A STUNNING LIST OF VISUALLY APPEALING CAMP AND LGBTQ+ FILMS

Words by: Gary Williams

My friend Megan Powell from the Salford Uni Photography department asked me to curate a list of LGBTQ films for her students who have been hit hard by lockdown, online learning and the toll coronavirus is having on their mental health and morale. 

There’s nothing better than a film to take your mind off your troubles, to disappear into a different world of colour, texture and imagination, to be transported into someone else’s story and emotion for a moment or just the escapism of a comedy, musical or the structure of any film genre taking over your life for two hours. 

So I put together a list of the most visually gorgeous LGBT and camp films that I think any student of or lover of the visual arts will get a kick out of. Queer films that have style and killer cinematography in abundance that will brighten up your day (even in the worst student halls!)

HEARTBEATS - Xavier Dolan (2010)

Dolan (who started making films when he was 21) is often viewed as a wunderkid with just the fact that he makes exciting queer films at such a young age seen as enough to make him impressive but it is his pop visual style that marks him out as a unique talent. Heavily influenced by Almodovar, French New Wave and Nu Rave style music videos his second film Heartbeats from 2010 is a tale of young love and yearning when a young gay man (played by Xavier himself) and his straight female best friend fall in love with the same boy. A Jackson Pollock inspired sex scene is a stand out in this bright, energetic Quebecois Canadian film gem.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH - John Cameron Mitchell (2001)

A rock musical about a musician who learns to love themselves after a botched sex change doesn’t sound like the sort of film that will be an hilarious, entertaining and uplifting watch during lockdown but Hedwig’s mix of wry humour, great songs, self acceptance message and it’s enduring visual style will bowl you over, making this one of the most unforgettable queer films of all time and the best queer made musicials ever. There’s amazing costumes, animated sequences, dreamy moments of fantasy and a dry wit that permeates the visuals but what makes this film stand out is the meticulous framing and how director and star John Cameron Mitchell never goes for the most obvious shot that gives this film it’s frisson of excitement from moment to moment and the feeling that, like any good rock song, it could go in any direction at any second.

DEATH BECOMES HER - Robert Zemekis (1992)

This film about insane beauty standards in 90s Hollywood is one of the biggest camp classic films of all time. Not only is it beloved by the gay community for its quotable lines and killer comedic performances by stars Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep it also has groundbreaking special effects for the time time that still stand up and a tightly structured script that’s barbed satire on our obsession with staying young has, ironically, aged perfectly for of photoshop and FaceTune generation. But there’s also so much to enjoy in the film’s tone, genre and visual stylings from director Robert Zemekis (Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit)…this is a film that loves old Hollywood films, tips the hat to them but also has it’s own unique gothic style that I would call “New Hollywood Gothic”…the tall gates, echoy mansions, pools and palm trees of Beverley Hills become the things of cartoony horror as our beauty obsessed pair of movie stars get deeper and deeper into the pursuit of eternal youth.

UN CHANT D’AMOUR - Jean Genet (1950)

Jean Genet’s short black and white erotic masterpiece is a silent story of two gay male prisoners who express their attraction for each other through holes in the prison walls and by enticingly throwing flowers to each other through the cell rails. It’s like a Tom of Finland drawing come to life and very before it’s time for 1950, so much so the film was banned for many years. Dip into it for its lyrical fantasy sequences of longing and pent up gay sexual desire and beautiful grainy black and white photography that went on to influence Robert Mapplethorpe.


You can watch the whole film on YouTube by clicking below…

PINK NARCISSUS - James Bidgood (1971)

Another gay fantasy that was banned for many years, Pink Narcissus is very similar in themes and tone to Un Chant D’Amour but as it was filmed nearly 20 years later it is in bright, vivid colour not black and white. James Bidgood created the whole film in his own apartment (which goes to show you can create great art without ever leaving the house!) as it was illegal to film erotica like this out in the studios of the early 1970s even in New York. This is a bright, lurid art film with no dialogue that lets you into the candy coloured sexual fantasies of Bidgood using his muse, model Bobby Kendall to act them out in costumes dripping in jewels and in front of intricate handmade cardboard sets squeezing whole cities and worlds from the cruising sites of Downtown New York to the Colosseum of Ancient Rome and bullrings of Spain all into his tiny one room flat.

You can watch the whole film on YouTube by clicking below

HAPPY TOGETHER - Wong Kar-wai (1997)

Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai is up there with Wes Anderson as a director renowned for their framing and colour. Happy Together is a bitter sweet film about gay relationships that is bathed in green, red and yellow city lights with every shot looking like a photograph.

