The 13 best LGBTQ films of 2022

Queeries is a column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens. 

The general narrative when it came to cinema in 2022 was, unfortunately, that it's dying a slow — or maybe kinda fast? — death. And while yes, it is true that the vast majority of movies not involving Marvel, Pandora or Tom Cruise struggled to get people into theatres, I am choosing to come out of this year with a different, perhaps somewhat delusional perspective.

To me, cinema felt very alive and well in 2022 — perhaps not always from a financial angle (which does matter), but definitely in terms of what the films themselves offered the people who love them.

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If you just so happened to be one of those people and queer (of which this column has long made clear, I extremely am), then did you ever get to come to that place for magic this year. I'll admit that in my decade plus (plus) of writing about film from a specifically queer perspective, I've declared one too many years as "landmarks" or "watersheds" or whatever other superlative words when it came to LGBTQ cinema — but it's hard to deny them to a year like 2022. There were just so many great movies by and/or about queer people this year and, more over, such a variety in the kinds of great movies by and/or about queer people.

So I'd like to celebrate this by offering up a list of my favourite queer films of 2022 that includes everything from rom coms to family dramas to gothic horror. 

Some notes before I do: the list is alphabetical, because the last thing we need to do with the queer movies of this year is pit them against each other. It also has 13 entries, because, well, 13 is one of the queerer numbers (is it good or is it evil?) and it also it just so happens 13 is the number of genuinely great examples of LGBTQ film I saw this year (why should these lists stop at 10?). It contains several films some of you will perhaps not consider "queer" by your own definition, which is fine — as it is that I do consider them that by mine (it's a spectrum, baby!).

I'll also just say that I was lucky enough to see all of these films in a cinema with an audience, something I know not all of us were able to do for a number of different reasons. I hope somehow that is less the case for many of us in the coming years, because it really is the optimal vessel for that queer cinema magic. Which, without further adieu, was what I found in all of these films in 2022:

Aftersun

Memories and how we come to define ourselves through them are explored through a queer lens in Charlotte Wells' stunning semi-autobiographical first feature. Starring a devastatingly good Paul Mescal (give that extraordinarily charming man an Oscar nomination for this, please!) alongside incredible 11-year-old newcomer Frankie Corio as a father and daughter on vacation at Turkish resort in the late 1990s, the film's aching poignancy will stay with you long after its final moments quietly destroy you. (I know I said I'd stay away from rankings, but I will say that Aftersun is one of my three favourite films of this year, queer or otherwise — alongside two other films also on this list.)

All The Beauty and the Bloodshed

Only the second documentary to ever win the top prize at Venice Film Festival, All The Beauty and the Bloodshed is an astonishing collaboration between two astonishing queer women: filmmaker Laura Poirtas and subject Nan Goldin. Poitras (who won an Oscar for her 2014 documentary Citizenfour) and Goldin come together to create a film that works not only as a portrait of the latter's staggering work as a photographer and activist but also as an investigation into who bears responsibility for the opioid epidemic in America (namely, the Sackler family, whom recovering opioid addict Goldin is working to bring down). It's absolutely essential viewing for all of us, but especially anyone interested in the collective power of art and rage. 

Benediction

On June 3rd of 2022, two films featuring delicious deconstructions of communities of gay men were released on the very same day. One you've surely heard of (Fire Island, which I'll get to later) — and the other was Benediction, a film that barely seemed to register despite being helmed by one of our great queer filmmakers, Terence Davies.

Davies (who directed Rachel Weisz and Cynthia Nixon to arguably their greatest performances in The Deep Blue Sea and A Quiet Passion, respectively) utilizes a biopic of British poet and decorated WWI combat veteran Siegfried Sassoon (played by Jack Lowden in his youth and Peter Capaldi in older age) to offer a window into the dramatic lives of aristocratic gay men in the 1920s. And in stark contrast to the loving chosen family at the core of Fire Island, these men are out to destroy one another, which Davies depicts exquisitely. Find your way to this film!

Bones & All

Few filmmakers could turn cannibalism into a strangely affecting allegory for queerness like Luca Guadagnino. Reuniting with his Call Me By Your Name muse Timothée Chalamet, Guadagnino turns Camile DeAngelis' 2015 novel of the same name into something unlike anything else with Bones & All. Starring Chalamet and a luminous Taylor Russell as a pair of literal fine young cannibals falling in love as they travel across America in the 1980s, the film's premise admittedly feels felt a pretty odd choice for a Guadagnino/Chalamet reunion (especially considering the Armie Hammer allegations). But while make no mistake, this is a horror film (for those averse to gore, you will be challenged), the film also builds into something quite radically romantic and thought-provoking, particularly in terms of what it is expressing about queer love and self-discovery. 

Bros

I would very much like to leave 2022 never having another argument about Bros, the rom com starring and co-written by Billy Eichner that ignited an exhausting discourse about a wide variety of things (was it historic/was it good/why was it a box office bomb — and those are the nicer topics). This is where I firmly stand, generally: it was an extremely funny, often very insightful movie that deserved better than it was dealt.

I saw it twice in 24 hours, and was thoroughly entertained and occasionally very moved both times. And in terms of its box office, it actually made more money in theatres than all but one or two (depending if you count non-reported Netflix figures) films on this list. It was a bad year for movies making the money they deserved! So let us go forth into 2023 just letting Bros be Bros: a hilarious, heartfelt rom com that, if you happened to not enjoy, just don't watch it again (or maybe do because you might realize it's actually good).

