Clockwise from top left: Beautiful Thing, But I’m a Cheerleader, Moonlight, and I Saw the TV Glow.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection (Sony Classics, A24), Lionsgate
On June 19, a highly anticipated movie hits theaters — about a gay icon’s emotional struggle to feel seen for who she really is. You may be thinking of the Jessie-led Toy Story 5, but viewers will also be treated to Hayley Kiyoko’s Girls Like Girls, an intimate drama about a 17-year-old’s pivotal (and very gay) summer in Oregon.
In the two years since it was announced that the musician (and former Lemonade Mouth star) would be directing a film adaptation of her own best-selling book and popular song, fans have expressed hope that Girls Like Girls will add to the small-but-mighty canon of top-quality queer coming-of-age movies below. It’s a safe bet: The viral trailer, which depicts Coley (newcomer Maya da Costa) navigating grief, growing up, and not-so-platonic female friendships, previews a film intent on presenting a realistically full depiction of young queerness — in all its ecstatic highs and crushing devastations. The films that follow do the same and are more than worth watching after you walk out of Girls Like Girls.
Year: 1996
Run time: 1h 31m
Director: Hettie MacDonald
Twenty-six years before Heartstopper landed on Netflix, another piece of pop culture about two British boys falling in love stole viewers’ hearts. Hettie MacDonald’s tender, uplifting tale follows closeted working-class teen Jamie (Glen Berry), who begins embracing his identity while falling for troubled boy next door Ste (Scott Neal). Seen through today’s lens, the film’s predictable events may feel a bit trite, but it’s hard to overstate just how rare it was for a positive queer love story to hit theaters at the time. Decades later, the groundbreaking romance remains a joy to watch. ➽ Available for rent.
Year: 1998
Run time: 1h 31m
Director: David Moreton
Not to be confused with the (equally great, just not gay) 2016 coming-of-age film of the same name, this David Moreton–directed comedy centers on gay 17-year-old Eric (Chris Stafford) over one transformative ’80s summer. It’s thrilling to watch the lonely Eric experience his first male hookups, experiment with his style, and find community at the local queer dive (run by future Orange Is the New Black star Lea DeLaria). And while the movie’s ending tone skews perhaps a bit more cheery than realistic, it’s hard not to share in such heartfelt optimism. ➽ Streaming via Strand Releasing.
Year: 1998
Run time: 1h 50m
Director: Simone Shore
Simone Shore’s British dramedy about a closeted high-school boy renders the messy, awkward trials of queer adolescence in all their unfiltered glory. Ben Silverstone gives a moving performance as teenage Steven, who spends the film fighting bullies and breakups on the path to self-acceptance. Today’s viewers may find Get Real’s tone and events a bit dated, but its compassionate core is timeless. ➽ Streaming on YouTube.
Year: 1998
Run time: 1h 295m
Director: Lukas Moodysson
This Swedish outing from director Lukas Moodysson may only be remembered by some for its controversial original title (Fucking Åmål), but that’s doing a disservice to the film’s compelling portrayal of its teen heroines’ burgeoning romance. Alexandra Dahlström and Rebecka Liljeberg infuse respective leads Elin and Agnes with authentic nerves and excitement, and the movie gives each girl’s exploration of queerness and first love the fullness it deserves. ➽ Streaming on YouTube.
Year: 1999
Run time: 1h 25m
Director: Jamie Babbit
The first of two conversion-therapy-focused movies on this list (and by far the sillier entry), Jamie Babbit’s cult classic revolves around a lesbian teen whose sapphic leanings aren’t exactly “cured” during her stay at camp. The star-studded cast (RuPaul! Michelle Williams!) is led by Natasha Lyonne as the titular cheerleader, who imbues Megan with a charm and heart that deepen the film’s comic broadness. Nearly 30 years on, Cheerleader remains a seminal and beloved piece of cinema by much of the LGBTQ+ community. ➽ Streaming for free on Tubi.
Year: 2011
Run time: 1h 26m
Director: Dee Rees
The startlingly assured feature debut of filmmaker Dee Rees, Pariah follows 17-year-old Alike’s (Adepero Oduye) journey to recognize and own her identity as a Black butch lesbian. Alike’s coming-of-age is filled with trials, most notably the homophobic abuse she suffers at the hands of her religious mother (Kim Wayans), but both the character and the film retain a hopeful, essential spirit. Pariah promises that now is not forever, and that refusing to compromise yourself is a blissful form of freedom. ➽ Available for rent.
Year: 2014
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Daniel Ribeiro
A story of queer teen romance with a thoughtfully handled twist — protagonist Leo (Ghilherme Lobo) is blind — Daniel Ribeiro’s Brazilian film is filled with warmth and earnestness from beginning to end. It’s impossible not to root for Leo as he finds his independence and pursues a romance with classmate Gabriel, especially when Bowie and Belle and Sebastian invigorate the film’s soundtrack. ➽ Streaming via Strand Releasing.
