The 10 Best Queer Movies of 2025

From “Abracadabra” and The White Lotus’s incestual handjob to “Protect the Dolls” and Jonathan Bailey (rightfully) being named People’s Sexiest Man Alive, 2025 has been a year brimming with gay culture. And, obviously, Grindr has been taking notes. We’ve been listening to gay music, reading gay books, and watching gay movies, so that we can bring you the gay best of the gay best. (After all, Grindr Unwrapped 2025, honoring everything from the year’s best bulges to the most important gay guy music videos, is just around the corner.)

So if you’re gay and you consider yourself a patron of the arts (or you just want to watch hot people making out in a cinematic way), I’ve hand-crafted a guide to the best queer films of 2025 just for you. After watching hundreds of movies this year, I’ve whittled down the list to a top ten for your viewing pleasure. So whether you want to host a movie night with your new situationship or to name-drop a queer arthouse film at the afters, I’ve got you covered. 

2025 may be coming to a close, but luckily for us, queer cinema is forever. So without further ado, here are the best gay movies of 2025. 

Cactus Pears (In Theaters)

Starting alphabetically, Cactus Pears is a delicate romance from first-time director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. The Marathi film follows Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), an out gay man living in Mumbai, who must return to his rural hometown after the death of his father. While there, he connects with his childhood best friend, who is still in the closet. The pair rekindle their relationship, field arranged marriage propositions from their nosy relatives, and share one particularly intimate scene while herding goats (as one does). 

Come See Me in the Good Light (Apple TV+)

If you need a good cry (and only then), check out this stunning documentary, which follows acclaimed poet Andrea Gibson and her wife Megan Falley as they grapple with Gibson’s terminal cancer diagnosis. The film, directed by Ryan White, interweaves Gibson reading her own poetry with emotionally raw footage of the couple savoring life together. Stock up on tissues. 

Hedda (Prime Video)

Nia DaCosta’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play dares to ask, “What if Hedda Gabler were a horny AF, chaotic bisexual?” The extravagant and lush drama stars Tessa Thompson as the messy, and lavishly dressed Hedda, acting opposite a balls-to-the-walls Nina Hoss as the gender-swapped Lovborg. Praying this film launches a new wave of batshit house parties, because I need this energy in my life.

The History of Sound (Mubi)

The Brokeback Mountain Award for old-timey gays having sex in the wilderness goes to Oliver Hermanus’ The History of Sound. The quiet romance follows two folk music archivists (sexy!) played by Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor as they travel rural Maine in 1920, collecting recordings of folk songs (and f*cking in a tent). The film is quieter and more contemplative than it is raunchy, but it’s a beautiful ode to our queer elders and their secret romances that have always existed. 

Kiss of the Spider Woman (Video on Demand)

Come for Jennifer Lopez in a series of exquisite wigs and gowns, stay for Diego Luna and Tonatiuh as prison cellmates in Bill Condon’s musical sensation. Lopez is Oscar-worthy while eating up this choreography, but it’s the intimate relationship formed between a crossdresser and a revolutionary that steals the show. Kiss of the Spider Woman deftly depicts the ways queerness and politics are intrinsically linked and why we, as queer people, can never stop fighting for what’s right. 

Pillion (In Theaters)

The award for horniest movie of the year easily goes to Pillion (which is the backseat of a motorcycle if you didn’t know). Harry Melling (aka Dudley Dursley from Harry Potter) stars as a timid sub, who begins a BDSM relationship with a leather daddy top played by Alexander Skarsgard. Backalley blowjobs, kinky forest fucking, and plenty of dom/sub play are all included.

Plainclothes (Video on Demand)

This 1990s-set thriller stars Tom Blyth as a closeted New York cop, tasked with entrapping gay men cruising in the bathroom of a shopping mall. As expected, he ends up falling in love with another closeted man, played by Russell Tovey, whom he meets in the stalls. A one-time encounter turns into a full-blown obsession that threatens to implode both their lives. 

Twinless (Video on Demand)

In case you missed the clip of Dylan O’Brien topping that circulated gay Twitter earlier this year, you’ll want to catch up with Twinless, which stars O’Brien as both Roman, a straight man in a twin grief support group, as well as Rocky, his gay twin who tragically passed away. In the group, Roman meets Dennis (James Sweeney, who also wrote and directed the film), who knew Rocky and is grieving the death of his own twin. The black comedy is packed with laughs, twists, and one particularly steamy sex scene. 

Viet and Nam (Mubi)

You know a queer film is good when it’s been banned in its home country, as this film did. The romance, directed by Vietnamese director Truong Minh Quy, follows two coal miners and lovers, played by Thi Nga Nguyen and Daniel Viet Tung Le, who are determined to leave Vietnam for economic opportunities abroad. The melancholic romance boasts some of the year’s most stunning cinematography, including a coal-heap sex scene that will stay burned in your brain for all eternity. 

The Wedding Banquet (Paramount+)

The Wedding Banquet is the feel-good queer comedy of the year. Fire Island director Andrew Ahn’s remake of the 1993 film stars Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang, and Han Gi-chan as two LGBTQ+ couples who also happen to be best friends and roommates. With a visa renewal hanging in the balance, the quartet must fake a lavender marriage to hilarious (if chaotic) ends. Joan Chen and Young Yuh-jung also show up for the biggest mother-off of 2025.