17 queer rom-coms for Pride Month (and beyond!)

From recent favorites to hidden gems to '90s trailblazers

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Pride Month may be wrapping up with parades across the country this weekend, but it’s always the right time to expand the rom-com genre beyond its straight and narrow origins. While TV was a little more ahead of the game with gay romances, it wasn’t really until more recent projects like 2018’s Love, Simon and 2020’s Happiest Season that feature-length LGBTQ+ rom-coms truly went mainstream.

Still, there’s a long history of queer (and queer-adjacent) love stories from all different eras of film history—not to mention some hidden gems from more recent years too. I rounded up 17 of my favorites below and linked to any longer coverage I’ve written about them as well. Consider this both a crash course on the evolution of queer representation and a list of sweet, charming rom-coms to enjoy this weekend and beyond.

Imagine Me & You (2005)

Before Happiest Season gave lesbian love stories the old-fashioned treatment, there was Imagine Me & You—a lesbian love story wrapped up in a classic, cheesy rom-com package. Here it’s Piper Perabo and Lena Headey who swoon over one another against picturesque shots of London and quirky flower shop settings. The twist? They meet cute on Perabo’s wedding day, as she walking down the aisle to marry Matthew Goode. Never fear, however, despite the sky-high martial stakes, this romance takes its cues from Nora Ephron and leaves everyone feeling warm and fuzzy by the end, no matter where on the love triangle they fall. Thanks to charismatic work from all three leads (especially Headey), Imagine Me & You proves feel-good rom-com comfort food doesn’t have to be stick straight.

The Wedding Banquet (1993 & 2025)

Here’s a two-for-one recommendation: Ang Lee’s 1993 classic follows a Taiwanese New Yorker in a committed gay relationship who decides to sham-marry a woman to please his conservative parents and help her get her green card. Meanwhile, Andrew Ahn’s recent reimagining updates the story to 21st century Seattle and adds a lesbian couple into the mix too. Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, and Han Gi-chan lead the remake, while Winston Chao, May Chin, and Mitchell Lichtenstein lead the original. Both films are funny, sensitive depictions of love, community, family obligations, and what it means to live authentically.

Alex Strangelove (2018)

Netflix’s Alex Strangelove is a classic high school rom-com about losing your virginity, only told through a coming-out narrative. The movie endearingly captures a certain type of neurotic type-A teen in Alex Truelove (Daniel Doheny), a high school senior struggling to understand why he doesn’t want to “go all the way” with his eager girlfriend (Madeline Weinstein). It could be because Alex finds himself inexplicably drawn to a charismatic stranger (Antonio Marziale) he meets at a party. There’s both humor and drama to Alex’s attempts to come to terms with his sexuality, but the real grace note is the empathy the movie extends to every corner of its teen love triangle.

Anything’s Possible (2022)

Billy Porter’s Prime Video directorial debut hits that To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before sweet spot of a modern high school rom-com with some light 1980s John Hughes flair. Eva Reign stars as Kelsa, an animal-loving teenager trying to truly thrive in her final year of high school. She wants to figure out how to embrace her trans identity without being defined by it—particularly when she goes off to college the next year. But life gets a little more complicated when she discovers that her crush Khal (Abubakr Ali doing his best Noah Centineo) likes her back. Their burgeoning romance brings out some transphobia at their school, although the movie is mostly interested in Kelsa and Khal’s sweet, mature, adorably awkward new relationship and how it helps inspire her to own her own story. Renée Elise Goldsberry is also on hand as Kelsa’s lovingly protective mom.

But I’m A Cheerleader (2000)

Perhaps the biggest cult classic on this list, But I’m A Cheerleader stars a teenage Natasha Lyonne as a high school cheerleader who gets sent off to a gay conversion camp. Ironically, however, it’s not until she arrives in that anti-gay environment that she realizes she actually does like girls—specifically Clea DuVall’s uber cool lesbian rebel. For a sense of the film’s tone, just know that RuPaul plays one of the program’s proudly ex-gay counselors. And that’s just one of many subversive, surrealist touches. In fact, director Jamie Babbit specially wanted to reclaim camp for queer women—blending John Waters edge with her own earnest love of the rom-com genre.

