Best Gay Movies on Netflix to Stream Now

Looking for the best gay movies on Netflix right now? This curated, long-form guide gathers twenty-five standout films that celebrate love, identity, friendship, chosen family, and the many shades of queer experience. You’ll find tender first loves, quietly devastating dramas, uplifting comedies, and landmark biographical portraits—each chosen for storytelling craft, cultural resonance, and emotional power. In the spirit of our “Good Family Movies” style, every entry includes clear metadata (runtime, cast, director, genre, IMDb rating) followed by an expanded paragraph that explains why it matters and what mood it suits. Whether you’re planning a solo watch, a date night, or a group screening, this list balances accessible crowd-pleasers with bolder arthouse gems so you can match the vibe of your evening.

Representation in cinema doesn’t just reflect the world—it helps shape it. From intimate coming-of-age stories to sweeping romances, from historical injustices to joyful celebrations, these movies span decades and continents while centering gay protagonists with care. Use the synopses as a vibe check: we call out tone, pacing, and themes so you can choose confidently. Grab a blanket, dim the lights, and queue up something moving; the next unforgettable watch could be a click away.

25. The Half of It (2020)

• Runtime: 104 minutes
• Starring: Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, Alexxis Lemire
• Director: Alice Wu
• Genre: Drama, Romance, Coming-of-Age
• IMDb Rating: 6.9/10

Alice Wu’s tender teen dramedy reframes Cyrano as a queer, Chinese-American brainiac ghostwrites love letters for a sweet but tongue-tied jock, only to fall for the same girl. It’s smart without cynicism, gently funny without snark, and deeply observant about immigrant family pressures and small-town codes of silence. The film avoids melodrama, letting quiet glances and handwritten notes bloom into aching honesty. Expect soft, pastel visuals, literate dialogue, and a finale that favors growth over tidy closure. It’s an ideal pick when you want sincerity, friendship, and the tremor of first love rather than high-stakes angst.

24. Alex Strangelove (2018)

• Runtime: 99 minutes
• Starring: Daniel Doheny, Antonio Marziale, Madeline Weinstein
• Director: Craig Johnson
• Genre: Comedy, Romance
• IMDb Rating: 6.3/10

Awkward, endearing, and proudly messy, this high-school rom-com traces a well-meaning plan to lose one’s virginity that derails when its hero meets an openly gay classmate. The film balances goofy party gags with tender confusion, honoring how scary—but liberating—naming your truth can be. Its pop soundtrack and meme-adjacent humor keep the mood buoyant, while the final act lands with compassionate clarity. If you want something light that still validates the complexities of coming out, start here; it’s a breezy crowd-pleaser with its heart in exactly the right place.

23. Handsome Devil (2016)

• Runtime: 95 minutes
• Starring: Fionn O’Shea, Nicholas Galitzine, Andrew Scott
• Director: John Butler
• Genre: Comedy, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.0/10

Set in an Irish boarding school obsessed with rugby, this warm dramedy pairs a wry, music-loving outsider with the team’s new star. Their reluctant friendship grows into a gentle act of defiance against conformity, while Andrew Scott shines as a teacher who refuses to betray his younger self. Lean and lively at under 100 minutes, it celebrates art, vulnerability, and chosen kinship without sermonizing. Expect clever voiceover, catchy tunes, and a small yet satisfying crescendo about learning to be loud in your own voice.

22. A Single Man (2009)

• Runtime: 101 minutes
• Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode
• Director: Tom Ford
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• IMDb Rating: 7.5/10

Tom Ford’s exquisite debut observes one day in the life of a grieving professor in 1960s Los Angeles. Every frame is sculpted—color drains then returns, time dilates, and desire flickers like a candle in a draft. Colin Firth’s performance is a masterclass in restraint, the way a hand lingers near a cigarette or a gaze latches onto a stranger. Despite its sadness, the film is strangely life-giving, finding grace in fleeting connections and the courage to keep looking up. Watch when you crave beauty, atmosphere, and a cathartic exhale.

