The Best LGBTQ TV Shows and Movies of 2023

From the heavenly heights of Bowen Yang as God in “Dicks: The Musical” to Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri beating the hell out of each other for “Bottoms,” 2023 was a near-biblical year for queer entertainment. Sure, LGBTQ film and TV had its fair share of sins — what with the “Red, White, and Royal Blue” butt prep scene and “Saltburn” bathtub of it all. Not to mention, we lost a handful of beloved TV series with the cancelations of “A League of Their Own” and the full-blown streaming removal of “The L Word: Generation Q” (among others). But all things created equal, it was a pretty fantastic year to be queer in Hollywood, with a slew of great new titles arriving in theaters and across platforms as diverse voices continued to break through to LGBTQ audiences.

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The aforementioned song-and-dance/raunchy sex comedies were just the tip of the iceberg on a year filled with feature-length stories about homosexual and trans characters. Ira Sachs’ intoxicating “Passages” dazzled out of Sundance in January, as did Andrea Pallaoro’s artful “Monica” starring Trace Lysette out of Venice in February. That was before Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s more mainstream comedy “Theater Camp” had queer kids and their parents rolling in the aisles over the summer. And though it’s not yet been named a Best Picture frontrunner by IndieWire (it’s only a contender for now!), “All of Us Strangers” took the festival circuit by storm and is expected to do well when it arrives to the public over the holidays. Writer/director Andrew Haigh’s tragic fantasy films stars Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal as lovers in a pair of award-worthy performances, also in contention for Oscars.

On the small screen, LGBTQ stories continued to grow in diversity with Max delivering more gay pirates in “Our Flag Means Death” Season 2; Netflix further blending queerness, anime, and sick beats in “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off”; and Amazon Prime Video casting Rachel Weisz as not one, but two lesbian gynecologists for the serialized “Dead Ringers.” Of course, the definitive gay TV story of the year came via HBO’s “The Last of Us”: a runaway horror success and sleeper cell for queer stories that’s currently competing for five Emmys. (Speaking of TV’s biggest night, shout out to NoHo Hank and Cristobal: “Barry” Season 4 didn’t make our list, but those queer TV icons will never be forgotten.)

Looking back on 2023, IndieWire has compiled a list of the 25 best LGBTQ movies and new seasons of queer TV shows, all in one place. Entries are unranked and listed in chronological order of release, each with an explanation of how each title fits the queer bill and a sales pitch on what makes the project worth checking out. (Documentaries have been excluded, but special praise to D. Smith’s “Kokomo City” and Anthony Caronna’s “Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York.”)

With editorial contributions by Ryan Lattanzio.

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