GLOBAL QUEER CINEMA GEMS WE LOVED IN 2025

10 GLOBAL QUEER CINEMA GEMS WE LOVED IN  2025

Each year we are excited to share a genre- and geography-diverse selection of 10 queer feature films, shorts, documentaries, and animated queer stories we absolutely loved from around the world. All films are 2025 international  theatrical & festival releases. Watch, share, add your favorites!

Check out the global queer cinema gems we loved in 2024 HERE

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BOUCHRA (2025) 

dir. Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani 

Italy, Morocco, USA 

A queer Moroccan coyote navigating the immigrant experience (and her complicated relationship with her mother) between New York City and Casablanca. This visually singular CG feature set in a world of anthropomorphic animals blends the queer immigrant narrative with inventive CG animation bridging animation and live action. A deeply personal film, Bouchra explores the queer immigrant experience with unique character and world building. It’s like nothing you’ve seen before. An absolute must see. 

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TWO BLACK BOYS IN PARADISE (2025) dir. Baz Sells | UK

"These two Black boys are free. These two Black boys are happy." A heartfelt stop-motion animation based on Dean Atta’s eponymous poem, it follows the blossoming relationship of two unapologetic Black queer teens. A loving yet challenging journey of self-acceptance, this inspiring short is a celebration of queer love, vulnerability, belonging, and the power of embracing YOU. 

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1 GIRL INFINITE (2024) 

USA｜dir. Lilly Hu

A color-drenched portrait of friendship and queer desire as a codependent relationship is transformed by opportunity, jealousy, and the ever-consuming obsession to hold on to the illusion of someone. A poignant and raw coming-of-age story inspired by the filmmaker’s own experiences, this impressive debut feature is a candid exploration of friendship, loneliness, love, rebellion and alienation of Chinese youth.

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FLOWER GIRL (2025) 

The Philippines｜dir. Fatrick Tabada

This candy-colored queer extravaganza from the Philippines is one woman's hilarious journey to learning how to be whole without her, well, hole or "poochy" as she calls it, magicked away by a trans fairy for telling her to use the men's room at a gas station. With poochy gone, a wilting flower is her countdown (and her last shred of hope) to find true love without her “essentials” and experience new perspectives on womanhood and humanity - her own and that of others.

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WE WILL BE WHO WE ARE (2025) 

Sierra Leone | dir. Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda

A poetic, visually captivating experimental short about two friends who decide to marry each other in an attempt to escape society's pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. "This film explores love; what happens when we give up on who we are,  and why we should continuously become who we should always have been." (source)

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QUEERPANORAMA (2025) 

USA, Hong Kong dir. Jun Li

A candid and provocative exploration of intimacy and connection, this erotic Hong Kong “urbanscapade” follows a gay man who impersonates men he has had sex with. By assuming the persona of his latest hookup, he poses as a scientist, a teacher, an actor - a fleeting moment of otherness while sharing sensual, sometimes violent intimacies with strangers. Jayden Cheung stuns with a remarkable debut performance as the anonymous young man navigating urban connect, alienation, and hookup culture in stark, poetic black and white (and all the greys in-between). 

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I ONLY REST IN THE STORM (2025) 

Portugal, France, Brazil, Romania 

dir. Pedro Pinho

Expat life and neo-colonial dynamics at play as a Portuguese environmental engineer travels from Lisbon to Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to scout for his company's road construction plans and gets tangled up in a complicated relationship with two locals. A patient (it runs 211 minutes) and complex exploration of postcolonial power dynamics wrapped in a culturally and sexually fluid narrative. 

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INKWO FOR WHEN THE STARVING RETURN (2024) 

Canada｜dir. Amanda Strong

"Are you a girl? Are you a boy?" the toad asks Dove. "I'm not attached to either of those", says Dove. "I'm both." 

They are both walrus - protector of water and caribou - protector of the land.  This visually singular stop-motion animation is based on the short story Wheetago War by Richard Van Camp. It follows Dove, a gender-shifting warrior who uses Indigenous medicine (Inkwo) to protect their community from terrifying, possessed creatures that crave human flesh. 

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