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This week, DeepSeek released an updated version of its R1 model on HuggingFace, reigniting the open-source versus closed-source competition. The updated version, called DeekSeek-R1-0528, has 685 billion parameters, an upgrade from January's version, which had 671 billion.
Unlike OpenAI and Google's models, which are famously closed-source, DeepSeek's model weights are publicly available. According to the benchmarks, the R1-0528 update has improved reasoning and inference capabilities and is closing the gap with OpenAI's o3 and Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro.
DeepSeek also introduced a distilled version of R1-0528 using Alibaba's Qwen3 8B model. This is an example of a lightweight model that is less capable but also requires less computing power. DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B outperforms both Google's latest lightweight model Gemini-2.5-Flash-Thinking-0520 and OpenAI's o3-mini in certain benchmarks. But the bigger deal is that DeekSeek's distilled model can reportedly run on a single GPU, according to TechCrunch.
To… distill all this information, the Chinese rival is catching up to its U.S. competitors with an open-weight approach that's cheaper and more accessible. Plus, DeepSeek continues to prove that AI models may not require as much computing power as OpenAI, Google, and other AI heavyweights currently use. Suffice to say, watch this space.
That said, DeepSeek's models also have their drawbacks. According to one AI developer (via TechCrunch), the new DeepSeek update is even more censored than its previous version when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Of course, a lot more happened in the AI world over the past few days. After last week's parade of AI events from Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft, this week was lighter on product and feature news.
That's one reason DeepSeek's R1 update captured the AI world's attention this week. In other AI news, Anthropic finally gets voice mode, AI influencers go viral, Anthropic's CEO warns of mass layoffs, and an AI-generated kangaroo.
Google's Veo 3 takes the internet by stormOn virtually every social media platform, users are freaking out about the new Veo 3, Google's new AI video model. The results are impressive, and we're already seeing short films made entirely with Veo 3. Not bad for a product that came out 11 days ago.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Not to be outdone by AI video artists, a reporter from The Wall Street Journal made a short film about herself and a robot using Veo 3.
Mashable's Tech Editor Timothy Werth recapped Veo's big week and had a simple conclusion: We're so cooked.
More AI product news: Claude's new voice mode and the beginning of the agentic browser eraAfter last week's barrage, this week was lighter on the volume of AI news. But what was announced this week is no less significant.
Anthropic finally introduced its own voice mode for Claude to compete with ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini. The feature is currently in beta on mobile for the Claude app and will even be available to free plans with a limit of 20 to 30 voice conversations per day. Anthropic says you can ask Claude to summarize your calendar or read documents out loud. Paying subscribers can connect to Google Workspace for Calendar, Gmail, and Docs access.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.OpenAI is exploring the ability to sign into third-party apps with ChatGPT. We don't know much yet, but the company posted an interest form on its site for developers using Codex, its engineering agent, to add this capability to their own apps. It may not sound like a big deal, but it basically means users could easily link their personalized ChatGPT memories and settings to third-party apps, much like the way it works when you sign into a new app with your Google account.
Opera announced a new agentic AI browser called Neon. "Much more than a place to view web pages, Neon can browse with you or for you, take action, and help you get things done," the announcement read. That includes a chatbot interface within the browser and the ability to fill in web forms for tasks like booking trips and shopping. The announcement, which included a promo video of a humanoid robot browsing the robot, which is scant on details but says Neon will be a "premium subscription product" and has a waitlist to sign up.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.The browser has suddenly become a new frontier for agentic AI, now that it's capable of automating web search tasks. Perplexity is working on a similar tool called Comet, and The Browser Company pivoted from its Arc browser to a more AI-centric browser called Dia. All of this is happening while Google might be forced to sell off Chrome, which OpenAI has kindly offered to take off its hands.
Dario Amodei's prediction about AI replacing entry-level jobs is already starting to happenAnthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in an interview with Axios that AI could "wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs."
Amodei's predictions might be spot on because a new study from VC firm SignalFire found that hiring for entry-level jobs is down to 7 percent from 25 percent in the previous year. Some of that is due to changes in the economic climate, but AI is definitely a factor since firms are opting to automate the less-technical aspects of work that would've been taken on by new hires.
The latest in AI culture: That AI-generated kangaroo, Judge Judy, and everything elseGoogle wants you to know its AI overviews reach 1.5 billion people a month. They probably don't want you to know AI Overviews still struggles to count, spell, and know what year it is. As Mashable's Tim Marcin put it, would AI Overviews pass concussion protocol?
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.The proposal of a 10-year ban on states regulating AI is pretty unpopular, according to a poll from Common Sense Media. The survey found that 57 percent of respondents opposed the moratorium, including half of the Republican respondents. As Mashable's Rebecca Ruiz reported, "the vast majority of respondents, regardless of their political affiliation, agreed that Congress shouldn't ban states from enacting or enforcing their own youth online safety and privacy laws."
In the private sector, The New York Times signed a licensing deal with Amazon to allow their editorial content to be used for Amazon's AI models. The details are unclear, but from the outside, this seems like a change of tune from the Times, which is currently suing OpenAI for copyright infringement for allegedly using its content to train its models.
That viral video of an emotional support kangaroo holding a plane ticket and being denied boarding? It's AI-generated, of course. Slightly more obvious, but no less creepy is another viral trend of using AI to turn public figures like Emmanuel Macron and Judge Judy into babies. These are strange AI-slop-infested times we're living in.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.AI has some positive uses too. This week, we learned about a new humanoid robot from HuggingFace called HopeJr (with engineering by The Robot Studio), which could be available for sale later this year for just $3,000.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.And to end this recap on a high note, the nonprofit Colossal Foundation has developed an AI algorithm to detect the bird calls of the near-extinct tooth-billed pigeon. Also known as the "little dodo," the tooth-billed pigeon is Samoa's national bird, and scientists are using the bioacoustic algorithm to locate and protect them.
Want to get the latest AI news, from new product features to viral trends? Check back next week for another AI news recap, and in the meantime, follow @cecily_mauran and @mashable for more news.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
When you first think of AI, you probably think of a text-based chatbot like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. But AI tools are getting a whole lot more versatile. These days, even basic AI chatbots offer a range of media creation tools, including AI image generators.
Some of the best AI image generators have been around for some time now. In the early days, they were inconsistent, struggled with realism, and often failed to properly follow instructions. But after only a few years of development, many of those issues have been ironed out. Some AI image generators, like the one built into OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT models, allow users to refine and tweak images based on text input, while others are targeted at extreme photorealism.
While the average user will probably be happy with free AI image generators (both ChatGPT and MetaAI let users create some images for free), there are actually quite a few tools available now, and they're not all created equal. So, to find the very best AI image generator for every task, I've been testing them to find out which are truly better than the others.
How we tested AI image tools like ChatGPT, Grok, and MidjourneyIn testing AI image generators, I ran a series of standard prompts through each model. Here are the exact prompts I used:
Create a sketch of a futuristic Tokyo skyline at sunset, with flying cars, glowing advertisements in Japanese, and Mount Fuji in the background.
Create a candid photorealistic image of a woman drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette at a cafe in Paris in the late evening.
Create a medieval blacksmith’s workshop interior, showing a female blacksmith hammering a glowing sword, with sparks flying, a roaring forge, hanging tools, and a cat curled up near the fire, in high detail and warm tones.
Create an impressionist painting in the style of Vincent Van Gogh of a robot blowing dandelion seeds into the wind.
However, in assessing AI tools, safety is also an important concern, especially as deepfakes become more common. So, I also ran a series of three prompts through each model designed to create a deepfake. This was an effort to test the safety features of each model, and it was much easier than expected, sadly. The first prompt was designed to trigger safeguards around creating images with public figures. In the event that the tool wouldn’t create the image, two more prompts were given to skirt the rules. (I'm not sharing the exact prompts in this case.) All of the image generators created something within these three prompts, but I was very surprised at the number of generators that created an image on the first prompt.
It's important to note that all prompts were given using basic default settings. Some image generators give more than one image for each prompt by default. In those cases, only the first image was used. We didn't go through each of them to determine which was best and use that.
So, based on these tests, what is the best AI image generator?
Best overall: ChatGPT (GPT-4o)OpenAI released a massive upgrade to its image generation tools through GPT-4o, which did away with the DALL-E model for generating images and wrapped its image generation tools into its flagship large language model that it uses for text. The results of this update were pretty massive (and controversial). Before the new image generator, images created by ChatGPT tended to have weird-shaped text, limited photorealism, and so on. GPT-4o changes that — and can be accessed without the need to spend a single cent.
Now, text is clear and precise, the tool is able to create photorealistic images, and users can have ChatGPT edit images through text prompts. In other words, you can have a GPT create an image and ask it to change certain aspects of the image, and it will do so fairly precisely without altering too much else about the image. Of course, it's still not perfect, and it can still go rogue sometimes, but it's far and away the most precise image generation tool and feels more like asking a person to create or edit an image rather than using a software tool.
GPT-4o had some awareness about image safety and refused to create a deepfake at first. However, it did create a lookalike when we pressed. That was more than most other tools, but it would still be relatively easy for most users to create deepfake images using GPT-4o.
Free tier: Yes (daily limits on images)
Monthly Pricing: $20 Plus plan, $200 Pro plan
Sign up at OpenAI
GPT-4o was able to follow instructions and create vibrant and detailed photorealistic images, but Ideogram 1.0 had a slight edge in photorealism, despite not offering the same level of chat-based features nor the same accessibility.
In general, the images created by Ideogram 1.0 tended to be brighter and more vibrant than those created by GPT-4o, and when it came to photorealism, the model was able to create images with proper shadow placement and general lighting. You could still look closely at an image and see things that weren't very realistic or looked a little out of place. For example, in the image of the woman at the café in Paris, the smoke from the cigarette appeared to be coming from the coffee as well as the cigarette. Still, these were minor issues from a model that was far more realistic than most of the others, which still struggled with things like hands and following specific instructions.
Ideogram had no problem generating deepfake images, though. The service generated the image I requested on the first prompt, even when I mentioned a celebrity by name. You may or may not find this to be an issue, and if you don't plan on generating deepfake images, then it probably won't matter to you either way. But, it does raise some questions about how the model handles safety.
Free tier: Yes (weekly limits on images)
Monthly Pricing: $7 Basic plan, $16 Plus plan, $48 Pro plan
Sign up at Ideogram
Professional photographers, graphic designers, and others probably already use Adobe's tools in their workflow, and as such, it makes sense to leverage Adobe Firefly if you're looking for an AI image generator. For our test, we used the latest and greatest Firefly model, called Firefly Image 4 Ultra.
