Gay for no pay: Stream these fantastic LGBTQ films and TV shows for free on CBC Gem
Here's 20 really great queer streaming options that won't cost you a penny
Queeries is a weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity. It won the 2019 Digital Publishing Award for best digital column in Canada and was nominated again in 2022 and 2024.
If you are looking for somewhere to stream some of the best LGBTQ film and television entirely for free, I can say with pretty good authority that there is nowhere with a better selection than CBC Gem. Which sounds wildly suspicious given this is an article running on the CBC itself, but I can assure you that no one has forced me to write this! It's just my sincere opinion that the queer offerings on CBC Gem are really exceptional — perhaps even better than a lot of streaming services you might currently be paying for. Just look at the 20 films and television shows noted in the below categories:
The best gay Oscar movies
Being designated a "gay Oscar movie" isn't always a good thing, as made clear by many, many examples of bad biopics like Dallas Buyers Club or The Imitation Game and Bohemian Rhapsody. But none of those films are on CBC Gem, because a streaming service with actual cinematic taste wouldn't dare. Instead, Gem has three of the best LGBTQ-themed films to ever get major love from the Academy Awards: Todd Haynes's Carol, Barry Jenkins's Moonlight and Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name. Honestly, I'd argue they are all among the best queer films of the 21st century, and you can watch them all right now, for free.
Great queer indies
Sadly, most of the best LGBTQ cinema doesn't end up getting love from the Oscars, and CBC Gem has quite a few prime examples from the last decade. Take recent Palme d'Or winner Sean Baker's exuberant and delightful ode to trans sex workers Tangerine or Sebastián Lelio's gripping lesbian drama Disobedience (starring two of the all-time greatest Rachels: McAdams and Weisz) or Francis Lee's sexy sheep farmer romance God's Own County, which features Josh O'Connor in his breakout performance. If you happened to miss one of these films when they came out in the late 2010s, run, don't walk.
Aline!
It defies categorization, and is only vaguely queer, but no list of films currently available for streaming on CBC Gem would be complete without Valérie Lemercier's thinly veiled (and absolutely bonkers) take on the life of Céline Dion, Aline. I wrote about why this film needs to be Célined to be believed back when it came out in 2022, and if you missed it then, you can Céline and believe it right here, right now.
Fantastic documentaries
Aline might not quite qualify as a documentary, but there's plenty of exceptional LGBTQ fare on CBC Gem that does. There's Someone Like Me, which follows a queer group of strangers who unite to support a gay Ugandan man seeking asylum in Canada. There's Casa Susanna, about an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men in 1950s New York. There's Small Town Pride, an intimate portrait of LGBTQ2S+ pride and queer life in small towns across Canada. And there's No Ordinary Man, an in-depth look at the life of musician and trans culture icon Billy Tipton.
The best LGBTQ TV
CBC Gem has some really great queer TV, and not just from the CBC itself. It also has some exceptional queer offerings from other national broadcasters, like the Australian series Please Like Me and the British import Killing Eve, which just so happens to star a great Canadian in Sandra Oh. And then, of course, there are the many LGBTQ-themed options CBC has helped create over the years — from hugely popular shows like Schitt's Creek and Sort Of to more unsung gems like How To Fail as a Popstar, I Hate People, People Hate Me and Essex County. All very binge-worthy.
Shows I helped make!
OK, here's an area where I do admit there is a little bias. There's two series I work on that just had new seasons released on CBC Gem, and I can't not use this as an opportunity to give them a little plug. So do consider finding your way to both the docu-series Canada's a Drag, which just released a fourth season of episodes highlighting this country's greatest drag performers, and the talk show Here & Queer, which has a new season up featuring interviews with the likes of Jinkx Monsoon, Connor Jessup and Vivek Shraya, among others.
Check out these titles along with all the additional queer content playing on CBC Gem here.
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