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Netflix‘s trove of underrated, under-promoted movies is even wider and more vast than the streaming service’s subscribers may realize. Beyond its home page recommendations and continually updated Top 10 lists, the platform has hundreds of movies that you either may have never heard of or did not even know were on Netflix.

From the low-budget breakout dramedy that announced one of America’s most decorated living independent filmmakers to the world to a handful of frequently forgotten blockbusters and genre hits, the streamer has enough easy-to-miss films to satisfy just about every mood. Here are the seven best hidden gems on Netflix that you should stream in July.

“Tangerine” (Magnolia Pictures) “Tangerine” (2015)

10 years before he won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing for “Anora,” writer-director Sean Baker received global attention and acclaim for “Tangerine.” Shot entirely with iPhones, the low-budget dramedy follows Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez...

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This July, Netflix is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the highly anticipated final chapter of the worldwide hit fantasy series The Sandman to the much-awaited sequel of the fantasy action film The Old Guard. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Netflix this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the five best films that are coming to Netflix in July 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Captain Phillips (July 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93% Credit – Sony Pictures

Captain Phillips is a biographical action-thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass from a screenplay by Billy Ray. Based on the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking, the 2013 film follows Captain Richard Philips, a merchant mariner, as his ship is overtaken by Somali Pirates and he is taken hostage.

Top 5 LGBTQ+ Movies To Stream This Pride Month (Photo Credit – Prime Video)

As the year comes back to June, marking the return of the beloved Pride Month, to celebrate the diversity of human expression and affection. This year’s pride nights will be even more memorable because we have put together a list of the top five must-watch LGBTQ+ films that will make your celebration filled with cozy movie nights.

These movies capture the love, pain, and tenacity of LGBTQ+ lives, ranging from poignant romances to groundbreaking masterpieces. So settle in, press play, and prepare yourself for tales that will linger in your minds and hearts.

5. Milk (2008) Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video (Rent) Rt Score: 93% Director: Gus Van Sant

Plot: Based on true events, the film follows the empowering journey of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to public office in California. Sean Penn, who went on to...

Anoradirector Sean Baker had a record-breaking evening at the 2025 Academy Awards, matched only by one of Hollywood's biggest names. Last night, Baker became the second person in history to receive four individual Oscars thanks to his provocative drama — the first being none other than Walt Disney.

Baker won four out of the five awards that Anora was nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Original Screenplay. This stunning achievement makes him the second person ever to earn four Oscars in one night and the first person to do so in 70 years. In 1954, Walt Disney initially established this record by winning Best Documentary for The Living Desert, Best Documentary Short for The Alaskan Eskimo, Best Short Cartoon for Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom, and Best Short Subject for Bear Country. Unlike Disney, however, Baker notably won all of his awards for a single film.

Related97th Academy Awards:...

Read part 1 here.

Hosted by John Waters, the 16th annual Independent Spirit Awards (allow us here to retcon this as the 16th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards) took place on March 24, 2001, underneath the big white tent at the ceremony’s now-regular home on the beaches of Santa Monica. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the afternoon’s big winner, with Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream) and Willem Dafoe taking home top acting honors.

The next day, Gladiator would win Best Picture at the 73rd Academy Awards. But perhaps more significantly, this was also the night that the fifth episode of Season Three of HBO’s The Sopranos aired. Though not a particularly memorable episode in and of itself the show was nevertheless peaking in public adulation, marking the ascent of the so-called “Golden Age of Television”–a global shift in audiences’ consumer preferences which continues to influence and impact cinema,...

About once a week, I take a chance on a movie expecting it to be bad. I’m the type of viewer who will tolerate bad movies just to see where the director’s head is at. Filmmaking, to me, is as much about exploring intent as it is about execution. In 2015, one such gamble led me to a film shot entirely on three iPhone 5S devices. I expected an average-to-terrible gimmick, a movie reliant on its novelty rather than substance. But to my astonishment, Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” (2015) was anything but a gimmick. As cheap as it was to make, the film is an impressive piece of work that has since made cinematic history. A few years later, it’s become a personal Christmas classic I revisit every December.

Writer-director Sean Baker embodies the economic efficiency of Italian neorealism, the rebelliousness of Dogma 95, the gritty focus of the Safdie brothers,...