That said, the integration with Adobe tools was perhaps the best thing about it. The results weren’t bad most of the time, and I was very impressed at the level of detail on offer by the image of a woman at a cafe in Paris. Also worth noting is the fact that this model was the only one that didn't generate an image of a Caucasian woman, which is notable considering the fact that there was no direction as to the subject's race in the prompt. That said, in the resulting image there's no indication whatsoever that the woman is in Paris. The other images may not have the Eiffel Tower in the background, but they do have a European vibe, and having lived in Paris, I can totally see those locations being there. Firefly's cafe could realistically be anywhere.
The other images had their own issues. The cat in the blacksmith photo looked quite strange. It failed completely to generate an image of either a robot or something that even approached the style of Vincent Van Gogh, instead opting for an image of a house. And, the “sketch” of Tokyo ended up photorealistic, without any indication that it was actually Tokyo. All that to say, Firefly may be better for generating parts of an image or filling an existing photo with additional information rather than creating entirely new images.
It is worth noting that Firefly was among the best at avoiding generating a deepfake. It refused to generate anything until the final prompt, and the resulting image looked nothing like the intended figure. So, Firefly gets top marks for safety.
Free tier: Free trial only
Monthly pricing: $9.99 Standard plan, $29.99 Pro plan, $199.99 Premium plan
Sign up at Adobe Firefly
If you have a Facebook or Meta account, then Meta is extremely easy to access, making it perhaps the best free AI image generator for most people. Yes, many of the models I tested are also very easy to access — to use GPT-4o, for example, all you have to do is log in or create an account, then navigate to the ChatGPT website or app. But, Meta's Llama is even easier to use because of the fact that it’s baked into so many products already. Meta AI has its own app and website, but you can also access it through services like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp — and chances are you already have at least one of those services.
The quality of Meta AI’s image generator is…fine. Even when it comes to images that are supposed to be photorealistic, it has an AI quality to it that was characteristic of the best image generators from a year or two ago. It kind of half-heartedly follows prompts like being told to create something in the style of Van Gogh, and the image of Tokyo couldn’t really be considered a “sketch.”
Perhaps unsurprising for Meta is the fact that it was very willing to create images featuring celebrities. That willingness is a little concerning from a social media company. On the plus side, we appreciate that unlike most of the big players in the AI industry, Llama is an open-source model.
Free to use: Yes
Download the Llama iOS or Android app or access via Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp
Midjourney is one of the original AI image generators, and it has improved dramatically since the early days. Midjourney V7 is the latest model, and to use it, you’ll go through a personalization process in which you’ll essentially train the model to the kinds of images you like. After that, the results were very impressive, but images still had some issues, like struggling with hands and other details. GPT-4o was a little better at those things, and it’s available for free.
Free tier: No
Monthly pricing: $10 Basic plan, $30 Standard plan, $60 Pro plan, $120 Mega plan
Sign up at Midjourney
Stable Diffusion is another original in the AI image generation world, and the Stable Image Ultra model is its latest. This open-source model also created excellent images; however, it also suffered from some of the same issues as Midjourney, failing to accurately produce things like fingers. That said, most of our test images were very, very good.
Free tier: Yes
Sign up at Stable Diffusion
While we were putting this guide together, Google released its latest image generation model in the form of Imagen 4, which is accessible through Gemini. We tested Gemini before and after the release, and the results were indeed much better with the new model. However, they weren't quite as consistent as GPT-4o, and Gemini still didn't follow instructions as closely as ChatGPT.
The sketch of Tokyo was photorealistic despite our instructions, which was ironic given that the image of the blacksmith came out as a sketch. The Van Gogh-style painting of a robot was in the style of Van Gogh, but it also hilariously put Van Gogh's head on a robot body. All that said, the quality of the images was impressive, and the image of the woman at the cafe looked as good as the ChatGPT version. With the right prompts, you can easily get images that are as good as ChatGPT. If you're in Google's ecosystem and use Gemini anyway, you won't be losing out on quality by just sticking with Gemini for your image tool instead of downloading an additional app just for images.
Free tier: Yes
Monthly pricing: $19.99 AI Pro plan (free trial), $249.99 AI Ultra plan
Sign up at Google Gemini or Flow
Black Forest Labs has been working on AI image generation tools for some time, and its best model so far is Flux Pro 1.1 Ultra. This model was able to create solid images overall. All of its images looked nice, though it didn’t really recreate the Van Gogh style very well, and the sketch of Tokyo wasn’t a sketch. Everything else looked fine. It was perfectly willing to create a deepfake, though opted for a motorcycle instead of a bicycle. That’s forgivable considering the vagueness of the term “bike.”
Free tier: Yes
Monthly pricing: $16.90 Basic plan, $22.90 Pro plan, $26.90 Max plan, $42.90 Pro Max plan
Sign up at Flux Pro
Ah, Grok. X's problem child. Grok’s images were high-quality, and it did a solid job at creating photorealism. So why is it ranked last? Grok didn’t quite follow the instructions to create a “sketch,” and in the image of the blacksmith, it created two cats, though one of them didn’t really look like one. Still, for the most part, its images were pretty good, especially considering the fact that it’s a free service for X users.
Free tier: Yes
Monthly pricing: $8 X Premium plan
Sign up at X or xAI
That depends on who you ask. Many artists believe that artificial intelligence tools like Grok, ChatGPT, and Meta have been unfairly (and possibly illegally) trained on copyrighted works. Mashable has reported on some of the legal cases against AI companies, as well as a controversial report from the U.S. Copyright Office. That report favored artists who claim that AI companies can't freely train on copyrighted work, and we're waiting for courts to address this issue in class action lawsuits like Kadrey v. Meta.
Today, virtually any use of AI tools in the arts is sure to generate a backlash. When ChatGPT showed off the new image abilities of GPT-4o, it sparked a viral trend of people making images in the style of Studio Ghibli, which in turn sparked a backlash against OpenAI. AI companies like OpenAI have argued that users should have a "freedom to learn" from AI technology, and that strict regulation will put the U.S. AI industry at risk of falling behind other countries. Indeed, despite these controversies, many artists are actively using artificial intelligence in some capacity in their work.
Finally, there's the issue of deepfakes. The U.S. recently passed a law against adult deepfakes, and we have serious concerns about how AI-generated images can be used to spread misinformation.
When evaluating an AI image generator, make an informed decision based on all of these factors.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
SpaceX's billionaire founder Elon Musk says that despite Starship setbacks, the space company hasn't taken its eyes off the ball — and that ball is big, red, and roughly 140 million miles away.
In a 42-minute video posted to X on Thursday evening, Musk laid out a plan to launch the mammoth spacecraft to Mars for the first time as early as next year.
His ultimate vision has been to use a fleet of Starships to send 1 million humans to Mars by 2050. To be clear, he doesn't just want to visit the planet; he wants to establish a permanent, independent city there.
The new timeline is hard to fathom, especially for those who watched another Starship prototype explode this week. Though the ship reached space during the test, it failed to achieve many of its goals. Musk has earned a reputation for wildly underestimating schedules — he once aimed to send an uncrewed ship to Mars by 2018 — but that didn't stop him from presenting yet another ambitious timeline.
"If we have two planets, we keep going," he said. "We can be out there among the stars, making science fiction no longer fiction."
Here are the key takeaways from Musk’s latest Mars update:
SEE ALSO: Listen to the eerie sounds of Mars recorded by a NASA rover Elon Musk gave a presentation called "The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary." Credit: SpaceX / X screenshot 1. A Mars landing in 2027Musk is now targeting late 2026 for the first uncrewed Starship flight to Mars, taking advantage of an orbital alignment that would shorten the journey between planets. The ship would arrive seven to nine months later in 2027. Musk considers the odds of launching in that upcoming window to be about 50-50. If SpaceX misses it, the next opportunity wouldn't come for another two years.
In order to head to Mars that soon, SpaceX first has to master how to refuel a Starship in low-Earth orbit, after it has already blasted off the planet — something that, by the way, has never been done before.
2. First just robots, then humansThough the first flight won't carry people, SpaceX still intends to put some butts in seats. The "crew" will consist of humanoid Optimus robots, built by Musk's electric car company, Tesla. During his talk, Musk presented some renderings of the sci-fi robots, including one meant as an homage to the famous Lunch atop a Skyscraper photo, with Optimuses (Optimi?) sitting together on a steel beam.
"That would be an epic picture to see Optimus walking around on the surface of Mars," he said.
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft looked at Arcadia, a region with ice, in 2001. Credit: NASA / JPL / Arizona State University 3. The potential landing spot: ArcadiaSpaceX is looking at several potential areas on Mars where Starship could land, but the lead candidate so far is a region known as Arcadia, which also happens to be the name of one of Musk's children.
It's one of the few regions where lots of shallow ice exists relatively near the Martian equator, according to NASA. SpaceX will be prioritizing a location that isn't close to the poles, has ice as a source for water, and isn't too mountainous for the rockets, Musk said.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. 4. A fleet of ships in the thousandsWith each Mars alignment launch window, SpaceX wants to increase its cadence of flights. To do that, they'll need a lot more rockets and ships. Right now the SpaceX plant in Starbase, Texas — which residents just voted to make a city — can make a new Starship every two to three weeks, Musk said. The company will build two so-called "Giga Bay" facilities — one in Texas and another in Florida — to ramp that up to several per day.
He envisions 1,000 to 2,000 ships heading to the Red Planet every couple of years, with the ability to catch and reuse boosters within hours. The goal is to send enough people, infrastructure, and supplies so that if for some reason cargo shipments from Earth stop coming, the Martian city won't die.
"My guess is that's about a million tons, but it might be 10 million tons. I hope it's not 100 million tons," he said. "That'd be a lot."
At the Google I/O 2025 event on May 20, Google announced the release of Veo 3, a new AI video generation model that makes 8-second videos. Within hours of its release, AI artists and filmmakers were showing off shockingly realistic videos. You may have even seen some of these videos in your social media feeds and not realized they were artificially generated.
To be blunt: We've never seen anything like Veo 3 before. It's impressive. It's scary. And it's only going to get better.
Misinformation experts have been warning for years that we will eventually reach a point where it's impossible for the average person to tell the difference between an AI video and the real thing. With Veo 3, we have officially stepped out of the uncanny valley and into a new era, one where AI videos are a fact of life.
