Every Good Queer and Trans Movie Streaming on HBO Max

What movies with lesbian, bisexual, queer, and trans women and/or trans men and/or non-binary people in them can a person find streaming on HBO Max? This is a question you might have, and good news, we are here to answer it. While HBO highlights many lesbian films in its “Pride” section, that section misses so many other titles that are categorized elsewhere.

Historically, HBO has been pretty good to the LGBTQ community, producing a lot of inclusive original content, but much of it is for gay men and only a limited number of these titles are currently available on Max. Their library isn’t as robust as it once was, but it’s still a great streaming destination for really high-quality lesbian cinema.

This post was originally published in November 2020. Most recent update: 2/16/2026.

#78 best lesbian movie of all time

This immediate classic and multiple-Emmy-winner co-written and directed by Dee Rees (Pariah, When We Rise, Mudbound) stars Queen Latifah as bisexual American blues singer Bessie Smith and features Mo-Nique as Ma Rainey. Gabby described this “badass bisexual biopic,” declaring, “this movie is well-done, like so well-done. The vaudeville stage moments and all of the singing in clubs and giant tent revivals are lively and beautiful. The black excellence in this film is something to behold and revel in. Everyone is gorgeous. The costumes, the wigs, the make-up, the dancing: all of it is authentic and just so much damn fun to watch.”

“Battle of the Sexes,which stars Emma Stone as Billie Jean King and Steve Carrell as Bobby Riggs, is so many movies,” wrote Heather in her review. “It’s a comedy about a charming, washed-up, middle-aged gambling addict looking for a little notoriety and one more hustle. It’s a period drama about a group of women athletes trying to get equal pay and a little respect. It’s a sports movie, complete with breathless action sequences, overwrought crowd reactions, and a soaring score. It’s a biopic about a legend. And it’s one of the best lesbian films I’ve ever seen.”

“Queer Horror-Meets-Comedy-of-Errors” A24 cinema Bodies Bodies Bodies is a lot of bloody fun. Sophie (Amandla Stenberg)’s taking her girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) to a remote vacation house for a “hurricane party” that’s full of chaos and humor. Bodies Bodies Bodies also stars Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, Pete Davidson and Myha’la Herrold.

#5 best lesbian movie of all time

It’s Carol! You know Carol. Set in the 1950s and based on the Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, Carol follows the love affair between fancy glove luncher Carol and aspiring photographer / shop girl Therese.

#6 best lesbian movie of all time

“Donna Deitch’s lesbian love story is set in the ’50s and was filmed in the ’80s, and is still, in 2020, a radical piece of filmmaking,” wrote Heather in her review of this classic based on Jane Rule’s novel. “It basically has an all-women cast, and — much likeCarol, which is what critics tend to compare it to for all the wrong reasons — it does not center the pleasures or preferences of men, ever.”

“Annie Baker’s feature debut joins a small group of films — Eve’s Bayou,El Sur,Aftersun — that really capture childhood. It has all the wonder, all the magic, all the loneliness,” writes Drew of this film with a queer kid at its center. “Yes, the writing is excellent, yes, all the performances are excellent, but they’re both enhanced by a clear grasp on film language and the unique possibilities of the screen. I’ve talked to so many people who saw themselves in this movie, not because it achieves some sort of universality but because that’s what great art makes possible. It holds a reality so much more recognizable than real life.”

#36 best lesbian movie of all time

An underrated film I have personally discussed so much on this website that it may have at some point crossed the line from underrated to overrated, Angelina Jolie plays the tragically beautiful (and very bisexual) titular figure Gia Marie Carangi, known as “world’s first supermodel.”

#55 on best lesbian movie of all time

“Focusing on a day in the life of lesbian Molly,Working Girls reveals the boredom and mundane difficulties of working at a Manhattan brothel,” writes Drew in the entry for Working Girls in The Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema. “The film doesn’t romanticize sex work or sensationalize it — instead it just lets it be like any crappy job. The dynamics between Molly and her boss, her co-workers, and her clients are all compelling as they reveal more about her, the job, and society’s relationship to sex work. This is a landmark work of cinema that’s finally getting its due and a landmark work of lesbian cinema as well. “

#4 on best lesbian movies of all time

“Portrait of a Lady on Fire is not simply a work of the female gaze, it is not simply a work of lesbian cinema,” wrote Drew of this movie everybody adored but I thought was a little slow! “It is pushing against the boundaries of the screen, frantically, lovingly, desperately, erotically, grasping grasping grasping for a new language, a new way of seeing.”

In their directorial debutSorry, Baby, Eva Victor stars as a young professor navigating the aftermath of assault — not as a tragedy to transcend, but as a new, lived-in reality. “While certainly difficult to watch at times,Sorry, Babyworks so well, because it’s ultimately a slice-of-life comedy,”writes Drew.

#29 best lesbian movie of all time

“Je Tu Il Elle obviously centers a woman with depression,” writes Drew of this seminal entry in the cannon of lesbian cinema. “It does it wonderfully and to deny that would do the work and [Chantal] Akerman a disservice. But can there not be pleasure within? Pleasure in painting your furniture, that small amount of control, pleasure in the first taste of sugar, before it makes you sick, pleasure in crafting a letter, before it feels impossible, pleasure in meeting a stranger, before he reveals his full self, pleasure in fucking your ex, before you have to leave.”

