21 filmmakers who have directed more than one gay movie

These filmmakers keep returning to gay stories, and we love them for it!

Shutterstock

20 Directors who have made more than one gay movie

We love gay movies, and you can’t make a gay movie without a director. Thankfully, some directors make it their career mission to make as many queer movies as they can.

Some of these filmmakers are near the beginning of their careers with only a few movies to their names, but others have made dozens of films. But the thing they all have in common is that they keep returning to queer stories for their films.

Here are 21 acclaimed directors who have directed more than one queer film.

1. Goran Stolevski

They weren't born a family. They became one. North Macedonia's Official Selection for Best International Feature at the 96th ...

HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS - Official Trailer [HD] - In Select Theaters April 5

Macedonian Australian director Goran Stolevski has two queer films that he’s directed. The first was 2022’s Of an Age, about a Serbian immigrant in Australia who enters an intense romance with the brother of his ballroom dance partner. This year, he’s directed Housekeeping for Beginners, about a woman who never planned on being a mother who is forced to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters.

• Of an Age

• Housekeeping for Beginners

2. Francis Lee

God's Own Country Trailer #1 (2017): Check out the new trailer starring Josh O'Connor, Alec Secareanu, and Gemma Jones!

God's Own Country Trailer #1 (2017) | Movieclips Indie

English filmmaker Francis Lee has two films under his belt and both of them are queer. His debut film God’s Own Country is a gay romantic drama starring Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu as a Yorkshire sheep farmer and Romanian migrant worker who fall in love. In 2020, he made Ammonite, a fictional story based on a speculative romance between British paleontologist Mary Anning and her friend Charlotte Murchison.

• God’s Own Country

• Ammonite

3. Luca Guadagnino

Her Game. Her Rules. Watch the new trailer for #ChallengersMovie and see the film only in theaters April 26. Head to ...

CHALLENGERS | Official Trailer 2

Guadagnino’s most famous queer film is Call Me by Your Name, but the Italian director also includes queer storylines and themes in films like Bones and All, Challengers, and his upcoming film Queer.

• I Am Love

• Call Me by Your Name

• Bones and All

• Challengers

• Queer

4. Ang Lee

Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6h Subscribe to COMING SOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUn Subscribe to CLASSIC TRAILERS: ...

Brokeback Mountain Official Trailer #1 - Randy Quaid Movie (2005) HD

Acclaimed director Ang Lee won the Oscar for Best Director at the 78th Academy Awards for directing the gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain. His film The Wedding Banquet follows a gay Taiwanese immigrant who marries a Chinese woman to place his parents and has to hide his gay partner from them.

• The Wedding Banquet

• Brokeback Mountain

5. Pedro Almodovar

A short film by Pedro Almodóvar starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. A man rides a horse across the desert that separates ...

STRANGE WAY OF LIFE | Official Trailer (2023)

Almodovar is widely considered to be one of the best directors of his generation, winning two Oscars and having his films nominated for nine. Most of his movies have queer characters and themes.

• Strange Way of Life

• Pepi, Luci, Bom

• Labyrinth of Passion

• Dark Habits

• Law of Desire

• All About My Mother

• Bad Education

• Parallel Mothers

• Julieta

• I’m So Excited!

• The Skin I Live In

• Pain and Glory

6. Jamie Babbit

Directed by Jamie Babbit Produced by Leanna Creel Andrea Sperling Screenplay by Brian Wayne Peterson Story by Jamie ...

But I'm a Cheerleader (2000) Official Trailer

Babbit’s most famous film is But I’m a Cheerleader, a seminal lesbian romantic comedy, but she also directed other queer films!

• But I’m a Cheerleader

• Itty Bitty Titty Committee

• Breaking the Girls

• Addicted to Fresno

7. Dee Rees

A rousing success at its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, this deeply felt human drama is the feature debut of ...

Pariah (2011) Official HD Movie Trailer

Rees’ coming-of-age drama Pariah is considered one of the best lesbian movies of all time. Her biopic Bessie, about singer Bessie Smith, won four Emmys.

• Pariah

• Bessie

8. John Waters

Babs Johnson (Divine), una guarra que vive con su gorda madre y su hijo en una caravana, acaba de ser nombrada la persona ...

Pink Flamingos (1972) Trailer

Waters is one of the kings of camp and trash cinema. HII films, often starring the drag queen Divine, set the tone for weird queer cinema for years.

• Mondo Trasho

• Multiple Maniacs

• Pink Flamingos

• Female Trouble

• Hairspray

• Pecker

• Desperate Living

• Polyester

9. Gus Van Sant

Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6h Subscribe to COMING SOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUn Subscribe to CLASSIC TRAILERS: ...

Milk Official Trailer #1 - Sean Penn Movie (2008) HD

Van Sant is considered one of the main directors of the New Queer Cinema movement, and has been nominated for two Oscars. The first came from directing Good Will Hunting, the second for directing Milk, about assassinated gay politician Harvey Milk.

• Mala Noche

• My Own Private Idaho

• Last Days

• Elephant

• Milk

10. Angela Robinson

Professor Marston & the Wonder Women Trailer #1 (2017): Check out the new trailer starring Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, and ...

