Happy Pride Month 2023! June marks the month dedicated to the celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ community) pride. In honor of the next 30 days, I have a collection of the best movies that celebrate gay characters, true stories of queer love, transsexuals, queer people, and more. Check out this list of the best Pride Month movies to watch in June 2023.
If you enjoyed this list of the best Pride Month movies 2023 to watch in June, check out these other articles: Best disaster movies on Netflix, Best graduation movies, Best fly fishing movies.
Best Pride Month Movies To Watch In June 2023
Parting Glances (1986)
Plot: As Robert, a successful young gay man, prepares to leave New York City for an extended work assignment abroad, his boyfriend, Michael, must contend with his imminent absence and its effect on their relationship. Meanwhile, Michael also cares for his ex-lover, Nick, who is struggling with HIV. At a going-away party for Robert, emotions run high as the men and their friends deal with their changing realities.
Star Cast: John Bolger, Richard Ganoung, Steve Buscemi
Pariah (2011)
Plot: Teenage Alike lives in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood with her parents and younger sister. A lesbian, Alike quietly embraces her identity and is looking for her first lover, but she wonders how much she can truly confide in her family, especially with her parents’ marriage already strained. When Alike’s mother presses her to befriend a colleague’s daughter, Alike finds the gal to be a pleasant companion.
Star Cast: Adepero Oduye, Charles Parnell, Kim Wayans, Sahra Mellesse, Aasha Davis
Disclosure (2020)
Plot: Examining Hollywood’s depiction of transgender people and the impact it’s left on both the transgender community and American culture.
Star Cast: Laverne Cox, Jaye Davidson, Jerry Springer
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Plot: In 1963, rodeo cowboy Jack Twist and ranch hand Ennis Del Mar are hired by rancher Joe Aguirre as sheep herders in Wyoming. One night on Brokeback Mountain, Jack makes a drunken pass at Ennis that is eventually reciprocated. Though Ennis marries his longtime sweetheart, Alma, and Jack marries a fellow rodeo rider, the two men keep up their tortured and sporadic forbidden love affair over the course of 20 years. Ang Lee and screenwriter Larry McMurtry expand Annie Proulx’s short story into a film without one false moment.
Star Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Randy Quaid, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
Carol (2015)
Plot: Aspiring photographer Therese spots the beautiful, elegant Carol perusing the doll displays in a 1950s Manhattan department store. The two women develop a fast bond that becomes a love with complicated consequences. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt.
Star Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Paulson
But I’m A Cheerleader (1999)
Plot: Megan considers herself a typical American girl. She excels in school and cheerleading, and she has a handsome football-playing boyfriend, even though she isn’t that crazy about him. So she’s stunned when her parents decide she’s gay and send her to True Directions, a boot camp meant to alter her sexual orientation. While there, Megan meets a rebellious and unashamed teen lesbian, Graham. Though Megan still feels confused, she starts to have feelings for Graham. This cult classic bring the laughs, heart, and romance.
Star Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, RuPaul, Melanie Lynskey
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Plot: It’s the summer of 1983, and precocious 17-year-old Elio Perlman is spending the days with his family at their 17th-century villa in Lombardy, Italy. He soon meets Oliver, a handsome doctoral student who’s working as an intern for Elio’s father. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of their surroundings, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will alter their lives forever.
Star Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ester Garrel
Happiest Season (2020)
Plot: A young woman with a plan to propose to her girlfriend while at her family’s annual holiday party discovers her partner hasn’t yet come out to her conservative parents.
Star Cast: Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Plot: A German emigrant living in a trailer in Kansas is the victim of a botched sex-change operation. Adapted from the critically acclaimed off-Broadway rock theater hit, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” tells the story of the “internationally ignored” rock singer, Hedwig, and her search for stardom and love.
Star Cast: John Cameron Mitchell, Stephen Trask, Miriam Shor
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Plot: France, 1770. Marianne, a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Héloïse is a reluctant bride to be and Marianne must paint her without her knowing. She observes her by day, to paint her secretly.
Star Cast: Adele Haenel, Noemie Merlant, Valeria Golino
Tangerine (2015)
Plot: After hearing that her boyfriend/pimp cheated on her while she was in jail, a transgender sex worker and her best friend set out to find him and teach him and his new lover a lesson.
Star Cast: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian
Love Simon (2018)
Plot: Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it’s a little more complicated. He hasn’t told his family or friends that he’s gay, and he doesn’t know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he’s fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying and life-changing.
Star Cast: Nick Robinson, Keiyan Lonsdale, Katherine Langford, Josh Duhamel
The Kids Are Alright (2010)
Plot: Lesbian couple Nic and Jules have been together for twenty years, bringing up two children thanks to the contributions of a anonymous sperm donor. As 18-year-old daughter Joni prepares to leave for college, she and younger brother Laser get curious about their heritage. Making contact with Paul, the laid-back restaurateur whose sperm bank deposit helped bring them into the world, the two set off a chain reaction.
