You can go into a movie expecting to have a good time and by the time you’re done, it feels like the worst experience ever.
Sometimes, you may rewatch something and realize that it was never good in the first place, and it turns out everyone thought so, too.
Queer men can often harshly criticize movies that purport to tell our stories. Some of that criticism can be valid, especially when many people share the same sentiments.
Below, we have compiled some abhorred movies that, if we had our way, we’d collectively erase them from existence.
This list reflects the feelings of our unlucky staff who had to watch them all, to audience and critic reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and casual Reddit threads.
These films represent the worst tropes in gay media, and while they’re not the only ones, they did them spectacularly.
7. Alex Strangelove (2018)
Films approach the experience of a queer person coming into their queerness in different ways.
For Alex Strangelove, it all involved the main character’s first sexual experience with his girlfriend. The film sets everything pertinent to Alex (Daniel Doheny) and his storyline, including his obsession with wildlife.
The problem is that it doesn’t know when to stop. Bits go on for far too long, and for the first twenty minutes, it is one gross animal sex reference after another.
It feels eerily influenced by Mean Girls. While using the animal kingdom to describe the social hierarchies of an American high school worked for Mean Girls, sex doesn’t quite work the same.
The film is steeped in too much character drama and can easily lose focus.
It pivots to focusing on Alex and his girlfriend’s relationship. It is easy to forget you’re actually supposed to be watching gay stuff.
When Elliot (Antonio Marziale) enters the picture, Alex Strangelove becomes more bearable, but that doesn’t last long because the movie ends.
6. Cruising (1980)
If finding gay movies is hard in the 2020s when there are at least two mainstream movies from streaming and theatre and several more from other countries, they were virtually nonexistent in the 1980s.
Imagine a big movie star like Mr Corleone himself, Al Pacino, playing a gay character. That was huge.
So was the disappointment when the movie came out, and instead of giving a voice to marginalized people, it exploited them.
The film focuses on some aspects of the community that would make conservatives throw tantrums now, and you can imagine the reaction in the 1980s.
Cruising pretends to care about queer men getting murdered by leaving the impression that it is all good because it is a queer-on-queer crime.
And the worst part is that it insinuates that queerness is like a common communicable disease that you catch when you hang around queers too much.
By the end, it leaves the viewers questioning if all representation is good and if that’s the kind of visibility one wants.
5. Dream Boy (2006)
Adapted from a book by Jim Grisely, Dream Boy is the kind of film that makes you understand what Bury Your Gays does to your psyche.
Everything about it is what one would expect to enjoy about a romance movie featuring two boys in the American South. Life is slow and calm with occasional turbulence, as showcased by the love story told.
The difference between the characters is one that fanfic writers lean into where the toned, rugged boy falls for and protects the skinny, soft boy.
Centering on the romance between Roy (Maxmiliian Roeg) and Nathan (Stephan Bender), the film subverts all expectations by developing a layered love story that touches on various topics without sacrificing the coming-of-age angle for queer teens.
It explores themes like bad family dynamics and religion through Nathan, while through Roy, it explores the opposite.
Nathan is comfortable with his sexuality, while Roy is coming to terms with it even if he doesn’t hate himself for it.
Roy saves Nathan from himself, his family, and Roy’s friends. They fall in love and lust and soon are inseparable.
Coming out over ten years after the book, many people read it and expected something to feel good.
The film, however, pivots from the book’s ending and kills Nathan in a gruesome manner.
The ending undoes all the good work it does in the beginning and ends on a depressing note.
It was rare to find gay movies of this nature, and finding one that absolutely wrecks you in a bad way felt like a knife through the heart.
Despite wishing you can forget it, it haunts you forever.
4. Love, Simon (2018)
Adapted from Becky Abertelli‘s Simon vs. the Homosapien Agenda, Love, Simon is one of those films studios spend a lot of money promoting, money that could have been better used to make a better (or different) film.
Contrary to Abertalli’s book, Love, Simon fails to capture the book’s essence, where it balances a coming-out story with the experience of falling in love for the first time.
The main character, Simon, felt like a secondary character in his own story, with the odd drama between him and his friends overshadowing the narrative.
