Out the Movies is a bi-weekly newsletter about queer film for AF+ subscribers written by Drew Burnett Gregory. This week’s topic: the recently launched Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.

I used to think I could watch every lesbian movie ever made. Now I know that isn’t possible.

Since making my way through every Best Picture winner and various director filmographies as a child, my cinephilia has been paired with a Capricon completionism. It was about the films first and foremost, but the lists, the projects, the gargantuan goals allowed me to make sense of the big world of cinema I wanted to understand. I still find this useful. Whether watching every film with one actor or going through the films referenced in a book, viewing projects are a tool for exploration, an excuse to push myself beyond mere whims.

Watching every lesbian movie started as a project of identity before it became my job. When I transitioned at age 23, I felt behind in almost every area of lesbian culture. Every area except cinema. While I hadn’t seen popular-in-community fare like D.E.B.S. or Imagine Me and You, my love of arthouse cinema had led me to films like Water Lilies, Carol, The Watermelon Woman, Summertime, All About My Mother, Blue is the Warmest Color, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, and, of course, Mulholland Drive. Expanding upon this head start, I found comfort and self-knowledge through further exploration.

By the time I’d been out for two years and was staffed at Autostraddle, I’d seen more movies about cis lesbians than any of the cis lesbians I was meeting. In retrospect, maybe that’s why the first night I met Riese in-person, I asked if I could re-do Autostraddle’s 100 Best Lesbian Movies. At the time, I said it was just because I couldn’t rest with The Watermelon Woman at number 30 and Freeheld in the top 10. (To be fair, an understandable excuse.)

Six months later I had a project budget, and I spent six more months enhancing my expertise. There wouldn’t be a film on this new list that I hadn’t seen. And there would be no filler — every film on the list would be good if not great.

I watched everything I still hadn’t seen on the streamers. I spent hours in the LGBTQ+ sections of LA’s surviving video stores looking for lost gems. I scrolled through the girls-kissing and lesbian tags on IMDb. All the while, 2019 and 2020 brought more new queer releases than ever.

That revamped list has gone through multiple renditions since the initial publication of my work in 2020. Most recently, we launched The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema, a separate, sortable website that is an expansion of an earlier attempt at this kind of resource. Now instead of updating annually, I can update as I watch. According to my personal lesbian+ list on Letterboxd, I’ve seen 690 lesbian films. The encyclopedia currently has 388. I still have entries to add, although I’m not sure some of the movies on my personal list deserve a spot in the encyclopedia — even if Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story did introduce me to the concept of bisexuality.

While I may leave off 2000s comedies where two women briefly kiss, the truth is this 6+ year project has expanded my definition of a lesbian movie. Every day brings online discourse about who can or cannot identify as a lesbian, but the historical truth is it’s an expansive category that is fluid based on time period, location, and the individual. Our cinema is this way too.

For every obscure yet undeniable lesbian film like Ann Hui’s All About Love or Patrícia Vidal Delgado’s La Leyenda Negra, there are worthy films that flirt around this definition. From obvious works of subtext adapted from gay novels like The Color Purple and Fried Green Tomatoes to films that reveal a main character’s queerness as a sort of twist like The Rich Man’s Wife and X, Y, and Zee to films too complex in their approach to gender and sexuality to classify like Yentl or Gigli. (Yes, Gigli.) All of these films deserve their place in the encyclopedia.

There are lesbian movies on Tubi I’ve yet to watch, films where two women almost kiss on the poster and are certain to (poorly) act out the usual tropes. There’s a place for these films — you’ll find plenty of them in the encyclopedia too — but they’re rarely the films I find most exciting, as a cinephile or as a queer person.

The more we get films like Love Lies Bleeding, The Wedding Banquet, and Nimona in the mainstream, the less concerned we have to be with lesbian cinema as representation. There are still many lesbian and queer women experiences left to show, but there are also more ways to express lesbianism and queerness on-screen as well. Not every lesbian movie is a love story — instead it might be a documentary about technology and the co-opting of Black identity told through a queer lens.

My project of watching every lesbian movie ever began as a way of belonging within my new identity, but now I have as expansive a view of myself as our cinema. There’s nothing to prove because each of our experiences of lesbianism and queerness is unique to us. Now I just want to watch as many lesbian movies as I can so I can share this art with all of you. No matter what kind of lesbian movie you’re seeking, you can find it in The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema. And, if you can’t, I’ll do my part to help you find it soon.

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