Queer Narratives, Lesbian Romances, Gay Dramas… Here are têtu·’s editors’ favorite films in 2025
- NICHOLAS’S CHOICE: Alpha by Julie Ducourneau
Can one still make a great film about AIDS after Plaire, aimer et courir vite or 120 battements par minute? Julie Ducournau rises to the maestro’s challenge in Alpha, describing the atmosphere of the 1980s by turning its characters into marble statues, and maintaining that constant unspoken refrain of never naming the disease. The gay character played by Finnegan Oldfield, a teacher whose partner is infected, tenderly reminds us of fidelity that endures through the ordeal.
- NICHOLAS’S CHOICE: La Petite Dernière by Hafzia Herzi
La Petite Dernière follows Fatima, a young woman from a Muslim suburban family, torn between her faith, her family life, and the discovery of a lesbian desire that she still struggles to name. What Hafsia Herzi’s film achieves is to never crush the novel under the weight of explanation. The director films silences, looping thoughts, inner contradictions, without trying to fix her character. Refusing the label of a didactic narrative, the adaptation respects the internal conflicts of the original text: Fatima moves at the crossroads of several identities that learn to coexist, with neither hierarchy nor resolution. The film thus works on the margins and interstices, where identity is lived rather than proclaimed.
- NICHOLAS’S CHOICE: Love Me Tender by Anna Cazenave-Cambet
In Love Me Tender, Clémence confides to her ex-husband that she has had affairs with women. Soon after, he files a lawsuit to remove custody of their son. By adapting Constance Debré’s autofiction to the cinema, director Anna Cazenave Cambet (From Gold for the Dogs) offers a representation simply unprecedented: that of a heroine who is at once a woman, a mother and a lesbian, combining these identities without ever generating internal conflict. And then there is that final scene, a life-saving breath after a long apnea, which stays with us long after the viewing.
- NICHOLAS’S CHOICE: La “Trilogie d’Oslo” by Dag Johan Haugerud: Rêves, Amour, Désir
In this sensitive epic, Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud delicately explores the feeling of love, relationships, and fantasies with the intelligence of a gay man who offers a queer gaze on the emotional and sensual world of his peers. By blending hyperrealism and dreamlike imagery, he delivers a magnetic and brilliant trilogy. Special mention for Amour which shows how much straight people have to learn about sexuality and queer relational modes.
- MAURINE’S CHOICE: Des preuves d’amour by Alice Douard
Halfway between fiction and documentary, Alice Douard contemplates motherhood from a lesbian perspective. With tenderness and humor, we meet Céline and Nadia, played by Ella Rumpf and Monia Chokri. Over the course of a pregnancy, they prepare to become parents both intimately and in the eyes of others and the law. Even though administrative battles and intrafamilial drama throw up a few obstacles, it is above all a funny lesbian romance that ends well!
DAVID’S CHOICE: Les enfants vont bien by Nathan Ambrosioni
Already three films in the family theme, Nathan Ambrosioni explores it with a precision and tenderness impressive for his age. With Les enfants vont bien, the young French cinema prodigy assembles an irresistible cast (Camille Cottin, Monia Chokri, Juliette Armanet) and tackles the rarely addressed topic in cinema: voluntary disappearances. The former star of “Dix pour cent” plays a lesbian woman who must take care of her nephew and niece following their mother’s disappearance, luckily helped by her ex-girlfriend.
- IVAN’S CHOICE: Queer by Luca Guadagnino
Drew Starkey, Omar Apollo and Daniel Craig in the same film? And Luca Guadagnino behind the camera? Yes, it exists! Queer tells the story of Lee (played by Daniel Craig) who had hidden who he was for too long before succumbing to the wondrous Allerton (played by Drew Starky). The film continues with a wild tale of love and self-rejection. And the costumes? Sourced by the amazing Jonathan Anderson, who even went to fetch 1950s underwear to stay faithful to the era.