Close

Deservedly just shortlisted for the Academy Award for best international feature, Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont's Close is just coming out in North American theatres after debuting at the Cannes Film Festival and winning its Grand Prix (the runner-up to Palme d'Or, which was won by Triangle of Sadness). Guided by Dhont's sensitive direction and the remarkable performances of his young actors (Eden Dambrine and Gustav de Waele), it's not hard to see why the film is worthy of its laurels. Do not miss it, though do also brace yourself: the film's exploration of the friendship between two 13-year-old boys is at times an intensely emotional cinematic experience, particularly if you have once been a young queer teen yourself.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Nothing about 2022 made me more hopeful for the future of cinema than the several occasions I sat in a packed theatre and watched Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's Everything Everywhere All At Once. Audiences would erupt into applause at several moments throughout the movie, and these weren't film festival audiences: they were just people seeing the movie at the Scotiabank Theatre at 7pm on a Thursday in April.

A massive critical and box office sensation now seemingly destined to rule this awards season, it was the primary exception to this year's alleged rule that "smart movies for adults" can't make money anymore. I believe it was that exception in part because of how profoundly felt its genre-bending, shape-shifting narrative was by so many of us desperate for catharsis after two years of hell. And at the heart of that narrative? A mother embracing her queer daughter's identity, fully and unconditionally. 

Fire Island

What more could you possibly ask for than a loose, queer adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that's set at the hedonistic gay vacation destination of its title and features an all-LGBTQ cast plus plenty of sex, drugs and Marisa Tomei-impressions?

It's still hard to believe we were gifted Fire Island in 2022, and that thanks to writer and star Joel Kim Booster, director Andrew Ahn and a supporting cast including Bowen Yang, Conrad Ricamora, Matt Rogers and Margaret Cho, it was also an exceptionally well-realized ode to our chosen families. The only remotely negative thing I have to say about the film is that more of us didn't get a chance to see it in cinemas, since it went straight to streaming save a few film festival screenings. I was among the lucky few, and all I'll say is I hope it starts hitting the rep cinema circuit soon because it is an absolute joy to experience with some extended chosen families of your own.

Framing Agnes

In the early 1960s, Agnes Torres — a pseudonymized transgender woman — participated in sociologist Harold Garfinkel's gender health research at UCLA, making her the first subject of an in-depth discussion of transgender identity in sociology. And while Torres' story has long been considered a pioneering moment in trans history, it was an unprecedented new platform in Chase Joynt's remarkable documentary Framing Agnes.

Winner of multiple awards at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, the film is an incredible collaboration of trans artists, including Morgan M. Page (who co-wrote the film with Joynt) and actors Angelica Ross, Zackary Drucker, Jen Richards and Silas Howard, among others. Together, they bring Agnes' story to life through a powerful blend of documentary and narrative filmmaking that interrogates how trans stories are told, and by whom.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story

If you have yet to see Glass Onion, Rian Johnson's Knives Out sequel-of-sorts, I do strongly advise to go into it knowing as little as possible. It's one of the year's greatest thrill rides (I'd argue even improving on its predecessor), and is made all the more so by its surprises. But one thing that has been spoiled to a fairly widespread degree is that our dear protagonist Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is confirmed as queer in the film (though don't let people tell you how this is confirmed). Does that make Glass Onion queer cinema? That's about as questionable as any character in the film's motives. But add it to the fact that its arguable co-lead is out and proud triple threat Janelle Monáe (in an incredible performance) and that Craig spends a sizeable portion of the film dressed like this, and I'd say it qualifies.

The Inspection

While filmmakers often choose to draw from the story of their own life for their feature film debuts, few have quite so much to work with as Elegance Bratton. Kicked out of his mother's New Jersey home at the age of 16 for being gay, Bratton was homeless for nearly a decade before deciding to join the Marines, where he would end up serving as a combat cameraman. The latter experience gave him the initial tools that led to his career in filmmaking, but his entry point into it also serves as the premise for The Inspection, a look at a young gay man (Jeremy Pope, who has already been nominated for a Golden Globe and a Spirit Award for his performance) struggling to survive boot camp in the era of "don't ask, don't tell." The film offers a nuanced and complex portrait of his time in the marines, as it does of Bratton's mother, who is played in The Inspection with astounding brutality by Gabrielle Union. 

Something You Said Last Night

Like The Inspection and several other films on this list (Aftersun, Bros, Glass Onion), Luis De Filippis's directorial debut Something You Said Last Night screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the festival's Changemaker Award. And while it has yet to receive the profile of the other films I just mentioned, it wholly deserves to join them as it continues to make its way out into the world in 2023 (a theatrical release is being planned for the spring).

Starring Carmen Madonia (in what should be a star-making performance) as a trans woman in her mid-20s who goes on a vacation with her Italian-Canadian family, Something You Said Last Night is as intimate and self-assured as first features come, and it rightfully just earned a spot in the annual Canada's Top Ten.

TÁR

Did you really think I was going to leave off TÁR, risking the real possibility of its EGOT-winning monster of a lesbian protagonist Lydia Tár murdering me in my sleep if I did? Of course not, mainly because Todd Field's towering psychological thriller is unquestionably my movie of the year. Led by a staggering performance from Cate Blanchett (the queen of straight people playing lesbians, and we will forgive her for it because she is that fucking good), it brilliantly examines the nature of power in modern arts and culture — even when that power is held by a queer person. Vive la Lydia Tár, vive le queer cinéma.