Lesbian Day of Visibility

But today is a day of celebration, of revolution, of acknowledgement. It’s a day to celebrate lesbians — their identity, their love, their concerns, their fight. And what better way to do so than watching some educating, fun, eye-opening, passionate films? Here’s a list of fifteen movies we’ve  handpicked for you to experience the wide, wide range of sapphic characters and stories throughout the years, from gym-obsessed bodybuilders in Love Lies Bleeding to documentaries about the ‘90s best-selling lesbian magazine, to teenage Romani girls in Spain who fall in love with each other or David Lynch’s fever dream Mulholland Drive. 

What is left of a movement when the world changes? This documentary invites us to look at what we have forgotten or perhaps never looked at closely enough. Through the story of Curve, the world’s best-selling lesbian magazine founded by Franco Stevens in the 1990s, it explores how a paper home can become a refuge for many. But homes also wear out. And when the magazine begins to falter, Franco,  after an injury took her away from the publication, looks to new voices for answers: activists like Kim Katrin and Denice Frohman. It’s not about saving what was, but about understanding what is needed now to move forward, to imagine possible futures within the lesbian movement.

Directed by Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) and co-written with Rachel Sennott (also protagonist), Bottoms (2023) is a queer teen comedy that doesn’t play by any of the usual rules. Two awkward, openly gay girls start a “feminist fight club” at their high school, mostly as an excuse to hook up with cheerleaders. And yes, that’s the actual premise. Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri (the same Ayo Edebiri from The Bear) have perfect chemistry: awkward, smart, and constantly on the edge of disaster. Bottoms is the queer answer to everything early-2000s teen films left out. If you're after something polite, look elsewhere. But if you want a story that’s proudly queer, painfully funny, and full of literal punches, this is it.

Winner of the Goya for Best New Director for Arantxa Echevarría, Carmen y Lola (2018) tells a story rarely seen in Spanish cinema: two Romani girls who fall in love on the outskirts of Madrid. One wants to follow the path set for her, while the other dreams of breaking free from it. What starts as a friendship evolves into something their community isn’t prepared to accept.
The cast is one of its greatest strengths: Rosy Rodríguez and Zaira Romero, two non-professional actresses, bring an incredible naturalness to their roles. Carmen y Lola doesn’t need to exaggerate to move you. It’s about small decisions, tense silences, and the struggle to be yourself when everything around pushes you to be something else.

Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel – the first lesbian novel not to end in tragedy, although sadness is always on the edge of every page –, Carol (2015) is an elegant and melancholic melodrama, one of the great landmarks of lesbian cinema, directed by Todd Haynes. A woman trapped in a marriage that no longer speaks to her (Cate Blanchett) goes out to buy a doll for her daughter and, in a Manhattan department store, meets a young shop assistant (Rooney Mara) who seems to have been waiting for her before this encounter. What happens next comes as no surprise — an immediate, inexplicable attraction that has no understanding of logic or timing. A connection that grows as it shouldn’t, in secret, with fear, but also with desire and a tenderness that runs through everything.

Maryam Keshavarz knew she couldn’t shoot in Iran, so she filmed it in Beirut with a team who understood the stakes. The film follows Atafeh and Shireen, two teenage girls navigating desire, identity, and repression in contemporary Tehran. “It’s by no means an autobiographical film, but the relationships are based on people I know,” Keshavarz said.
Circumstance (2011) explores queerness, censorship, and the space between what’s felt and what can be shown. It’s about private revolutions, the kind that start in bedrooms, in whispered conversations, in music played too loud. And while the film is over a decade old, it remains urgent, not just for where it’s set, but for what it dares to imagine.

Right before The Substance made her globally famous, Margaret Qualley had already starred in a few films that were actually quite good. One of them is Ethan Cohen’s Drive-Away Dolls (2024), a road movie co-starring Geraldine Viswanathan, where the two friends embark on a road trip to Tallahassee in search of a fresh start. However, things go awry when they cross paths with a group of pretty useless criminals.

One of last year’s most unconventional yet fun, twisted films, Love Lies Bleeding (2024) saw Kristen Stewart fall in love with a dyke bodybuilder with a penchant for needles and action, played brilliantly by Katy O’Brian. Confronting her corrupt, criminal father and going the extra mile for the love of a woman she’s just met, the main character knows how to fight. If you haven’t watched this movie directed by Rose Glass, today’s the perfect day to do so.

