Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a rewatch.This 1996 romantic comedy about two British high school boys in love helped pave the way for countless other queer films, and foreshadowed the success of Love, Simon.
Beautiful Thing follows the story of Jamie (Glen Berry), a teen hopelessly infatuated with his classmate Ste (Scott Neal). Both hail from rough family situations: Jamie’s mother Sandra (Linda Henry) goes through one eccentric man after the next, while Ste’s father struggles with drugs, and beats his son.
One night, when Ste gets a particularly nasty beating, Sandra takes in Ste to sleep over. Sparks immediately fly between he and Jamie as the two boys.