Yahoo Movies 'Sundance promises another strong year for cinema gays in 2025'
Sundance is the first major event where queer people find out which 2025 films they have to look out for.
Tom Blyth as a horny police officer. J-Lo proving the haters wrong. Ben Whishaw being hot. These are just a few of the queer stories that have made a splash at Sundance this year in the festival's 41st edition.
Long a home for groundbreaking queer cinema, Sundance is the first major event in the year for depressed gays who need something to live for in January. Hundreds of LGBTQ+ classics have premiered at Sundance before, including Paris Is Burning, Y Tu Mamá También, and Call Me by Your Name, the film that launched the career of Hollywood's most successful twink since Leo boarded the good ship Titanic.
Last year, queer hits such as Love Lies Bleeding and I Saw The TV Glow premiered at Sundance to great acclaim, entering the pantheon of modern LGBTQ+ classics snubbed by the Academy. With 53 queer filmmakers debuting their new projects in Park City Utah this year, which new masterpieces will the Oscars ignore this time next year?
Which of these films will incite the most rancid responses from Twitter X users that have at least 6 numbers in their handle? And most importantly of all, which of these new projects will inspire a whole new generation of baby gays to rise up and declare their thirst online?
One obvious contender for the latter is Plainclothes, which dares to ask; what about the hottie from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but less blonde, more gay and horny for men in public bathrooms? Carmen Emmi’s 90s-set feature debut puts Tom Blyth's undercover police officer in a dangerous tryst with Russell Tovey, who obviously he can't resist. The result is the kind of film you'd sneak downstairs to watch after your parents went to bed if you grew up in the 90s, which just so happens to be when Plainclothes is also set.
Speaking of hotties, internet boyfriend Dylan O’Brien is the talk of the town thanks to his new film Twinless. Queer filmmaker James Sweeney writes, directs and stars in this extremely messy (complimentary) story of two young men who meet in a twin bereavement group. Dylan plays two roles in this one, which is fun because God gave us two — you know what, never mind. Just know that Twinless is not the film you expect it to be, and I mean that in the best way possible.
That's also true of The Wedding Banquet, a remake which pulls Ang Lee's original 90s film in surprising new directions (also complimentary). Director Andrew Ahn doesn't bring back a perpetually shirtless Joel Kim Booster after they worked so well together on Fire Island, but that's ok. Even without perpetually shirtless Joel, the cast of this one is a who's who of divas any gay in the know would lay their lives down for.
There's Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone, future Oscar nominee Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar winner (in my eyes) Joan Chen, and actual Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung, a mother who mothers so hard that she's beyond even grandmothering at this point. She's a category unto herself.
Another remake, Kiss of the Spider Woman, reimagines the 1985 queer classic and Tony-winning musical through the eyes of gay director Bill Condon who gave us Dreamgirls and Gods and Monsters, (not to mention nightmares after he dared cast a Belle who can't sing in Beauty and the Beast).
Critics are already describing this as the role Jennifer Lopez was born to play, which I'm going to politely disagree with, but not because she's bad. Jenny from the Block did not bare it all in This Is Me... Now: A Love Story for it to be ignored so easily. Still, the buzz around Kiss of the Spider Woman bodes well for the Hustlers hive who are still smarting after J-Lo's Oscar snub a few years back. That coat alone deserved at least five trophies.
A-list talent also takes centre stage in Jimpa which stars Olivia "Nick's mum" Colman and John "sassy Catholic priest" Lithgow. Then there's Ben Whishaw, the internet's gay boyfriend, who reunites with Passages director Ira Sachs for another breakout hit, Peter Hujar’s Day. But Sundance was built on indies, films that might fly under the radar elsewhere, so it's my civic duty as a homosexual who loves cinema to draw your attention to some of those too.
This includes Sauna, a steamy love story that breaks new ground for trans representation in Danish cinema, and Rains Over Babel, a punky fever dream of queer desire set in a Colombian dive bar that doubles for purgatory. A special mention must also go to Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears), a tender exploration of queer love and mourning in rural India that simmers with desire. The rare queer movie that explores grief without falling into "no homo" or "kill the gay" tropes, Rohan Parashuram Kanawade's directorial debut is one to look out for.
Equally inspiring are a number of vital queer documentaries that are also premiering at Sundance this year. Perhaps the most important of these is Heightened Scrutiny, a new film from the director of Disclosure which follows Chase Strangio, the first trans lawyer to argue before the US Supreme Court. Like Disclosure, this film also gives you plenty of factual, easily digestible talking points to use when nan or other transphobes pipe up with bigotry.
Like Heightened Scrutiny, GEN_ is also the rare doc that can help save lives if seen by enough people, except here, the focus brings us to a doctor in Milan as he speaks with patients who suffer from gender dysphoria. With more restrictions and harmful legislation in place than ever, it's moving and even radical to even see a medical professional tend to trans and gender nonconforming patients with compassion. This shouldn't be radical or unusual to see, but that's the hellscape we live in now.
Other non-fiction highlights include Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, which explores the role queer Black people had in creating house music and Enigma, which gives two legendary trans women, English model April Ashley and French singer Amanda Lear, the spotlight they deserve.
My personal favourite though is Come See Me in the Good Light, where the extraordinary American poet Andrea Gibson navigates cancer with heart wrenching courage. I cried watching them face the worst-case scenario with their partner. I cried because I used to have the love they share and I miss it deeply. And I cried because Gibson's way with words holds the power to change how you see life itself. A breathtaking singular piece of filmmaking that makes me wish I'd known Gibson's art and Gibson's world so much earlier.
And don't forget to keep an eye out for Sally, which tells the secret queer love story behind the first American woman to visit space. Kristen Stewart is set to play the titular Sally Ride in an upcoming TV series called The Challenger, which is fitting because ride is exactly what queer women want to do with Kristen.
Last, but certainly not least, I want to shout out Cooper Raiff’s new TV series, Hal & Harper, but not because of Cooper. And not because of Mark Ruffalo or Betty Gilpin either, despite their reliably strong performances. No, I want to dedicate this last recommendation to Lili Reinhart, a bisexual icon who was always destined for greatness beyond Riverdale.
That's not to say Riverdale wasn't great. In centuries from now, scholars may even look back at Riverdale as the singular most important piece of art created in the 21st century. And it's not that Reinhart's performance in the show wasn't great either. Whether she was necking milkshakes, investigating "the murder gene", or finding love in a horny quadruple, Reinhart gave more heart to Betty Cooper than that bonkers writing team could dare dream of.
In Hal & Harper, that skill, that breadth of talent, is on full display with a character and storyline worthy of Lily's immeasurable star power. As fans already know, Charles Melton might have surprised us as the first Riverdale kid to make it big outside of The CW, but Reinhart's similar trajectory was always a given. It just took longer than expected, that's all.
If you didn't get to visit Sundance this year, you might not know the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of attending the festival. But I hope that this rundown has helped give hope to the cinema gays reading this that 2025 will be even better for film than last year.
That is, unless Emilia Pérez is re-released again. That's an epic low I wouldn't wish on anybody.
