The 25 best LGBTQ+ thrillers

Victim is a remarkable film for a whole host of reasons. Unlike many other British (or, for that matter, American) films made before the 1960s, it treats homosexuality in a way that verges on sympathy. It focuses on Dirk Bogarde, a successful barrister ensnared by blackmailers who threaten to reveal his homosexuality and ruin his career. It’s an expertly suspenseful film, and it uses the conventions of the noir thriller to explore the social problem of homosexuality, condemning those who would use its associated stigma as a weapon. It also features one of the best performances Dirk Bogarde ever gave.

If there’s one director whose name is synonymous with the thriller genre, it would be Alfred Hitchcock, and Rebecca remains one of its finest masterpieces. Though its story focuses on the nameless narrator (played by Joan Fontaine) as she navigates her new marriage to the enigmatic Maxim de Winter (played by Laurence Olivier), Judith Anderson’s Mrs. Danvers is the queer appeal of the film. Her obvious desire for the late Rebecca is palpable in her every scene, even if it ultimately drives her to madness. With its gothic trappings and brooding atmosphere, Rebecca retains its ability to entertain and disturb.

Al Pacino delivers a powerful and electric performance in Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, in which he plays John Wojtowicz, a young man who takes a bank hostage to get money for his partner’s gender reassignment surgery. The film ably combines both ridiculous humor and wrenching pathos, and it remains one of Pacino’s most inspired performances, so wholly does he seem to lose himself in the role of Wojtowicz. It is also an inspired piece of directing by Lumet, who mines the tragic true story and uses it to explore the complex psychology of its central character.

The Hunger is equal parts horror and thriller, focusing on a sinister and chillingly beautiful vampire, Miriam Blaylock, the vampire consort John, and Sarah Roberts, the human with whom they begin an affair. This film has an icy precision, which helps elevate it above the schlocky horror film it might have otherwise been.  Catherine Deneuve imbues Miriam with a cool and compelling glamor. While there are a few missteps in terms of story — with an ending that aims for evocative but ends up confusing — the crackling chemistry between Sarandon and Deneuve, as well as a chilling performance from the late David Bowie, make this a vampire film to savor. 

Charlize Theron is undeniably one of the most talented actresses of her generation, and she excels at physical transformation. In the wrenching, sad, and brutal Monster, she plays renowned serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who murdered seven men. Despite the title, the film aspires to look beyond the surface of Wuornos and, in so doing, forces the viewer to look into this woman’s profoundly troubled psychology and her fractured soul. The film never goes so far as to excuse Wuornos’ murder, but it does at least allow for an understanding of what drove her to such excesses of violence, and it is this, more than anything else, that gives the film its tragic charge.

In addition to being a skilled director and a master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock was also fascinated by human desire and how broken human psyches could lead people to do horrible things. One need look no further than Bruno Anthony in Strangers on a Train to see how this can manifest, as his desire for Farley Granger’s Guy Haines is at least part of his motivation for ensnaring him in a murder plot. Unsurprisingly, Strangers on a Train shows all of the signs of being a Hitchcock film, and it manages to be both narratively suspenseful and visually striking.

Lizzie Borden is one of the most famous murderers in history, and in the 2018 film Lizzie, she gets the biopic treatment. Chloë Sevigny gives one of her usual strong performances in the title role, though she is joined by the equally talented Kristen Stewart as Maggie Sullivan, a maid who is also Lizzie’s lover. As so often in the thriller genre, desire and death are bound up in an intimate dance, and the film’s cinematography, which so often makes it seem as if the characters are prisoners in the house — engenders a feeling of claustrophobia, even as the chemistry between Sevigny and Stewart makes the viewer cheer for their romance.

Similar to William Friedkin’s Cruising, the Polish film Operation Hyacinth focuses on a policeman, Robert, whose investigation into a serial killer targeting gay men soon becomes complicated by his emerging desires for a man, Arek. The film’s noir aesthetic and narrative keep the viewers on their toes as they, along with Robert, wonder who they can trust and how many secrets are waiting to be discovered. The film’s nihilist sensibility can make for despairing watching. Still, its blunt aesthetic and the undeniably compelling performances from Tomasz Ziętek make this a neo-noir perfect for the 21st-century cynic. 