Bros (2022)

One of my more controversial movie takes is that a rom-com can be great even if the central love story isn’t the best thing about it. And that’s very much the case for Bros, which offers a decent romance but a truly fantastic showcase for Billy Eichner (who also co-wrote the screenplay). While rom-coms have long provided a haven for complicated stories about women’s interior lives, Eichner expands that lens to look at the Gen X gay male experience too. The introspective character study is wry and funny in the vein of Bridget Jones’s Diary. And it’s a joy to watch Eichner so confidently step up to the plate as a leading man.

Saving Face (2005)

One of my favorite discoveries from my A.V. Club column When Romance Met Comedy, Saving Face is one-half lesbian love story, one-half mother/daughter relationship dramedy, and one of the few American rom-coms with an all-Asian cast. Wilhelmina “Wil” Pang (Michelle Krusiec) is a successful surgeon who finds herself falling for a ballet dancer (Lynn Chen). But Wil is too afraid to come out to her conservative Chinese immigrant family, and things get even more complicated when her 48-year-old mom (Joan Chen) shows up on her doorstep pregnant, unwed, and with nowhere else to go. Writer/director Alice Wu combines those storylines into a heartfelt, funny, sometimes fraught, but ultimately joyful celebration of love in all its forms.

The Half of It (2020)

Once you’ve seen Saving Face, you can roll right on through to Alice Wu’s next feature, The Half of It—a Cyrano-inspired high school rom-com 15 years in the making. The Netflix film stars Leah Lewis as an introverted, closeted teen who gets roped into helping a himbo football player (Daniel Diemer) romance their mutual crush (Alexxis Lemire). In the end, however, The Half of It is as much a friendship rom-com as it is a truly romantic one. And that sweet platonic throughline builds to one of my all-time favorite rom-com endings.

Jeffrey (1995)

Some rom-coms are timeless and others get their power from the way they capture a snapshot of a particular time and place. The latter very much describes Jeffrey, a film about gay male life in New York City during the second half of the AIDS crisis. Steven Weber plays the titular Jeffrey—an anxious aspiring actor who swears off sex only to find himself falling for a hunky HIV-positive bartender (Michael T. Weiss). Based on a play by Paul Rudnick, the film is filled with heightened fantasy sequences and memorable cameos that make it unlike anything else in the rom-com canon. Plus it features an all-time great supporting performance from Patrick Stewart.

In & Out (1997)

This Kevin Kline vehicle is also a fascinating cultural object when it comes to what mainstream gay representation was like in the ’90s. Inspired by Tom Hanks’ Oscar acceptance speech for Philadelphia in which he thanked his gay high-school drama coach, this movie imagines a similar speech that outs Kline’s English lit teacher—not just to his community and his fiancé (Joan Cusack), but also to himself. While there’s not much in the way of actual romance here (although Tom Selleck is on hand as an openly gay entertainment reporter), this mid-life coming-out studio comedy utilized the tone of a rom-com to help make gay identity a little more accessible for Clinton-era Middle America.

Together Together (2021)

Together Together is a funny movie to include on this list because it technically isn’t even a rom-com, nor does it feature any central queer characters. But it does star trans comedian Patti Harrison in one of her best ever performances and its celebration of the different ways families can be made feels queer in an abstract way, if not a literal one. Harrison plays a young barista who gets hired as a surrogate for Ed Helms’ Matt, a 40-something app developer who has decided to become a single dad. Though the relationship between the two is platonic, their dynamic has the emotional ups and downs you’d expect from a rom-com. And that makes Together Together a special kind of friendship-com.