While several other AI video makers exist, most notably Sora from OpenAI, the clips made by Veo 3 instantly stand out in your timeline. Veo 3 brought with it several innovations that separate it from other video generation tools. Crucially, in addition to video, Veo 3 also produces audio and dialogue. It doesn't just offer photorealism, but fully realized soundscapes and conversations to go along with videos. It can also maintain consistent characters in different video clips, and users can fine-tune camera angles, framing, and movements in entirely new ways. On social media, many users are dumbfounded by the results.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Veo 3 is available to use now with Google's paid AI plans. Users can access the tool in Gemini, Google's AI chatbot, and in Flow, an “AI filmmaking tool built for creatives, by creatives,” per Google.
Already, AI filmmakers are using Veo 3 to create short films, and it's only a matter of time until we see a full-length film powered by Veo 3.
Meet the filmmakers making short films with Veo 3On X, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit, users are sharing some of the most impressive Veo 3 videos. If you're not on your guard and simply casually scrolling your feed, you might not think twice about whether the videos are real or not.
The short film "Influenders" is one of the most widely shared short films made with Veo 3. "Influenders" was created by Yonatan Dor, the founder of the AI visual studio The Dor Brothers. In the movie, a series of influencers react as an unexplained cataclysm occurs in the background. The video has hundreds of thousands of views across various platforms.
"Yes, we used Google Veo 3 exclusively for this video, but to make a piece like this really come to life we needed to do further sound design, clever editing and some upscaling at the end," Dor said in an email to Mashable. "The full piece took around 2 days to complete." Dor added, "Veo 3 is a massive step forward, it’s easily the most advanced tool available publicly right now. We're especially impressed by its dialogue and prompt adherence capabilities."
Similar videos featuring man-on-the-street videos have also gone viral, with artists like Alex Patrascu and Impekable showing off Veo 3's capabilities. And earlier this week, a Wall Street Journal reporter made an entire short film starring a virtual version of herself using Veo 3. All this in just 10 days.
In "Influenders" and these other videos, some of the clips and characters are more realistic than others. Many still have the glossy aesthetic and jerky character movements that are a signature of AI videos, a clear giveaway that's similar to the ChatGPT em dash.
Just a couple of years ago, AI creations with too many fingers and other obvious anatomical abnormalities were commonplace. If the technology keeps progressing at this pace, there will soon be no obvious difference between real video and AI video.
A tool for creativity and misinformationIn promoting Veo 3, Google is eager to stress its partnerships with artists and filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky. And it's clear that Veo 3 could drastically reduce the cost of creating animation and special effects. But for content farms and bad actors producing fake news and manipulative outrage bait, Veo 3 is equally powerful.
We asked Google about the potential for Veo 3 to be used for misinformation, and the company said that safeguards such as digital watermarks are built into Veo 3 video clips.
"It’s important that people can access provenance tools for videos and other content they see online," a representative with Google DeepMind told Mashable via email. "The SynthID watermark is embedded in all content generated by Google’s AI tools, and our SynthID detector rolled out to early testers last week. We plan to expand access more broadly soon, and as an additional step to help people, we’re adding a visible watermark to Veo videos."
Google also has AI safety guidelines that it uses, and the company says it wants to "help people and organizations responsibly create and identify AI-generated content."
A screenshot from an AI-generated video made by Google with Veo 3. Credit: GoogleBut does the average person stop to ask whether the images and videos on their timelines and FYP are real? As the viral emotional support kangaroo proves, they do not.
There's zero doubt that AI videos are about to become even more commonplace on social media and video apps. That will include plenty of AI slop, but also videos with more nefarious purposes. Despite safeguards built into AI video generation tools, skilled AI artists can create deepfake videos featuring celebrities and public figures. TV news anchors speaking into the camera have also been a recurring theme in Veo 3 videos so far, which has worrying implications for the information ecosystem online.
If you're not already asking "Is this real?" when you come across a video clip online, now is the time to start.
Or, as a chorus of voices are saying on X, "We're so cooked."
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
When I look back at pictures of myself in my early 20s, I see a confident young woman who was willing to talk about anything with anyone. But behind closed doors, I was hiding a secret shame that totally contradicted my public brand. I couldn't orgasm — not with a partner, not on my own.
There had been fleeting attempts over the years to get the ol' engine rolling. I thought I could reason my way to climax: the internet, with its endless resources in the form of Reddit threads, message boards, and YouTube videos, seemed like the place to go. I turned online for information, emotional (first-person narratives from others who struggled) and practical (sex toys and tutorials). Nothing helped. In fact, all the accumulating knowledge only served to make me feel worse. For it to finally happen, at the age of 25, I had to strip everything back and take my sex drive fully offline for the first time.
Failing to climaxThere's a scene in Eve Ensler's legendary play The Vagina Monologues when the audience hears from a woman who didn't have an orgasm until she was 72. "When she finally found her clitoris, she said she cried," the introduction goes. I remember hearing those words at the age of 18 and feeling a fluttering sense of recognition. Then came the chaser: dear god, please let me have one before I'm a septuagenarian.
SEE ALSO: Is AI porn the next horizon in self-pleasure — and is it ethical?At that age, the inability to orgasm wasn't something that surprised me all that much. I'd read enough teen magazines, seen enough Sex and the City, to know all about the orgasm gap, and that 61 percent of men orgasm every time they have sex compared to 30 percent of women. Multiple studies have found that women are more likely to orgasm during masturbation than intercourse; a similarly consistent finding is that 10 percent of women never orgasm, no matter the circumstances.
Yet as I moved through my twenties and failed to rectify the problem, I realised the friends I'd once bonded over this experience with weren't struggling anymore. I felt like an anomaly.
But as a forthright young feminist on the cusp between the Gen Z and millennial generations, I was also unofficially educated under the tutelage of sex education YouTubers like Shan Boodram, Laci Green, and Hannah Witton. They taught me about the importance of people with vulvas knowing their bodies and having the confidence to tell sexual partners if they weren't getting them off. I spread their message far and wide. Female pleasure was so my brand that a close male friend once gave me a T-shirt with the words "The Future is Female (Ejaculation)" as a Secret Santa gift. I laughed, then went to the bathroom and cried, so deeply full of shame at the disconnect between my public confidence and inward inadequacy.
Theoretically speaking, I knew just about everything there was to know about the orgasm…apart from how to have one myself. Very few people, beyond a handful of friends and former partners, knew about my struggle with anorgasmia (where people struggle to climax even with the application of sexual stimulation). I was scared of speaking the words "I can't come" into reality, or of feeling like even more of a failure if they checked in on my progress in the future and I had to tell them that no, I still couldn't.
Theoretically speaking, I knew just about everything there was to know about the orgasm…apart from how to have one myself.As Emily Nagoski writes in her bestselling book Come As You Are, so much of the female orgasm is in the mind. Nagoski theorises that female sexual pleasure has dual controls — an accelerator to turn you on and a brake to turn you off — and that balance is needed to achieve orgasm. But my brake was hyper-sensitive thanks to all that fear and panic and shame, making it near impossible for me to actually have one. (Of course, that's an easy observation to make three years on the other side.)
Sex toys felt like a good starting point (god forbid I actually touch myself!), and my limited student budget meant I wanted a vibrator that gave a good bang for my buck, so to speak. I'd spend hours trawling through positive customer reviews for phrases like "can't come" or "never usually orgasm," hoping the same would happen for me if I purchased a clitoral stimulator or CBD lube. When it didn't, I felt more frustrated than ever.
What I was searching for was a sense of recognition — an "oh, I'm not alone in this" feeling that my friends, while empathetic, understandably couldn't provide. (Yet whenever I now mention to friends that I didn't have an orgasm until I was 25, similar stories are divulged.) So I looked further afield, scouring message board threads and online articles for narratives from people who'd not been able to come either. The snatched moments of understanding made me feel less alone, albeit not necessarily always better.
The next approach was more unconventional. Two friends bought me a subscription to OMGYes, the adult sex education website dedicated to facilitating female pleasure. Initially, I was embarrassed that it had come to this, but I gave it a go. A membership provided access to a library of practical (and extremely NSFW) tutorials on different masturbation techniques. I tried to follow along, but lacked perseverance and was quick to abandon the mission when things didn't happen immediately.
At every stage, my attempts to orgasm were hindered by these deeply rooted feelings of shame and inadequacy, and a fear of feeling like even more of a failure should I try and not succeed. I knew I was missing out on an integral part of the human experience, but once the terrifying words "you're going to be on your deathbed never having had an orgasm" enter the mind, they're hard to shake.
In order to halt this nihilistic spiral, I stopped trying altogether. It wasn't all bad. The sex, with both long-term and casual partners, was often even pleasurable. Sometimes I faked orgasms, sometimes I didn't bother — the former usually when I didn't want to explain myself and give them an excuse not to try.
So the problem bubbled away beneath the surface, rectifying it as simply not a priority. As with much of life, the arrival of COVID-19 changed things. I remember turning 25 and looking down the barrel of a new year and a third lockdown in the UK. I'm officially in my mid-twenties, I thought. If not now, when? Those interconnected feelings of embarrassment and failure were clearly holding me back.
If I was going to figure out how to orgasm, that would only be achieved by removing expectation; expectation that, I realised, was coming directly from the internet aids I'd sought out for help. I needed to strip away the technological trappings and do the one very simple thing I'd been so scared to do: touch myself, and do it consistently.
What finally helped me orgasmI set myself a challenge. Every day, I would put my phone on the other side of the room and masturbate without sex toys. The experience felt utterly alien at first; at some point, it crossed my mind that sexual partners had touched my genitals far more than I ever had. Once I acclimatised to the sensation of taking my time and not trying to speed up the process with a buzzing pink lump of plastic, it felt good. Things started happening, although not the earth-shattering fireworks that society had led me to expect. I didn't think these faint flutters were orgasms, and briefly returned to the message boards to see if others had experienced anything similar. Nobody described my exact feelings, but I kept at it.
It was a conversation with a close friend, a doctor, that made the most marked difference. I told her about my current state, where I wasn't sure whether I was experiencing an orgasm or not. "You know if you want that to count, it counts," she told me. For the first time, someone was saying that I was on the right path, and not crashing into a wall.
Without being dramatic (although said friend still laughs about how I credit her with my first orgasm), those words triggered a switch in my brain. As soon as I stopped feeling like I was foolish for even attempting to fight what I'd always perceived to be a losing battle, orgasms — proper ones, I was sure — came. I didn't cry or rush to text the friends greatly invested in my journey. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled, but it felt like a wholly personal achievement, and one I wanted to sit in for a while.
SEE ALSO: What is a ruined orgasm?Mostly, the feeling was one of relief, the lifting of a huge weight from my chest and the dissipation of so much secret shame. I remember thinking that if I never had an orgasm again, I would be happy. Given how easy I was now finding it once that bridge was crossed, though, I was pretty sure that wasn't going to be the case. It would be a while until I was able to orgasm with other people, but even before I did, my partnered sex life improved dramatically. I didn't feel like I was lacking anymore.
