Best LGBTQ Films of 2025, part 2 – ‘Blue Moon,’ ‘A Nice Indian Boy,’ and ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ are among our top picks

2025 was a dismal year for queer films in several ways. While there were a few high-profile gay films, even in film festivals there were far less lesbian and trans movies, especially the latter. Perhaps distributers and independent studios were worried about a backlash against trans material because of the negative policies of the government, resulting in fewer audiences patronizing movies on trans themes.
Secondly, in terms of Hollywood studios, this is the worst year for queer films since 2022, when “Bros” became a box office flop, despite $22 million for production and at least as much for publicity.

This year’s box office minor catastrophe was the gay musical, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” made on a production budget of $30 million, that worldwide (including the U.S.) brought in $1.6 million. Again, there was a big press campaign for this film. Reviews were mixed (as was mine) but it was still worth watching, yet it couldn’t attract even a modest audience and lost a great deal of money.

Another casualty was “History of Sound” a bland period gay romance of two conservatory students who fall in love just prior to World War I, starring two huge male straight Gen Z stars, Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor. The film cost between $2 and $3 million to make (a bargain today), yet whose worldwide box office was $970,000. Both Mescal and O’Connor have played gay roles previously, are well known and liked in the queer community. Again, reviews were mixed (so was mine) with hardly any LGBTQ audiences patronizing this film.

Finally, the trend for the past five years has been streaming platforms producing and featuring queer films. However, in the past two years, major platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max have cut down their budgets on all the films they make and produce, with queer movies chief on the chopping block.

So, in 2025 there were only a few LGBTQ films on those three platforms. Viewers are following the same trend as their straight counterparts and only paying to see spectacle event movies. However, if LGBTQ viewers don’t support queer films with their dollars, they won’t get made or produced by Hollywood, independent distributors, or streaming platforms.

My five favorite LGBTQ films of 2025:

5. Hands down, the best biographical film of the year, “Blue Moon” (Sony Pictures Classics) deals with gay lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895-1943) whose straight musical composer was Richard Rodgers, brilliantly underplayed by gay actor Andrew Scott. They were the Lennon and McCartney of the first half of the twentieth century, writing such classics as “My Funny Valentine,” “Isn’t It Romantic” and the title song.

The movie occurs at the opening night party at Sardi’s on Broadway in 1943 for his former partner’s landmark show “Oklahoma” with his new lyricist Oscar Hammerstein. Hart (an unrecognizable Ethan Hawke) hates the show but shows up to ingratiate himself before Rodgers in the hope they can continue their decaying partnership.

Hart is an alcoholic mess. He’s a closeted gay man but typical of the era, self-hating. The film is essentially one long monologue (it’s all talk) with lots of scathing wit plus a few minor interactions with supporting characters. Ethan Hawke gives the greatest performance of his career conveying the pathos, fierce talent, and bitter loneliness of Hart. He will be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and similar to Brendan Fraser’s gay character in “The Whale,” might win in an upset.

4. The gay-romcom of the year is the intercultural delight “A Nice Indian Boy,” concerning a shy, introverted gay Indian doctor Naveen (Karan Soni) who meets a gregarious white photographer Jay (Jonathan Groff) adopted by two now dead Indian parents. Even though Naveen is out to his parents, he talks about Jay as a friend rather than a boyfriend which upsets Jay.

When Jay finally meets Naveen’s parents, it’s an awkward encounter since they thought he was Indian. This is an ‘opposites attract’ romance, but it’s really how immigrant families adapt to Western/American morality and bridge the cultural divide as well as the trials of being in an interracial relationship.

The chemistry between Soni (who in real life will marry the film’s gay director) and Groff (not his usual whiny performance, but charming) is sincere and palpable, maybe because they are both openly gay, which is refreshing for a mainstream movie (now streaming on Hulu). The scene stealer here is Indian comic Zarna Garg (she has a standup special on Netflix, worth watching) as Naveen’s mother who’s able to be both hilarious and touching. This is the film to watch to cheer yourself up and maybe start believing again in fairy tales.