Pillow Talk (1959)

If you really want to stretch the box of what counts as queer, check out the winking “bedroom comedies” that Rock Hudson and Doris Day made in the late 1950s. Though 1959’s Pillow Talk, 1961’s Lover Come Back, and 1964’s Send Me No Flowers are decidedly heterosexual—and in some ways quite regressive—there’s a meta edge of satire that makes them quietly subversive too. In Pillow Talk, Hudson plays a womanizing playboy who at one point pretends to be a gay Texas rancher in order to mind-game Day into kissing him. And there’s a scene in Send Me No Flowers where Hudson and Tony Randall share a bed like an old married couple. Add in the fact that Hudson himself really was gay and you’ve got a fascinating snapshot of the winking layers of mid-century Hollywood rom-com filmmaking.

The Broken Hearts Club (2000)

Did you know that 25 years ago, Timothy Olyphant, Zach Braff, Justin Theroux, Billy Porter, Dean Cain, Andrew Keegan, and the dad from Frasier played a group of gay friends living in West Hollywood? Before Greg Berlanti became the creative voice behind the Arrowverse and Love, Simon, he wrote and directed this indie based on his own experiences in the image-obsessed LA dating scene. The large ensemble cast give The Broken Hearts Club the feeling of a Garry Marshall or Richard Curtis film, with all sorts of different character arcs to relate to. (Think Four Weddings and a Funeral but in California.) It’s a hidden gem in the rom-com genre and a love letter to a specific slice of gay male friendship at the turn of the 21st century.

Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)

From Roman Holiday to The Prince & Me, royal rom-coms are a whole subgenre unto themselves. And Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue offers a pretty delicious riff on the formula. British Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) and American “first son” Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) are long-time rivals forced to embark on a goodwill tour together. Naturally they fall for each other, but can their love withstand the demands of two oppressive political organizations? The movie doesn’t really answer that question, but it does deliver a sexier love story than you usually get in these kinds of lighthearted streaming rom-coms.

Crush (2022)

Another streaming rom-com with a slightly edgier tone, Hulu’s Crush brings together some Disney icons for a lesbian love triangle. Girl Meets World’s Rowan Blanchard plays Paige Evans, an artsy high school student nursing a long-time crush on track star Gabriela Campos (Isabella Ferreira). But it’s Gabriela’s bi sister AJ (Moana’s Auliʻi Cravalho) who might actually be her perfect match. Crush channels a bit of that Superbad or Booksmart vibe with drunken parties, dental dam jokes, and Megan Mullally as Paige’s sexually frank mom. But it’s the lovely chemistry between Blanchard and Cravalho that elevates the familiar story beats.

Fire Island (2022)

Rom-coms as we know them wouldn’t exist without Jane Austen and the character archetypes she made famous. So it’s only fitting that Austen’s most famous novel is the inspiration behind one of the most charming queer rom-coms of the past few years. Starring Joel Kim Booster as the Lizzy Bennet figure and Bowen Yang as his less confident “sister,” Fire Island does for Pride and Prejudice what Clueless did for Emma­—update the setting but keep the social satire and character work intact. Subbing in the class dynamics of New York’s Fire Island for the English country side, this Hulu original is a funny, thoughtful ode to both romantic love and platonic bonds.

A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Jonathan Groff is one of our most magnetic romantic leads. And A Nice Indian Boy puts that fact to great use in a love story based on Madhuri Shekar’s play of the same name. Groff plays Jay Kurundkar, a white guy raised by Indian parents. But does that make him a perfect match for introverted Dr. Naveen Gavaskar (Deadpool’s Karan Soni), whose own parents (Zarna Garg and Harish Patel) expect him to quietly settle down with “a nice Indian boy”? Directed by Soni’s real-life husband Roshan Sethi, the film explores cross-cultural relationships, opposites-attract romance, and the complications of familial expectations. A Nice Indian Boy is less about the flutters of first love than what it takes to truly make life-long relationships work. And it’s a lovely example of how gay rom-coms have continued to grow and evolve over the past few decades.

• For more rom-com recs, check out My 21 favorite rom-coms since 2010 and 21 rom-coms you’ve (maybe) never seen before

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