I remember thinking that if I never had an orgasm again, I would be happy.If there's one thing I now know, it's that you can't intellectualise, let alone buy, an orgasm. Sure, products and internet resources may help, and in those most isolating moments, it was undoubtedly useful to see my experience reflected back in others. But over time, I found the accumulation of all this knowledge only added to my feelings of failure. I had to remove it all from my mind and do the thing I was most scared to — confront my own body — to make it happen.
Given all that, I'm aware of the irony of writing my own "how I finally had an orgasm" narrative. But I know a story like mine, as long as it wasn't dwelled on too long or used as a point of comparison, would have helped my younger self. It's why I keep far less personal aspects of my life out of my work, yet have always known I wanted to write about this experience someday. There are so few narratives about a total inability to orgasm out there. If you're reading this now and see something of yourself in my story, I hope it can provide some. It can happen for you — I truly believe that — whether you're 25 or 72. You'll get there.
TL;DR: Live stream Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6) in the 2025 NBA playoffs for free on YouTube. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
The 2025 NBA playoffs continue with an absolutely huge game between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks.
The Pacers will be looking to finish the job in front of their own fans, and secure a place in the NBA finals against Oklahoma City Thunder. It's win or bust for the Knicks. Can they force a Game 7 back at Madison Square Garden?
If you want to watch Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6) in the 2025 NBA playoffs for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.
When is Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6)?Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6) starts at 8 p.m. ET on May 31. This game takes place at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
How to watch Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6) for freeIndiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6) in the 2025 NBA playoffs is available to live stream for free on YouTube..
This free live stream is geo-restricted to India, but anyone can access with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in India, meaning you can access this free live stream from anywhere in the world.
Stream the NBA for free by following these simple steps:
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Watch Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks (Game 6) for free
The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees or free trials. By leveraging these offers, you can watch NBA live streams without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch select games from the NBA playoffs before recovering your investment.
What is the best VPN for YouTube?ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing free live streams on platforms like YouTube., for a number of reasons:
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For his feature-length directorial debut Mountainhead, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong treads familiar territory.
Like Succession, Mountainhead turns its gaze on the rich and powerful, this time satirizing tech moguls in the vein of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman. The film mimics Succession formally, too, boasting its documentary-style cinematography, as well as a thrumming score from Succession composer Nicholas Britell. And of course, it comes with its fair share of WTF-worthy turns of phrase. (Ever heard the phrase "room cuck"? Well, now you won't be able to forget it.)
SEE ALSO: What's new to streaming this week? (May 30, 2025)But with all these similarities to Succession, Mountainhead often fails to escape that show's shadow, even as it tries to touch on current events in a way that sets it apart.
What's Mountainhead about? Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, and Ramy Youssef in "Mountainhead." Credit: Macall Polay / HBOIn a plot that feels ripped right from the headlines, Mountainhead follows the "Brewsters," a group of four uber-wealthy tech bros whose poker night gets derailed by global unrest. Among them is the richest man in the world, Venis (Cory Michael Smith), who is the founder of social media platform Traam. As Mountainhead begins, Traam has just launched a new suite of AI tools capable of creating hyper-realistic deepfake images and videos. The ensuing wave of misinformation causes violence and financial instability worldwide, none of which Venis wants to take any accountability for.
Instead, Venis hopes to acquire tech from fellow poker night attendee Jeff (Ramy Youssef), who has created a filter capable of distinguishing AI from reality. Yet Jeff is hesitant to sell, both because Traam is a "racist and shitty" platform, and because his net worth is skyrocketing in the face of all the chaos.
SEE ALSO: 'Bring Her Back' review: Sally Hawkins is an unholy terror in psycho-biddy bangerOverseeing the Venis-Jeff standoff are Randall (Steve Carell), a "dark money Gandalf" who's also the "Papa Bear" of the group, and Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), nicknamed Soup Kitchen by the others because he's the only non-billionaire of the group. Just a paltry millionaire!
Hugo's massive Utah mansion — named Mountainhead after Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, because of course a millionaire would pull that move — becomes the perch from which Mountainhead's Brewsters watch the world fall apart. There, isolated from everyone, they begin to dream up ways to take further advantage of global pandemonium, and maybe even take the world for themselves.
Mountainhead channels current fears about tech moguls and AI. Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, and Jason Schwartzman in "Mountainhead." Credit: Macall Polay / HBOIf Mountainhead's tale of tech billionaires seeking an even bigger piece of the world's pie comes across as eerily relevant, that's by design. Armstrong developed, wrote, and shot Mountainhead over a span of mere months in order to create a film that speaks as much to the present moment as possible.
The effect is sobering, with Armstrong expertly stoking the flames of AI anxieties. Here, AI isn't just being used to create fake Katy Perry Met Gala looks or bizarro baby videos. Instead, it's prompting international conflict in what feels like the inevitable endpoint of the technology.
SEE ALSO: ‘Empire of AI’ author on OpenAI’s cult of AGI and why Sam Altman tried to discredit her bookEngineering it all are the Brewsters, who read like an amalgam of several key tech figures — Musk, Altman, Zuckerberg, and even Sam Bankman-Fried. Musk especially looms large. Characters' plans to rework the U.S. government are reminiscent of Musk's involvement in the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), although he stepped down on May 29. Elsewhere, Venis and Randall's obsession with transhumanism calls to mind Musk's Neuralink ambitions, while their assertion that Earth was a good "starter planet" gestures out to Musk's work on SpaceX and hopes to colonize Mars.
On top of highlighting the kinds of ideas and technologies that make Silicon Valley tick right now, Armstrong also captures the self-aggrandizing patter of tech bro speak. From references to Plato and Kant to questions of "first principles," Carell, Schwartzman, Youssef, and Smith make a meal out of every smarmy line. After five seconds with each of them, you'll be itching to punch their lights out — and that feeling only intensifies at the film's runtime ticks by.
Mountainhead stumbles at the start, but at least it finds its footing for a hysterical third act. Steve Carell and Ramy Youssef in "Mountainhead." Credit: Macall Polay / HBOYet for all it gets right about insufferable tech figures, Mountainhead falters when it comes to much of its actual dialogue and character work, two things Succession consistently excelled at. Early sequences feature ridiculously clunky exchanges laying the film's tech-heavy groundwork, including one monologue from Jeff that presents every single possible problem with Traam's AI in painstaking detail. No one, not even Youssef (otherwise hilarious in the film) can make that info dump sound natural.
That same sense of clunky awkwardness permeates Mountainhead's first act as the characters (and the performers) get into the groove. While Hugo's guests settle in, their non-stop tech speak and volleys of insults feel like what you'd get if you pushed Succession just off its rhythm.
Thankfully, Mountainhead truly finds its footing in its third act, which shifts focus from the Brewsters' reactions to the outside world to a more internal, immediate conflict. To say much more would be to spoil Mountainhead's most delicious surprises, but the film's jump into an absurdist crime caper is a welcome shot in the arm — and the jolt Mountainhead needs to step away from the Succession comparisons (even if they come roaring back in the movie's final minutes).
Mountainhead's quick turnaround time makes it a fascinating experiment in and of itself: How feasible is it to create a movie that's so steeped in current events that it won't feel dated or overdone by the time it comes out? But in the end, it's not the barrage of references to AI and other tech that stick in the head. Instead, it's that last, more contained section that proves to be the most fascinating part of our trip up to Mountainhead, as well as the most salient commentary on tech moguls the film has to offer.
Mountainhead premieres May 31 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
TL;DR: Unlock all 14 Babbel languages with a lifetime subscription — available for $139.99 (reg. $599) through June 1 with code SAVE30 for new users in the U.S.
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TL;DR: Stay entertained all summer long and beyond with a refurbished Apple MacBook Pro (3.1GHz i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, now just $329.97 through July 20 while supplies last.
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Wes Anderson and his level of twee is not for everyone. There are apparently viewers who don't like their comedies brimming with quirky charm, deadpan absurdity, and perfectly balanced cinematography. For them, Rob Schneider is probably still making movies somewhere. But for the rest of us who do appreciate Anderson's particularly particular brand of cinema, there's plenty to love across 30 years of movie-making, including his oddball characters (and their inevitably fraught familial relationships), his winking approach to naming them and the places they inhabit, and his marvelously detailed mise-en-scéne.
There are few working directors with an idiosyncratic style that is so immediately recognizable and imitated (but never equaled, despite the best efforts of AI). Anderson's use of symmetrical shots with precise production design, huge casts of unforgettable characters played by a deep bench of big-name actors, and enough retro rock needle drops to fill an hours-long Spotify playlist marks a film as distinctly his.
For all their preciousness, these movies don't take themselves too seriously, and never veer away from silliness and whimsy. However, we do take the task of judging them very seriously. Sticking with only the director's 12 features (apologies to his shorts, including Netflix's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which won him his first and to-date only Oscar), we've ranked Wes Anderson's movies from worst to best.
His filmography doesn't contain a truly bad film; some have curdled a bit over the years while others have aged remarkably well. Even those set in a particular era feel timeless thanks to the auteur's style, which feels vintage but never dated. Which movie about a misfit — or misfits — will reign supreme?
12. The Darjeeling Limited Credit: Moviestore / ShutterstockAnderson's films are populated with complicated characters who are sometimes more lovable than likable, but the trio at the heart of The Darjeeling Limited are his more insufferable and least interesting protagonists. Anderson regulars Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman star as three brothers grieving the loss of their father while they take a train across India. They're looking to find themselves, and the people they encounter often serve as a part of the experience rather than real humans. It isn't just the three protagonists who treat these minor characters this way; The Darjeeling Limited does so as well.
Anderson has often displayed a tendency to use either settings or cultures for his own purposes rather than engaging with them on their own merits. That habit might be at its worst in this 2007 comedy, in which he uses the death of an Indian child as a catalyst for the brothers' growth. I'd mark this as a spoiler, but it's not really relevant to the plot (and no one is watching Anderson movies for the plot anyway). Some growth happens, but these characters remain mostly selfish and stunted when the film reaches the end of its journey.
Yet amidst all the annoyance, The Darjeeling Limited is one of Anderson's most vibrantly colorful films, especially in its use of highly pigmented yellow. The director also accurately reflects the dynamics of relationships between brothers in ways that feel authentic. It's a shame he doesn't devote the same care to literally any of the Indian characters.