His romance with Bram (Keiynan Lonsdale) does not feel like something worth caring about, and even when they kiss at the Ferris wheel, one is glad it is all over.
The film set itself up for disappointment by casting Nick Robinson, an objectively handsome actor who looked straight out of a fashion magazine.
It is hard for audiences to connect with a cisgay white male with a great support system who’s supposed to be struggling with his sexuality. His parents are accepting, and he even starts talking to a guy who likes him back! Most gay teens don’t luck out like that.
At least with the book, you could conjure up whichever Simon you wanted.
It doesn’t feel like what the book promised. TV shows did the coming-out storyline better, so Love, Simon felt like a copycat.
It is the epitome of gay media “made for straight people,” something Bros tries to subvert and ironically fails.
It wasn’t all bad because Love, Victor would arise from the Love, Simon universe and try to address many of the criticisms with considerable success.
3. Bros (2022)
Some of the common criticism about queer movies is that they try to be respectable and appealing to straight audiences and sacrifice queer authenticity in the process.
From sanitized storylines to casting straight actors who fit the masculine ideal, Bros aimed to subvert that.
Billy Eichner wrote and starred in the film alongside Luke MacFarlane. Queer actors played all the characters, something rare then.
The problem is that Bros has the com but none of the rom.
Sure, it is fun to hear Billy shout at strangers on Billy On the Street, but it is less fun to listen to the same voice in a romcom.
Eichner can deliver the laughs but not the romance. It feels like scenes from bad romcoms stitched together to make a worse romcom.
The film does not know whether it wants to tell a swoony love story or preach about queerness.
A good sermon on queer trauma, pain, and joy is necessary, but it is also not fun.
2. Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)
Adapted from Casey McQuiston‘s novel of the same name, it was one of the most anticipated films of 2023.
Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar Perez star as Prince Henry and Alex Claremont-Diaz. The characters are both political animals by fate and choice, respectively.
After a long rivalry, they develop a romantic relationship but must fight for their love.
Audiences received McQuiston’s book well, but the same cannot be said about the film.
Despite having a 76% from critics and 93% from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was particularly not received well by its intended audience: queer men.
It broke into the mainstream and garnered a large following of straight women who lapped up every scene.
However, it is clear that the film is cheap and can be described as “hallmarky.”
It lacks real stakes, and almost every scene feels predictable and acted. The pacing and perspective are off, offering a glimpse into one character’s life at the expense of another.
While viewers see much of what Alex is going through, Henry takes a back seat and is only brought in for emotional scenes.
The difference in energies between Alex and Henry affects the film. After riding Alex’s high, Henry hits the viewer with lows as he sulks in almost every scene.
Despite being less than two hours long, the film tries to be everything and ends up being nothing. It doesn’t establish itself as a rom-com, political drama, or a sermon in queerness.
Maybe the sequel will be better.
1. Stonewall (2015)
There are several landmark historical moments without question or doubt about how they happened because they’ve been recorded pretty well.
Despite being a community, the LGBT community exists across the intersection of identities. If your other identities carry more privilege in the heterosexual world, you also carry the same privileges.
Cishet white men are at the top of the privilege chain, but as you go down the chain, the privilege decreases, but it’s significantly present.
Cisgay white men have all the privileges of their gender and race, and as a result, they tend to dominate queer spaces.
Roland Emmerich (Those About to Die) directed Stonewall and told the story of the pivotal Stonewall Riots that accelerated the queer movement in the United States.
People debate the details of that eventful night, but it is commonly accepted that a brick was the catalyst for the riot, and a black trans woman threw it.
This film subverts everything about the queer rights movement by centering it on a fictional cisgay male, Danny (Jeremy Irvine), from middle America, who arrives in New York and usurps the whole thing.
The greatest corruption is when he takes the brick from whoever was supposed to have thrown it and throws it himself.
Among other criticisms, the film does not hold any significance to queer filmgoers as the primary cast was made up of white cishet actors.
When it was released, everyone shunned it and barely made $300000 at the box office.
Stonewall was widely panned and stands at a measly 9% on Rotten Tomatoes from 76 critic reviews.
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These movies will make you feel a certain way when you’re done.
How many have you watched? Do you think the criticism is valid?
Are there some you feel are wrongly criticized?