“Laura Poitras’ remarkable documentaryAll the Beauty and the Bloodshedis about Nan Goldin and her work,”wrote Drew Gregory of this award-winning film about legendary bisexual photographer Nan Goldin. “It’s also about Goldin’s campaign to take downthe Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, the company who manufactured Oxycontin. The brilliance of the film is it shows these aspects of her life to be one in the same.”

Lucy lives in Los Angeles, works at a spa, loves her best friend Jane and feels increasingly annoyed by her friend, Ben, who yearns to develop a romantic connection with her. But when Jane reveals that she’s moving to London, Lucy’s ensuing spiral leads to her revelation that she is in fact gay! There’s a lot of the talent involved in this cinema (directed by Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allyne! Starring Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno and Kiersey Clemons!), but despite all that… but it’s not always put to effective use. YMMV!

Angel City (

This extremely hot and smart movie sees Nicole Kidman’s Romy unlocking a bounty of unfulfilled desires through an elicit sexual affair with her intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) — but its queerness isn’t central enough to warrant a spot on the top ten. Still, you must know that Romy’s gay daughter (Esther McGregor) is carrying on an affair of her own — with a younger neighbor, and also, as Drew writes in her review, “When Samuel finally gets Romy to meet him in public, it’s at a club pulsing with sexuality that defies labels. A woman kisses Romy. Samuel and another men caress. There are limits and boundaries that vanish outside the paradigm of heterosexual expectations.”

Best In Show

“There’s the gay that you know because the movie says it with their words,” Carmen wrote of the film she described as “the chaotic sparkly queer misandrist comic book movie of my dreams,” “and there’s the gay you know because you can see it with your eyes. Birds of Prey, with its neon pink and blue hues, glitter bomb grenades, pet hyenas in rhinestone collars, and car chases on roller skates, gives us both.”

Drew writes that this “cruel movie about cruel women”is worth it for its “camerawork, costume design, and incredible performances from Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, and Irm Hermann.”

Beauty and brutality are twisted sisters in this ballet psychological thriller packed with haunting performances. I know people are mixed on what “really” happens between Nina (Natalie Portman) and Lily (Mila Kunis), but that ambiguity is a big part of the draw of this film, and to deny its queerness is to overlook so much of the character-level storytelling.

With commentary from celebrities like (gay) Raven-Symoné, Cleo’s friends and her partners, this documentary sheds light on the mysterious life of a psychic hotline guru — “her rise to fame, fall from grace, and eventual embrace of her truest self.”

Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel notoriously buried the book’s very clear queerness, and this adaptation of the musical promised to do better. While this version “makes clear Celie’s attraction to Shug and Shug’s interest in Celie in return,” it didn’t go quite as far as we’d hoped. Still; it’s a beautiful film full of extraordinary performances, particularly Taraji P. Henson’s turn as Shug Avery.

During a school shooting, bisexual high school student Vada (Jenna Ortega) ends up hiding in the bathroom with her schoolmates, dancer Mia (Maddie Ziegler), and Quinton (Niles Fitch), whose brother os killed in the shooting. As Vada’s trauma makes her feel increasingly isolated from those closest to her and school itself, she begins spending all her time with Mia. “The two girls have nothing in common,” writes Analyssa in her review, “except for literally the most important thing to ever happen to them.” Their relationship gets increasingly intense.

Moises Kaufman’s 2000 play about the murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming was a piece of “verbatim theater,” drawing on hundreds of interviews his theater company conducted with Laramie residents and published news reports. HBO adapted the play into a grounded, emotional GLAAD-award-winning film in 2002, starring Christina Ricci, Laura Linney, Camryn Manheim, Joshua Jackson and Clea Duvall, among others.

Monster-in-Law

“John Waters lives up to his title Pope of Trash with this raucous celebration of counter-culture deviancy,” writes Drew of this film that opens with “a group of cishet normals making their way through a free exhibit titled The Cavalcade of Perversions” followed by Divine robbing them all at gunpoint. “Waters starts his filmography with a statement and never lets up.”

This documentary focuses on Bindle & Keep, a Brooklyn-based custom-suit company who caters to queer, trans and gender-non-conforming humans, including a trans man preparing for his wedding and a law student struggling through job interviews.

Based on a John Green novel, Turtles All The Way Down centers on Aza Holmes (The Last Of Us‘s Isabela Merced), a sixteen-year-old struggling with OCD who reconnects with her childhood crush, Davis, and considers finding love, at last, amid it all.

A charming little buddy comedy about a popular, successful high school girl who gets pregnant and must road trip from Missouri to New Mexico to get the abortion her boyfriend doesn’t want her to have. She recruits her former friend — weirdo lesbian Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) — to join her on this journey. Look out for a very charming Betty Who cameo!

The tragic story of the murder of 15-year-old trans student Larry King by his classmate Brandon McInerny is the topic of this documentary, which loooks at the circumstances that led to the crime and its complicated and far-reaching aftermath.

Iconic African-American standup comic Jackie “Moms” Mabley is honored in this documentary featuring performance footage as well as interviews with stars like Eddie Murphy, Joan Rivers, Sidney Poitier and Kathy Griffin. The film also gives space to Moms’ lesbianism — she was out to her friends and other entertainers during her career, but it was kept a secret from the public, who were drawn to her “frumpy mom in a housedress” persona.