One of David Lynch’s masterpieces and the one that most resembles a dream. A dream that at times seems like a nightmare, at times a desire, at times a memory of its own. Confusing, disturbing and absolutely fascinating. The story begins with a young woman (Naomi Watts) who arrives in Los Angeles full of hope and moves into a flat lent to her by her aunt. There, she meets Rita (Laura Harring), a woman with amnesia. What happens between them is love, but also bewilderment and tenderness.
Around them, there are other stories that intersect and intertwine like a labyrinth: an egocentric director fights with producers in a city that seems to hide more than it shows. Mulholland Drive (2001) is a film about love, failure, the things that we imagine and those that really happen. About two women who find themselves in the middle of all this chaos and who, at times, believe (or want to believe) that anything is possible. A piece of advice: don't try to understand everything, just let yourself be carried away by the master Lynch.

An intimate and powerful film that follows the life of Alike (Adepero Oduye), a Brooklyn teenager struggling to find pieces of herself, her identity, on the margins and in a family that represses her. Between the platonic love of her friend Laura, the religious pressure of her mother, and a failed relationship, Alike grapples with the pain of not being understood. Her world begins to rock when she decides to confront this. Inspired by director Dee Rees’ own experiences, Pariah (2011) is an honest story about growing up, resisting and finding your own place when the world seems to deny it to you.

Beautifully subtle and poetic, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) is one of those movies that stays with you. With incredibly minimalistic production (a dilapidated house, two main characters, a beach, and not much more), we witness how a painter’s relationship with her model, a rich young woman who’s about to get married, evolves from cold and professional to fiery and romantic. A character study that will give you goosebumps.

Premiered at Cannes, banned in Kenya. Rafiki (2018) follows Ziki and Kena (Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva), two Nairobi girls from different social classes, who discover each other and fall in love in a deeply homophobic country. The film does not shout, it does not dramatise more than necessary. It prefers small, everyday gestures, all under the Afro-bubblegum aesthetic, which illuminates and brightens up a melancholic story. A film about love where the main characters must sadly choose between happiness and security. A luminous gem of African cinema of recent years that everyone should see.

Stud Life (2012) is one of those films that doesn’t try to explain or soften anything. Directed by Campbell X, this British indie dives into the life of JJ, a butch lesbian photographer, as she navigates friendship, love, and identity in the heart of London. She’s not just dealing with romance, but her bond with her gay best friend, Seb, starts to unravel as JJ falls for a femme woman, pushing the limits of loyalty, community, and what it means to belong.
Made on a low budget, Stud Life doesn’t rely on flashy production or commercial appeal. If you're looking for something that breaks the mould, this movie is a must-see. It’s not about teaching lessons but about showing real lives, the struggles and the messiness of love and friendship — all in the most authentic way possible.

There isn’t much we can say about Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite (2018) that hasn’t been said already; it’s probably one of his best works, as well as of Olivia Coleman, who won the Oscar to Best Actress for her role as Queen Anne. Caught amidst a love triangle together with Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Emma Stone), the fictional monarch fights a lot of battles — with her own demons, with her two lovers striving for power, with her political allies as well as enemies.

Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook is famously known for having one of the most twisted minds in cinema; and The Handmaiden (2016) is just another testament to his genius and masterful ability when it comes to giving you plot twists and unexpected turns. Love, treason, dark interests, madness, money, hypocrisy, beauty, sex, literature — this movie has it all. Set in 1930s Korea, it follows the story of a girl who’s hired as a handmaiden of a Japanese rich heiress. But nothing is as it initially seems.

Based on the novel by Emily M. Danforth and directed by Desiree Akhavan, The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) is a quiet, sharp look at the absurd cruelty of conversion therapy and the resilience that survives it. Chloë Grace Moretz plays Cameron, a teenager sent to a Christian camp after being caught with another girl. What follows isn’t framed as trauma porn, but as a slow, strange reality where everything soft and joyful is labelled as sin. And yet, between awkward therapy sessions and forced prayers, friendships form and resistance brews.