos), Tomas decides to explore his sexuality outside of his current relationship in the form of relations with both his husband and his mistress. 

Blending the genre conventions of romance, tragedy and comedy, the film questions the meaning of love in the modern world, where sexualities are blurred, the boundaries of relationships are ever-moving, and identities are in a constant state of flux. Hailed for its unflinching honesty in its exploration of triadic relations, the film – which will be released on the MUBI streaming platform on Friday 27th – is already an immediate classic in the LGBT+ cinematic pantheon.

Below, Attitude explores what makes Passages an important cinematic work for the queer community, alongside other landmark LGBT+ films that can be streamed on the MUBI platform today. From the sexy, the outrageous and the horrific to the quiet and thought-provoking, get your bucket of popcorn ready and turn out the lights for an evening of film viewing excellence…

Watch PASSAGES and more with 30 days free, at mubi.com/attitude.

Passages (2023)

Passages offers the viewer a fresh take on the complexity of queer modern life, fizzling with sexuality and often messy. Avoiding stereotypical clichés and archetypal representations, Passages represents queer figures who are nuanced, complicated, and utterly compelling. Tomas is an explosively passionate film director at the top of his game; Martin is a sensitive and placid graphic designer.

However, this image of queer contentment is soon disrupted by an encounter with Agate, who unexpectedly catches Tomas’ eye and becomes the catalyst that shakes the foundations of the aforementioned gay relationship. Has Tomas’ sexuality changed or is another facet being revealed? Is this the end of a long term relationship for the pair or an evolution into something new that can benefit them both?

Passages embodies the evolution of LGBT+ cinema – a film for the next generation of queer people who increasingly reject labels and limitations on their romantic and sexual lives. In fact, in an interview with Attitude, director Ira Sachs questioned its status as queer cinema, suggesting that the film developed from a movie about changing sexuality to an exploration of love: “‘Tomas doesn’t change – he falls in love with a specific person who happens to be female. It’s a person shift rather than a labelling shift. It’s specific to the people in this entanglement.” This ambiguity, and the way in which it’s so perceptively portrayed, makes Passages a queer classic. 

Rotting In The Sun (2023)

You have heard the popular culture term, death of the artist – the belief that audiences bring their own interpretations to stories beyond the control of the creator – but in the riotous satire Rotting In The Sun, director Sebastian Silva takes the meaning of the phrase to the extreme in a bid to highlight the vapidity of social media.

Silva plays himself, a depressed filmmaker, addicted to drugs and suicidal, who travels to a gay nudist beach in order to escape his miserable life. There, he meets shallow social influencer Jordan Firstman (also played by himself) who he begrudingly agrees to collaborate with. However, after a tragic turn of events, Silva goes missing, and the vacuous Jordan begins a mission to find out what happened. Why? Because nobody ghosts Jordan Firstman!

This film is hilarious in its exploration of modern gay culture, knowingly winking at the audience as it spears and ridicules the stereotypes of the contemporary A-gay. 

It’s also unforgettable for its unashamed presentation of sex, with its depiction of the gay beach capturing the raw and unabashed sexuality of men on holiday. Indeed, Silva himself told Variety “The sex is so graphic that it’s a double-edged sword. People, especially Americans, are so scared of genitals. I’m scared a little bit that a lot of people will centre on the cocks and talking about cocks.” Reader, we can confirm, this energising, hilarious film is far more than cocks alone. 

Strange Way Of Life (2023)

Some evenings, you just want to watch something short. Enter Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film and second English language work, Strange Way of Life which provides a punchy half-hour long Western drama.

Brokeback Mountain this is not: Strange Way Of Life is a far cry from a gentle, romantic cowboy romp in the mountains. Instead, Almodovar delivers 30 minutes of gun-yielding, lasso-spinning Western fun with a queer twist.

Starring everyone’s favourite daddy, Pedro Pascal, and Hollywood stalwart Ethan Hawke, it follows Sheriff Jake who learns that his sister has been murdered. He suspects her husband Joe and begins to seek answers in order to avenge her. However with the return of Joe’s father Silva, Jake’s implied former lover from 25 years earlier, will he follow through and take his revenge?

Almodóvar is known for his bold, brassy storytelling and Strange Way Of Life is no exception, full to the brim with the director’s touchstones – a vibrant, heightened reality imbued with sensuality and high camp. However, underneath lies a thoughtful and warming tale of two men struggling with their sexuality within the man’s world of the Wild West. Both great fun and quietly moving, this film guarantees a rootin’-tootin’ good time!

The Watermelon Woman (1996)

The Watermelon Woman stands out as a genre-bending work of art that was way ahead of its time. A work of fictionalised autobiography, the film is striking from the very beginning, as we meet director and narrator, Cheryl Dunye, speaking directly to the camera to talk us through her creative process as an aspiring filmmaker.

Dunye’s appearance on camera feels urgent and important. As a queer woman of colour, she belongs to an underrepresented demographic in the filmmaking industry, an issue still predominant in the creative industry 30 years later. From her perspective as a clerk in a video rental store, she explains: “I want to make a movie about Black women because our stories have never been told.”

Fascinated by the movies of the 1930s and 1940s, Dunye is struck by the problematic representation of Black actresses from 50 years earlier. Thus, the project becomes an exploration of parallel Black female lives: that of Dunye on her personal journey as a Black lesbian filmmaker, and that of the mysterious Watermelon Woman, the beguiling nameless actress who starred in one of Dunye’s favourite movies.

As Dunye delves further into the eponymous woman’s life, it’s apparent that whilst the women may be generationally distant, the issues facing queer Black artists remain – a message that still hits home and feels relevant today.

