Withnail and I (1987) — A dark comedy featuring Richard E. Grant and Richard Griffiths in which two unsuccessful young actors escape London to the highlands cottage of a gay relative by pretending to be lovers. It's a brilliant and delightful movie from beginning to end. Genius.
Weekend (2011) — A very thoughtful romantic drama that takes place over three days in the life of Russell, a swimming instructor who meets Glen, an art student, at a local club. The film is dedicated to their conversations about the experience of being gay, the nature of coming out, and the tender unfolding of the romance between the two. It's an extremely real feeling movie, very beautifully shot, wonderfully written, and extremely well cast.
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) — Here Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day Lewis costar with half the cast of Gandhi in a very niche light drama about the social position of Indian expats in England and the tension between illicit (gay) romantic bonds and the need to conform to a capitalist life-pattern. Odd, fringe, fascinating, worth seeing.
God's Own Country (2017) — The bitter lone son of a struggling English farming family resorts to alcoholism and bathroom hookups to cope with his homosexuality and the total lack of possibility in his life. A Romanian farmhand arrives to help birth the year's lambs, and a tense romantic liaison develops. The film is beautifully shot against the dramatic backdrop of rural Yorkshire and includes extremely sparse dialogue. The actors manage to communicate a huge amount psychologically simply through body language. It's lovely and worth seeing.
Maurice (1987) — James Wilby and Hugh Grant are best friends and lovers throughout their school years and early adulthood. The attachment is the centerpiece of Wilby's life, until a prominent nobleman is tried and ruined over his secret homosexual lifestyle. After this, Grant cuts off their relationship and marries, urging Wilby to do the same. Wilby is devastated and never overcomes the attachment, eventually eloping to the tropics with a young man he has formed a new attachment with. The movie is slow-moving and somewhat depressing, but nonetheless classic.
Mapplethorpe (2018) — Matt Smith plays the famously obscene photographer in this biopic. It's not a hugely sympathetic portrait, though it is historically interesting and does a good job addressing some of the problematic aspects of Mapplethorpe's work. Not much else to be said.
Behind the Candelabra (2013) — Michael Douglas and Matt Damon play Liberace and his latest boytoy in this partial biopic about the famously gay superstar. The film starts out well, and then drags horribly. The sets and costumes are enjoyable, but everything else is a huge bore.
A Single Man (2009) — Colin Firth is an English Professor at UCLA who is contemplating suicide after the death of his partner of 16 years. The film follows him through the course of a single day. I won't say anything else, so as not to spoil it, but it's artfully written and well-acted.
My Own Private Idaho (1991) — This is a rough adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, though in a way the fact that it's an adaptation is just the icing on the cake. The film focuses on two young men (Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix) who get by as male prostitutes roaming around the Pacific Northwest. Phoenix is gay and has narcolepsy and a troubled family background; Reeves is straight and the son of a prominent mayor. The two are best friends. Absolutely worth seeing.
Beach Rats (2017) — A young man on Long Island confused about his own sexuality toys repeatedly with meeting up with other men via an online hookup app. The film explores the fissures in the protagonist's hyper-bro persona that are being pulled open by his sexual orientation. Somewhat dark and disturbing.
Angels in America (2003) — A magical realist epic of sorts that follows four gay men through a moment of crisis during the AIDS epidemic in 1980s NYC. Two of the men have advanced AIDS, two do not. One is a married Mormon law clerk, one a jewish administrative worker at the court, one is Roy Cohn. The story explodes with bizarre supernatural Mormon flair periodically, sometimes in a tedious way. But the characters are compelling and engaging and the story profoundly moving.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013) —A rig worker who moonlights at the rodeo and is sexually promiscuous finds out he's dying of AIDS. The will to survive drives him to create a collective to buy unapproved drugs and supplements capable of slowing the progression of the disease. It's a gut-wrenching drama.
The Imitation Game (2014) — Benedict Cumberbatch plays a heavily fictionalized version of Alan Turing, who has been reduced in this film to a mean autistic man-child traumatized by the childhood death of his male love interest. It's dumb on about twenty different levels. Crap movie.
But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) — Classic movie mocking conversion therapy focuses on a teenage girl whose inclinations are discerned by her troubled parents and is sent to "New Directions", a residential program (featuring RuPaul Charles) that helps kids discover the "root" of their "disordered" affections and become straight. It's campy and heavy-handed, but worth seeing.
Edge of Seventeen (1998) — Working over the summer at a theme park in Sandusky, Ohio, a teenage boy finds out that one of his coworkers is openly gay. The discovery leads to his own first romance and eventual tensions with his female best friend as he comes to terms with the struggles of being gay. It's a heartfelt and realistic picture. Excellent movie, well-written.