3. A gay period film that’s also a hyperkinetic psychological thriller, “Plainclothes” (Magnolia Pictures) is set in 1997 Syracuse, New York. A young closeted gay cop Lucas (Tom Blyth) cruises and entraps gay men at a bathroom in the local mall arresting them for lewd conduct.

Problems ensue when he falls for one of his marks, Andrew (Russell Tovey), a closeted married man with children. He lets him go free and they meet in theaters and greenhouses for sex. Lucas falls in love with Andrew, but struggles with his inner shame, and can’t tell his mother or family the truth about himself.

Andrew has a strict rule about not engaging with a guy more than once, yet really likes Lucas. All these tensions will culminate and explode at his mother’s New Year’s Eve party. It’s a beguiling fusion of erotic intrigue and emotional catharsis. The film keeps you guessing about what will happen till the very last frame. The charismatic, sexually fluid, visceral, gorgeous Blyth is on his way to becoming a major star. His chemistry with the openly gay Tovey (superb playing against type) is electric combining a potent fusion of longing, fear, and desperation.

2. We can thank lesbian comedian Tig Notaro who urged Colorado’s nonbinary Poet Laureate and spoken-word favorite Andrea Gibson and her wife, poet Megan Falley to allow producer/director Ryan White to film Gibson’s four-year battle with ovarian cancer affording him total access in the potent documentary “Come See Me in the Good Light.” Even though Andrea died in July in Megan’s arms long after the completed film, that sad ending doesn’t detract from the movie’s life affirming message, to make the most of “the brevity of it all.”

Most of the filming occurred during the pandemic in 2021 in their Boulder home. It was their mutual love of words that drew them together and sustained them on hard days. When Gibson was diagnosed, she initially wanted to end the relationship, which seemed to be stalling, but Falley insisted she wasn’t going anywhere.

Gibson’s magnetic poetry is the film’s secret weapon, and reveals Gibson’s soul and avoids sentimentality. The film reveals the daily mundane activities of life and tense moments such as waiting for the results of blood tests showing whether current treatments are working. It’s about the joys and challenges of caregiving in all its unvarnished honesty as the couple attain a kind of transcendence.

Much of the film concerns Andrea’s desire to perform her spoken word poetry (and she’s considered a rock star in that genre) before a crowd one last time. When she does appear on stage, it is this year’s most exhilarating moment of any film in 2025. The feature has made the short list for the Best Documentary Oscar and I’ll bet it will be one of the five final nominees.

Streaming on Apple +, anyone who watches this stunning, heartbreaking, emotionally complex film will never question whether queer relationships are any less loving than straight ones.

1. Although “Come See Me” is probably a better made, more artistic film than the documentary “The Librarians,” (K.A. Snyder Productions) it is unlikely you will see a more infuriating yet impactful movie this year.

It begins in 2021 when Texas House Representative Matt Krause, also a candidate for Texas State Attorney General, issued a list of 850 books for schools to review for obscene and race-related content, then remove them. Of course, the majority of the books had queer and racial themes.

We meet librarians in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and even suburban blue state New Jersey, who are resisting these censorship efforts. One of these librarians is queer, but most are straights willing to fight off groups like the MAGA-inspired Moms for Liberty, who police books available in public schools, then bombard school board meetings with intimidation, expletive-laden shouting and not-at-all veiled threats of violence.

Banning books in most societies is a harbinger of approaching fascism and a way of preventing queer folk from discovering themselves and their history. What these librarians have to endure is terrifying, not only the prospect of being fired just for doing their jobs, but arrests and death threats, with some communities willing to close their public libraries rather than cede to demands they not censor books.

They are heroes, defenders of democracy, upholding our fundamental rights of freedom of speech and to read what we want. We can forgive the film’s occasional lapsing into being a PSA, because 2025’s best LGBTQ film is a call to arms about the necessity of tolerance and civility in a pluralistic society.