The last few years have not only brought LGBTQ films and stories further into the mainstream, but queer movies have dominated awards seasons and found commercial success in unlikely places. Lydia Tár — played by “ Carol ” star and esteemed lesbian (adjacent?) icon Cate Blanchett — dominated the 2022 Oscars race and became a well-worn touchstone in the year’s critical film and cancel culture conversations . The summer before that, Billy Eichner and Nicholas Stoller made history with Universal Pictures’ “Bros,” among the first ever gay rom-coms funded by a major studio: an important victory — even if that film did go, uh, soft at the box office .
That’s just the tip of the iceberg on another banner year for queer film: at least one win in a hard-fought cultural movement, seemingly poised to face new challenges in the not-so-distant future. New Queer Cinema was a major influence on the indie film boom of the ’90s, and set the bar high for the many LGBTQ films to follow. “ Brokeback Mountain ” turned Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger into cinema’s most famed gay cowboys, less than a year before John Cameron Mitchell shattered boundaries with the spectacularly provocative “Shortbus” in 2006.
Across the near two decades since then, the “ lesbian period romance ” has become a vibrant (if easily and entertainingly mocked) subgenre, thanks to films like “The Handmaiden” and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” And trans stars and creators.