21. Call Me by Your Name (2017)

• Runtime: 132 minutes
• Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg
• Director: Luca Guadagnino
• Genre: Romance, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.8/10

Sun-drenched and slow-blooming, this Italian summer romance traces a brilliant teen’s infatuation with his family’s visiting scholar. Guadagnino captures the tactile pleasures of fruit, books, lakes, and idle afternoons where love can ambush you. Chalamet’s final close-up became a cultural touchstone, while Michael Stuhlbarg’s monologue reframed parental love as radical empathy. It’s languorous, literate, and quietly devastating in the way all first loves are—too large for their container, unforgettable for a lifetime.

20. Boy Erased (2018)

• Runtime: 115 minutes
• Starring: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe
• Director: Joel Edgerton
• Genre: Biography, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 6.9/10

Based on Garrard Conley’s memoir, this drama confronts conversion therapy with unflinching honesty while honoring the quiet acts of courage it takes to survive. The performances are raw yet compassionate, allowing space for complicated love and conditional belief to clash. It’s not an easy watch, but it is essential, and its final beat insists on dignity over shame. If you’re ready for something serious with substantive discussion after, this will stay with you.

19. Moonlight (2016)

• Runtime: 111 minutes
• Starring: Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, Mahershala Ali
• Director: Barry Jenkins
• Genre: Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.4/10

Jenkins’s triptych follows Chiron from boyhood to adulthood, mapping hunger—for safety, for touch, for a self unpoliced by others. The film listens as much as it looks, with silences that throb and neon-blue nights that feel like baptism. Mahershala Ali’s tender mentor, Naomi Harris’s harrowing mother, and the diner reunion that rewires your heart: it’s cinema that invites you to breathe differently. A defining classic of queer film language.

18. The Boys in the Band (2020)

• Runtime: 121 minutes
• Starring: Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells
• Director: Joe Mantello
• Genre: Drama
• IMDb Rating: 6.8/10

This sharp, actorly adaptation of Mart Crowley’s seminal play captures a pre-Stonewall Manhattan party where wit is both armor and weapon. As games sour and old wounds surface, the ensemble delivers biting humor braided with longing. It’s theatrical by design, but the camera finds intimacy in glances and micro-expressions. Watch for the history it carries—and the reminder that chosen family can be a lifeline even when it’s messy.

17. The Prom (2020)

• Runtime: 130 minutes
• Starring: Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Jo Ellen Pellman
• Director: Ryan Murphy
• Genre: Musical, Comedy, Romance
• IMDb Rating: 5.9/10

Splashy and earnest, this Broadway adaptation sends out-of-work actors to help a lesbian teen banned from taking her girlfriend to prom. Expect glittery numbers, big feelings, and a message that tilts toward acceptance without cynicism. It’s comfort cinema: colorful, catchy, and unashamedly sentimental. Queue it when your watch party wants confetti with its advocacy.

Best Gay Movies on Netflix — Identity, Desire & Chosen Family

16. The Power of the Dog (2021)

• Runtime: 126 minutes
• Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee
• Director: Jane Campion
• Genre: Psychological Western, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 6.8/10

Campion’s taut slow-burn retools the Western as a study in repression and performance. Cumberbatch’s rancher bristles with menace, yet the film’s quiet reveals invite empathy even as dread coils. Desire hides in etiquette, gesture, and cruelty; tenderness arrives disguised and late. For viewers who like subtext and immaculate craft, it’s a riveting, uneasy triumph.

15. Holding the Man (2015)

• Runtime: 128 minutes
• Starring: Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Anthony LaPaglia, Guy Pearce
• Director: Neil Armfield
• Genre: Romance, Biography, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.2/10

Based on Timothy Conigrave’s memoir, this Australian love story spans fifteen turbulent years against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis. It’s frank about sex, politics, and mortality, yet threaded with levity and domestic warmth. Performances are openhearted without sentimentality, landing a finale that feels both specific and universal. Bring tissues; you’ll also leave grateful.