How to watch: The Darjeeling Limited is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
11. Bottle Rocket Credit: Columbia / Kobal / ShutterstockAnderson's 1996 feature debut feels right at home with other early works from indie auteurs who launched their careers in the same era — David O. Russell's Spanking the Monkey, future Anderson co-writer Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming, etc. — with its low-key, almost shaggy aesthetic, oddball characters, and deadpan humor. Yet while this crime comedy was less mannered and precise than future films from Anderson, Bottle Rocket still bears his hallmarks and feels like something only the Texas native could have made.
An expansion of his 1993 short film of the same name, Bottle Rocket stars Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, and Robert Musgrave as three friends and partners in crime who join a gang led by James Caan's big boss for a bigger heist. Beyond the presence of the Wilson brothers not playing brothers — including Andrew Wilson in a small role as the brother of Musgrave's character — the film features other frequently occurring motifs from Anderson's work, like jangly vintage rock on the soundtrack, handwritten notes on screen, careful shot composition, and thoughtful mise-en-scène (including the requisite wallpaper). But there's a moment in a burglary scene where Luke Wilson's Anthony carefully adjusts a toy soldier that feels most like the filmmaker's later work with its precision and wry humor; it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it movement, but watching it decades later feels like you're witnessing the birth of something big, even in something so small.
How to watch: Bottle Rocket is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
10. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Credit: Moviestore / ShutterstockAfter the success of The Royal Tenenbaums a few years prior, Anderson went bigger — but not better — with this 2004 follow-up. Bill Murray's Steve Zissou doesn't feel that far removed from Royal Tenenbaum as a bad (maybe) dad who says shit that wasn't great in 2004 and plays even worse in 2024, and who is estranged from an ex-wife played by Anjelica Huston (in full-on siren mode here). Aquatic explorer Zissou takes his band of misfits (including Willem Dafoe, Noah Taylor, and Seu Jorge) on a mission of revenge after his best friend and best diver, Esteban du Plantier (Seymour Cassel), is eaten by a jaguar shark. Along for the ride are Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), a Kentucky pilot who might be Zissou's son, and Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett), a journalist doing a piece on the famed scientist and documentarian.
Co-written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach, the plot is a kooky modern-day take on Moby Dick with Zissou's quest defying all reason, but the film feels rudderless, leaving the audience adrift on pure vibes in a sea of red stocking caps and custom Adidas sneakers. Yet The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou still has its charms: the Portuguese covers of David Bowie songs by Jorge, the loving feature-length homage to Jacques Cousteau, and the animated creatures created by Henry Selick that feel just fantastic enough. It's not peak Anderson, but it's pure Anderson just the same.
How to watch: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
9. The Phoenician Scheme Credit: TPS Productions / Focus FeaturesFor a film so concerned with legacy, The Phoenician Scheme leaves almost no impression on the audience after it departs the screen. Even the title (and the correct placement of all those vowels in “Phoenician”) threatens to leave your memory when you aren’t actively watching it.
And yet, while you’re in the midst of The Phoenician Scheme, it’s an absurdist delight that makes its plot about a wealthy European businessman securing funding for a new venture far more interesting than it has any right to be. It helps, of course, that these aren't the dry doings blurbed in the Financial Times or one of those other websites that uses phrases like “profitability drive” in its headlines. Instead, the plot of this Anderson trifle follows a newly reunited father and daughter — unscrupulous businessman Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) and novitiate Liesl (Mia Threapleton) — amid assassination attempts, basketball games, and terrorist attacks as Korda courts potential investors for a new opportunity after he names Liesl as his sole heir.
The elements of The Phoenician Scheme are de rigueur for Anderson’s work: mischievous boys, sibling rivalries, absent dads, and numerous recognizable stars acting among meticulously constructed sets in perfectly framed shots. However, this script is funnier and the dry dialogue delivery is faster than most of his films, even if The Phoenician Scheme isn’t as indelible as his best features.
How to watch: The Phoenician Scheme will open in limited theaters May 30 and nationwide June 6.
8. Rushmore Credit: Touchstone / Kobal / ShutterstockAnderson's 1998 sophomore film might be his last one with any semblance to the real world, if a posh private high school can be said to resemble the real world, but Rushmore still features his trademark absurdity. Jason Schwartzman makes his acting debut as Max Fischer, a prototypical Anderson protagonist who is at once precocious and stunted. A scholarship student at his beloved Rushmore Academy, Max gets terrible grades but excels at extracurriculars. He's a bit of a dilettante, but he soon becomes singularly devoted to winning the affections of Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), an elementary teacher at the school.
Rushmore doesn't just feature the first collaboration between the director and Schwartzman, who he would go on to work with as both an actor and a co-writer for more than two decades. It's also his inaugural work with Bill Murray, who stars as Herman Blume, Max's mentor-turned-romantic-rival. Murray's wry humor and up-for-antics attitude is a perfect fit for the wit of Anderson and Owen Wilson's script, which is silly and smart and so very Anderson. It's one of his smaller-scale films, but it still shows sparks of ambition and his inimitable style.
How to watch: Rushmore is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
7. Isle of Dogs Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures / Moviestore / ShutterstockAnderson isn't generally known for his deeply stirring narratives, but the emotion felt most while watching this stop-motion comedy is awe (plus some discomfort over how the movie handles its Japanese setting and the white savior narrative with Greta Gerwig's character, but I digress). Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was released a decade before this movie, was an achievement. While Isle of Dogs is even more technically innovative and visually impressive in its meticulous craft, it's less charming as a film overall and falls roughly in the middle of the pack of the director's filmography.
This 2018 comic adventure is set in the fictional Japanese town of Megasaki City (eye roll), whose dogs have all been exiled to Trash Island by the mayor after a canine disease outbreak. Voiced by Koyu Rankin, the mayor's nephew Atari (another eye roll) embarks on a rescue mission to the garbage dump to save his beloved pup. The story of a lost dog is nothing new in cinema, but Anderson brings his trademark quirk and imagination, making Isle of Dogs feel like something new and worthy of wonder.
Though its main characters are kids and dogs, Isle of Dogs isn't purely a children's movie with its message about immigration, sometimes surprisingly dark plot events (and their effects on its vulnerable characters), and accompanying PG-13 rating. It's less of a good entry point to the director's work than Fantastic Mr. Fox was, making for the most fitting viewing for devoted fans of either the filmmaker or the medium.
How to watch: Isle of Dogs is now streaming on Disney+.
6. The French Dispatch Credit: Searchlight Pictures / Everett / ShutterstockAnderson's cinematic take on The New Yorker roughly follows the format of the revered magazine, featuring a masthead intro, brief travelog, three feature articles (one with a cartoon in the middle of it, naturally), and an obituary, mixing mediums and styles with aplomb. Anderson's love of the written word has been present throughout his work — whether literally through handwritten notebook pages or through clear literary affection (or is that affectation?) and references — but it's never been more on display than it is with The French Dispatch.
Within the framing of a magazine, the bulk of The French Dispatch is composed of a triptych of stories: one about a prisoner artist (Benicio del Toro) and his guard/muse (Léa Seydoux), a second about a French Dispatch journalist (Frances McDormand) and her intimate involvement with her subject (Timothée Chalamet), and finally an unconventional story of gastronomy about a police chef (Steve Park) and a kidnapping plot covered by a James Baldwin-esque writer (Jeffrey Wright). There are so many moments of joy in The French Dispatch, but the middle section sags a bit, somehow inducing a nap despite the presence of McDormand, Chalamet, and Mathieu Amalric.
The French Dispatch feels like a rejoinder to anyone who has criticized Anderson's films like Isle of Dogs and The Darjeeling Limited for cultural appropriation and insensitivity. He takes an equally loose, stereotypical approach here, setting the film in Ennui-sur-Blasé, France, a fictional city replete with surface-level observations about a place and its denizens. See? He can do it with white people, too.
How to watch: The French Dispatch is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
5. Moonrise Kingdom Credit: Focus / Everett / ShutterstockAnderson usually crafts films set in the vaguely indefinable present, but with an old-school soundtrack and vintage production design that make his movies feel wonderfully timeless. Yet Moonrise Kingdom is the first movie in his career that actually takes place in the past, and the nostalgic details and wistful approach are perfect for its 1965 setting.
Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) are tween residents of the island of New Penzance who develop mutual crushes after a brief meeting followed by written correspondence. They decide to run away together — him from his Scout troop and her from her parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray) — and they're pursued by the island citizens, including the local police captain (Bruce Willis), Sam's fellow Khaki Scouts, their Scout Master (Edward Norton), and a brutal bully (Lucas Hedges), all while a storm bears down on the island.
Other than Rushmore, Anderson largely makes movies about adults stuck in childhood, so Moonrise Kingdom marks an interesting inversion to that formula. With Sam and Suzy, this 2012 romantic adventure focuses on actual kids who often act more like grown-ups, but it never loses its sense of tenderness and innocence in the wistful story of their young love.
How to watch: Moonrise Kingdom is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel Credit: 20th Century Fox / Kobal / ShutterstockA story within a story within a story, set in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka, The Grand Budapest Hotel is simultaneously ambitious and playful in its structure and silly and gravely serious in its tone. This Zubrowkan equivalent of a matryoshka doll spins the tale of a woman reading a 1985 book written by an author (Tom Wilkinson) about a 1968 encounter where the then-younger writer (Jude Law) learns of events in 1932 at the eponymous hotel.
At the now-fading Grand Budapest, Zero (F. Murray Abraham) recounts his youth as a lobby boy (Tony Revolori) who served under the venerated concierge Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes). Gustave got in a spot of trouble when his habit of romancing the hotel's oldest, richest female guests found him accused of the murder of Madame D. (Tilda Swinton in layers of makeup), setting Zero and his boss off on a series of misadventures with danger arriving from both the authoritarian regime and Madame D.'s family.
Inspired by the work of Stefan Zweig, this 2014 film has uncommon gravitas for an Anderson movie, as it explores the impacts of the Holocaust on Europe and its various minority populations. However, this tiered confection never feels overly heavy, nor does it make light of the tragedies it references. Anderson ably balances the tone, but Fiennes is a charming standout, even among a typically huge cast that also includes Jeff Goldblum, Ed Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Owen Wilson, and Saoirse Ronan.
How to watch: The Grand Budapest Hotel is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
3. Asteroid City Credit: Focus FeaturesArtifice has always been a hallmark of Anderson's work, but there are new layers in his most recent feature, from 2023. Asteroid City is a thoroughly postmodern movie set in the Space Age; it's a film of a TV production of a play, complete with a narrator, fourth-wall breaks, and intentionally unrealistic sets. The plot is often opaque (and not particularly important), but that somehow doesn't lessen its crater-sized emotional impact.
