When the Academy Awards announced its nominations for their 97th annual ceremony of glamor, movies, and industry self-congratulation, many people met the news of Jacques Audiard’s film Emilia Pérez netting 13 nods, the most for a non-English language movie and LGBTQ film up to this point, with a bit of surprise. The film — about the head of a drug cartel (Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly trans person to be nominated for a major acting award at the Oscars) who transitions, disappears from her family (Selena Gomez as wife) with the help of a lawyer (Zoe Saldana), and then reappears in their lives while starting a nonprofit organization to help the victims and families of cartel-related violence in Mexico — has encountered criticism from the trans community, from Mexican audiences, and those who find its use of AI software dubious.
These are perfectly valid complaints to have about the movie, a musical that somehow features both bad music and no fun, despite the potential of its admittedly bonkers premise. A musical about a woman in nonprofits! That should be entertaining! Instead, it takes every moment of levity and stomps on it mercilessly into self-seriousness.
But, basically, despite its various controversies — bad rep, AI, made by a mediocre French director — none of this, to me, is worth getting that angry about. The Oscars platformed a very self-serving and pretty terrible movie? Alert the presses!!!
The Oscars are kind of fun and interesting when one considers their role in film and entertainment history and the various ripples it has throughout popular culture. Never forget: The Oscars—for all their glitz and intermittently interesting taste—are Hollywood’s annual exercise in self-mythology. They rewards narratives that flatter industry egos, not those that challenge power. I mean, the Oscars started out as a union-busting thing!!
So, as opposed to using too much energy fuming over something as mediocre, or at least disappointing, as Emilia Pérez, best to turn your attentions to the exceptional queer cinema that was released in 2024 and had little chance of ever getting Oscar’s attention. From wacky nostalgia to road trip noirs, and neoliberal lampoons and drag excellence, here are seven queer masterpieces from 2024.
I Saw the TV Glow / Directed by Jane Schoebrun
Source: A24Director and writer Jane Schoebrun is clearly borne of a particular time when the Internet wouldn’t become a tool of self-actualization until they were out of high school. They’d dive into its possibilities a little later, but in their immediate pre-pubescent adolescence, there was always the otherworldly allure to the shimmer of a television screen. In Schoenbrun’s masterful second feature – a substantial leg up after their first movie We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and proof that, with apparatus and resources in hand, their ideas and consideration of the hypnotic effect of digital technology as both way to become as well as way to avoid becoming – Justice Smith’s Owen is sent back into his memories of 1996 as an alienated teenager whose only source of solace was a cheesy tv show (a la Buffy) called The Pink Opaque, an imperfect conduit to making an equally adrift friend in Maddy (Jack Haven).
Schoebrun has crafted a complex, mesmeric mood piece, hyperaware of the comforts of nostalgia as well as their inherently limiting realities. More than that, I Saw the TV Glow perfectly captures the moment when what we consumed was no longer just pieces of aspirational material, but things we glommed onto ourselves to define who we are and what our values are. If you’re willing to get on board, Smith’s melancholic gaze into the camera will shatter your heart and open you up.
Crossing / Directed by Levan Akin
Source: MUBILevan Akin was one of the first filmmakers of Georgian descent to make a movie that explored LGBTQ life in Georgia with his film And Then We Danced, about a young dancer in training who navigates his desire for another on the team, while also parsing through tradition and modern dance. Crossing offers an even deeper examination of the cultural, social, and political complications of being queer in Turkey, where an older teacher (Mzia Arabuli) travels to Istanbul in search of her niece, who was kicked out of the family home for her transness. With the help of a listless teen (Lucas Kankava), she links up with a lawyer for trans rights (Deniz Dumanlı), who aids in their quest. But the journey to finding the missing niece becomes a keen exercise in exploring memory, regret, and the (im)possibility of fixing the past, while trying to forge a new future. Shot with a breadth and appreciation of the streets of Istanbul while acknowledging the unfortunate realities of Turkey’s queer youth, Crossing is an exceptional look at trying to repair the brokenness in relationships and within oneself.
The People’s Joker / Directed by Vera Drew
Source: TIFFThe People’s Joker, Vera Drew’s anarchic satirical auto-origin story, flies through styles, animations, green screens, artisan-made graphics, cheekily delivered exposition, and relentless pokes at Lorne Michaels, the creator and head honcho of the endlessly running Saturday Night Live. It is seriously unserious, a lampoon of all the comic book movie tropes you could possibly think of and then some, replete with villains (Mr. J, a Jared Leto styled trans masc Joker; Vera’s mother; Batman), henchpeople (The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Bob Odenkirk), and underground comedy clubs. This all-out assault of the senses and the furious passion with which it is delivered recalls the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s, a dynamite riposte to regressive and oppressive politics and, perhaps even more acutely, the lip service that followed the 2010s that materialized into not that much for trans people. Raucous and remorseless, The People’s Joker has a deep love for both the world that Drew ruthlessly lampoons, as well as the version of Gotham she creates for herself and her audience.
