“Oh, great. Another queer period piece about white women in bonnets furtively holding hands at the beach,” I may or may not have grumbled to myself when I first saw the trailer for Ammonite, the recently released Francis Lee film starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as star-crossed, fossil-hunting lovers.
To be clear, I was, and am, extremely here for this kind of thing; after decades’ worth of content that portrayed lesbians exclusively as cat-owning spinsters or objects of straight male lust, the luxury of getting to feel meh about quality onscreen representation isn’t lost on me (especially when queer and trans people of color still have to fight to see themselves accurately portrayed in film and TV).
That said, after the runaway success of Portrait of a Lady on Fire last year, I started noticing just how much of the women-who-love-women canon is set in a time period other than the present. It’s possible that that’s beginning to change, with contemporary movies like the K-Stew-led Christmas rom-com Happiest Season on the horizon, but for now, we might as well appreciate what we’ve got (or at least hate-watch it). Below, find a list of every lesbian period drama I’ve ever seen, in order of how much I enjoyed them.
The Handmaiden (2016): This South Korean psychological thriller is on The Guardian’s list of best movies of the century—non-lesbian-specific, even!—and for good reason. It’s ridiculously sexy, without veering over into the exploitative weirdness that defines, say, Blue is the Warmest Color.
Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019): Yes, it’s a white-ladies-in-bonnets movie, but director Céline Sciamma broke the mold when she made this one. Unfortunately, female-helmed lesbian cinema still isn’t the norm, so it was particularly meaningful to see Sciamma win big at Cannes last year.
Carol (2015): It’s absolutely a Christmas movie, and yes, it should be regarded as such. The day I thought a sequel was coming our way was one of the happiest of my life.
The Favourite (2018): Olivia Colman as a woman driven mad by her lesbian crushes, who simply won’t stop eating cake despite its deleterious effects on her health? Finally, a movie I see myself in!
Bessie (2015): This biopic about blues singer Bessie Smith is HBO’s most-watched original film of all time, and Queen Latifah’s performance is well worth the film’s occasional slow parts.
Reaching for the Moon (2013): The love story between American poet Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares is beautifully depicted in this Bruno Barreto film.
Colette (2018): I saw this biographical drama on a third date that ended up going nowhere, but I remember thinking, “I wish I were seeing this alone so I could focus on it more.” High praise!
Elisa & Marcela (2019): This drama about the first same-sex marriage in Spain is visually stunning, even if its content doesn’t quite live up to the significance of the story it’s representing.
Lizzie (2018): There’s only so much dislike that I can hold for any movie that stars Kristen Stewart as a queer character, even one that doesn’t exactly end in fulfilled lesbian joy, to say the least.
Ammonite (2020): I got bored halfway through, despite this movie’s obvious technical merit. Glad it exists, though!
Wild Nights with Emily (2018): As much as I love Molly Shannon, I just wasn’t into this romantic-comedy retelling of Emily Dickinson’s life. To be fair, maybe a diehard Dickinson fan would have a better review?
Vita & Virginia (2018): Love the attempt to portray the affair between writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf…but, unfortunately, hate the execution, which drags on and on for an interminable two hours.
Gentleman Jack (2019—): Ugh. No landlords at Pride, even ones in gender-bending breeches. Sorry.
The post Every Lesbian Period Drama I’ve Ever Seen, Ranked appeared first on Honk Magazine.
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