There's a moment in "The Florida Project," the Willem Dafoe-starring drama from Sean Baker about a six-year-old girl named Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) living in a motel with her mother Halley (Bria Vinaite), that I think about daily. Halley and one of her friends go out to eat one night and get food from a stand. We know that Halley doesn't have a lot of money — we've watched her steal, scam, and engage in sex work to make ends meet — but she still puts a tip in the jar for the food stand worker. To those who have never grown up poor, it's a moment that likely went unnoticed. But to those of us who have, it was a signal that this film came from someone who genuinely wanted to present an authentic look at how people living in poverty make joy in their lives without financial security. That includes always tipping service industry workers,...

In director and writer Marco Calvani’s “High Tide,” well-known Brazilian actor Marco Pigossi stars as Lourenco, an immigrant living in Provincetown, the iconic gay getaway in Massachusetts. Suddenly single with his visa about to expire, he meets and falls for Maurice (James Bland), a Black doctor from New York City who is on vacation before heading to Angola for a residency.

Turns out there was as much romance going on off-screen as there was on. Calvani and Pigossi fell in love after initially meeting to talk about possibly working together one day.

“I tell everyone there’s a love story behind the love story.” Pigossi tells me. “We were falling in love as he was finishing the script. He was always asking me things like, ‘What’s your favorite poem in Brazil? What would be like a very conservative city in the countryside?’ I didn’t know what he was writing.

Sean Baker films are often masterclasses in casting, and Anora is no exception. In the past, Baker has been known to discover talents with his films. This much was true in Tangerine andThe Florida Project. These films exposed audiences to new actors, including Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Bria Vinaite, and Brooklynn Prince. All of these performers were not stars before acting in Bakers film, but the indie director then introduced audiences to them through intimate and well-crafted storytelling.

Anora is a little different from these Baker films of yesteryear. Instead of using a complete unknown like Viniate or Taylor, Anora finds its lead in Mikey Madison. Anora's reviews are great so far, and Madison has been especially praised for the potency of her performance in the film. Unlike the case of previous Baker protagonists, Madison has an established background in acting, and thus is a more recognizable actor. Still,...

The next film from an Oscar-winning Spider-Man star and a major player in The Boys spin-off Gen V just received an exciting release update. A new report from Variety revealed that High Tide which stars Marco Pigossi (Gen V) and Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny), has secured distribution from Strand Releasing by Ld Entertainment and will officially release later this year. In addition to Pigossi and Tomei, High Tide also stars James Bland (Giants), Bill Irwin (Interstellar) and Mya Taylor. High Tide is written and directed by Marco Calvani, who has directed several shorts in 2017 and 2022 and will make his feature debut helming the film. High Tide premiered earlier this year at SXSW and currently sits at a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with seven reviews.

A haunting lead performance from Marco Pigossi, steeped in melancholy and raw pain but also in moments of openness, optimism and even joy, helps make High Tide an affecting portrait of untethered gay men seeking meaningful connections. Writer-director Marco Calvani’s sensitively observed first feature draws parallels between the isolation of an undocumented Brazilian, nearing the end of his visa and disinclined to return home, and that of a Black American, secure in his tight friendship circle but very much aware he’s the minority in a predominantly white queer tourist mecca — and in the country at large.

About that setting — for anyone who loves Provincetown, this film and its enveloping sense of place will evoke fond associations with the historic fishing village and art colony on the tip of Cape Cod.

The physical beauty of the landscape and the caressing softness of the light help both to define and...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during SXSW 2024. Strand Releasing and Ld Entertainment release “High Tide” in select theaters October 18.

The main draw on the surface of writer-director Marco Calvani’s lovely if overly dramatic feature debut is the jaw-dislocating physical beauty of its star. That might sound crass, but “High Tide” is a movie that dares you not to be obsessed with — and attracted to — its leading man. Actor Marco Pigossi, Calvani’s real-life partners, enters the first frame as if sculpted out of marble, or butter even, stripping down to nothing and rushing into the sea off a desolate nude beach along Provincetown, Massachusetts, in a spin of anguish.

The cold open is a bookend “High Tide” will return to at its climax. It’s also a chilly plunge into a baptismal, hoped-for catharsis for Lourenço (Pigossi), a Brazilian immigrant with an expiring tourist visa reeling...

The lineup for the 2024 SXSW Film & TV festival has been announced, with the additions of Dev Patel’s action thriller Monkey Man as a headliner. Also joining the lineup is the Sydney Sweeney starring nun horror Immaculate and Y2K, the comedy from SNL alum Kyle Mooney that stars Rachel Zegler.

These films join previously announced centerpiece screenings including the Ryan Gosling starrer The Fall Guy, Anne Hathaway romance The Idea of You, and the Jake Gyllenhaal led Road House remake, the latter of which will open the fest.

As for television, the Bon Jovi docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story will bow at the fest along with Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told. These are joining the previously announced premiere of Netflix’s Three Body Problem.

