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10 must-watch Indian gay movies

Queer lives getting room to breathe on screen, tracked across Indian cinema from 2002 to 2023. That's the through line in this set of ten 🏳️‍🌈 Family pressure is where several of these live. Badhaai Do (2022) hangs its whole story on a marriage of convenience, a gay man paired with a lesbian woman to keep society satisfied, and what grows out of that arrangement ends up being about friendship and acceptance more than anything. Kaathal, The Core, the 2023 Malayalam drama with Mammootty, sits with a closeted man, his wife, and the hard truths that surface inside a marriage. Kapoor & Sons (2016) gives Fawad Khan a gay son figuring out identity and relationships inside a family that doesn't make it easy. Other films go quieter. Loev (2015) sends two men on a road trip and lets desire, friendship and messy romantic feeling blur together. Sisak, a 2017 silent short, catches an unspoken pull between two men on late-night Mumbai local trains. Mango Soufflé reaches back to 2002, early Indian independent territory, working through identity, friendship and desire inside an urban social circle. Then the ones carrying real weight. I Am, Onir's 2010 anthology, includes the Omar segment, which deals with gay identity, blackmail and what living under Section 377 meant. Aligarh, Hansal Mehta's 2015 drama, draws on Professor Ramchandra Siras and gives Manoj Bajpayee the kind of role that stays with you. Onir shows up again with My Brother… Nikhil from 2005, about a gay swimmer with HIV whose family stands by him against discrimination and hardship. Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020) rounds it out on the comedy side, two men fighting family opposition for the right to love openly. Different stories. Same love 🍿

2h

Kimon@kimon

Follow

10 must-watch Indian gay movies

Queer lives getting room to breathe on screen, tracked across Indian cinema from 2002 to 2023. That's the through line in this set of ten 🏳️‍🌈 Family pressure is where several of these live. Badhaai Do (2022) hangs its whole story on a marriage of convenience, a gay man paired with a lesbian woman to keep society satisfied, and what grows out of that arrangement ends up being about friendship and acceptance more than anything. Kaathal, The Core, the 2023 Malayalam drama with Mammootty, sits with a closeted man, his wife, and the hard truths that surface inside a marriage. Kapoor & Sons (2016) gives Fawad Khan a gay son figuring out identity and relationships inside a family that doesn't make it easy. Other films go quieter. Loev (2015) sends two men on a road trip and lets desire, friendship and messy romantic feeling blur together. Sisak, a 2017 silent short, catches an unspoken pull between two men on late-night Mumbai local trains. Mango Soufflé reaches back to 2002, early Indian independent territory, working through identity, friendship and desire inside an urban social circle. Then the ones carrying real weight. I Am, Onir's 2010 anthology, includes the Omar segment, which deals with gay identity, blackmail and what living under Section 377 meant. Aligarh, Hansal Mehta's 2015 drama, draws on Professor Ramchandra Siras and gives Manoj Bajpayee the kind of role that stays with you. Onir shows up again with My Brother… Nikhil from 2005, about a gay swimmer with HIV whose family stands by him against discrimination and hardship. Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020) rounds it out on the comedy side, two men fighting family opposition for the right to love openly. Different stories. Same love 🍿

2h