Year: 2016
Run time: 1h 51m
Director: Barry Jenkins
No list of great queer films, coming-of age stories, or 21st-century movies is complete without Barry Jenkins’s magnificent Best Picture winner. Detailing the tumultuous life of Black, gay Chiron (played in ascending ages by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes, all astonishing) in three parts, Moonlight examines the complex intersections of Blackness, masculinity, and queerness with heartwrenching nuance. ➽ Streaming on HBO Max.
Year: 2017
Run time: 2h 103m
Director: Luca Guadagnino
The film that launched Timothée Chalamet’s career and countless peach memes on the internet, CMBYN is a raw, sensual slow burn that’s become a true coming-of-age classic. Under Luca Guadagnino’s empathetic direction, the 1983-set story of American teen Elio (Chalamet) falling for visiting grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer) over a very hot Italian summer strikes every right chord about longing, love, and growing up — and somehow encapsulates them all by lingering on that unforgettable final image of Elio reflecting on the past while staring into the fireplace. ➽ Streaming for free on Tubi.
Year: 2017
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Stephen Cone
A sweet and profound look at a queer teenage girl’s formative summer in Chicago, this film by Stephen Cone cares far more about conveying feeling than relaying plot. That’s not to say nothing happens — Cyd (an excellent Jessie Pinnick) romances a nonbinary barista and bonds with her writer aunt — but the events take second fiddle to the 16-year-old’s exhilaratingly ordinary journey of self-discovery. Cyd has “very little anxiety or stress over her sexuality or what it means for her identity,” Vulture’s Emily Yoshida wrote in 2017. “We’re watching her form her identity onscreen, through her relationships with Katie and Miranda and pretty much everyone else who crosses her path.” ➽ Streaming for free on Tubi.
Year: 2018
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Desiree Akhavan
Chloë Grace Moretz has never been better than when playing the titular teen in this searing drama about the horrors of conversion therapy, based on Emily M. Danforth’s 2012 novel. Set in the early ’90s yet still eerily timely (the “treatment” is still legal in 23 states), Desiree Akhavan’s film portrays the damaging rhetoric and blatant abuse rampant in one such program through the appalled eyes of its recently outed heroine. Scenes of Cameron trauma-bonding with peers Jane Fonda (Sasha Lane) and Adam Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck) add some levity, but Cameron Post succeeds in its aim to haunt. ➽ Streaming for free on YouTube.
Year: 2018
Run time: 1h 50m
Director: Greg Berlanti
The first major studio film about a LGBTQ+ teen romance, the Greg Berlanti–directed Love, Simon came with high stakes — and luckily, it delivered. Even if Nick Robinson’s performance as a closeted high-schooler navigating blackmail and first love wasn’t so endearing, and even if the script (by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker, based on Becky Albertalli’s 2015 novel) wasn’t so John Hughes–esque witty, the movie would have succeeded on just this 50-second-long Jennifer Garner clip alone. “You get to exhale now, Simon. You get to be more you than you have ever been.” We’re all crying, right? ➽ Streaming on HBO Max.
Year: 2020
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Alice Wu
If you think Cyrano de Bergerac retellings are overdone, let Alice Wu’s beautifully fresh spin on the tale convince you otherwise. Leah Lewis stars as introverted Ellie, who falls for popular girl Aster (Alexxis Lemire) while writing love letters to her on behalf of a male friend. Few teen films of recent years have captured the brutal yearning and envy of queer are-we-friends-or-are-we-more dynamics as sharply as The Half of It; it’s just a shame the movie landed on Netflix in the early pandemic and thus went largely unnoticed. ➽ Streaming on Netflix.
Year: 2023
Run time: 1h 32m
Director: Emma Seligman
Deliciously campy and unpredictably chaotic, Emma Seligman’s black comedy about a pair of lesbian BFFs who start a high-school fight club to get girls is already considered a cult classic. Rachel Sennott (who co-wrote the script with Seligman) and Ayo Edebiri are our perfect imperfect heroines, keeping their characters’ teenage horniness and desire for community relatably human even when their actions lead to (literally) earth-shattering consequences. ➽ Available for rent.
Year: 2024
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
A stirring and deeply original psychological drama, Jane Schoenbrun’s film uses its plot of outcast teens Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven) getting trapped in a pocket TV universe as an allegory for the claustrophobic dysphoria felt by many trans people. Schoenbrun had recently started hormones for transitioning when she wrote Glow, telling Vulture that she sought to depict the “immediate aftermath of blowing up your entire sense of reality and existence” in the script. She succeeded and then some. ➽ Streaming for free on Tubi.