Elsewhere in the lineup is the Nicolas Cage starrer Arcadian, the Lucy Boynton sci-fi feature The Greatest Hits, Rudy Mancuso’s Música,...

So here you sit. You’ve spent the past few years (decades?) chasing down your dreams, encountering challenge after challenge, enduring the extreme vagaries of film financing, media mergers and daily Covid testing, and through it all you remained true to your creative vision.

There was that first vomit draft of your screenplay, so horrible you almost cried. There was the humbling—often humiliating—process of finding the money, then the fun of putting your team together. There was that one time on set when the Pa tripped and knocked over the camera table, putting a crack in your band-new Zeiss lens. And then there were the obnoxious notes and festival rejections.

But still: you made a movie! Frankly, you deserve an award for just making it this far. Unfortunately, karma and self-actualization do not typically manifest in tangible form.

However. You can still very easily place yourself in the...

Spring is finally here, though you wouldn't know it from the snow flurries currently battering my house. Fortunately, there are plenty in the way of options to choose from, should you find yourself, like me, looking for something you can stream from the comfort of your home while you wait for the weather to get its act together. Or perhaps you don't really do the whole "leaving the house" thing very much, even when it is nice and sunny outside. Believe me, I get it, my fellow creatures of the dark.

In case you need further incentive to chill at home: HBO Max will be streaming the final season of "Succession" throughout April and it sounds as though the trainwreck that is the Roy family civil war remains as entertaining as ever, judging by Shania Russell's rapturous review of season 4 for /Film. The "Doctor Who" special "The Power of...

Mya Taylor in Tangerine

Originally released in 2025 and now enjoying another moment in the sun thanks to the release of an excellent Blu-ray package, Sean Baker’s Tangerine broke new cinematic ground in multiple ways. It was the first feature film ever to be short on an iPhone, changing the way that people thought about the process of filmmaking and inspiring a new generation of storytellers. It took viewers into the dark side of Hollywood, revealing a community of people living hand to mouth, trading sex or drugs, and doing it in an authentic and respectful way. And it told a story centred on trans women who were actually played by trans women, which had nothing to do with the process of transition but recognised their more complex lives. I spoke with one of its stars, Mya Taylor, about her memories of the production and why it meant so much.

To mark the release of Tangerine on limited edition Blu-ray on 19th December, we’ve been given a copy of the box set to give away to 1 winner.

Shot on an iPhone and starring outstanding performances from its previously unknown lead stars, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, this is a hugely entertaining, beautifully shot, funny and original piece of filmmaking that makes for a slick, attention grabbing alternative Christmas watch.

It’s Christmas Eve on the streets of LA. We meet Sin-Dee Rella a transgender sex worker who – fresh from a short stint in prison – finds out from her best friend Alexandra (Taylor) that the pimp she’s in love with has cheated on her while she was away. The wronged Sin-Dee Rella declares war and sets off on one hell of a mission with Alexandra in tow, with only one thing on their mind, to find the cheat...

Pride is only one month, but queer film lives on all year. And as long as there are obstacles to funding, production, and distribution for queer films, shorts remain the easiest way for filmmakers to get noticed and get a foot in the door of the industry. That’s doubly and sometimes triply important when you’re a marginalized voice, especially if your work deals openly with themes of queerness, sexuality, race, and/or gender.

While the U.S. has fewer avenues for short films to gain attention than say Europe or Asia, there will always be cinephiles who enjoy the unique pleasures of a well-made short. The best short films don’t use the form as a mere stepping stone to a feature, but as a unique and valuable medium unto itself.

Recognizing that barriers to entry remain higher for all marginalized filmmakers of all stripes, it’s vitally...

Exclusive: Fusion Entertainment has signed veteran Filipino actress Dolly de Leon, who got her long-overdue international breakout role in Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-Winner Triangle of Sadness, for management across all areas.

Triangle of Sadness, which was acquired by Neon for North American distribution and will also be released by other prestige distributors around the world, was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike.

Of de Leon and Triangle of Sadness, Deadline’s Pete Hammond raved “the film has the goods to compete in several categories including Picture, Director, Screenplay and, without question Best Supporting Actress for Filipino star Dolly de Leon..at this point (she) has to be a front-runner to win.”

Classically trained in the theater, de Leon is a well-known actress in the Philippines whose credits go back to the early 90’s. In film and TV, de Leon has worked with highly-regarded Filipino directors Lav Diaz...

With the so-called streaming wars in full swing, the key to staying competitive is for platforms to have quality content on constant rotation. Judging by this month’s movie titles, Amazon Prime Video is up for the challenge. May’s collection has something for everyone, whether it be big-hearted comedies, classic ‘90s dramas or critically-acclaimed indies. There’s even a special collection of films to keep you in the Mother’s Day spirit all month long.

Here are some of the best movies streaming on Amazon Prime in May 2022.

Lady Bird (2017) A24

From “Mamma Mia” to “Freaky Friday,” Amazon’s Mother’s Day Collection is a crowded field, but nothing tops “Lady Bird.” Greta Gerwig’s beloved coming-of-age film stars Laurie Metcalf and Saoirse Ronan as a tough-loving mother-daughter duo. Lady Bird (Ronan) dreams of leaving her native Sacramento to go to college in a big city, while her mother...

Fusion Entertainment has signed filmmaker Ira Sachs, actor Mya Taylor and writer-director-actor Jude Dry. The management company, which was founded this year by Chris Evans and Adam Kersh, hails the signings as an important step in bolstering their roster of LGBTQ+ talent.

Kersh and Sachs have had a long association, having worked together for a decade. Kersh helped spearhead the publicity campaigns for the Sachs’ queer-positive NYC triptych “Keep the Lights On” (2012), “Love Is Strange” (2014), and “Little Men” (2016). Sachs recently finished filming his latest feature “Passages,” which follows a gay couple living in Paris whose relationship is disrupted when one of them begins seeing a much younger woman. “Passages” stars Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos.

Kersh also has a long history with Taylor, having been the chief architect of the publicity campaign for Sean Baker’s “Tangerine,” which served as Taylor’s film debut. Kersh also spearheaded the Oscar campaign for Taylor,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)

Though far better known by its English title, the appropriately elegiac Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s 2003 masterpiece bears a rather different name in Mandarin (rendered here via pinyin): Bú sàn, which roughly translates to “never leaving,” or—if one prefers the Sartre connotation—“no exit.” It forms the root of two distinctly contradictory Chinese idioms, which perfectly encapsulate the lamentation and beauty of Tsai’s film: Tiān xià méi yǒu bù sàn de yán xí, the infamous “all good things must come to an end,” and Bù jiàn bù sàn, which more or less means “even if we don’t see each other, don’t give up and leave,” or “I’m not leaving until I see you.

Nude Illusion: Baker Returns to Sex Work in Bristling Character Study

You can’t go home again, especially when no one missed you in the first place. Sean Baker returns to the world of the down and out sex worker with his latest, Red Rocket, taking place in Texas City, TX at the onset of the 2016 presidential campaign. Baker has built a formidable indie filmography (mostly) through the use of first time actors, often bringing them to the precipice of considerable renown.

In essence, this time around Baker recuperates Simon Rex as a weathered porn star similar to what Paul Thomas Anderson did for Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights (1997), whose Dirk Diggler is a point of comparison.…...

The 30th annual Gotham Awards will eliminate the gendered acting categories beginning with its 2021 ceremony. The individual male and female lead categories will be condensed into one: outstanding lead performance. Meanwhile, the Gothams will also for the first time add an outstanding supporting performance category, which will also be gender neutral. Up to 10 nominees are eligible in each category.

The Gothams’ longtime influential “breakthrough actor” award will be renamed “breakthrough performer,” even though this category has always been gender-neutral. It has gone to the likes of Elliot Page, Mya Taylor, Michael B. Jordan, and Amy Adams. Last year, it went to Kingsley Ben-Adir for “One Night in Miami.”

Additional category updates for 2021 include the creation of a Breakthrough Nonfiction Series award (previously included with fiction series) and the eligibility of international documentaries in the Best Documentary Feature category. The Gotham Awards will also be adding the first acting category within...

Sidney Flanigan isn’t the only actor from the Focus Feature release “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” earning nominations from critics awards. Talia Ryder, who plays Skylar, the cousin and best friend of Flanigan’s Autumn, is also on the board with some bids this season.

See‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ writer-director Eliza Hittman on not making films that are ‘unanimously palatable’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

The Greater Western New York Film Critics Association and the Indiana Film Journalists Association both nominated Ryder in the Breakthrough Performance and Best Supporting Actress categories, respectively. The Online Film Critics Society just nominated her for Best Supporting Actress too. While the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress seems to be solidifying around a handful of more established names, Ryder deserves to be in the conversation right along with them.

This is Ryder’s feature film debut as an actress, but there is confidence in her portrayal of Skylar,...

Following its high profile UK and Irish cinema reopening release this Summer, the heartwarming comedy drama Stage Mother arrives on digital download and DVD on 16th November to offer everyone at home the glitz and glam we all need right now! To celebrate, we are giving away a DVD bundle consisting of Stage Mother, Whitney, Moonlight and Love is Strange.

Stage Mother sees conservative, Texas church-choir director Maybelline inheriting her recently deceased son’s drag club, and surprising her closed-minded husband, and everyone else she knows, by moving alone to San Francisco to save the club from bankruptcy. In this raucous, racy new environment, she begins to open up and find new meaning for her life, even becoming a mother-figure to the club’s flamboyant performers… until a surprise visit threatens to upend her new life. Directed by Thom Fitzgerald (Cloudburst) Stage Mother also stars A-listers Lucy Liu (Elementary) and...

Giving a leading role to Jacki Weaver is something any filmmaker should be commended for. The veteran actress is a welcome presence anywhere, no matter the topic. Casting her as the lead in a fish out of water type dramedy? Well, that should be the main ingredient to a delicious cinematic dish. Unfortunately, Stage Mother ends up more like a fast food dish when you were hoping for fine dining. Does it mostly get the job done? Sure, but it also doesn’t particularly satisfy you. The premise, along with Weaver’s talents, ultimately keep this from being something that leaves an impression on you. Opening this week, it’s a missed opportunity for something wonderful. The movie is a dramedy, focused on a southern woman evolution in the Bay Area. When Maybelline (Weaver), a conservative, Texas church-choir director finds out that her son Rickey (Eldon Thiele) has passed away from a drug overdose,...

From the moment she appeared onscreen in “Tangerine,” it was clear that Mya Taylor was meant to be a star. The 2015 film made waves at that year’s Sundance Film Festival, first for having been shot entirely on iPhone and then for its candid and humanizing look at a day in the life of two transgender women of color as they navigate survival sex work in Los Angeles. An instant queer classic, Taylor won home Best Supporting Actress and Breakthrough Talent from Independent Spirit and Gotham award shows.

“I thought it was just gonna be some project that you get paid a few hundred dollars on. And it blew up,” Taylor said during a virtual interview during the Provincetown Film Festival, where she was honored with the queer-friendly festival’s Next Wave Award. “Especially when he said it was going to be filmed on iPhones. I did not see that at all.

The late Richard Benner’s 1977 “Outrageous!” blazed trails as both a hit Canadian export and positive screen depiction of gay life, two relative rarities at the time. Even then, some gay viewers found the funny-sad friendship between a hairdresser/professional drag queen and a young schizophrenic woman a bit old-fashioned. But everybody was won over by Craig Russell’s stage impersonations of Hollywood stars — schmaltz and camp being a reliable combination for gay cinema with crossover ambitions.

That formula has scarcely altered 43 years later for “Stage Mother.” It’s the latest from Thom Fitzgerald, whose 1997 “The Hanging Garden” was also shot in Nova Scotia, and helped herald a new, perhaps more politically bold and artistically adventuresome generation of gay Canadian filmmakers. His more recent work has fitted into a time-tested mould of sentimental seriocomedy, however. This tale of a small-town Texas matron who inherits her estranged son’s San Francisco drag bar offers up smiles,...

"Ma'am - it's not polite to stare!" Momentum Pictures has debuted the official trailer for an indie dramedy titled Stage Mother, the latest film from filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald. When the conservative, Texas church-choir director Maybelline inherits her recently deceased son's drag club in San Francisco called "Pandora's Box", she surprises her closed-minded husband and everyone else she knows by moving alone to Sf to save the club from bankruptcy. Jacki Weaver stars as Maybelline, who quickly becomes a mother-figure to the club's many flamboyant performers. Described as a "dance in your seat, music-infused comedy-drama that boasts a fiery supporting cast" including Lucy Liu, Adrian Grenier, Mya Taylor, and drag superstar Jackie Beat. This looks kinky and funny, an uplifting story about learning to let go of your prejudice and celebrate pride instead. And Jacki Weaver always rocks. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Thom Fitzgerald's Stage Mother, direct from YouTube: When conservative,...

Exclusive: Following news last week that Stage Mother, Thom Fitzgerald’s comedy starring Jacki Weaver and Lucy Liu, had sold to Momentum Pictures for North America and Altitude for UK, sales agent Film Mode Entertainment has inked a series of further Cannes deals on the title.

The pic has now gone to Australia and New Zealand (Madman), Italy (Eagle Pictures), Japan (Regents), Taiwan (Deepjov), Middle East (Eagle Films), and South Africa (African Entertainment Distributors).