Hidden secrets are the driving narrative energy in What Keeps You Alive, a Canadian film from 2018 (the 2010s was a particularly good decade for Canadian thrillers). When lesbian couple Jackie and Jules go to a remote cabin for a getaway, what starts as a romantic interlude becomes something far more sinister as perilous truths are brought to light. Hannah Emily Anderson and Brittany Allen give terrific performances, but Anderson is especially disturbing as the sociopath Jackie, who is utterly devoid of conscience or empathy. Though some of the film’s story beats are predictable, it knows to use them to maximum effect.

Darren Aronofsky is one of those directors with a keen sense of style; sometimes, his visual aesthetic threatens to overwhelm his story. In Black Swan,  however, he managed to attain the perfect balance of form and content, as the film’s main character, Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers, finds herself drawn into a perilous romance with Mila Kunis’ Lily. Dark and gleaming, the film is a fascinatingly melodramatic look at the nature of artistic brilliance and how far some will go in pursuing their art. As if this weren't enough, the chemistry between Kunis and Portman is as toxic as it is electrifying. 

The seemingly perpetual conflict between Israel and Palestine is the backdrop to Out in the Dark, a tense and broodingly romantic drama from 2012. It follows Nimr Mashrawi, a Palestinian student who embarks on a deeply erotic but troubled romance with Israeli lawyer Roy Scheffer. All too soon, the lovers find that their romance can’t help but be tainted by the world of which they are a part, and it isn't long before they find themselves increasingly pulled apart. Their romance and its tensions are a timely reminder of how geopolitical conflicts can often impinge on even the deepest and most enduring relationships.   

Rosamund Pike is in fine form in I Care A Lot, in which she plays Marla Grayson, a steely con artist who, along with her girlfriend and several accomplices, scams the elderly out of their money. Things go awry, however, when she inadvertently tries her trick against the mother of a ruthless drug lord. Bitingly funny and tensely plotted, I Care A Lot is ample evidence that LGBTQ+ can often turn the queer villain trope on its head. Marla isn’t particularly likable or sympathetic, but Pike’s steely performance grants her a determination and a potent grit that is impossible not to admire. 

The tragic opera Madame Butterfly has been the basis for several movies, and one of the most remarkable is M. Butterfly. Based on the story by David Henry Hwang, it follows René Gallimard, a French diplomat who falls in love with (and ultimately marries) a Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. However, not only is Song Liling a man, but he is also a spy for the Chinese government. It’s a deliciously soapy film, and there’s no denying the on-screen presence of both Jeremy Irons (who plays Gallimard) and John Lone (who plays Song Liling), who also have great chemistry together. 

Tom at the Farm is a deeply unsettling queer thriller focusing on Tom, a gay man who goes to his deceased boyfriend’s home to attend his funeral and give a eulogy. While there, however, he soon falls afoul of Francis, his boyfriend’s brother. The film is undeniably beautiful, with its striking visuals and score underpinning and working with the tension at the heart of the story. One can’t help but be riveted by the toxic dynamic between Tom and Francis, and the film excels at being both a thriller and a deliciously tense and toxic family melodrama. 

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon play a pair of lovers who decide to steal money from the Mafia in Bound, the first film directed by the Wachowskis. It’s a remarkable film for many reasons, not the least of which is that it depicts a lesbian relationship in the context of a mainstream movie. Its numerous homages to the films noir of the 1940s — particularly those directed by Billy Wilder — make for compelling watching. Though its scenes of brutal violence might be off-putting to some, the undeniable style that the directors bring to the film makes it well worth viewing.

Pedro Almodóvar is most famous for his melodramas focusing on women and their experiences, but in Bad Education (original Spanish title: La mala educación), he turns his attention to the gay experience. It follows film director Enrique Goded, who unexpectedly reconnects with a young man who claims to be his old schoolmate, friend, and first love. However, not all is as it seems, and the film unspools a sordid and thrilling tale of sexuality, murder, and deceit. The film manages to be both deeply erotic and deeply tragic at the same time (and often in the same scene), and it cements Almodóvar’s reputation as one of the finest living directors. 

