Whittling down the best queer movies or shows of the year has become a near impossible task these days. There’s just so much incredible LGBTQ+ storytelling to admire and enjoy and even make your lifelong obsession. It’s a good problem to have, one that should never be taken for granted. But now imagine having to combine the two, narrowing down the best films and shows of 2024 into one list that covers everything it should, including smaller titles that are also worth championing.
That’s why it pains us to leave so many worthy shows off our list, including (but not limited to) Black Doves, Dead Boy Detectives, Heartstopper, We Are Lady Parts, Hazbin Hotel and The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy. Now bear in mind that’s just TV. Movies like Sebastian, Layla, Good One, Close To You, Crossing, Unicorns, Solo, High Tide, Chuck Chuck Baby and National Anthem all deserve celebrating too. But you know what that means? Every show and film that did make the cut is extra worthy and should be immediately propelled to the top of your watch lists.
Will every reader agree with these picks? Probably not, but no one said being gay was going to be easy. So with that in mind, here are the year’s 12 best queer films and shows.
12. Baby Reindeer
Based on real events that happened to series creator Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer depicts the nightmare that unfolded when a stalker named “Martha” tore his life apart. The fact that Gadd himself plays the lead in this TV reenactment of said nightmare (that he also wrote) adds an extra, even more unsettling layer to what happened.
Across seven episodes, we see the horrendous toll that shame, mental illness, inept policing and internalised homophobia had on not just Gadd but Martha too, combining into a vortex of trauma that ruined the lives of two broken people. But it’s arguably episode four that stands out most, striking a painful chord for gay and bi men especially who have had to deal with the realities of rape and grooming, just like Donny did in a devastating chapter of his life that even predated Martha. To explore all that with such raw, unflinching honesty is what makes Baby Reindeer such a vital watch, even if it’s never an easy one.
11. The Last Year of Darkness
Across five years, American director Ben Mullinkosson documented the lives of his friends in the neon-drenched world of Funky Town, a queer underground club hidden away in Chengdu. There, this assortment of DJs, ravers, skaters, and drag artists found themselves and each other in the euphoric joy only night time can bring, free to love who they want to love and dance with anyone they please away from the societal constraints of Chinese law.
“From throwing up to growing up,” (as the tagline puts it), The Last Year of Darkness is quietly revolutionary in its depiction of outsiders thriving in a world that wishes to hide them away in darkness. Because it’s in this darkness where they can truly be themselves, banding together as a family in the face of the club’s imminent closure.
10. Love in the Big City
Love in the Big City blew up in a big way this year. After Sang Young Park’s acclaimed novel was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022, a film and a TV series went into production and both were then released within a month of each other in the tail end of 2024. Seeing mainstream queer fare of any kind is practically unheard of in South Korea, so it’s remarkable that two separate adaptations have been received as well as they have there and worldwide too. Ok, both the show and the film did receive push back from protesting bigots, but that’s when you know you’ve made something truly worthwhile.
E.oni’s film, starring Exhuma’s Kim Go-eun and Pachinko’s Steve Sanghyun Noh, takes a more light-hearted focus on the first section of the book where a young gay man named Heung-soo navigates love with his bestie Jae-hee. Meanwhile, the TVING streaming series covers Park’s novel in its entirety, starring Nam Yoon-su in the lead where his protagonist (named Go Young here) explores wider facets of love, rejection, and living with HIV in the search for happiness.
While the two adaptations vary in tone and focus, both speak to the reality of being queer in contemporary Seoul, beautifully humanising gay men in a society that still demonises our very existence. Everyone involved is also extremely hot, so whether you go with the film or show (or both!), just know that you’ll fall for Love in the Big City regardless.
9. Queer
You know that “I’m gonna give the gays everything they want” quote? For some, it’s just a joke or a fun reaction meme, but for director Luca Guadagnino, it’s a way of life. How else do you explain the peach in Call Me By Your Name or the churros scene in Challengers? The same is also true of Luca’s latest film, Queer, which gives the gays everything they want in more ways than one.
Much of the hype around Queer has honed in on when Daniel Craig’s disheveled “queer”, William Lee, finally seduces the twink he’s longed for in one of the most explicit gay sex scenes ever seen outside of arthouse cinema or OnlyFans. But beyond that feral chemistry Craig shares with his co-star, Drew Starkey, Craig himself has never been better as he is here, shifting effortlessly between a prowling, almost predatory lust and the deep-rooted insecurities that characterised Williams S. Burroughs.
Just as beautiful as the beguiling blue eyes he falls for are the dusty yet colourful streets of Mexico City where much of Queer takes place before a surprise change in tone and location pulls the rug out from under you. This film’s freewheeling spirit will stay with you long after the credits roll, as will the surreal, stupidly beautiful fever dream this so-called love story ends on.
8. Big Boys s2
It’s tempting to suggest that Big Boys went bigger in season two, except that’s not entirely accurate. Rather, Jack Rooke’s autobiographical coming-of age-comedy went deeper the second time around, and we don’t just mean when Jack’s protagonist finally lost his virginity or even when his eye got poked through a glory hole in the local pub.
The show’s already-confident grip on loss and laughter navigates that fine line with bolder narrative swings that are just as cathartic for us as they are for Rooke as he reimagines what life could be like if things had gone differently with his father or best friend Danny. This central bond, played tenderly by Dylan Llewellyn and Jon Pointing, is a touching and affirming push back against the idea that gay and straight men can’t be friends or connect on a deeper level. Together, they form the backbone of this beautiful and unique British show which we desperately hope to see more of, even if the end of season two is already a perfect series finale in all but name.