14. God’s Own Country (2017)

• Runtime: 104 minutes
• Starring: Josh O’Connor, Alec Secăreanu
• Director: Francis Lee
• Genre: Romance, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.6/10

A bruised Yorkshire farmer finds unexpected connection with a Romanian migrant worker during lambing season. Mud, weather, and labor become a language for desire and repair. The film’s intimacy is tactile and unsentimental; by the end, a simple domestic gesture lands like a sunrise. If you loved naturalistic romances with grit and grace, this one lingers.

13. Weekend (2011)

• Runtime: 97 minutes
• Starring: Tom Cullen, Chris New
• Director: Andrew Haigh
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• IMDb Rating: 7.6/10

Two men meet for what should be a brief fling; forty-eight hours later, they’ve excavated each other with uncommon honesty. Haigh’s low-key, conversational style captures how strangers can feel like home at the wrong time. It’s talky, tender, and truthful about queer negotiation—visibility, politics, and boundaries—in the glow of a disappearing weekend. Minimal plot, maximal feeling.

12. Maurice (1987)

• Runtime: 140 minutes
• Starring: James Wilby, Rupert Graves, Hugh Grant
• Director: James Ivory
• Genre: Period Romance, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.7/10

E.M. Forster’s once-suppressed novel becomes a lush Edwardian romance that dares to imagine a happy ending. The Cambridge sequences buzz with forbidden charge; country-house interludes bloom with tenderness and risk. Hugh Grant’s early turn hints at the career to come, while the film argues that love—honest and ordinary—can be radical. A classic that still feels subversive.

11. Philadelphia (1993)

• Runtime: 125 minutes
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas
• Director: Jonathan Demme
• Genre: Legal Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.7/10

One of mainstream Hollywood’s first AIDS dramas pairs Hanks’s wrongfully fired lawyer with Washington’s initially homophobic advocate. Demme humanizes through close-ups and music, turning a courtroom into a moral mirror. It’s sentimental, yes, but also historically pivotal, and its aria scene remains indelible. A bridge film that opened doors and hearts.

10. Milk (2008)

• Runtime: 128 minutes
• Starring: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin
• Director: Gus Van Sant
• Genre: Biography, Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.5/10

Van Sant’s lively biopic captures activist Harvey Milk’s rise with archival flair and intimate humor. Sean Penn’s performance is exuberant yet precise, turning rally chants into personal declarations. It’s a civics lesson as celebratory cinema, reminding us how coalitions win and why visibility matters. If you want political inspiration with heart, this is your rallying cry.

9. I Am Jonas (2018)

• Runtime: 82 minutes
• Starring: Félix Maritaud, Nicolas Bauwens
• Director: Christophe Charrier
• Genre: Drama, Thriller
• IMDb Rating: 6.8/10

This French memory puzzle toggles between a teen romance and an adult reckoning as a man reopens the mystery of his first love. Neon clubs and suburban nights unfold like clues; trauma and desire intertwine without exploitation. Compact and stylish, it scratches the itch for mood-driven storytelling that still lands an emotional punch.

8. The Way He Looks (2014)

• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Starring: Ghilherme Lobo, Fabio Audi, Tess Amorim
• Director: Daniel Ribeiro
• Genre: Coming-of-Age, Romance
• IMDb Rating: 7.9/10

A blind Brazilian teen yearns for independence, then meets a new classmate who complicates everything in the sweetest way. Sunlit afternoons, bike rides, and an indie-pop heartbeat make this a tonic for bad days. It’s gentle yet grounded, affirming that autonomy and intimacy can grow together. Few films feel this effortlessly kind.

7. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

• Runtime: 134 minutes
• Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams
• Director: Ang Lee
• Genre: Romance, Drama, Western
• IMDb Rating: 7.7/10

Ang Lee’s modern classic frames forbidden love against Wyoming’s vast, indifferent beauty. Ledger and Gyllenhaal do the impossible: say everything with almost nothing. The film’s ache is cumulative—stolen summers, domestic compromises, and a final, devastating keepsake. It’s the template for the tragic, lyrical queer romance, and it still stuns.