Professor Marston & the Wonder Women Trailer #1 (2017) | Movieclips Trailer

Robinson’s debut feature length film D.E.B.S. follows a group of teen girls who work as spies when one of them falls in love with the female thief they’re trying to catch. Later she directed Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a biopic of Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston and his two polyamorous partners.

• D.E.B.S.

• Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

11. Alice Wu

Shy, straight-A student Ellie is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul, who needs help winning over a popular girl. But their new ...

The Half of It | Official Trailer | Netflix

Wu has directed two terrific queer films about Asian American women, Saving Face and The Half of It.

• Saving Face

• The Half of It

12. Andrew Haigh

In Theaters December 22nd From director Andrew Haigh. One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam ...

All of Us Strangers | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures

Haigh had big success in 2023 with his gay film All of Us Strangers, but had two previous gay films before that, including the movie sequel to Looking, the show he executive produced for HBO.

• Weekend

• Looking: The Movie

• All of Us Strangers

13. Todd Haynes

Starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara & set against the glamourous backdrop of 1950s New York, Carol is an achingly ...

CAROL - Official Trailer - Starring Cate Blanchett And Rooney Mara

Haynes is a great director who has been nominated for two Golden Globes, an Oscar, and ten Independent Spirit Awards, winning two of those. He’s directed queer classics like Velvet Goldmine and Carol.

• Poison

• Velvet Goldmine

• Far From Heaven

• Carol

14. Francois Ozon

Based on the classic Rainer Werner Fassbinder classic, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, François Ozon's unique ...

Peter Von Kant - Official US Trailer

Ozon is a French director whose films often deal with themes of sexual identity. He’s considered one of the heads of the New Wave in French cinema.

• Sitcom

• Water Drops on Burning Rocks

• 8 Women

• Time to Leave

• The New Girlfriend

• Summer of 85

• Peter von Kant

15. R.W. Fassbinder

KINO 2018@Macau Cinematheque・ Passion 20/10-4/11/2018.

Fassbinder - Querelle - trailer

Fassbinder was a German filmmaker and one of the major figures of the New German Cinema movement in the '60s and '70s. Fassbinder died at the young age of 37, but made over 40 films in his career.

• The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

• Fox and His Friends

• In a Year of 13 Moons

• Querelle

16. Gregg Araki

Genre: Sci-Fi / Comedy Regie / directed by: Gregg Araki Darsteller / cast: Haley Bennett , Thomas Dekker , James Duval , Andy ...

Kaboom | trailer US (2011) Sundance Selects

Like Gus Van Sant, Araki is considered one of the leaders of the New Queer Cinema movement, and his film Kaboom was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Queer Palm award.

• Three Bewildered People in the Night

• The Long Weekend (O’ Despair)

• The Living End

• Totally Fucked Up

• The Doom Generation

• Splendor

• Mysterious Skin

• Kaboom

17. Derek Jarman

Jubilee (1978), Derek Jarman - Original Trailer by Film&Clips "Jubilee", by Derek Jarman, with Jenny Runacre, Nell Campbell, ...

Jubilee (1978), Derek Jarman - Original Trailer by Film&Clips

Jarman was an English artist, filmmaker, writer, poet, and activist who died of an AIDS-related illness at age 52 in 1994. Many of his films were experimental.

• Sebastiane

• Jubilee

• The Angelic Conversation

• Caravaggio

• The Garden

• Edward II

• Wittgenstein

18. Rose Glass

SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/A24subscribe From writer/director Rose Glass and starring Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian, Jena Malone, ...

Love Lies Bleeding | Official Trailer 2 HD | A24

Glass is a young British filmmaker who has only made two movies, both of which are queer. Her first film Saint Maud was released in 2019, and her second, Love Lies Bleeding, comes out this year.

• Saint Maud

• Love Lies Bleeding

19. Desiree Akhavan

Check out the new trailer for The Miseducation of Cameron Post starring Chloë Grace Moretz! Let us know what you think in the ...

The Miseducation of Cameron Post Trailer #1 (2018) | Movieclips Indie

Akhavan is a bisexual Iranian American filmmaker who has directed two films about queer women.

• Appropriate Behavior

• The Miseducation of Cameron Post

20. Ira Sachs

PASSAGES, Ira Sachs' blazingly modern and unashamedly sexy portrait of romantic chaos. Starring Franz Rogowski, Ben ...

PASSAGES | Official Trailer | Now Streaming

American filmmaker Ira Sachs released Passages last year to much acclaim. He had previously directed several other queer movies.

• The Delta

• Keep the Lights On

• Love Is Strange

• Passages

21. Emma Seligman

want to get punched in the face by hot girls? WELL GET IN LINE. directed by Emma Seligman, starring Rachel Sennott and Ayo ...

BOTTOMS | Official Red Band Trailer

One of the youngest filmmakers on this list, Seligman already has two fantastic comedies under her belt in her writing/directing career so far — Shiva Baby and Bottoms — both of which center on the misadventures of young queer women.

• Shiva Baby

• Bottoms