7. The People’s Joker
Superhero stories haven’t survived as long as they have by obsessively sticking to the original text. Even your favourite comic book creations have endlessly shifted and adapted throughout the years. Perhaps no one understands the mythic allure of this better than Vera Drew, star, co-writer and director of The People’s Joker, a controversial take on Batman’s nemesis that reimagines the Joker as an aspiring clown who’s navigating her gender identity.
By filtering the DC comics icon through a deeply personal lens reminiscent of her own trans journey, Drew taps into core truths that other adaptations forego, deconstructing notions of heroism and queer morality through a mixed media approach that brings to life the Joker’s own deranged, fragmented psyche on screen. You’ve never seen a “superhero” movie like this before, and you’d never want to either, because the whole reason it works so well is because no one else could make a story quite like this.
6. English Teacher
If you only know Brian Jordan Alvarez from his guest roles in Will & Grace or Jane the Virgin or even his (often shirtless) “I love your daughter” meme, you’re missing out on the best new comedy of the year. In Hulu’s English Teacher, show creator Alvarez plays, you guessed it, an English teacher, who supports his Gen Z students while contending with the pressures of working full time in a Texan public school.
The jokes are whip smart, the teenagers don’t sound like they were written by boomers, and most importantly of all, the show is gay with a capital G. That’s “Gay” as in a proper noun, if our own memory of english teaching serves us right. Just don’t compare English Teacher to Abbott Elementary, another brilliant yet wildly different American comedy that takes place in a school setting. Do so and it’s an instant fail.
5. Love Lies Bleeding
As the poster child for “Be gay, do crime,” Kristen Stewart is directly responsible for many a sexual awakening. But throw Katy O’Brian into the mix and you’ve suddenly got yourself the kind of lustful, sapphic, pulpy neo-noir thriller that your grandparents warned you about. The kind that sends a chill down the spine of anyone opposed to hot gay people doing hot gay stuff.
But for hot gays watching, Love Lies Bleeding will send a different kind of shudder through your body as you watch Kristen’s gym manager and Katy’s bodybuilder tear through small-town America in this riotous, twisty midnight movie. With her second feature, Saint Maud (2019) director Rose Glass shatters the idea that she might be a one-hit wonder, cementing herself as one of the most exciting (and horny) British filmmakers working today.
4. Hacks s3
The only thing gays love more than iced coffee and making tired references to iced coffee is a fallen diva’s comeback. That’s why Deborah Vance is so deeply loved by fans of Hacks who have stuck with the aging (but still majestic) comedian as she fights to regain her popularity in showbiz (as referenced even in a standout episode of season three). Of course, it helps that her humour is bitingly quick and even monstrous at points.
Three seasons in, Smart has never been better, and the same is true of Hannah Einbinder who plays her younger writing partner with just the right amount of snarky, chaotic bisexual energy. Their chemistry together is the backbone of Hacks, but that doesn’t mean the writers play it safe with their dynamic. If anything, the end of season three suggests the next chapter will be even more unhinged and therefore more magnificent, which somewhat helps soothe the relentless rage we’ve been feeling since Einbinder’s tragic Emmy snub earlier this year. The real hacks are the voters, amiright!?!
3. Challengers
Perpetually sweaty and endlessly horny, Luca Guadagnino’s first bonkfest of 2024 goes to show that tennis can be just as gay as wrestling or volleyball or any other sports. Because no matter how riled up Tashi (Zendaya), Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) get, endlessly rallying and railing each other off the court, it’s on the court where this toxic love triangle is at its most passionate.
Because it’s in the matches where Guadagnino serves the most sex as our trio of young tennis champs grunt and groan and pound the court to the sound of a pulsating synth score crafted by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. There they let out all their anger and frustration and unbridled lust for each other as we marvel at how Luca managed to make a tennis movie as ace as this one.
2. Interview with the Vampire s2
Interview With The Vampire instantly established itself as one of the all-time greats with just one season and the second one might be even better, continuing to outshine the ’90s movie and even Anne Rice’s source material with an unabashedly queer love story that’s more masterful than any on the big screen. It’s the kind of show that devours you from inside, that leaves you desperately hungry for more, no matter how many times you consume the same episodes, over and over again.
From the lavish costumes and stunning production design to the nuanced writing and delicious twists, it’s impossible to think of any other series airing right now that’s as ferociously strong as this one. Everyone involved, from Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid and Assad Zaman to Eric Bogosian and the two Claudia’s, Delainey Hayles and Bailey Bass, has an immortal, lifelong fan in us. And that’s true whether we live forever or not.
1. I Saw The TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun’s eerie sophomore feature is a slow, strange mood-piece that’s simultaneously less queer than other picks on this list and more queer than all of them combined. That’s because the film speaks to nascent queerness, that intangible yet universal feeling of otherness that so many of us experience before realising the truth of who and what we are.
Standout turns from stars Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine take us through a deeply resonant exploration of identity and dysphoria that’s defiantly unique, a singular vision that channels the best of what queer cinema once embodied before gays broke into the mainstream and straights co-opted the rest.
I Saw The TV Glow is not for everyone, and that’s the whole point. As such, this might be a contentious choice for some, especially at the top spot. But for those in sync with this story of a mysterious late-night show and the teenagers consumed by it, Schoenbrun’s surreal 90s homage is a must-see, just as The Pink Opaque is vital viewing for Owen and Maddy (Episode guide release when?).