Knife + Heart (2018)

Queerness and horror have always gone hand in hand. Villains have often been queer-coded throughout cinematic history, and of course, rule number one of LGBT+ representation of filmmaking in the 1990s was to bury your gays…

However, Yann Gonzalez’s French-language thriller turns up the queer horror gauge to 10. Set in 1970s Paris, it stars Anne, a queer filmmaker who specialises in gay porn. After being interrogated by the police after one of her former stars is found murdered, she is inspired to make a new film – Anal Fury V – into which she will incorporate the tale of the death of the deceased artist. But as life begins to imitate art and fact and fiction collide, has Anne put herself and others in terrible danger?

A few beloved horror tropes are present here  – a masked slasher; a series of increasingly violent and gruesome murders; a feisty heroine – but it’s Gonzalez’s queering of these conventions that makes this such a memorable tale. 

The movie is style personified – a pounding electro score accompanies stylised queer imagery shot on 35mm and 16mm film – creating an effortlessly retro flavour. Oozing queer sex and violence, horror has never been this cool!

Laurence Anyways (2012)

Trans people are still severely underrepresented in cinema, but Laurence Anyways is one of the best films centering a trans story. Written and directed by Xavier Dolan, the film was inspired by the real life story of Luce Baillairgé, who had previously been married to, and had a child with, Dolan’s close friend and producer Lyse Lafontaine.

This inspired the plot of Laurence Anyways, about the eponymous Laurence (played by Melvil Poupaud) who – after many years of being with their lover Frederique (played by Suzanne Clément), reveals that they are in fact a woman who is trans and that they want to fully transition. The film is a sincere look at the complexity of being trans, not only from the angle of our heroine, but also from the perspective of her lover, her mother and society at large. In fact, whilst Baillairgé’s transitional journey is key to the plot, it is her tragic relationship with Lafontaine that beats at the very heart of the piece. It may be a film that explores trans issues, but ultimately, it is also a heart wrenching love story.

Dolan’s own flair for storytelling energises the film, bringing to it a sense of the melodramatic, the outrageous and the fabulous. Laurence is a tour de force that packs a powerful punch. 

I am Divine (2013)

“People like to laugh at sex, people like to laugh at dirty things, so it’s my job to get out there and shock them.” So says Divine, the legendary performance artist, godmother of drag and ultimate queer icon.

This outrageous documentary, directed by Emmy award-winner Jeffrey Schwarz, provides all the jaw-dropping scandal, ballsy brazenness and in-your-face dark humour that you could hope for from the queen of the obscene, best known for a scandalous scene in Pink Flamingos where she eats dog excrement.

However, behind the mask of Divine lies the surprisingly moving story of Harris Glenn Milstead, the man behind the monster. Underneath the painted face was a man who was surprisingly generous, gentle and charming. It seems miraculous that someone so mild mannered was able to conquer counter culture and became “the most beautiful woman in the world… almost!” His rise to fame is equally impressive. This film charts his life from his upbringing in a middle class conservative family  to his meeting with the legendary filmmaker and lifetime collaborator John Waters, climaxing with his worldwide superstardom as actor, performer and popstar.

I Am Divine is the perfect introduction for the uninitiated, and a glorious deep dive for long term fans.

The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

Erotic cinema often fails to have substance, focused more on salacious scenes of a sexual nature rather than a deeper exploration of sexuality. However, Peter Strickland’s Duke of Burgundy shakes the trend, providing a glimpse into the relationship of a dominant and submissive that is sympathetic and insightful.

Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is a student of lepidopterology, the study of moths, under the expertise of her teacher turned lover, Evelyn (Monica Swinn). However, in exchange for her tuition, Cynthia works as Evelyn’s maid at home, where she must live by the tightly wound rules and cleanliness expectations of the older woman. Failure is punishment.

However, is it all as it seems? Is Evelyn really a dogged dominant or is Cynthia orchestrating the dynamic? Does Evelyn enjoy her position of power, or is it secretly one that Cynthia craves? Where sexual power dynamics have traditionally been portrayed as something dangerous and degenerate, here, Strickland asks the human questions of what it means to enter into such complex relations.

The performances of its two leading ladies are nuanced and subtle, highlighting the humanity of the film’s protagonists. Indeed, this was Swinn’s first role in 30 years, who came out of retirement to deliver one of her finest performances, which alongside Strickland’s cinematic talents, renders this an unforgettable movie.

Weekend (2011)

With Andrew Haigh’s new film All of Us Strangers coming to cinemas too, this is the perfect time to revisit his acclaimed second feature Weekend, praised for its heart wrenching realistic approach to this countdown-to-farewell romance.

Where most queer films of the time focused too often on hard-hitting cliché narratives that portrayed gay men as victims, Haigh’s story of Russel and Glen, who meet on a one night stand and engage in a weekend-long dalliance, is sensitive and moving in its beautiful and honest portrayal of connection and intimacy between men.

Whilst the time between the two lovers is highly romantic, the observational nature of the film allows Haigh to explore many of the complexities of queer identity. Russell, who spent his childhood in foster care and now alone in adult life struggles to comfortably embrace his sexuality. Glen, who was repeatedly cheated on by his ex, “no longer does boyfriends”. However, their intimate encounter highlights the power of sensual healing – this is not just another one night stand, but a meeting of minds that will better them both and never be forgotten. Weekend will appeal to fans of slow-burning romantic cinema and will stay with the viewer like the greatest of one night stands: gentle yet powerful; brief but unforgettable.