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Top 10 American gay & queer movies of the 2000s

Ten American gay and queer films from 2000 to 2009, and what strikes me is how few of them tidy anything up. The themes running through the whole batch are love that has to stay hidden, who you are when the world pushes back, and the grind of being denied acceptance. The tones swing wildly too, from rock musical to rom-com to films that are honestly rough to get through. Brokeback Mountain (2005) is the one everyone knows: Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as Ennis and Jack, two cowboys whose relationship stays secret across decades, with marriages and other people's expectations piling on top of what they're hiding. Shelter (2007) plays much softer. Trevor Wright and Brad Rowe are Zach and Shaun, and Zach is an aspiring artist putting his own plans aside to look after his family until Shaun, the older brother of his best friend, changes the equation. Grief takes the lead in A Single Man (2009), where Colin Firth and Matthew Goode anchor a university professor mourning his partner, and loneliness and what a life adds up to matter as much as the loss. Milk (2008) goes outward instead, with Sean Penn and James Franco playing out Harvey Milk's life as an openly gay elected official fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. 2004 gives you two very different watches. Mysterious Skin has Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet as two men carrying childhood sexual abuse in separate directions, and it does not look away. Saving Face lightens things up with Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen as a Chinese-American lesbian surgeon juggling what her family wants against the relationship she's in. Faith is the knot in Latter Days (2003), with Steve Sandvoss and Wes Ramsey as a gay man and a Mormon missionary pulled between belief and feeling. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) is its own thing entirely: John Cameron Mitchell as a genderqueer rock performer working through heartbreak, betrayal and the question of who she is. The decade opens with two. The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000) puts Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain and Zach Braff in a tight group of gay friends in West Hollywood working through relationships, jealousy and heartbreak on the way to growing up. Big Eden (2000) sends Arye Gross and Eric Schweig's gay artist back to his Montana hometown, where old friends and some unexpected romance are waiting. Ten films, ten angles on the same handful of questions 🍿

1h

Kimon@kimon

Follow

Top 10 American gay & queer movies of the 2000s

Ten American gay and queer films from 2000 to 2009, and what strikes me is how few of them tidy anything up. The themes running through the whole batch are love that has to stay hidden, who you are when the world pushes back, and the grind of being denied acceptance. The tones swing wildly too, from rock musical to rom-com to films that are honestly rough to get through. Brokeback Mountain (2005) is the one everyone knows: Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as Ennis and Jack, two cowboys whose relationship stays secret across decades, with marriages and other people's expectations piling on top of what they're hiding. Shelter (2007) plays much softer. Trevor Wright and Brad Rowe are Zach and Shaun, and Zach is an aspiring artist putting his own plans aside to look after his family until Shaun, the older brother of his best friend, changes the equation. Grief takes the lead in A Single Man (2009), where Colin Firth and Matthew Goode anchor a university professor mourning his partner, and loneliness and what a life adds up to matter as much as the loss. Milk (2008) goes outward instead, with Sean Penn and James Franco playing out Harvey Milk's life as an openly gay elected official fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. 2004 gives you two very different watches. Mysterious Skin has Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet as two men carrying childhood sexual abuse in separate directions, and it does not look away. Saving Face lightens things up with Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen as a Chinese-American lesbian surgeon juggling what her family wants against the relationship she's in. Faith is the knot in Latter Days (2003), with Steve Sandvoss and Wes Ramsey as a gay man and a Mormon missionary pulled between belief and feeling. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) is its own thing entirely: John Cameron Mitchell as a genderqueer rock performer working through heartbreak, betrayal and the question of who she is. The decade opens with two. The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000) puts Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain and Zach Braff in a tight group of gay friends in West Hollywood working through relationships, jealousy and heartbreak on the way to growing up. Big Eden (2000) sends Arye Gross and Eric Schweig's gay artist back to his Montana hometown, where old friends and some unexpected romance are waiting. Ten films, ten angles on the same handful of questions 🍿

1h