Perhaps like queerness itself, there’s no beginning or ending to queer cinema. But you have to start somewhere. Whether it’s through the inclusion of explicitly LGBTQIA+ characters, like in early Weimar era example Different from the Others (1919), through the reading queerness into subjects on camera, finding queerness in gender transgression, and even through cinematic form itself, the breadth of queerness and difference runs deep through film’s history, despite its regular marginalization and sidelining in canon making lists and other kinds of institutionalizing.

In The Queer Film Guide: 100 Great Films That Tell LGBTQIA+ Stories, critic and author Kyle Turner has collected over 100 films that examine and engage with queerness and identity through a broad survey that spans across countries, genres, styles, and even ways of interpreting what queerness is. From classics like The Boys in the Band and Paris is Burning, to unusual gems like Glen or Glenda? and My Hustler, and modern mavericks like Tangerine, Moonlight, and By Hook or by Crook, The Queer Film Guide is a useful and fun resource for anything interested and curious about queer cinema and its endless possibilities.

Of course, 100 is hardly enough room to encompass all that queer film has to offer. For Letterboxd, please enjoy a director’s cut of all the films included in the book, in addition to some movies that didn’t make the final print. Think of it as The Queer Film Guide: The Director’s Cut.