Since the 1990s, a largely underground upwelling of trans creativity has helped new trans identities, communities, and political movements come together. Trans Cinema provides an entryway to the wildly diverse and creative cinema made by trans creators, including those who are BIPOC.
Ira Sachs, who emerged from the New Queer Cinema movement of the '90s, has become one of the most accomplished & revered directors of his generation, crafting achingly intimate stories about love, friendship, and desire.
'Forbidden Fruits' has been widely hailed as a 'cult classic' by critics and fans, but labeling it as such too soon risks undermining the process that establishes a film's cultural significance over time.
It was the first time I felt genuinely unsafe here, she says. Alongside a growing fear, childhood memories resurfaced—the internal and external racism and the exhaustion of never quite fitting in. I moved to Australia when I was seven and didn't speak English—it was a tough time for me, she admits. And then there was one particular recurring thought. There were many times when I'd wake up as a teenager and think to myself: Wouldn't life be easier if I were white?
For as much as gays love their horror, and as many examples there are of the genre finding its haunting power through queer metaphor (from the scary subtleties of Psycho to the screamingly obvious A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge), there are relatively few mainstream horror films that actually tackle LGBTQ+ themes head-on. However, after a rapturous reception at the Sundance Film Festival, Australian supernatural fright flick Leviticus was quickly picked up for theatrical release by Neon and might just be the " queer horror masterpiece " we've been waiting for.
While Sundance is traditionally focused on the importance of looking to the future of American film, a lineup filled with more first-timers than any other major festival, this year has been all about looking back. There are misty eyes over the loss of founder Robert Redford along with host state Utah and also for the many films that have premiered here over the years. Alongside more retrospective screenings than one usually expects, even the new films have a touch of old Sundance to them.
The Sundance Film Festival concludes its 2026 edition this weekend, marking its final year in its iconic home of Park City, Utah, before moving on to its new host city in Boulder, Colorado next year. As we continue to look back at the hefty legacy of queer films that premiered there over the years, this week we'll revisit a landmark lesbian drama that put a beloved '80s icon back in the spotlight, and kickstarted the career of one of the most representative filmmakers of the New Queer Cinema wave.
10 Cloverfield Lane Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr are locked in an underground bunker for the majority of this left-field sequel to Cloverfield, with thrilling results. In the film's final throes, Winstead's character exits the bunker, and finds that her captor was telling the truth about an alien invasion above - a twist that completely and ruinously dissipates the hard-earned tension that came before.
Two graveyard shift nurses pray their patients pass overnight simply to cure their boredom. A crazed therapist tries to convince a victim that the perfect coping mechanism is matricide. The government rounds up and ships off the infected to a quarantined archipelago named Hell Gay Land. Forty years on from its release, the first notable feature-length film to tackle the AIDS crisis-dark German comedy A Virus Knows No Morals -undoubtedly remains the most provocative.
