Period films are the perfect fall watch, especially if you’re trying to get cozy. It’s hard not to love something like Pride & Prejudice, Marie Antoinette, or Brooklyn, especially when wrapped up in a blanket with a mug of cocoa.
Recently, lesbian period dramas have gotten a lot of attention with the releases of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Ammonite, and even 2015’s Carol. Queer period dramas have a history, though, and have showcased the experiences of queer people across centuries.
This list features six must-see queer period dramas for your LGBTQ library collection. It will give you a taste of queer relationships from the 1700s to the 1990s.
Another Country (1984), directed by Marek Kanievska
In many ways, Another Country seems to be the blueprint for the story of the gay kid and outsider as unlikely friends. This film follows teenager Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett) and Tommy Judd (Colin Firth) at their boarding school in 1930s England. The pair of boys have been marked as outcasts by their peers and the school staff because Bennett is gay and Judd is a Marxist.
Though it can be a bit melodramatic, this film looks at the queer experience through the eyes of a teenager. In many ways, the setting of the 1930s mirrors the rise of “family values” rhetoric used in political areas both in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Read our review of Another Country
Get your copy of the Another Country DVD by clicking here.
Maurice (1987), directed by James Ivory
Based on an E. M. Forster novel published after his death, Maurice follows the relationship of two men, beginning with their time at Oxford. Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) begin a passionate romance against the backdrop of Edwardian England.
When their acquaintance Viscount Risley (Mark Tandy) is exposed as gay and sentenced to hard labor, Clive fears what might happen to him if he’s outed.
While set in the early 1910s, Maurice feels thoroughly modern, especially for queer people who face condemnation and alienation upon coming out or being outed.
Read our review of Maurice
Get your copy of the Maurice Blu-ray DVD by clicking here.
Aimée & Jaguar (1999), directed by Max Färberböck
Taking on the horrors present in Nazi Germany while also following the relationship of two queer women is a tall order, but Aimee & Jaguar does so effortlessly.
Felice (Maria Schrader), aka Jaguar, is a Jewish woman who has taken on a false last name in order to hide her identity. Lilly (Juliane Köhler), aka Aimée, is a German woman whose Nazi husband has frequent affairs. The stakes are high for the two women, making the film all the more compelling—and heartbreaking.
This film is based on a book by Erica Fischer, which details the actual lives of the two women, bringing even more of a historical edge to this romantic drama.
Read our review of Aimée & Jaguar
Get your copy of the Aimée & Jaguar DVD by clicking here.
The Handmaiden (2016), directed by Park Chan-wook
It’s hard not to love The Handmaiden. This South Korean film takes place in Japanese-occupied Korea (between 1910 and 1945) and follows Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) and her maid, Nam Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri). In the film, pickpocket Sook-hee becomes Hideko’s maid after a con-man hires her to assist with deceiving Hideko in order to get her money.
Chan-wook expertly brings the two women together for a visually sumptuous film that’s hard to look away from.
The film is based on Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, though the novel is set in Victorian England. In moving the setting to Japanese-occupied Korea, writers Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong consider how historical setting influences how stories are told.
Read our review of The Handmaiden
Get your copy of The Handmaiden Blu-ray DVD by clicking here.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018), directed by Desiree Akhavan
Of all the films on this list, The Miseducation of Cameron Post takes place nearest today, exploring the life of Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz), a teenage girl in 1993 who is sent to a conversion therapy center.
At the center, she befriends Jane Fonda (Sasha Lane) and Adam Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck), who become her confidants throughout the trauma of conversion therapy.
Though conversion therapy may not be as popular now as it once was, it does still exist, often in religious contexts. Watching this film is an important reminder that the culture of the 1990s is not so foreign to our current time.
Read our review of The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Get your copy of The Miseducation of Cameron Post on Blu-ray by clicking here.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), directed by Céline Sciamma
Can a list of LGBTQ period dramas exist without mentioning Portrait of a Lady on Fire? It seems hard to remember a time before this lesbian romance about painter Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a high-born woman engaged to be married against her wishes.
Throughout cinematic history, lesbian relationships have often served the male gaze. However, Sciamma wields the female gaze to study what queer women notice in other queer women. Despite the late-1700s setting, this french film traces a thoroughly modern relationship between queer women—one that swells to intense love in a short time.
Read our review of Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Get your copy of the Portrait of a Lady on Fire Blu-ray DVD by clicking here.
Whether you marathon them or just watch one or two, these LGBTQ period dramas will be both an entertaining and eye-opening experience about queer lives then and now. Watching these films often inspires further digging into queer history and finding other films, TV series, and books, that showcase queer lives across time.