Notes on a Scandal  pairs two of today’s finest actresses — Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett — as a pair of teachers, one of whom begins tormenting the other after she discovers her having an affair with a student. There’s a blunt and almost brutal lack of sentimentality to the film’s screenplay and performances. Dench is in particularly fine form as the scheming, manipulative, and cruel Barbara Covett, who blackmails Blanchett’s Sheba Hart. The film is richly melodramatic, but its heightened emotions and narrative twists and turns make it such an evil treat, both at the time of its production and today. 

Brian De Palma has long been a maestro in the erotic thriller, and his talents are much in evidence in the 1980 film Dressed to Kill. Like Hitchcock’s Psycho,  it features a killer with a split personality, and it is as stylish and slick as it is deeply disturbing. The fact that the killer is a transgender person reads as more than a bit of retrograde from the standpoint of 2023. Nevertheless, the performance from Michael Caine, combined with De Palma’s stylistic flourishes, shows the extent to which being a murderous villain carries its own queerly subversive form of pleasure. 

The late William Friedkin directed one of the most compelling and disturbing films of his career with Cruising. Al Pacino delivers a truly electrifying performance. Pacino’s Steve Burns is a cop who goes undercover to find a serial killer targeting gay men in New York City. Though scathingly condemned by many gay critics at the time, it has subsequently come to be highly regarded for its rich and suspenseful narrative — particularly its terrifyingly ambiguous ending — and for the glimpse it provides of a sexually liberated gay culture before the AIDS crisis changed gay culture, and American culture at large, forever.

The Handmaiden, which takes place in Japan-occupied Korea in the 1930s, is a violent, beautiful, and profoundly erotic story about a pickpocket named Sooki who gets drawn into an attempt to defraud a wealthy heiress, only for the two to begin an erotic affair. Narrative twists and turns abound in this film (based on the 2002 novel Fingersmith), but the performances and the canny direction from Park Chan-wook elevate it into the realm of the sublime queer thriller. It’s the kind of film designed to get under the viewer’s skin and into the back of their mind, and therein lies its unsettling pleasure.

Murder, desire, and mystery pervade Stranger by the Lake, the French thriller directed by Alain Guiraudie. The film focuses on Franck, who finds himself drawn to the sinister Michel, who is more than capable of murder. Like the best erotic thrillers, the film excels at showing the extent to which death and desire are often part of the same insatiable human drive. Franck’s inescapable desire for Michel is inextricable from his knowledge of what the other man is capable of, and the film draws the viewer into this beautiful, sexy, and extremely dangerous milieu.  

Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game is a brilliant mix of political thriller, LGBTQ+ drama, and romance, focusing on IRA member Fergus, who becomes entangled with a young woman named Dil (who is revealed partway through the film to be transgender). Slowly but surely, Fergus finds his loyalty to the Irish nationalist cause tested by his love for Dil, and both Stephen Rea and Jaye Davidson give rich and evocative performances. What makes the film truly great, however, is how skillfully it intertwines the fraught political situation of Ireland/the United Kingdom with the sexual drama at its center.

In They/Them,  a group of young LGBTQ+ people are sent to a conversion camp run by the charming yet nefarious Owen Whistler (played by Kevin Bacon, with his usual charisma). Very soon, it becomes clear that someone is intent on murdering the various camp counselors. The film is a clever inversion of the typical slasher story, and, like the best that the genre has to offer, it uses horror to make a potent and scathing piece of social commentary. While the masked killer seems like the villain, the film asks the viewer to consider what makes a person a monster. 

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope is a tightly woven film focusing on two men, Brandon and Phillip, who murder their classmate in cold blood and hide his body in a chest during a subsequent dinner party. Though it’s never stated explicitly, it’s clear the two men are supposed to be a couple, and the play upon which the film is based was itself a retelling of the notorious case of Leopold and Loeb. John Dall and Farley Granger give memorable performances in their roles, and the film’s style, which conveys the sense it is taking place in real-time, grants it a tense verisimilitude that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat from the first frame to the last. 

Matt Damon gives one of his most memorable performances as Tom Ripley, the character created by Patricia Highsmith. Damon’s Ripley is a talented, brilliant, and beautiful young man, but he yearns for the lifestyle of the rich and wealthy, and as the film unfolds, he shows just how far he is willing to get it. Damon is beautiful and delightfully evil in the role, and his brilliance lies in his ability to endow Tom Ripley with enough charisma to make the viewer cheer for him, even as they can’t help but be aware of the amoral darkness in his soul.