6. Love, Simon (2018)

• Runtime: 110 minutes
• Starring: Nick Robinson, Katherine Langford, Jennifer Garner
• Director: Greg Berlanti
• Genre: Teen Romance, Comedy-Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.5/10

A John Hughes-style crowd-pleaser with a gay protagonist, this is glossy studio comfort at its best. The mystery-pen-pal conceit keeps things playful while the coming-out beats land with cathartic warmth. Parents will cry, friends will cheer, and you’ll hum the soundtrack for days. When you need wholesome joy with a big, inclusive hug—press play.

5. Dance of the 41 (2020)

• Runtime: 99 minutes
• Starring: Alfonso Herrera, Emiliano Zurita, Mabel Cadena
• Director: David Pablos
• Genre: Historical Drama
• IMDb Rating: 6.8/10

Inspired by a seismic 1901 scandal in Mexico City, this lush period piece exposes class, power, and the risks of loving honestly in public. Velvet salons and masked balls hide a powder keg; when it blows, the ripples remake language and politics. It’s sensual, enraging, and beautifully mounted—a gripping history lesson that plays like a thriller.

4. The Imitation Game (2014)

• Runtime: 113 minutes
• Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode
• Director: Morten Tyldum
• Genre: Biography, War Drama
• IMDb Rating: 8.0/10

Alan Turing’s code-breaking brilliance helped end a world war; Britain repaid him with persecution. This polished biopic moves briskly, toggling between the lab’s crackle and flashbacks that sketch a life both extraordinary and constrained. Cumberbatch makes intellect kinetic, while the film underscores how homophobia robbed the world of a rare mind. Accessible, urgent, and deeply human.

3. Firebird (2021)

• Runtime: 107 minutes
• Starring: Tom Prior, Oleg Zagorodnii, Diana Pozharskaya
• Director: Peeter Rebane
• Genre: Romance, Historical Drama
• IMDb Rating: 6.6/10

Set on a Soviet air base during the Cold War, this clandestine romance mixes military suspense with sweeping melodrama. The stakes are existential; a glance can be life or death. The filmmaking favors sincerity over irony, building to rapturous climaxes and tender aftermaths. If you love grand, old-school romance mounted with modern sensitivity, it soars.

2. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

• Runtime: 98 minutes
• Starring: Gordon Warnecke, Daniel Day-Lewis, Saeed Jaffrey
• Director: Stephen Frears
• Genre: Comedy-Drama
• IMDb Rating: 6.9/10

A scrappy, punk-tinged romance between a young Pakistani entrepreneur and his white, working-class ex-skinhead lover, set against Thatcher-era London. Hanif Kureishi’s script is spiky and generous, juggling race, class, capitalism, and desire with nimble wit. It’s lively, sexy, and politically alive—an enduring touchstone of British queer cinema.

1. The Boys in the Band (1970) — Legacy Pick

• Runtime: 118 minutes
• Starring: Kenneth Nelson, Leonard Frey, Cliff Gorman
• Director: William Friedkin
• Genre: Drama
• IMDb Rating: 7.1/10

Before Stonewall cracked the sky, this razor-tongued, emotionally raw adaptation put gay men’s lives center stage—warts, wit, and heartbreak intact. It’s a time capsule and a provocation, a mirror that some find harsh but many recognize with gratitude. Watch alongside the 2020 version to feel how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. As a #1 legacy pick, it anchors the canon.

Conclusion: Finding Your Next Favorite Among the Best Gay Movies on Netflix

The best gay movies on Netflix aren’t a single mood—they’re a constellation of voices, eras, and aesthetics. Maybe you’re after a tender spark ( The Way He Looks, Handsome Devil ), a cathartic tearjerker ( Holding the Man, Philadelphia ), a stylish slow-burn ( A Single Man, The Power of the Dog ), or history that still hums with urgency ( Milk, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Imitation Game ). Let this list be your map, not a fence; taste is personal, and discovery is half the joy. Pair films across tones for a fuller picture—one breezy contemporary with one landmark classic, one romance with one political drama. Most of all, celebrate that these stories exist to be found, revisited, and shared. Happy streaming and happy arguing about favorites—because every canon is a conversation, and yours matters.

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