Star Cast: Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo
A Fantastic Woman (2017)
Plot: A woman’s life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Star Cast: Daniela Vega, Aline Kuppenheim, Luis Gnecco
The Normal Heart (2014)
Plot: In 1980s New York City, a writer and his friends join forces to expose the truth about the emerging AIDs epidemic to both the government and the gay community.
Star Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Jim Parson, Matt Bomer, Julia Roberts
Pride (2014)
Plot: Realising that they share common foes in Margaret Thatcher, the police and the conservative press, London-based gay and lesbian activists lend their support to striking miners in 1984 Wales.
Star Cast: George MacKay, Ben Schnetzer, Bill Nighy
High Art (1998)
Plot: Syd, a young woman and low-level editor at a photography magazine eager to establish herself, discovers her neighbor is the once-celebrated downtown photographer Lucy Berliner. Although Syd lives with her boyfriend, she is drawn to Lucy, who has a volatile relationship with her heroin-addicted girlfriend, Greta. As Syd starts sleeping with Lucy, she is pulled into a glamorous but dangerous art-world scene, full of drugs and unexpected pleasures.
Star Cast: Radha Mitchell, Ally Sheedy, Gabriel Mann, Patricia Clarkson
Handsome Devil (2016)
Plot: Two opposites, a loner and the top athlete form an unlikely friendship at a rugby-obsessed boarding school, and the authorities test their friendship.
Star Cast: Fionn O’Shea, Nicholas Galitzine, John Butler, Andrew Scott
Beginners (2010)
Plot: After his mother dies, Oliver is stunned when his father, Hal, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, comes out of the closet. When Hal passes away a few years later, Oliver grows depressed, struggling with his failing career as an artist while constantly remembering his childhood and time spent with his dad. Oliver’s loneliness is eased when he meets actress Anna, but their relationship is threatened by their mutual fear of commitment.
Star Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent
Fire Island (2022)
Plot: A group of queer best friends gather in the Fire Island Pines for their annual week of love and laughter, but when a sudden change of events jeopardizes their summer in gay paradise, their bonds as a chosen family are pushed to the limit.
Star Cast: Joel Kim Booster, Zane Phillips, Margaret Cho
Jeffrey (1995)
Plot: Jeffrey, a gay man living in New York City in the midst of the AIDs crisis, concludes that being celibate is the only option to protect himself. As fate would have it, shortly after his declaration of a sex-free existence, he meets the handsome Steve Howard, his dream man — except for his HIV-positive status. Facing this dilemma, Jeffrey turns to his best friend and an outrageous priest for guidance.
Star Cast: Steven Weber, Michael T. Weiss, Patrick Stewart, Nathan Lane
Appropriate Behavior (2014)
Plot: A secretly bisexual Brooklynite from a traditional Persian family struggles with her identity and the disintegration of her relationship with her girlfriend.
Star Cast: Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Plot: When drag queen Anthony agrees to take his act on the road, he invites fellow cross-dresser Adam and trans woman Bernadette to come along. In their colorful bus, named Priscilla, the three performers travel across the Australian desert performing for enthusiastic crowds and homophobic locals. But when the other two performers learn the truth about why Anthony took the job, it threatens their act and their friendship.
Star Cast: Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp
Philadelphia (1993)
Plot: Fearing it would compromise his career, lawyer Andrew Beckett hides his homosexuality and HIV status at a powerful Philadelphia law firm. But his secret is exposed when a colleague spots the illness’s telltale lesions. Fired shortly afterwards, Beckett resolves to sue for discrimination, teaming up with Joe Miller, the only lawyer willing to help. In court, they face one of his ex-employer’s top litigators, Belinda Conine.
Star Cast: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Mary Steenburgen
120 BPM Beats Per Minute (2017)
Plot: Nathan is a young man who joins an AIDS activist group in 1990s Paris. As he attends the weekly meetings, he learns that some members prefer a more radical approach to their protests. A Cannes Film Festival award winner.
Star Cast: Arnaud Valois, Nahuel Perez Biscayart, Adele Haenel
A Single Man (2009)
Plot: Mourning the loss of his partner Jim, George Falconer, an English professor working in Los Angeles, is finding life increasingly difficult to face. After being ignored by the family of his partner upon his death, George has now decided to end it all by committing suicide. While preparing for his departure, George encounters some of the people he has met during his time in Los Angeles and they notice a change in the man.
Star Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult
A Secret Love (2020)
Plot: Amid shifting times, a former baseball player keeps her lesbian relationship a secret from her family for seven decades.
Star Cast: Pat Henschel, Terry Donahue, Diane Bolan
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Plot: In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” Mike Waters is a gay hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike‘s estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
Star Cast: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves
Desert Hearts (1985)
Plot: A New York professor divorces her husband and has an affair with another woman in 1959 Reno.
Star Cast: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau
The Birdcage (1996)
Plot: In this remake of the classic French farce “La Cage aux Folles,” engaged couple Val Goldman and Barbara Keeley shakily introduce their future in-laws. Val’s father, Armand, a gay Miami drag club owner, pretends to be straight and attempts to hide his relationship with Albert, his life partner and the club’s flamboyant star attraction, so as to please Barbara’s father, controversial Republican Sen. Kevin Keeley.
Star Cast: Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman