It’s time again for the Blade’s annual round-up of our favorite films of the year – and as always, we’re keeping our focus queer.
We’ve loved movies like “Anora” and “The Brutalist,” and we appreciate the queer talent in inclusive titles like “Sing Sing,” “Emilia Perez,” and “Wicked,” but we’re limiting our choices to films that speak more directly to queer experience – which means most of the titles on our list are smaller movies that might have slipped under your radar.
Fortunately, we’re here to fill you in on the ones you missed. #10 Cora Bora. Landing at No. 10on the list is a comedy-of-awkwardness, this time focused on a bisexual musician (Meg Stalter) whose faltering bid for success in Los Angeles prompts her to return to her native Portland and attempt to reconcile with the longtime girlfriend she left behind.
Stalter infuses the clueless self-absorption of her character with a subtext that wins our hearts before we even know the backstory which illuminates it, and the overall tone of compassion that director Hannah Pearl Utt drives home a healing sense of “meeting people where they are” that makes us think twice about judging even the most insufferable among us. #9 Big Boys. Equal parts bittersweet coming-of-age story and uncomfortable-yet-endearing comedy, this festival-circuit fave from filmmaker Corey Sherman strikes gold with an eminently relatable narrative about the awkwardness of burgeoning sexuality and a winning performance from young star Isaac Krasner, as a plus-size young teen who develops a crush on his female cousin’s hunky-and-bearish new boyfriend (David Johnson III) during a camping trip.