Big Gay Picture Show’s Top 10 LGBT- Themed Films Of 2017

5. Thelma

Synopsis: Thelma, a shy young student, has just left her religious family in a small town on the west coast of Norway to study at a university in Oslo. While at the library one day, she experiences a violent, unexpected seizure. Soon after, she finds herself intensely drawn toward Anja, a beautiful young student who reciprocates Thelma’s powerful attraction. As the semester continues, Thelma becomes increasingly overwhelmed by her intense feelings for Anja – feelings she doesn’t dare acknowledge, even to herself – while at the same time experiencing even more extreme seizures. As it becomes clearer that the seizures are a symptom of inexplicable, often dangerous, supernatural abilities, Thelma is confronted with tragic secrets of her past, and the terrifying implications of her powers.

What We Thought: It’s easy to see why Thelma did so well as film festivals and has picked up several Best Foreign Language Film of the Year awards from various critics groups. It’s beautifully made, evocative, creepy, morally ambiguous, delicately acted and more than a little disturbing. The film keeps the audience on edge by playing with the uncertainty over what’s going on and how religion, fear and confusion have conspired against the characters, leading to strange and dark consequences. The initial echoes of Stephen King’s Carrie soon lead in new directions, including a strong and quietly erotic sense of Sapphic desire.

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4. God’s Own Country

Synopsis: Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) works long hours on his family’s remote farm in the north of England. He numbs the daily frustration of his lonely existence with nightly binge-drinking and casual sex. But when a handsome Romanian migrant worker (Alec Secareanu) arrives to take up temporary work on the family farm, Johnny suddenly finds himself having to deal with emotions he has never felt before. As they begin working closely together during lambing season, an intense relationship starts to form which could change Johnny’s life forever.

What We Thought: You can understand why it’s been dubbed by some the ‘British Brokeback Mountain’, but it’s also a powerful and evocative movie in its own right. Although there are moments where it goes a bit far with the rural isolation and desolation, that does ensure that the audience becomes fully involved with the emotionally immature Johnny and his growing – and passionate – relationship with Gheorghe. Beautifully filmed and with a very strong final act, it was a worthy winner of the top award at the recent British Independent Film Awards.

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3. Beach Rats

Synopsis: It’s summer and Brooklyn teenager Frankie (Harris Dickinson) has nothing to do but hang out with his friends, heading down to the beach to flirt with girls, play ball and try to pass the time. However, away from his somewhat delinquent mates, he’s started going online and looking for guys. This part of his life is completely removed from the rest of his existence. His family is poor and he and his friends find it difficult to imagine a life beyond the boundaries of their beachside community – even if the whole of New York is pretty much on their doorstep. However, when his online ‘gay’ life and the straight, masculine one with his friends start to collide, things get potentially dangerous.

From Our Review: It’s a beautifully observed look at a very specific teenage world, with a sharp script and subtle direction. This allows the movie to go to some pretty dark and morally complex places, without seeming like it’s stretching credulity or becoming melodramatic. That’s helped enormously by an astonishing performance by Harris Dickinson as Frankie. After you’ve watched the movie, it’s almost shocking to discover that he’s actually British, as thanks to some skilful acting and Eliza Hittman’s powerful direction, he seems to inhabit that world so much that it’s difficult to imagine either the actor or character being from anywhere else.

Read our full review here

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2. BPM (Beats Per Minute) [AKA 120 Beats Per Minute]

Synopsis: In Paris in the early 1990s, a group of activists goes to battle for those stricken with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions. The organization is ACT UP, and its members, many of them gay and HIV-positive, embrace their mission with a literal life-or-death urgency. Amid rallies, protests, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, the newcomer Nathan falls in love with Sean, the group’s radical firebrand, and their passion sparks against the shadow of mortality as the activists fight for a breakthrough.

What We Thought: Director Robin Campillo’s previous movie, Eastern Boys, made our Top 10 list in 2014, but he’s upped his game once more with BPM. Many thought it should have won the Palm d’Or at Cannes, and it has since gone on to become France’s official Foreign Language Oscar entry. Powerfully told, smart and refreshingly unsentimental, BPM manages to feel incredibly honest – helped by the fact it’s inspired by Campillo’s own experiences as an activist. It also smartly shows the effect of the many battle lines ACT UP dealt with, not just externally but also within their own ranks and within their own bodies.

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1. Call Me By Your Name

Synopsis: In northern Italy in 1983, 24-year-old Oliver (Armie Hammer) arrives to stay for the summer at the 17th Century villa of his American professor and his family. He immediately catches the attention of the professor’s 17-year-old son, Elio (Timothee Chalamet). With Elio’s precocious talents for music and ideas, he forms a friendship with Oliver. Slowly it begins to become something deeper, although both of them are uncertain how to handle it. Oliver is aware he is older and also the doctoral student of Elio’s father, while Elio is still figuring out his sexuality and what he wants from the world.

From Our Review: Call Me By Your Name… benefits from strong direction by Luca Guadagnino, who cleverly builds the characters and their world. He deliberately eschews convention, with shots that seem to either linger too long or cut off too short. Othertimes the camera roves in a way that seems to be avoiding what the viewer wants to see (and not just in the sex scenes), but it’s done in an extremely smart way to draw the audience in and get them to question what the characters will do and why. There are entire film studies essays that could be written just about how much of the evolution of the relationship between Elio and Oliver is constructed around the bathroom the two share and how Oliver is shown taking a leak.

Read our full review here

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