Stress Positions / Directed by Theda Hammel
Source: NeonWhen Theda Hammel is not making filthy quips on NYMPHOWARS, her successful podcast with fellow musician Macy Rodman, the writer and director is thinking about the unhinged reality that the inhabitants of her generation (solidly millennial people who have at least a vague recollection of where they were when 9/11 happened) have to navigate: the politics, the virtue signaling, the disillusionment, the just getting by tied up with ultimately the same kind of bourgeois aspirations the generation before had but, like this one, refused to admit it.
In Stress Positions, her feature debut, John Early’s Terry Goon welcomes his nephew Bahlul (Qaher Harhash) into his ex-husband’s brownstone to recover from a leg injury in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown. While everyone around them, including Terry’s best friend Karla (Hammel), starts to gather around Bahlul as a new prized object onto which to project their fantasies, Terry goes on the defensive, perhaps ignoring his own tendency towards clamoring over his nephew selfishly. At once brutally hilarious and incisive in its critique of neoliberal malaise and self-congratulation, Stress Positions is one of the timeliest pieces of queer cinema to confront where queer politics went in the 21st century.
She Is Conann / Directed by Bertrand Mandico
Source: Altered InnocenceFilmmaker and music video maven Bertrand Mandico has a penchant for the phantasmagoric, his images bleary and drunk on style, color, and flaring lights. In his earlier film The Wild Boys, gender was as easy to disrupt as playing around on a penal colony. In She Is Conann, Mandico freely interprets the myth of Conan the Barbarian, which originated in a series of comic books in the early 1930s. While its many interpretations have reveled in the unrepentant violence of the character, Mandico makes the connection between cruelty, gender, and the politics of aesthetics itself.
As Conann travels through time and the audience comes in contact with the brutalist through different ages, eras, and aspect ratios (she’s played by Claire Duburcq, Christa Théret, Sandra Parfait, Agata Buzek, and Nathalie Richard), Mandico laments art’s parasitic relationship with commerce (or vice versa) and questions whether the age of art for art’s sake was dead on arrival. Florid and intoxicatingly weird, She Is Conann places queerness and the passage of time as not so much allies or enemies, but rivals pulsating with erotic charge.
Solo / Directed by Sophie Dupuis
Source: Lou ScrambleThe lithe and lanky Théodore Pellerin has become an indie fixture over the last several years, appearing in films like Boy Erased, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Beau is Afraid, and the cancelled way before its time On Becoming a God in Central Florida. In Sophie Dupuis’ excellent film Solo, his gawky fairy-like presence takes center stage, as a burgeoning young drag queen in Montreal named Simon who finds himself in love and with a creative partner in Olivier (Félix Maritaud). But their relationship gradually takes a turn, with Olivier revealing a manipulative, nasty streak, forcing Simon to question his own aspirations and creative capabilities as Olivier starts to take credit for everything. A truly fresh perspective on queer relationships and the mercurial nature of inspiration and artistry, as well as the complexities of creative partnership, Solo lets Pellerin showcase his dramatic acumen as well as his elegant and languid movements on stage.
Drive Away Dykes / Directed by Ethan Coen
Source: Focus FeaturesSure, the official release title of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s bouncy and loony road trip comedy noir is Drive Away Dolls, but come on (it's titled onscreen as Henry James' Drive-Away Dykes). It’s all about the goofy lesbian camp, the Kiss Me Deadly-esque dildo, the cartoonish violence, and the biting jokes about pre-2000s queer women’s culture. With Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan at the wheel and suspicious cargo in the back of the vehicle, the pair make their way to Tallahassee, hitting up lesbian bars on the way while cops and criminals are tailing them and their mysterious package. A goofy, sardonic throwback to Russ Meyers, Coen and Cooke savor the flavors of the late ‘90s dyke culture that was, and still is, at risk of disappearing. The landscape of queer cinema, even and especially in cultural and political moments that place targets on the back of LGBTQ+ people, has always been rich, exciting, and often beyond Oscar’s recognition. Which leaves it up to audiences to discover and cherish the enthralling kinds of creativity and artistry that queer filmic expression can take, awards or no awards.
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