Single All the Way – Hallmark-Style Holiday Rom-Com with a Gay Heart
The Gay Hallmark Movie People Kept Asking For
For years, queer audiences joked about wanting “a Hallmark Christmas movie, but make it gay.” When Single All the Way dropped on Netflix, the memes finally felt answered. Snowy small town? Check. Meddling family? Check. Holiday decorations aggressively colonising every frame? Double check. The only real twist is that the romantic leads are two men—and the homophobia is swapped out for over‑enthusiastic support.
Maurice – Forster’s Long-Suppressed Gay Classic and Its Quietly Radical Ending
A Love Story That Had to Wait for the Right Century
E.M. Forster wrote Maurice in the early 20th century but refused to publish it during his lifetime. He did not want “a story with a happy ending” about two men to appear while homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. When the novel finally reached readers posthumously, and later gained a lush film adaptation, it felt like a message sent forward in time: “This is the ending I wanted for us, even when the law would not allow it.”
The Way He Looks – Blindness, First Love, and the Quiet Revolution of Being Ordinary
A Queer Teen Film That Refuses to Be a Tragedy
Brazilian film The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho) opens with an ordinary annoyance: a blind teenager, Leonardo, struggling to assert his independence against overprotective parents and a school environment that alternates between boredom and bullying. The film could have turned this setup into a heavy drama about discrimination. Instead, it chooses something more radical in its simplicity: a gentle, almost quiet queer coming‑of‑age story where the biggest stakes are friendship, freedom, and first love.
Love, Simon – Mainstream Teen Rom-Com, Quietly Radical Queer Center
A Studio Teen Rom-Com with a Gay Boy at the Center
When Love, Simon arrived in cinemas, a lot of queer viewers experienced something close to whiplash. Here was a glossy, PG‑13 teen romantic comedy from a major Hollywood studio, using the visual language of straight high school films—locker‑lined hallways, cafeteria crush drama, ferris wheels and school plays—but the protagonist was a gay boy. Not the sidekick. Not the tragic friend. The actual lead, who gets the big romantic payoff in the rain.