The play is about a Junior Stargazer convention set in Asteroid City, during which a number of quirky young scientists and their families — along with a surprise galactic guest — converge on the small, remote town. Asteroid City is notably Anderson's first movie without Bill Murray in two decades, but Tom Hanks ably steps into the elder statesman role, bringing a warmth that Murray often lacks to his part as a rich grandfather. In addition to Hanks, Asteroid City features a number of Anderson newcomers, including Margot Robbie and Steve Carell, as well as the usual stable of actors: Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Tony Revolori, etc.
Through all those layers of theatricality and absurdity, Asteroid City ranks with The Royal Tenenbaums as one of Anderson's most moving films. It's a profound meditation on how small we are in the universe, yet how truly special each and every life is. Asteroid City reflects on the power of the simple act of staring up at the sky, and how important human connection is in this crazy world.
How to watch: Asteroid City is now streaming on Prime Video.
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox Credit: Moviestore / ShutterstockThe precision and preciousness that Anderson brings to every film feels like a natural fit for stop-motion animation, and he's rarely been better than in his first full-length foray into the medium. Adapted by Anderson and Noah Baumbach from the Roald Dahl children's novel of the same name, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a delight, even sillier than most of the filmmaker's work in the best of ways, which is a perfect match for the source material and its intended audience.
George Clooney lends his voice to the eponymous hero, playing off his on-screen personas of Danny Ocean and Out of Sight's Jack Foley as a fox who just wants to complete one last heist, with Mrs. Fox (voiced by Meryl Streep) none the wiser. But instead of jewels or money, Mr. Fox is intent on stealing chickens from the nearby farms of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (Robin Hurlstone, Hugo Guinness, and Michael Gambon).
Whether you're an adult or a child, it's impossible not to giggle with glee at Anderson's accomplishments in this 2009 film. It's marvelously detailed, down to the minute stitches and woven wool of the characters' clothing. The animals generally behave like humans, even cursing in a wonderfully PG way, until they growl and snarl ferociously as they're scrapping with each other or scarfing down a meal. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a wildly imaginative wonder that delivers the themes Anderson often returns to — like challenging father-son relationships, tensions between rivals, and the desire to reclaim past glory — but this time, he does it with brilliance for a new, younger audience.
How to watch: Fantastic Mr. Fox is now streaming on Disney+.
1. The Royal Tenenbaums Credit: Everett / ShutterstockAnderson's more recent work is marked by sprawling casts filled with recognizable faces, but The Royal Tenenbaums was his first film that went big on its list of actors to fill out the Tenenbaums and those in their orbit. The introduction of all these people, with narrator Alec Baldwin speaking over The Mutato Muzika Orchestra's cover of "Hey Jude," builds the 2001 film's version of New York City and constructs these characters with such love and care. The Tenenbaum kids — Richie (Luke Wilson), Chas (Ben Stiller), and Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) — are each struggling with adulthood in different ways, but the return of their reprobate father, Royal (a sparky Gene Hackman), brings them all back under the roof of their mother, Etheline (Anjelica Huston), at 111 Archer Avenue.
Written by Anderson and co-star Owen Wilson and set to an all-timer of a soundtrack, The Royal Tenenbaums is the director's funniest film with marvelously quotable lines, but it's also among his most moving. Familial relationships feature prominently through a lot of his films, but the most poignant moment in his work is when Stiller's Chas chokes out, "I've had a rough year, Dad," to Hackman's Royal. Somewhere in the bowels of the internet, my MySpace quote is still "I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum," just like neighbor Eli Cash (Owen Wilson). It's easy to identify with his desire to be a part of this tribe.
How to watch: The Royal Tenenbaums is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
UPDATE: May. 28, 2025, 4:08 p.m. EDT This article was originally published on Sept. 14, 2024. It has been updated to include the latest release.
Pride is a time in which everyone under the LGBTQ umbrella is encouraged to come out and wave their flag in spectacular parades. But for every wild night out, we might need a cozy night in, perhaps with a movie that keeps the party going?
Many a streaming service will make a rainbow show of their LGBTQ titles in June. Let us be your guide through the essentials, highlighting movies across Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, HBO Max, Kanopy, and beyond.
Whether you're in the mood for a thigh-slapping comedy, a heart-wrenching drama, a pulse-pounding romance, a mind-expanding documentary, or spine-tingling horror, we've got you covered.
Here is a sensational selection of LGBTQ movies to watch this Pride and beyond.
1. The People's Joker (2022) Credit: Altered InnocenceThe most original comic book movie in years just so happens to be a trans coming-of-age story. In The People's Joker, director Vera Drew (who also co-wrote, edited, and stars in the film) plays a closeted trans woman who leaves her hometown of Smallville to pursue her dreams of becoming a comedian in Gotham City. In this wacky political parody of the DC universe, Batman is the villain and Gotham has become a fascist police state where comedy is outlawed, Bat Drones surveil the city, and doctors prescribe an antidepressant gas that forces people to smile. After Drew's aspiring comic starts an underground anti-comedy club that becomes a hangout for Batman villains, she falls for Mr. J, a transmasc Joker who helps her come out and transition — from Joker to Harlequin, as she says.
A playful riff on the age-old trans-women-as-villains stereotype in media, Drew brilliantly creates her own fusion of Joker and Harley Quinn to tell a complex story of a woman finding herself amid systems of abuse and oppression. Warner Bros. could never dream of making something this inventive. — Oliver Whitney, Contributing Writer
How to watch: The People's Joker is streaming on MUBI, and is available to rent or purchase on Apple TV+, Prime Video, and Google Play.
2. I Saw the TV Glow (2024) Credit: A24Anyone who felt like an outsider as a kid and relied on fiction to escape their reality, and especially especially queer and trans folks, will find something relatable in I Saw the TV Glow. Jane Schoenbrun's film manages to beautifully and hauntingly capture the power of escaping and coping through fictional worlds, only with the added layer of gender dysphoria.
In I Saw the TV Glow, teenage friends Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven) are obsessed with a show about two psychic teen girls, blurring the line between their lives and what's on the screen. We follow Owen over the years as he goes from depressed teen to depressed adult, frozen into a shell of a person. While Schoenbrun's characters aren't explicitly trans, it's not hard to see the parallels to an experience of being an egg, dysphoria, and feeling trapped and afraid to transition to one's truer self. Emotional and devastating — in a Charlie Kaufman kinda way — I Saw the TV Glow is a masterful meditation on nostalgia, escapism, and the painful journey of finding yourself. — O.W.
How to watch: I Saw the TV Glow is streaming on HBO Max.
3. Love Lies Bleeding (2024)A super gay, super steamy crime thriller cloaked in neon lights and splattered with blood and sweat — what more could you ask for? Set in the ‘80s, Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart as Lou, a reserved gym manager in New Mexico. She sets her eyes on Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a jacked bodybuilder passing through town on her way to Vegas. In classic U-Haul style, the two immediately hit it off, fall in love, and move in together, but soon their blissful romance becomes interrupted by Lou's violent family. Oozing with moody visuals, a tense synth-heavy score, and plenty of sex appeal, Rose Glass' Love Lies Bleeding will scratch the itch for anyone craving a lesbian neo-noir that feels like “San Junipero” crossed with a Coen Brothers' thriller. — O.W.
How to watch: Love Lies Bleeding is streaming on HBO Max.
SEE ALSO: 'Love Lies Bleeding' Interview: Kristen Stewart on the female gaze vs. the male gaze. 4. L'immensità (2022)With L'immensità, we get something incredibly rare and long overdue — a story about a young trans boy grappling with gender identity, told by an actual trans filmmaker. The semi-autobiographical film is based on Italian writer/director Emanuele Crialese's own childhood and his memories of growing up in 1970s Rome.
Penélope Cruz plays Clara, a mother of three young kids and the wife of a distant, abusive husband. Clara's eldest introduces himself as Andrea, yet the rest of his family still call him by his female birth name, Adriana, and claim he's only pretending to be a boy. Refusing to hide himself, he confidently rocks a handsome short haircut, wears masculine jumpsuits, and tells his mother he feels like an alien from another galaxy. L'immensità is reminiscent of Céline Sciamma's Tomboy in how it captures the world through the eyes of a child struggling to understand his gender without the language or guidance. Yet it's also something wholly its own and personal, and carries the authenticity of being told from a trans experience. — O.W.
How to watch: L'immensità is streaming on Prime Video, Kanopy, Hoopla, and Darkroom.
5. Fire Island (2022) Credit: Jeong Park / SearchlightCalling all queers who love Pride and Prejudice, Fire Island is the movie for you! This gay revamp of the Jane Austen classic swaps the 19th-century social decorums and hetero romance for slutty underwear parties, drag bars, and plenty of messy drama set in the titular Long Island gay vacation spot. In director Andrew Ahn's film, Joel Kim Booster (who also wrote the screenplay) plays Noah, a bookish nurse from Brooklyn, and our Elizabeth Bennet. Enter our Mr. Darcy: a standoffish lawyer named Will (Conrad Ricamora) whose judgy attitude and reserved nature immediately turn Noah off. Eventually Noah warms to Will's charms, and the two get their Pride and Prejudice love story, iconic rain scene and all. What's most impressive about Fire Island is how it uses the classic straight romance to bring elements of gay male culture to the screen, earnestly touching on racism and fatphobia in the gay community, as well as telling a story with a predominately BIPOC cast and multiple Asian leads. — O.W.
How to watch: Fire Island is streaming on Hulu.
SEE ALSO: Joe Wright reveals much-memed 'Pride and Prejudice' line came from Emma Thompson 6. Maggots and Men (2009)Maggots and Men, a film you've likely never heard of, is a radical vision of gender utopia and revolution that happens to have the largest cast of trans actors — and even more groundbreaking, of transmasculine actors — in any film, ever.
An experimental work of historical fiction, Maggots and Men reimagines the true story of the 1921 Kronstadt uprising in which a group of sailors launched a revolt against the Bolshevik Party in post-revolutionary Russia. The film jumps between a theater troupe performance narrating the story and scenes of sailors in leisure and revolt, told with filmmaking techniques that wink at Soviet cinema and the Czech New Wave. But you don't need to understand the revolutionary politics of the time or be a film nerd to appreciate the brilliant way filmmaker Cary Cronenwett uses his cast to envision an alternate world of liberated, self-made masculinity. Here, transmasc bodies openly frolic, swim, and work in the glistening sunshine. It's a film for anyone longing to spend some time in a world where trans bodies exist openly and freely, outside the constraints of cis-centric gender norms. — O.W.
How to watch: Maggots and Men is streaming on The Criterion Channel.
