Jared Alves

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Introducing Jared’s Gay+ Movie List

I grew up in a suburban Massachusetts household that loved movies. Friday nights featured takeout pizza from Mama Rosa’s and a rental from Video Paradise (later Blockbuster). My brothers and I still award points for quotes and loose references to our favorite films. We have our seasonal favorites: What About Bob?, Jaws, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, A Christmas Story, and more. At their home in Maine, my brother and sister-in-law have amassed our combined family’s VHS tapes and DVDs because my brother doesn’t want to fuss with streaming on vacation.

Despite this love of movies, a young, closeted Jared didn’t have much exposure to queer cinema. I recall my dad watching The Birdcage, the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane take on a meet-the-parents comedy, but I didn’t watch my first gay movie until late in high school.

I discovered that Logo TV, launched in 2005, was part of our family’s cable package. One day after school, I tuned in to Beautiful Thing, a heartfelt coming-of-age love story set in working-class southeast London. The story centers on a nerdy boy raised by his Bohemian single mom, a jock abused by his alcoholic father and older brother, and their neighbor, who is obsessed with Mama Cass and whose music powers the soundtrack. The cast was unfamiliar to me, but I was hooked by the earnest story.

Suddenly, I realized that a whole universe of queer cinema existed that I had never seen. Although I would remain closeted for a few more years, I started seeking out queer films that told stories about our history, struggles, and joys.

Streaming made discovering international films of all genres much easier. And while over 60 countries still criminalize same-sex relationships, filmmakers around the world—from shoestring independent productions to films backed by national film institutes—continue to explore queer themes. I think about Freier Fall (Free Fall), a 2013 German film about two police officers who begin a passionate affair during a training course, even as one of the men has a pregnant girlfriend. More recently, Young Hearts, a Belgian-Dutch film, tells a heartwarming story about two young boys who discover that their intense friendship is becoming something more.

A few years ago, I decided to highlight 10 LGBTQ movies to watch during Pride Month. To keep track of the movies I had already highlighted, I created an iPhone note. The note grew as friends asked for recommendations, so I shared the list with them. Last year, I organized the note by genre—coming-of-age, romance, sports, family, biopic, etc.—and added an ever-growing “to watch” section. I also added each movie’s country of origin and a brief description.

With more than 150 movies, the note was becoming unwieldy and less helpful for finding a flick to watch. So first, I made a Google Sheet.

Into this Google Sheet I added tags, categories, descriptions, trailers, studios, countries of origin, languages, my ratings, and, of course, whether I had highlighted the movie during Pride. Then I remembered a New York Times article about “vibe coding” with AI tools, and from there I launched Bolt AI to create a searchable webpage.

The result is Jared’s Gay+ Movie List.

As of today, the list has more than 200 films spanning 95 years of queer cinema. Admittedly, the vast majority are from the 2000s and later, but the first is Mädchen in Uniform, released in 1931 in Germany, about a teenager who falls in love with her teacher at a Prussian boarding school.

I titled the page Gay+ because about 75% of the movies tell stories about gay guys. Those are the stories that have resonated most with me, so they are the ones I sought out first. But I’ve been adding lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgender films that friends have recommended—and I always welcome more.

The default landing page shows a random selection of films, but you can refine the list by selecting one or more LGBTQ identities and more than 30 tags. You can sort films by year, my rating, or alphabetically. You can search by language, country, and descriptions. Want to find an Italian-language movie? The list has 10. Start with Mascarpone if you want a film about the messiness of life post-breakup. How about a more serious movie set during war? Borstal Boy follows a teen Catholic IRA volunteer sent to a detention center filled with Protestant kids. A horror movie? I haven’t come across too many yet, but Ganymede fits the bill, as a high school wrestling star is pursued by a grotesque creature (I hear this year’s Leviticus is also a must-watch).

I’ll continue refining the page as I discover new movies and find better ways to organize the collection. But I’m thrilled that something that started as a note on my iPhone has grown into a resource that I can share more widely. If you’re looking for something to watch, I hope you find a movie—or five—you haven’t seen before. And if there’s a queer movie you think belongs on the list, send it my way.