In the spirit of Thelma and Louise, to which the Cannes Film Festival 2026 poster pays homage, here are ten queer road movies that invite you to go off and discover new horizons, but also to discover oneself.
Feminist fugue, punk chase, or identity quest, this selection of ten films reminds us that to understand others and to understand oneself, the most effective thing is sometimes to make contact and drive off at full speed.
Thelma and Louise
Two friends from Arkansas set out for a weekend to breathe life away from their stifling existences. When a man attempts to rape Thelma and Louise shoots him dead, the trip becomes a flight across the American West. From motels to service stations, the two women discover a freedom as dizzying as it is irreversible. Ridley Scott films the road as a territory of transgression where social codes gradually disintegrate. A cult work that has undergone numerous queer reinterpretations thanks to the solidarity between Thelma and Louise, and whose ending, suspended in the desert, remains one of cinema’s most radical images.
> > Thelma & Louise, by Ridley Scott, Thelma and Louise, by Ridley Scott, available on HBO Max, Apple TV, Canal VOD, Canal+, Prime Video
Tangerine
On Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, Sin-Dee, a transgender sex worker recently released from prison, learns that her boyfriend and pimp has cheated on her during her absence. With her friend Alexandra, she traverses Los Angeles to locate her rival. Sean Baker (whose film Anora won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024) turns this frenzied chase into an urban odyssey filmed entirely on the iPhone, capturing the saturated colors and the nervous energy of the City of Angels. A hyper-lively tale about friendship, precariousness, and dignity.
> > Tangerine, by Sean Baker, available on Canal+, Canal VOD, Universciné, Apple TV, Prime Video
Lola Goes to the Sea
After her mother’s death, Lola, a young transgender woman, must undertake an unexpected journey with her father, whom she has hardly seen since her transition. Together, they drive toward the North Sea to scatter the ashes of the deceased. The trip becomes a painful confrontation between two people stuck inside a vehicle and unable to speak to each other. Laurent Micheli films the journey as a fragile and nerve-wracking process of repair. A modest road movie that speaks less of transition than of recognizing otherness.
> > Lola Goes to the Sea, by Laurent Micheli, available on Canal VOD, Prime Video, YouTube, Universciné, Apple TV
My Own Private Idaho
Mike, a young prostitute suffering from narcolepsy, travels through Oregon and Idaho with Scott, a rebellious heir who roams the streets purely to provoke social status. Their journey leads them to Italy in search of Mike’s mother. Between Shakespearean drift and the poetry of the margins, Gus Van Sant crafts a fragmented tale of wandering and impossible love. In this landmark of queer cinema from the 1990s, River Phoenix delivers a heartrending performance, as if every mile distance his character a little further from the world.
> > My Own Private Idaho, by Gus Van Sant, available on LaCinetek, Apple TV, Canal+
Y Tu Mamá También
Two Mexican adolescents, Julio and Tenoch, invite Luisa, an older woman, to accompany them toward a mythical beach they claim to know. Along the road, confidences multiply and certainties fade. Alfonso Cuarón turns this improvised journey into a sensual and political chronicle of early 2000s Mexico. Beneath its apparent lightness, the film explores the fluidity of desire and the fragility of masculinity. As the road becomes a social and intimate revelation, the documentary voiceover reminds us that individual stories are part of the larger, changing story of a country in transition.
> > Y Tu Mamá También, by Alfonso Cuarón, available on Netflix
The Living End
Jon and Luke, two HIV-positive men, meet in Los Angeles and take to the road after a murder committed by one of them. Their flight becomes a violent wanderer through America, between seedy bars, motels, and bursts of rage. With a nerve-wracked camera, Gregg Araki films this chase as a gesture of survival against Reagan-era America’s conservatism. The film blends black humor, nihilism, and punk energy.
> > The Living End, by Gregg Araki, available on Mubi and Prime Video
With or Without Men
Jane, a lesbian singer, agrees to drive Robin to California for a fresh start. Along the way, they meet Holly, a woman fleeing an abusive partner. The three eventually hit the road together, forming an improvised community. Typical of the 1990s, Boys on the Side blends melodrama and road comedy. If queer representation remained cautious in Hollywood, the presence of a central lesbian character and the emergence of the HIV issue bring an unexpected political dimension. A good little film about chosen family and sisterhood.
> > Boys on the Side, by Herbert Ross, available on Netflix
Wildhood
Link and his younger brother Travis flee their violent father and hit the road in Nova Scotia to find their missing mother. Along the way, Link meets Pasmay, a young Mi’kmaq man — the Indigenous people of the northeast coast of America — who helps him reconnect with his Indigenous origins and recognize his growing desire. The coming-of-age film interweaves a queer identity quest with Indigenous cultural heritage, and each step brings the characters closer to an identity they had learned to keep silent.
> > Wildhood, by Bretten Hannam, available on Apple TV, Canal VOD, YouTube, Universciné, Prime Video
The Watermelon Woman
Cheryl, a Black lesbian video artist working at a Philadelphia video store, decides to investigate a forgotten Black actress from 1930s Hollywood cinema, credited only as “The Watermelon Woman.” Between real archives and bricolaged fiction, the film traces her identity and romantic quest while repairing the absence of Black women in film history. Both funny and political, the film, released in 1996, is the first feature directed by a Black lesbian woman in the United States.
> > The Watermelon Woman, by Cheryl Dunye, available on MUBI
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Two drag queens and a transgender woman leave Sydney aboard a bus named Priscilla to traverse Australia and reach a desert show. Between ABBA lip-syncs, hostile encounters, and moments of pure camaraderie, the journey becomes a campy and melancholic odyssey across the Australian outback. Halfway between kitsch comedy and queer treasure, the film turns the road into a giant stage where flamboyant identities confront the most virile landscape of Australian cinema.
> > Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, by Stephan Elliott, available on Apple TV, Canal VOD and Prime Video
