In the spirit of “We are all one,” GALECA, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, revealed its choices for the Ten Best Films You Never Knew Were LGBTQ.
About GALECA
Founded in 2009, GALECA is a national association compromised of approximately 190 professional journalists and critics writing about film and television for print, online, and broadcast outlets in the United States, Canada and, United Kingdom.
GALECA is also the home of the Dorian Awards, which annually honors the finest in film and television across a variety of general and LGBTQ-focused categories.
Previously known as “Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association”, the organization aims to generate camaraderie in an unsettling media environment, champion constructive film and TV criticism, and elevate entertainment journalism.
Via panels, screenings, events, and its occasional “Ten Best” lists, GALECA strives as well to remind the world, and our at-risk youth that LGBTQs have a rich history of putting great movies and TV of all types on the pop culture radar.
And how would the world fare without knowing what’s campy?
GALECA names its “Ten Best Films You Never Knew Were LGBTQ”
The organization’s film and TV critics and journalists were asked to simply submit their personal choices for the best “straight” films through cinema history that mirror an LGBTQ sensibility that they might as well be “gay.”
Here are GALECA’s final picks in alphabetical order (descriptions taken from entries written by members Sarah Toce and Jeremy Kinser):
A League of Their Own (1992)
Rosie O’Donnell and pop diva Madonna showed fun screen chemistry in this fact-based comedy about the Rockford Peaches, an all-female baseball team in the 1940s.
All About Eve (1950)
This insightful peek into the mid-century theatrical world offered gay icon Bette Davis her most indelible role as that endlessly quotable Broadway diva, Margo Channing.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
Likely the queerest mainstream horror film ever made, this sequel featured a protagonist Jesse (out actor Mark Patton) who screams repressed gay.
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
A sisterhood of the senses based on a novel about a group of “very close friends” in the case of tomboy Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson) and older, wiser Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker).
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Lawrence, starring Peter O’Toole, is fascinatingly layered viewing from that backstory alone and it’s a campy treat to see him try on his ankle-length, silky and very flowy Arabian thwab for the first time.
Rebecca (1940)
The only film helmed by Alfred Hitchcock to win the Academy Award for best picture is also one of the master director’s queerest.
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Perhaps the most “bisexual film” ever released by a major studio starring James Dean as Jim Stark, a tortured teen whose torrent of emotion resonated with young audiences as never before.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
A super-queer thriller adapted from a novel by lesbian author Patricia Highsmith starring bisexual actor Farley Granger as a tennis champ who is persuaded to swap murders with a charismatic stranger
Thelma & Louise (1991)
A female empowerment film about the titular friends (Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon) on the run, and decide to risk all to live – or die – protecting one another. If that isn’t love, what is?
Top Gun (1986)
This sexy smash, with its inexplicable rivalry between two pilots (Val Kilmer, Tom Cruise) showing off for each other in the skies (and on the beach), inspired Saturday Night Live and Quentin Tarantino to spoof its unintended homoeroticism.
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