August 2024: What’s New, Gay and Streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Sundance, MGM+ and More

Welcome to August, which is both a month and the 117th most popular name for baby girls born in 2024! More importantly, August means a whole new slate of shows with which various streaming networks will entertain or disappoint us with their relative numbers of lesbian, bisexual and queer women television characters as well as trans and non-binary characters! I continue to play with the format, let me know what you think!


Netflix’s Gay Movies and Shows for August

Emily in Paris. (L to R) Melia Kreiling as Sofia, Camille Razat as Camille in episode 405 of Emily in Paris. Cr. Stephanie Branchu/Netflix © 2024

Emily in Paris // Cr. Stephanie Branchu/Netflix © 2024

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder // Season One // August 1
This adaptation of Holly Jackson’s YA thriller takes place in a sleepy English town, five years after the murder of a 17-year-old girl that was eventually pinned on her boyfriend, who “confessed” prior to killing himself. Pippa (Emma Myers), who was a child when the murder occurred, is all grown up and determined to find out who really did it. Pippa’s best friend, Cara Ward (Asha Banks), is queer!

The Umbrella Academy // Season 4 // August 8
At Season 3’s end, the Hargreeves siblings lost their superpowers and in Season 4 we’ll see how that’s going for them! Elliot Page returns as Viktor Hargreeves for the final season of The Umbrella Academy.

Emily in Paris // Season 4 Part One // August 15
The trailer for the first half of the fourth season of this insufferable program includes Emily saying that her potential suitor Gabriel is “the man that is still having a baby with a woman who is in love with another woman,” and she is retferring of course to Camille, who will return to the program to continue her affair with Sofia. I love this for Emily and for the French..

Back to 15 // Season Three Premiere // August 21
In the final season of Back to 15 (De Volta Aos 15), Anita and her friends have left high school and she’s thrown into yet another past — now she’s 18 and a Visual Arts university student, living in the dorms, adjusting to college while still hunting for whomst exactly is traveling through time with her. Returning characters include Anita’s bisexual older sister Luiza and her girlfriend Bruna as well as Camila, one of Anita’s best friends, who is a trans woman.

Also coming to Netlfix in August:

  • The “Netflix AMC+ Collection” arrives August 19, bringing with it queer-inclusive shows like Into the Badlands, Mayfair Witches, A Discovery of Witches, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and Kevin Can F*ck Himself.
  • Unreal Seasons 1-4  – August 19

Peacock’s Queer Movies and TV Shows For August:

BEL-AIR -- "Gimme A Break" Episode 308 -- Pictured: Akira Akbar as Ashley-- (Photo by: Greg Gayne/PEACOCK)

Bel- Air (Photo by: Greg Gayne/PEACOCK)

Bel Air // Season 3 // August 15
School’s out for the summer and Will and Carlton are teaming up to make some dream projects. We are promised that queer little sis “Ashley’s views on romance will start to blossom as she comes of age the summer before she starts high school” and we are indeed excited for that time to arrive!

The Anonymous // Season One Premiere // Bravo, USA, SyFy // August 19
A new reality show from the creators of The Traitors and The Circle takes place in two worlds: real world and anonymous mode. 12 contestants will live and work side-by-side to raise a prize fund, but each will also have their own private underground hideouts, and when in the hideouts, they’re welcome to provide “raw, unfiltered takes on their fellow contestants” under anonymous online handles. Amongst the competitors is self-described “Lesbian Epileptic From the South” Kacie B. Mize, who honestly looks like a riot. I’m unclear on when, exactly, episodes will be available to air on Peacock exactly, but as a show in the NBC Universal family, I’m guessing within a few days of its linear launch.

The Killer (2024) // August 23
This remake from John Woo of his own 1989 Hong Kong film The Killer gender-swaps the lead role, turning the central mysterious and infamous assassin into a woman known as “The Queen of the Dead.” In the original film, apparently the assassin’s refusal to kill a blinded woman in a Paris nightclub is rooted in love for said woman, and the same dynamic takes place in this remake, although it remains unclear if the romantic dynamic will remain. However, the original also was noted for the homoeroticism between the assassin and the detective pursuing him, and in the remake, the detective is still a male role. We will see!


Hulu’s Lesbian Movies and TV Shows For August:

a bunch of girls in the water

Something in the Water

Stress Positions (2024) // August 21
Drew called this dark comedy from NEON and Theda Hammel “a queer farce with bite and depth.” Washed-up party gay Terry, recently left by his older husband, takes in his 19-year-old Moroccan-American male model neighbor at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Terry lives in Brooklyn and his sister, Karla (Theda Hammel), is a self-identified lesbian trans woman dating a cis lesbian (Amy Zimmer) who wrote a book about Karla’s transition. “It’s the clear work of a trans auteur, a writer/director/actor/composer who understands it’s as important to take formal risks as it is to entertain,” writes Drew.