A SINGLE MAN - Tom Ford (2009)

Fashion designer Tom Ford’s debut film is as beautifully put together as one of his fashion campaigns and as sharp as a suit. It’s a day in the life of a gay man who has lost the love of his life and is thinking of killing himself but with this newfound determinism to end it all he starts to see the little moments that make life worth living and Ford’s camera hones in on these details making them vivid and alive. The 1960s costumes are perfection too and a sunset drenched moment when Colin Firth shares a cigarette with a James Dean lookalike model who could have stepped out of a Tom Ford fashion shoot is a stand out moment of dreamy Americana, beauty and colour.

You can currently rent A Single Man for 99p on Amazon Video https://www.amazon.co.uk/Single-Man-Colin-Firth/dp/B00ET045LM

CLUELESS - Amy Heckerling (1995)

Speaking of costumes, is there a film whose costume design has had a bigger influence on modern fashion than Amy Heckerling’s 90s high school comedy Clueless? Heckerling creates a world of airheads, jocks and drop outs, transporting Jane Austen’s Emma to a world of similar social hierarchy and snobbery - an LA high school for the sons and daughters of the rich and famous. Quotable from beginning to end (“As if!”) but also a lesson in how a film can create a vibrant world you would love to spend a day.


You can currently stream Clueless on Netflix … https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/384406

THE DREAMERS - Bernado Bertolucci (2003)

The Dreamers takes the subtext of many a Truffaut film and turns into up to a million in this 1960s Paris student revolution set bisexual threesome love story that’s dripping in style and references to the French New Wave cinema. The central scene that sees Eva Green, Louis Garrel and Michael Pitt share a bath together is so well framed using mirrors and reflections that it makes it seem like there are more than just three of the central trio in the room and in the already over stuffed relationship. Pure cinema.

VELVET GOLDMINE - Todd Haynes (1998)

Dip into the world of Glam Rock and the queer and gender-bending stars of the 1970s rock scene in this glittering early Todd Haynes film.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE - Celine Sciamma (2020)

Imbued with a buttery palette and painterly strokes of camera throughout, Celine Sciamma’s most recent film tells the tale of a dreamy lesbian romance. It’s a delicate drama about the liberating power of art, where a love affair sparks between two young women when one is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of the other as she is betrothed to be married to a man. All with the sumptuous backdrop of the coastline of 1770s France and a buttoned up repressed patriarchal society that keeps a woman’s fire deep inside, burning and waiting to rage. This is a film all about the power of the female gaze.

The film is available to stream as part of a MUBI subscription. You can currently sign up for three months for just 33p here and then £9.99 thereafter, or cancel it once your three months is up.

THE WATERMELON WOMAN - Cheryl Dunne (1997)

A fictional aspiring black lesbian filmmaker played by the real film’s director Cheryl Dunye researches a beautiful obscure 1940s black actress who was billed only as “the Watermelon Woman” in this mockumentary that plays with film form itself and ask questions of authorship, authenticity and gate keeping whilst also featuring a controversial lesbian sex scene that was discussed in congress! What’s not to love? This film has major 90s vibes but it’s the recreations of the totally fictional black and white film featuring the Watermelon Woman and fake pieces of archive footage that gives this film its flair.

You can watch the whole film on YouTube by clicking above

TANGERINE - Sean Baker (2015)

Shot on an iPhone 5 but with every scene looking like fresh, vivid and urgent, this revenge comedy odyssey set in the world of trans sex workers of LA shows how much you can do with a great story, a director’s eye and a simple, cheap camera. It’s funny as hell with great performances from its all trans cast and is bathed in the light of magical Los Angeles sunsets.

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES - Toshio Matsumoto (1969)

A vivid pop art black and white queer Japanese film from the 1960s…that’s got your interest, hasn't it? Funeral Parade of Roses is a unique journey through the underground clubs of 1969 Tokyo and is alive with drag queens, drugs, sex, trippy visuals that include onscreen cartoon speech balloons and other expertimental art films techniques…the film is said to have influenced Stanley Kubrick’s classic A Clockwork Orange and is as much of a wild ride!



View the trailer on YouTube by clicking above. The film is available to watch on BFIplayer where you can currently get a 14 day free trial https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-funeral-parade-of-roses-1970-online

THE WIZARD OF OZ - Victor Flemming (1939)

The ultimate film about dissapearing to another world. Adopted by the queer community for it's aspirational dream of getting swept away to beyond the rainbow and creating your own chosen family, this cinema classic is technicolour and timeless. From ruby slippers to yellow brick roads to emerald cities this is a film that is all about colour, Dorothy’s farmyard everyday life is in sepia tones and when it transitions into colour it really BEGINS! The Wizard of Oz is can be read as a metaphor for coming out of adolescence into adulthood or from the closet into your queerness… then clicking your shoes and coming home a bigger, better and brighter person. No wonder this film has endured…it might look like a musical with silly midgets and flying monkeys but this film is DEEP!