21 filmmakers who have directed more than one gay movie
These filmmakers keep returning to gay stories, and we love them for it!
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20 Directors who have made more than one gay movie
We love gay movies, and you can’t make a gay movie without a director. Thankfully, some directors make it their career mission to make as many queer movies as they can.
Some of these filmmakers are near the beginning of their careers with only a few movies to their names, but others have made dozens of films. But the thing they all have in common is that they keep returning to queer stories for their films.
Here are 21 acclaimed directors who have directed more than one queer film.
1. Goran Stolevski
HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS - Official Trailer [HD] - In Select Theaters April 5
Macedonian Australian director Goran Stolevski has two queer films that he’s directed. The first was 2022’s Of an Age, about a Serbian immigrant in Australia who enters an intense romance with the brother of his ballroom dance partner. This year, he’s directed Housekeeping for Beginners, about a woman who never planned on being a mother who is forced to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters.
Of an Age
Housekeeping for Beginners
2. Francis Lee
God's Own Country Trailer #1 (2017) | Movieclips Indie
English filmmaker Francis Lee has two films under his belt and both of them are queer. His debut film God’s Own Country is a gay romantic drama starring Josh O’Connor and Alec Sec?reanu as a Yorkshire sheep farmer and Romanian migrant worker who fall in love. In 2020, he made Ammonite, a fictional story based on a speculative romance between British paleontologist Mary Anning and her friend Charlotte Murchison.
God’s Own Country
Ammonite
3. Luca Guadagnino
CHALLENGERS | Official Trailer 2
Guadagnino’s most famous queer film is Call Me by Your Name, but the Italian director also includes queer storylines and themes in films like Bones and All, Challengers, and his upcoming film Queer.
I Am Love
Call Me by Your Name
Bones and All
Challengers
Queer
4. Ang Lee
Brokeback Mountain Official Trailer #1 - Randy Quaid Movie (2005) HD
Acclaimed director Ang Lee won the Oscar for Best Director at the 78th Academy Awards for directing the gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain. His film The Wedding Banquet follows a gay Taiwanese immigrant who marries a Chinese woman to place his parents and has to hide his gay partner from them.
The Wedding Banquet
Brokeback Mountain
5. Pedro Almodovar
STRANGE WAY OF LIFE | Official Trailer (2023)
Almodovar is widely considered to be one of the best directors of his generation, winning two Oscars and having his films nominated for nine. Most of his movies have queer characters and themes.
Strange Way of Life
Pepi, Luci, Bom
Labyrinth of Passion
Dark Habits
Law of Desire
All About My Mother
Bad Education
Parallel Mothers
Julieta
I’m So Excited!
The Skin I Live In
Pain and Glory
6. Jamie Babbit
But I'm a Cheerleader (2000) Official Trailer
Babbit’s most famous film is But I’m a Cheerleader, a seminal lesbian romantic comedy, but she also directed other queer films!
But I’m a Cheerleader
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Breaking the Girls
Addicted to Fresno
7. Dee Rees
Pariah (2011) Official HD Movie Trailer
Rees’ coming-of-age drama Pariah is considered one of the best lesbian movies of all time. Her biopic Bessie, about singer Bessie Smith, won four Emmys.
Pariah
Bessie
8. John Waters
Pink Flamingos (1972) Trailer
Waters is one of the kings of camp and trash cinema. HII films, often starring the drag queen Divine, set the tone for weird queer cinema for years.
Mondo Trasho
Multiple Maniacs
Pink Flamingos
Female Trouble
Hairspray
Pecker
Desperate Living
Polyester
9. Gus Van Sant
Milk Official Trailer #1 - Sean Penn Movie (2008) HD
Van Sant is considered one of the main directors of the New Queer Cinema movement, and has been nominated for two Oscars. The first came from directing Good Will Hunting, the second for directing Milk, about assassinated gay politician Harvey Milk.
Mala Noche
My Own Private Idaho
Last Days
Elephant
Milk
10. Angela Robinson
Professor Marston & the Wonder Women Trailer #1 (2017) | Movieclips Trailer
Robinson’s debut feature length film D.E.B.S. follows a group of teen girls who work as spies when one of them falls in love with the female thief they’re trying to catch. Later she directed Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a biopic of Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston and his two polyamorous partners.
D.E.B.S.
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
11. Alice Wu
The Half of It | Official Trailer | Netflix
Wu has directed two terrific queer films about Asian American women, Saving Face and The Half of It.
Saving Face
The Half of It
12. Andrew Haigh
All of Us Strangers | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures
Haigh had big success in 2023 with his gay film All of Us Strangers, but had two previous gay films before that, including the movie sequel to Looking, the show he executive produced for HBO.
Weekend
Looking: The Movie
All of Us Strangers
13. Todd Haynes
CAROL - Official Trailer - Starring Cate Blanchett And Rooney Mara
Haynes is a great director who has been nominated for two Golden Globes, an Oscar, and ten Independent Spirit Awards, winning two of those. He’s directed queer classics like Velvet Goldmine and Carol.
Poison
Velvet Goldmine
Far From Heaven
Carol
14. Francois Ozon
Peter Von Kant - Official US Trailer
Ozon is a French director whose films often deal with themes of sexual identity. He’s considered one of the heads of the New Wave in French cinema.
Sitcom
Water Drops on Burning Rocks
8 Women
Time to Leave
The New Girlfriend
Summer of 85
Peter von Kant
15. R.W. Fassbinder
KINO 2018@Macau Cinematheque? Passion 20/10-4/11/2018.
Fassbinder - Querelle - trailer
Fassbinder was a German filmmaker and one of the major figures of the New German Cinema movement in the '60s and '70s. Fassbinder died at the young age of 37, but made over 40 films in his career.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Fox and His Friends
In a Year of 13 Moons
Querelle
16. Gregg Araki
Kaboom | trailer US (2011) Sundance Selects
Like Gus Van Sant, Araki is considered one of the leaders of the New Queer Cinema movement, and his film Kaboom was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Queer Palm award.
Three Bewildered People in the Night
The Long Weekend (O’ Despair)
The Living End
Totally Fucked Up
The Doom Generation
Splendor
Mysterious Skin
Kaboom
17. Derek Jarman
Jubilee (1978), Derek Jarman - Original Trailer by Film&Clips
Jarman was an English artist, filmmaker, writer, poet, and activist who died of an AIDS-related illness at age 52 in 1994. Many of his films were experimental.
Sebastiane
Jubilee
The Angelic Conversation
Caravaggio
The Garden
Edward II
Wittgenstein
18. Rose Glass
Love Lies Bleeding | Official Trailer 2 HD | A24
Glass is a young British filmmaker who has only made two movies, both of which are queer. Her first film Saint Maud was released in 2019, and her second, Love Lies Bleeding, comes out this year.
Saint Maud
Love Lies Bleeding
19. Desiree Akhavan
The Miseducation of Cameron Post Trailer #1 (2018) | Movieclips Indie
Akhavan is a bisexual Iranian American filmmaker who has directed two films about queer women.
Appropriate Behavior
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
20. Ira Sachs
PASSAGES | Official Trailer | Now Streaming
American filmmaker Ira Sachs released Passages last year to much acclaim. He had previously directed several other queer movies.
The Delta
Keep the Lights On
Love Is Strange
Passages
21. Emma Seligman
BOTTOMS | Official Red Band Trailer
One of the youngest filmmakers on this list, Seligman already has two fantastic comedies under her belt in her writing/directing career so far — Shiva Baby and Bottoms — both of which center on the misadventures of young queer women.
Shiva Baby
Bottoms