Only Murders in the Building // Season 4 Premiere // August 27
It remains to be seen if this program will ever scale the heights of pansexuality it dared to scale in Season Two, but we do know one thing: Da’Vine Joy Randolph will return as the out lesbian detective who’s been here the whole time, and remains so, and that’s lovely.

Something in the Water (2024) // August 30
Kayla fights back when harassed by homophobes after a date with her girlfriend Meg, igniting a fight that leaves Meg unconscious. A year later, the now-split couple incidentally reunite at a wedding between a mutual friend in the West Indies, the first time Meg’s seen Kayla since the attack that left her in critical condition. The two are left on an island by their friends to sort out their differences and then there are sharks that attack everyone? This is a horror movie about shark attacks.

Also coming to Hulu in August:

  • The Woman King (2022) – August 13

What’s Gay and Streaming Everywhere Else:

mikki at dinner in fifteen-love

Fifteen Love

Hollywood Black: Docuseries Premiere // MGM+ // August 11
This four-part documentary, inspired by Donald Bogle’s book, chronicles a century of the Black experience in Hollywood through historical footage and personal stories from actors, directors and writers and producers. Amongst those speaking in the docuseries are queer actor Cynthia Erivo and the one and only Lena Waithe. I am very excited for this!!!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars: Season One Premiere // Paramount+ // August 16
12 queens from around the world will be competing for a grand prize of $200,000 and a spot in the international pavilion at the Drag Race Hall of Fame.

Fifteen-Love // Season One Premiere // Sundance Now, AMC+ // August 22
This British tennis drama debuted last year on Prime Video UK, and now it’s coming here to be with us. The show opens with Justine, a 15-year-old tennis prodigy, being pushed away when she tries to kiss her coach, Glenn, and subsequently suffering a career-ending injury. The story picks up five years later, when Justine, who is bisexual, has become a “hard living party girl who works as a physio at the elite tennis academy where she once reigned supreme.” (According to this very spoiler-y review.) Her coach, Glenn, returns to her life via the academy board, and the events that transpire lead her to report him to the police for multiple instances of sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager. The Guardian writes: “..overall it is an effective study of how deeply truth can be obscured by unpalatable parts of it, by deliberate and unconscious subterfuge, by ambition, deflection, denial, our willingness to believe only good things of likable people and only bad of the dislikable.”

Drive-Away Dolls (2024) // Prime Video // August 22
Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), an uptight lesbian in 1999, and her best friend Jamie (Margaret Qualley), a serial cheater from Texas, get roped into a raod trip caper that takes them to Florida — Marian’s gonna visit her family, Jamie needs to get away from her cop ex (Beanie Feldstein) — and the car they’re using turns out to have a mysterious and valuable suitcase in the trunk. It’s a super-fun, super-gay movie from Ethan Cohen and his gay wife Tricia Cooke.


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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3260 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. August is shaping up to be a month filled with new shows and films that are diverse and inclusive, especially with prominent representation of LGBTQ+ characters cookie clicker. This is a huge step forward in reflecting the lives and experiences of this community on screen!

  2. Another almost empty month. Even emptier than June
    This year, except for May, the rest of the months have been bad, especially this month, which practically has no shows to watch.
    The best show (series) this year is still an animation (Hazbin Hotel) after 7 months.
    So far, Netflix has had one of its worst years in terms of lesbian romance content, and it seems that this year, like last year, is not going to have a series centered on lesbian romance like First Kill.
    Really, a service that streams more than 100 series a year shouldn’t have at least one or two series centered on lesbian romance?
    The rest of the services were not in a good situation, especially Disney, which maneuvered so much on The Acolyte and Osha’s mothers. But in the end, not only was there no lesbian romance, but the relationship between Osha’s mothers was so bad that they were more like enemies than lovers.
    But the most useless subscription I bought this year was for Prime Video. This year, there were only two good series with lesbian romance content, Hazbin Hotel and Outer Range, which were unfortunately canceled.
    I have no expectations from Disney and Paramount, that’s why I rarely buy their subscriptions. But at least I expect Prime Video to have a few series for queer women a year.
    Worst of all, this year we had more cancellations than new series. In summary, this year has been really bad so far (especially in terms of lesbian romance content).
    Currently, the only expected series and my only hope is Arcane. I hope Arcane will meet my expectations

    • yeah, month after month prime video has been giving me nothing. it’s really annoying and weird, especially from the streamer that once brought us shows like Transparent and A League Of Their Own. It’s like they spent so much on their lord of the rings show that there’s no room for anything else.

    • Sucks that we can fight so hard for cishets to be more open-minded and accepting, and then some people within the community won’t extend that same courtesy to other queer people.

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