The movie debuted at Palm Springs International Film Festival in January. Brad Hennig wrote the screenplay, which follows a conservative Texas church choir director who inherits her recently deceased son’s drag club and tries to save it from bankruptcy. Adrian Grenier, Mya Taylor and Jackie Beat are also in the cast.

“We love seeing audiences dancing in their seats, laughing and crying all at the same time. It’s evident that even in these trying times,...

Exclusive: Momentum Pictures has bought North American rights to Stage Mother, Thom Fitzgerald’s comedy starring Jacki Weaver and Lucy Liu, and has set an August 21 day-and-date release for the pic.

The movie debuted at Palm Springs International Film Festival in January. Brad Hennig wrote the screenplay, which follows a conservative Texas church choir director who inherits her recently deceased son’s drag club and tries to save it from bankruptcy. Adrian Grenier, Mya Taylor and Jackie Beat are also in the cast.

The deal was negotiated between Dylan Wilcox on behalf of Momentum Pictures and Clay Epstein for sales rep Film Mode Entertainment.

“We are excited to be distributing Stage Mother in the United States and Canada. It is such a special film; the perfect mix of tenderness, poignancy and laugh-out-loud humor with an incredible cast. We feel privileged to share Thom and Brad’s work with the world,...

Twelve world premieres among line-up.

Frameline has announced the full programme for the virtual Frameline44 Pride Showcase that runs from June 25-28 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of San Francisco Pride.

Presented in partnership with the Castro Theatre, the four-day event features 12 world premieres, one international premiere, three North American Premieres, and two Us premieres.

The roster includes Jessica Swale’s Summerland starring Gemma Arterton, who will participate in a live Q&a following the film; Thom Fitzgerald’s valentine to San Francisco Stage Mother, which will include a live Q&a with Jacki Weaver, Mya Taylor, and Jackie Beat...

Times are rough right now under self-quarantine, so maybe it’s time to stop begging for scraps from Disney and watch some fantastic Lgbtqia+ cinema instead. Why not watch some smaller films that haven’t been talked to death by every pop culture website on the planet?

The purpose of this list is to cheer people up, especially during a time when people really can’t go out and decompress. All we can do right now is curl up under our blankets with a libation or two and try to forget our troubles by streaming movies nonstop.

Queer cinema is not a monolith, but I do prefer to prioritize the films that depict queer life as it is. This is a list big on laughs, keeping the sadness to a minimum. There are some recognizable titles in here, mixed in with lesser-known gems that deserve public attention. Luckily, film critics...

Whether a curse or a blessing, “May you live in interesting times” certainly applies to the Lgbtq community — the past decade saw the legalization of same-sex marriages and the end of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but every advancement has been met with pushback and threats to overturn equal protections under the law. Trans characters got their largest public spotlight on television shows like “Pose” and “Transparent,” while at the same time they remain the targets of violence and of hysterical and reactionary lawmakers. Whatever triumphs and travails the community faced in day-to-day life, their lives and loves continued to be reflected on the big screen; here are some of the decade’s greatest examples, listed alphabetically.

Runners-Up: “1985,” “Appropriate Behavior,” “Booksmart,” “Bpm,” “Cola de Mono,” “Drunktown’s Finest,” “Kiki,” “Love, Simon,” “Paris 05:59 Théo & Hugo,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

“Call Me By Your...

David Lynch once launched a one-man awards campaign for Laura Dern’s “Inland Empire” performance. At the cross streets of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea in Los Angeles, Lynch famously sat in a director’s chair in between a cow and an Fyc banner for Dern. While not as strange, Mark Duplass has gone full Lynch this year by kickstarting his own one-man Fyc campaign on behalf of his “Paddleton” co-star Ray Romano (via the Los Angeles Times).

Duplass was spotted at various locations throughout Hollywood on Friday, November 15 posing for photographs with his handmade Fyc posters. One sign read “Everybody still loves Raymond,” while others included slogans like “4 Ur Conside-Ray-Shun!” and “Vote 4 Ray!” Duplass campaigned for Romano at Hollywood & Highland, Sunset Boulevard, and the offices of Film Independent.

Duplass co-wrote “Paddleton” along with director Alex Lehmann. The movie stars Duplass and Romano as best friends who embark on a...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Colette (Wash Westmoreland)

Keira Knightley is back in her beloved genre, the period piece, for Colette, and it looks to be one of her strongest roles. The story of the famous French author finds her trying to balance her newfound success, her exploration of her sexuality, and a marriage to her dominating husband Willy (Dominic West). Coming from Still Alice co-director Wash Westmoreland, whose husband and co-director Richard Glatzer passed away in 2015, Colette is now on VOD following a fall theatrical release and acclaim from Sundance.

Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google

Inception (Christopher Nolan)

Inception is an arthouse movie with blockbuster aspirations. Or perhaps it’s the other way around.

Jacki Weaver and Adrian Grenier enjoy San Francisco’s drag scene in this exclusive first-look from comedy-drama Stage Mother, being shopped at the Afm by Film Mode Entertainment. Lucy Liu and Mya Taylor also star in the film, about a conservative Texas church-choir director who finds a new meaning in life after she inherits her son’s drag club.

Stage Mother, which is shooting in Canada, is being directed by Thom Fitzgerald (Splinters) from a script by San Francisco screenwriter Brad Hennig (The Hot Flashes).

“Audiences will be jumping up in their seats singing, dancing and shedding a tear in this ...

Jacki Weaver and Adrian Grenier enjoy San Francisco’s drag scene in this exclusive first-look from comedy-drama Stage Mother, being shopped at the Afm by Film Mode Entertainment. Lucy Liu and Mya Taylor also star in the film, about a conservative Texas church-choir director who finds a new meaning in life after she inherits her son’s drag club.

Stage Mother, which is shooting in Canada, is being directed by Thom Fitzgerald (Splinters) from a script by San Francisco screenwriter Brad Hennig (The Hot Flashes).

“Audiences will be jumping up in their seats singing, dancing and shedding a tear in this ...

In today’s film news roundup, Adrian Grenier and Mya Taylor join “Stage Mother,” Steve Coogan teams up with Michael Winterbottom and Kandoo Releasing launches. Castings Film Mode Entertainment and Branded Pictures Entertainment have added Adrian Grenier and Mya Taylor (“Tangerine”) to the cast of the drama-comedy “Stage Mother.” Jacki Weaver and Lucy Liu have been previously announced as starring in “Stage Mother,” set in the drag world of San Francisco. The film is set to go into production on Sept. 14 with much of the filming to take place in Nova Scotia. Rights for the film are for sale at the Toronto International Film Festival. Film Mode Entertainment’s Clay Epstein and Branded Pictures Entertainment founder and producer J. Todd Harris announced the project at the Cannes Film Festival. Grenier is best known for his starring role in “Entourage.” Taylor won the Gotham Award for “Breakthrough Actor” for her performance...

Entourage star Adrian Grenier and Tangerine breakout Mya Taylor are joining Jacki Weaver and Lucy Liu in the dramatic comedy Stage Mother, which is set in the drag queen world of San Francisco. Thom Fitzgerald is directing.

Grenier will play Nathan and Taylor will portray Cherry, a transgender drag queen. For her starring role in Tangerine, Taylor, a trailblazing Lgbtq icon, became the first openly transgender actor to win an Independent Spirit Award.

Written by Brad Hennig, Stage Mother centers on a conservative church-choir director (Weaver) who moves to San Francisco to run her late son’s drag club.

Film Mode Entertainment and Branded Pictures Entertainment ...

Entourage star Adrian Grenier and Tangerine breakout Mya Taylor are joining Jacki Weaver and Lucy Liu in the dramatic comedy Stage Mother, which is set in the drag queen world of San Francisco. Thom Fitzgerald is directing.

Grenier will play Nathan and Taylor will portray Cherry, a transgender drag queen. For her starring role in Tangerine, Taylor, a trailblazing Lgbtq icon, became the first openly transgender actor to win an Independent Spirit Award.

Written by Brad Hennig, Stage Mother centers on a conservative church-choir director (Weaver) who moves to San Francisco to run her late son’s drag club.

Film Mode Entertainment and Branded Pictures Entertainment ...

Mya Taylor, whose turn in 2015 Sundance hit Tangerine garnered a win at the Independent Spirit Awards a year later, helped pave the way for the transgender community in film. But the Spirit win did not necessarily open doors for new roles.

“It felt like the Spirit Award was the end of my career. It felt like that was the biggest accomplishment that I could gain because you all do not know how many auditions I have put in and I've mailed," Taylor tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I even had a casting office come back and say,...

Mya Taylor, whose turn in 2015 Sundance hit Tangerine garnered a win at the Independent Spirit Awards a year later, helped pave the way for the transgender community in film. But the Spirit win did not necessarily open doors for new roles.

“It felt like the Spirit Award was the end of my career. It felt like that was the biggest accomplishment that I could gain because you all do not know how many auditions I have put in and I've mailed," Taylor tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I even had a casting office come back and say,...

In a few short weeks, at the end of June, we’ll be halfway through 2018.

