The Best Recent 2SLGBTQ+ Movies About Boys
Film poster from Epic Pictures
As Pride Month came to a close, my friend asked me if I had any evening plans.
“I just got back to the city, so not really,” I texted back. “But there is a movie I’ve been meaning to show you.”
Anyone who has followed my work over the years knows that I’m passionate about high-quality films that reflect boyhood in a meaningful way. Not just any coming-of-age movie with a male protagonist, but thoughtful, artful films with something important to say.
So in honour of a seventh grader I know whose friends just accompanied him to his first-ever Pride parade, here are are the four best films from the last few years telling the still-emerging story of young queer masculinity.
Young Hearts
An unreservedly emotional exploration of first love and self-acceptance that ignores the familiar molds of upbeat summer flicks and tragic queer dramas in favour of a story that is both raw and idyllic.
“Goossens’s face, all but frozen by the struggle between yearning and resisting, suggests that a 14-year-old’s body couldn’t possibly hold the enormity—and the destabilizing effects—of romantic love. Young Hearts also stresses the asynchrony between the fantasy of a safe and orderly society and the chaos that desire necessarily wreaks.” — Diego Semerene
Before I Change My Mind
I cared about what was going to happen to every single one of the middle schoolers in this bold and atmospheric glimpse into the world of a nonbinary kid who is both incredibly vulnerable and wholly unafraid.
“What begins as a query of gender identity evolves into a richer study of identity itself. Anderson doesn’t apply pronouns or labels. He keeps the film firmly in the lived experience of 1987 Alberta, a time where kids—grown-ups even—didn’t have the language or culture of open-mindedness to process gender identity outside blue and pink.” — Pat Mullen
Read more: Looking for some picture books to increase 2SLGBTQ+ representation for the kids in your life? Take a look at past Learnings & Unlearnings blog post, 8 Boys Books for Pride Month.
Soft
A love letter to the queer Toronto youth navigating adolescence with all the unbridled joy, fierce determination and unshakeable danger of growing up without parents who have their back.
“The bedrock of Soft is made up of anger, rebellion, and unpredictability. Anything can happen at any time, and moments of darkness can come out of nowhere, even when it looks like the kids are having fun. A lot of that danger can be caused as a result of Julien’s devil-may-care attitude, something captured brilliantly by Lunot, in a performance that could best be described as a force of nature.” — Andrew Parker
Monster (怪物)
A masterclass in story structure and character depth that revolves around the relationship between two preteen boys and gradually unveils everything the adults in their lives don’t know.
“By cutting things up and showing us the perils of fractured perspectives, Hirokazu Kore-eda, one of cinema’s great humanists, demonstrates that compassion is more than just a natural state of being; it’s a process that requires constant expansion of one’s field of vision. I’m not sure I’ve seen a better film about the indisputable fact that we never really know what someone else is going through.” — Bilge Ebiri