Anyway, now that Emmys eligibility is over, it’s time to turn to the offerings across broadcast, cable, and streaming that are part of a new calendar. There’s a glut of great TV from this year already, but this upcoming June collection means not only another strong batch of best-of-2018 contenders, but also one with the most diverse ways to watch that we’ve ever assembled for these monthly preview lists.

(By the way, if you’ve missed any of those previous picks, here are some notable TV premieres from February, March, April, and May.)

For now, bring it on, June.

“C.B. Strike”

After “The Casual Vacancy,” the latest TV adaptation of author J.K. Rowling’s work is this serialized detective show starring Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger. The seven-episode opening season tracks all...

Sebastien Chesneau’s sales agency Cercamon has acquired the international sales rights to “We the Coyotes,” which premieres in Cannes’ Acid section.

The film, which was directed by two young French helmers, Hanna Ladoul and Marco La Via, but shot in English in Los Angeles. Morgan Saylor, who previously appeared in Elizabeth Wood’s “White Girl,” Rob Reiner’s “Being Charlie” and Maggie Betts’ “Novitiate,” stars alongside McCaul Lombardi, who has appeared in Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey,” Geremy Jasper’s “Patti Cake$,” and Matt Porterfield’s “Sollers Point,” opposite Jim Belushi. The producer is Raphaël Gindre.

The film centers on Amanda and Jake who “are in love and want to start a new life together in Los Angeles,” according to a statement. “Will they make the right decisions? Their first 24 hours in L.A. take them all around the city, bringing more surprises and frustrations than expected.”

“We the...

When Sean Baker’s breakout indie “Tangerine” arrived in 2015, its ambitious production caught a lot of attention from the film community due to the originality of its production — it was shot exclusively on a trio of iPhone 5s. The movie was not the first to use the smart phone as its primary camera, but it was the most recognized in a burgeoning field of filmmakers using phones as their primary means of production. The trend hasn’t slowed down.

This week sees the release of Steven Soderbergh’s first foray into iPhone filmmaking, with the psychological thriller “Unsane.” The movie joins a growing list of films — shorts, features, projects actually financed by Apple, and those made specifically because of the frugality of the equipment — shot on the smart phone. (And that’s to say nothing of projects only partially shot on iPhones; soon enough, Netflix viewers will get to check...

So far, the big breakthroughs have all been on the younger end of the spectrum: the first transgender winner of an Indie Spirit award for acting arrived in 2015, the first transgender person to be nominated for an acting-centric Primetime Emmy dates back to 2014, and there’s still never been a transgender actor nominated for an Oscars. For many of them, getting any kind of role in Hollywood is worth celebrating, but it’s rarer still for them to lock down a seemingly obvious next step: getting cast as a transgender person.

Few trans-centric stories have made it to the screen over the years, and the vast majority of them have seen pivotal roles go to cisgender actors, from Elle Fanning to Matt Bomer, Eddie Redmayne to Hilary Swank. The tide, however, is starting to turn. Here are a dozen talented transgender actors who have also played transgender roles on the screen,...

Sebastian Lelio was drinking coffee in Santiago with his producers, Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín, when the filmmaker learned he had been nominated for an Oscar. “A Fantastic Woman,” the evocative portrait of a transgendered Chilean woman played by rising star Daniela Vega, was the instant frontrunner in the foreign-language category. “We were like trapped animals,” Lelio said, recalling the moments leading up to the announcement. “Then, suddenly, the cups went flying in the air. It was a good day.”

Lelio has down this road before with less satisfying results. His 2013 drama “Gloria,” which starred Paulina Garcia in as another unorthodox female lead — in this case, a middle-aged divorcee who finds new love — followed a similar trajectory to “A Fantastic Woman”: Both movies premiered to great acclaim at the Berlin International Film Festival and landed rave reviews. However, despite the prevalent enthusiasm, “Gloria” didn’t even make the shortlist.

Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” may have failed to garner any Oscar nominations, but it is about to get something even better: A permanent spot in the new Academy Museum. The Academy has officially acquired one of the iPhones Baker and cinematographer Radium Cheung used to film the groundbreaking 2015 indie hit. The film was shot with three iPhone 5s smartphones.

Although “Tangerine” was not the first feature made entirely using an iPhone camera, it was inarguably the most successful and high profile release of its kind. The movie made a big splash at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival before landing two Gotham Award wins and an Indie Spirit Award for supporting actress Mya Taylor.

Baker and Cheung used the iPhone camera and the video app FiLMIC Pro to shoot “Tangerine.” The app allowed the filmmakers to better...