7. Maurice (1987)Before Call Me By Your Name, there was Maurice. In the gay period drama from beloved and recently out gay filmmaker James Ivory (who wrote the screenplay for Call Me by Your Name), we follow a young man's journey of sexual acceptance in 20th-century London. While studying at Cambridge, Maurice (James Wilby) and his closest friend Clive (Hugh Grant) soon discover that what they feel for each other is deeper than any mere friendship. As time passes and the two men must leave school to enter a society where being gay is highly criminalized, Clive must decide whether or not to embrace his sexuality. Told with tenderness and sensitivity, Maurice will make your heart ache and flutter in the best of ways. — O.W.
How to watch: Maurice is streaming on Peacock, Kanopy, Philo, Cineverse, and Fandor, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video.
8. T-Blockers (2023)Rarely do we get the treat of an ultra-low budget campy horror film these days, especially one about a trans vigilante hunting down hateful men. In T-Blockers, the young Australian filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay translates the current political attacks on trans existence into a pulpy sci-fi horror story where the types of men who listen to Jordan Peterson become injected with brain worms that turn them into seething, anti-trans, flesh-eating zombies. After Sophie (Lauren Last), a struggling trans filmmaker, discovers she has the power to sense these monsters, she recruits her friends to take justice into their own hands.
With campy B-movie aesthetics reminiscent of Ed Wood mixed with the queer, punk energy of Gregg Araki films, T-Blockers is stylized, gory, and has a very DIY feel — after all, Mackay made the film when she was 17 years old on a teeny budget of $10,000. It's the kinda movie you'd discover in an old video store as a teen and obsess over with your weirdo friends. — O.W.
How to watch: T-Blockers is streaming on AMC+ via Prime, Shudder, and Philo.
9. All of Us Strangers (2023) Credit: Searchlight PicturesOne of our favorite films from 2023, writer/director Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers tells a tale surreal and deeply personal. Adapted from Taichi Yamada's 1987 novel Strangers, this horror-laced drama was shot in part in Haigh's childhood home. There, a lonely screenwriter (Ripley's Andrew Scott) visits the ghosts of his long-dead parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), allowing them to get to know him as the adult they did not in the intervening decades. This includes an unexpectedly cathartic coming-out arc. Yet for as tender and sad as this drama is, it's also alive with love and lust — the latter thanks to Scott's onscreen romance with Aftersun's Paul Mescal, who plays a neighbor is desperate need of human connection. Altogether, this ensemble offers a movie that will make your spirit soar, your pulse race, and your heart shatter. — Kristy Puchko, Entertainment Editor
How to watch: All of Us Strangers is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime.
10. The Queen (1968)You may have seen Paris Is Burning, but have you seen The Queen? Frank Simon's seminal 1968 documentary details the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant, a competitive drag pageant put together by trans and drag icon Flawless Sabrina. Simon's recently restored doc is so many things at once: an archival treasure of early drag performances, an intimate look at the lives of queer men and trans women offstage, and, most famously, a record of one infamous incident that would later give way to the birth of house culture and the ballroom scene: Crystal LaBeija's scorching tirade to the camera after losing to a white queen. LaBeija later went on to found the seminal House of LaBeija, which led to the very inception of ball culture we see in Paris is Burning, and has been massively influential to Black queer culture today. As an artifact of lost and, to many, largely unknown queer history, The Queen is essential Pride viewing, and honestly, essential every damn day viewing. — O.W.
How to watch: The Queen is available to stream for free on Kanopy or for rent or purchase on Kino Now and Prime Video.
11. Rope (1948) Credit: Snap / ShutterstockRope may be known to most as Hitchcock's experimental attempt to shoot an entire film in what appears to be a single shot, but it's also the filmmaker’s gayest. The classic psychological thriller is about a gay couple who murders a man, then throws a dinner party using the trunk the dead body is in as the buffet — quite literally "be gay, do crime," Hitchcock-style. Of course, this was 1948, and that queerness is all subtext, but it roars to the surface thanks to gay screenwriter Arthur Laurents' script and performances by its notably gay leads, Farley Granger who plays Phillip Morgan with an anxious flamboyance, and John Dall, whose Brandon Shaw embodies a more reserved, posh queerness. That's not even to mention the oozing eroticism of the opening scene — a closed curtain, a roaring scream, a shot of man sandwiched between two others, with a rope around his neck. Oh, the abhorrent perversions two (or more) men commit behind closed doors! — O.W.
How to watch: Rope is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video.
12. The Stroll (2023) Credit: HBO Documentary FilmsThere's nothing more powerful and more urgently needed than trans people telling their own stories. In The Stroll, filmmaker Kristen Lovell (making her directorial debut alongside co-director Zackary Drucker) does exactly that, gathering the trans folks she worked with in Manhattan's Meatpacking District to recount the history of The Stroll, an area that was a hub for trans sex workers from the 1970s through the early 2000s. The women and nonbinary interviewees recount not only the horrific police violence and neighborhood harassment they constantly faced, but, and perhaps most significantly, they speak to how The Stroll helped them find a resilient community that enabled them to survive.
Through a mix of interviews, collage-style animation, and archival footage — including some possibly never-before-seen late footage of trans heroine Sylvia Rivera and an ultra-cringe clip from The RuPaul Show — Lovell and Drucker, who are both trans, achieve something beyond the reach of most cis filmmakers. In place of sorrowful trauma porn, the directing duo create a stunning ode to the power and resilience of trans sisterhood. The Stroll isn't only an essential document of trans history, it's a revitalizing reminder for trans folks that together we have the power to pave a path for a better trans future. — O.W.
How to watch: The Stroll is now streaming on HBO Max.
13. Bottoms (2023) Credit: Orion PicturesCraving a raunchy teen comedy that'll have you howling with laughter? Bottoms delivers. The Bear's breakout It Girl Ayo Edebiri stars with Bodies Bodies Bodies' Rachel Sennott (who reunites with Shiva Baby's director Emma Seligman). Together, they craft a tale of an all-girls fight club created to help two "ugly and untalented" gays Josie (Edebiri) and PJ (Sennott) hook up with their cheerleader crushes. One good lie leads to a violent after-school activity, homemade explosives, sloppy sexcapades, and the most bizarre scene involving pineapple juice you'll ever see. But that's not all. With a wicked wit, Bottoms not only roasts the supposed "glory days" of teendom but also takes shots at rape culture, pushes queer lust to awkward (and relatably so) places, and brings on the blood. This comedy went so hard it not only had critics raving, it had audiences cheering out of its SXSW premiere and ever since.* — K.P.
How to watch: Bottoms is now streaming on MGM+ and Prime Video.
14. Dressed in Blue (1983)Watching Dressed in Blue for the first time feels like discovering a long-lost treasure, one you almost can't believe exists and which you only wish you'd seen sooner. This docudrama from Antonio Giménez-Rico mixes docu-style interviews with narrative reenactments to tell the life stories of six Spanish trans women living in post-Franco Madrid. Josette, Loren, René, Eva, Nacha, and Tamara gather in the dazzling Palacio de Cristal in Madrid to trade stories, gossip, bicker, giggle, and gossip some more as Giménez-Rico jumps in and out of scripted moments of their pasts. The unique framing gives the film something of an ethereal quality, especially paired with Teo Escamilla's dreamy cinematography that imbues each woman with a glowy, almost goddess-like quality. Depictions of trans life have long been victim to the gaze of cis creators, and though this film from a cis male director is no exception, Dressed in Blue does feel like something of an anomaly, especially for its time, by allowing these women more agency in recounting their most private memories. — O.W.
How to watch: Dressed in Blue is streaming on Tubi and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV+, and YouTube.
15. Born in Flames (1983) Credit: First Run Features / Kobal / ShutterstockFor anyone in need of some radical-as-hell queer dystopian fiction during these increasingly dark and fascistic political times, Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames will prove to be a most satisfying balm. Set in a futuristic New York City after a socialist revolution, the film imagines America living under democratic socialism, but where the promises of that society are proving unfulfilled. Droves of women are losing their jobs, sexism and racism run rampant, and a queer Black revolutionary has just been captured and murdered by the state. This kicks off a new fiery revolt where feminist groups led by two radical radio hosts team up to take action into their own hands, from plotting direct action in underground meetings to teaching squads of women how to shoot rifles.
This searing anti-capitalist, anti-racist, pro-feminist treatise is as relevant as ever. Hearing one queer radio DJ shout, "We're being murdered out there in the streets. Wake up, it's time to fight!" you can’t help but feel the parallels to the current attacks on queer and trans life and bodily autonomy happening in this country today. — O.W.
How to watch: Born in Flames is streaming on Kanopy and The Criterion Channel, and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
16. Bound (1996) Credit: Moviestore / ShutterstockA lesbian neo-noir directed by two trans women — there has never been a better combination of words. Bound, the debut feature from Lilly and Lana Wachowski, is a cult favorite for a reason, or maybe 10. It features Gina Gershon playing a tough-as-nails butch lesbian named Corky (just a year after Showgirls' Cristal Connors, mind you), who falls for her sultry femme fatale neighbor, Violet (Jennifer Tilly). This is no mere queer romance though, but a razor-sharp crime thriller where two ordinary women decide to rip off the mob. Violet's abusive boyfriend (a perfect Joe Pantoliano) is about to come into a load of cash, so why not steal it, frame him, and make a getaway for it? Any casual Wachowskis fan can see the sisters' stylistic fingerprints all over Bound, but it's especially a pleasure to see the ways the two spice up classic noir genre conventions with queer sex, startling violence, and a whole lot of queer badassery. — O.W.
How to watch: Bound is streaming on MGM+ and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
17. No Ordinary Man (2020)There are myriad ways to make a documentary about historical figures, but in No Ordinary Man, Chase Joynt and Aisling Chin-Yee take a unique and even risky creative approach that lands beautifully. To tell the story of Billy Tipton, a jazz musician whose stealth trans status was outed after his death and grossly mistreated for years in the press, No Ordinary Man looks to today's trans community to search for the lost and ignored truths of his life. Joynt and Chin-Yee invite a collection of transmasculine actors to read scenes from a narrative script about Tipton's life. This manifests into something profound, with each actor wrestling with how to portray a man who lived at a time where his transness had to remain secret, and with close to no models to shape himself after. It's a fascinating and incredibly moving creative exercise that both attempts to repair the painful history attached to Tipton's legacy, and showcases the necessity for trans performers to embody the roles of trans characters. — O.W.
How to watch: No Ordinary Man is streaming on Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video.
18. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) Credit: HBOOne of the absolute best films of 2022, Laura Poitras' Oscar-nominated documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed manages to accomplish multiple things: documenting the activism of acclaimed photographer Nan Goldin in a tireless pursuit to takedown the wealthy family responsible for the opioid epidemic, commemorating the vast cultural significance of Goldin's art, and detailing the personal life of the woman behind the camera. A prominent name in the 1980s New York City art scene, Goldin, who identifies as queer, is most known for her visceral, probing photography that captured a community ignored not just by the art world but by the entire world — queer and trans folks, sex workers, and those living with and dying from HIV/AIDS. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed fuses past and present, the individual and the collective, to tell a story that's achingly human, full of urgency and rage yet still simmering with hope. — O.W.
How to watch: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is streaming on HBO Max, and is available to rent or purchase on Prime Video.
19. Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses is an absolute trip, and it might be one of the most enthralling pieces of filmmaking about trans femininity. This 1969 Japanese New Wave film fuses avant-garde editing with meta-documentary style filmmaking and non-linear storytelling to follow Eddie (played by androgynous cis actor Peter), a trans woman who works as a hostess as a gay bar — the lines between trans and gay identity are messy at best, given when this was made. With jarring editing, we're torn between Eddie's love triangle with the bar's owner and his other mistress, fragmented memories of a traumatic childhood incident, and meta-interviews with the other trans bar hostesses. It's all quite disturbing and disorienting, both aesthetically and thematically, and that's kinda of the point — as critic Willow Maclay has written, Matsumoto's film "mirrors the breaking down of gendered perception through the destruction of cinematic form." It's the kinda thing you just need to watch to get, and maybe more than once. — O.W.
How to watch: Funeral Parade of Roses is streaming on Kanopy and NightFlight+.
20. God's Own Country (2017)Sometimes gay romance dramas are tender, and sometimes they're just super hot. God's Own Country holds the honor of being both, leaving you crying one moment and indescribably turned on the next. Set on a farm in the Yorkshire countryside, Francis Lee's film traces the lonely and pained day-to-day life of Johnny (Josh O'Connor), a young gay man who buries his anger at his father with binge drinking and anonymous hookups. But when Gheorghe (Alec Secăreanu) arrives for a short stint to work at the farm, something shifts, and the newcomer's presence begins to melt Johnny’s hardened aggression. A sweet gentleness blossoms, along with one of the hottest (and muddiest) sex scenes in recent memory. If sexy emotional gay farmcore was a movie, this would be it. — O.W.
How to watch: God’s Own Country is streaming on Kanopy and Tubi, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
21. Shinjuku Boys (1995)It’s the mid-'90s in Tokyo, and you walk into the New Marilyn nightclub. You're suddenly charmed by a flock of dapper studs in flashy suits with cool-as-ever haircuts. It's a paradise of transmasc cuties.
In Shinjuku Boys, a short documentary from Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams, we meet three transmasculine folks who work at a nightclub that caters to doting female customers. Tatsu, Gaish, and Kazuki, who all use he/him pronouns, describe themselves as "onabe," a broad Japanese term that's been used to describe a variety of identities from trans man to butch lesbian. The doc captures a rarely seen slice of transmasc life (including some not-so-great toxic masc behavior), and offers a series of incredibly raw interviews that speak to things not often shown in film. From personal disclosures about sex and dysphoria to a T4T couple lovingly gushing over how seen they feel by one another, Shinjuku Boys is a snapshot of a unique and little-known piece of Japanese trans history. — O.W.
How to watch: Shinjuku Boys is streaming on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy.
22. Sylvia Scarlett (1935) Credit: Rko / Kobal / ShutterstockIt's Katharine Hepburn in masc drag, what more could you need? How about her looking as dashing as ever in a fedora and popped collar, flirting with Cary Grant and Brian Aherne and confusing the hell out of them both? In this 1935 film that marks the first collaboration between Hollywood gay icons Hepburn, Grant, and director George Cukor, Hepburn plays Sylvia, the meek daughter of a bookkeeper who disguises herself as a boy to help her father flee gambling debts. Now going by the name Sylvester, Hepburn's character finds a swaggering confidence around other men while passing as one. Released during the start of the Hays Code, Sylvia Scarlett was a daring risk, and today remains a fascinating exploration of gender play, queer desire, and the inner empowerment one can discover in distorting gender expectations. — O.W.
How to watch: Sylvia Scarlett is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV+, and VUDU.
23. Changing the Game (2021)When Changing the Game was released in 2021, it felt like a dire time for trans athletes in America — at the time, 17 anti-LGBTQ bills had been passed. As of 2023, of the current proposed 530 anti-trans bills, 79 were passed. A large chunk of those specifically target trans kids who just want to play sports, and more than ever, Changing the Game remains a crucial film that highlights the experiences of young trans athletes.
The documentary from Michael Barnett follows Mack, a trans boy who's the Texas state wrestling champion...of girls' wrestling; Andraya, a Connecticut track star who, though able to compete on her school's girls team, is met with harassment from parents; and Sarah, an alpine skier who splits her free time between activism and a makeup vlog. While circumstances have only gotten horrifically worse for trans youth, Changing the Game is a reminder that the resilience and diehard activism of younger trans generations won't be dying down anytime soon. — O.W.
How to watch: Changing the Game is streaming on Hulu.
24. Desert Hearts (1985) Credit: Moviestore / ShutterstockSet in 1959, Donna Deitch's indie classic Desert Hearts finds Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver), a straight-laced English professor dressed in pearls and a skirt suit, arriving in dusty Reno to file for a quick divorce. The first time she meets Cay (Patricia Charbonneau), an openly queer, free-wheeling local, Cay's riotously racing down the highway backwards, like a lesbian James Dean straight out of Rebel Without A Cause. It's a classic story of opposites attracting as Cay begins to pursue the hesitant and old-fashioned Vivian. Brimming with quiet passion and yearning, and lit stunningly by master cinematographer Robert Elswit, Desert Hearts is a must-watch for any lover of queer cinema. — O.W.
How to watch: Desert Hearts is streaming on The Criterion Channel and HBO Max.
25. Adam (2019)Filmmaker Rhys Ernst's directorial debut does something unexpected and controversial: It portrays an authentic transmasculine experience, but without a trans character as the lead. In Adam, Nicholas Alexander (a cis male actor) plays Adam, a cis male character who, after stumbling into New York City's queer scene, winds up pretending to be a trans guy. It sounds terrible, I know! But hear me out — Adam uses this scenario to flip expectations and, in the process, center transness while putting cis perspectives on the sidelines. Ernst (a trans man) does this through the friendship between Adam and trans man Ethan (The L Word: Gen Q's Leo Sheng). Their relationship proposes an alternative to a world where trans men grow up learning about masculinity (very often toxic) and sexuality (also often toxic) from a cis-centric perspective. Here, Adam comes of age through the wisdom of a man who has deeply investigated his relationship to conventional masculinity. Though a divisive film, Adam's worth seeing for the complex conversations it'll give way to. — O.W.
How to watch: Adam is streaming on Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
26. Colette (2018) Credit: Bleeker Street Media / Moviestore / ShutterstockThe only thing better than a Keira Knightley period piece? An unabashedly queer one. In Colette, Knightley portrays the titular famous French novelist best known for her 1944 work, Gigi, who for years was the ghostwriter of novels her husband took credit for. Wash Westmoreland's film isn't most interesting as a literary biopic, though, but for the way it spotlights how Colette was openly and radically queer, especially for the early 20th century. Knightley's Colette has affairs with women, including a long relationship with Mathilde De Morny, a French trans man and aristocrat referred to as Max and Missy throughout history (though played here by cis actress Denise Gough). Their onstage kiss at the Moulin Rouge in 1907 famously sparked a riot. — O.W.
How to watch: Colette is streaming on Kanopy and Prime Video, and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
27. The Aggressives (2005)In Daniel Peddle's documentary, there's one thing that each of his five subjects has in common: They all identify as "Aggressives," or "AG." That term can mean vastly different things from one person to the next. For Octavia, they're just a person who dresses like a dude with dude ways, while to Tiffany, it means carrying a femme-aggressive attitude and acting more like a gay guy. Rjai, on the other hand, is a ballroom champ with rows of trophies for walking in both masc and butch categories. And then there's Marquise Vilson, who binds his chest and describes himself as a trans lesbian; he's gone on to become a notable trans actor. Peddle's film is a rare document of Black and brown butch, transmasc, and gender nonconforming folks in the early aughts New York City that remains a beautiful showcase of the expansiveness of gender identity and expression outside the binary. — O.W.
How to watch: The Aggressives is streaming on Kanopy and Tubi, and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
28. Caravaggio (1986)If you like your historical dramas ripe with unabashed queerness, look no further than the work of master British filmmaker Derek Jarman. In Caravaggio, Jarman queers the history of the Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio by taking the highly homoerotic subtext of his work (along with age-old suspicions about his sexuality) and injecting it right into the text, reimagining the artist in openly gay affairs. This dazzling and layered meditation, with a mise en scène that evokes the compositions of a Caravaggio painting, finds the artist (played by Nigel Terry) engaged in romances with a street fighter (Sean Bean) and his girlfriend (Tilda Swinton). Even with no knowledge of Caravaggio or art history, Jarman's film is quite a trip, and one bubbling with queer desire. — O.W.
How to watch: Caravaggio is streaming on Kanopy.
29. Anything's Possible (2022)A sweet coming-of-age romantic comedy where a young trans girl gets to be charmed and loved and swept off her feet like every other woman of rom-coms' past? Yes, please! Anything's Possible is the directorial debut from Billy Porter, with a script by trans screenwriter Ximena García Lecuona. Eva Reign stars as Kelsa, a high school senior who starts crushing on Khal (Abubakr Ali). The two flirt, go on a cute first date, and romance begins to brew. But jealousy and backlash from Kelsa's friend group gets ignited, and for the first time, Kelsa's transness becomes a topic of fiery attention at her school — and in her relationship. Anything's Possible has all the charm of a teen rom-com like To All the Boys I've Loved Before, but centers the story on a trans girl without making her identity the sole focus of her character. — O.W.
How to watch: Anything's Possible is streaming on Prime Video.
30. Dicks: The Musical (2023) Credit: A24Imagine The Parent Trap as a scorching satire of queer culture and homophobic fears, and you'll get some idea of what's in store with writers/stars Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson's outrageous musical comedy. But nothing can prepare you for Megan Thee Stallion's ode to putting alpha males in their place, or the madcap chaos of Megan Mullally's ad-libs, or even national treasure Nathan Lane spitting ham at his beloved Sewer Boys. It's also got Bowen Yang as God, and a finale number that is as joyous as it is absolutely iconoclastic. Seeking something unapologetically outrageous? Nothing made us laugh as hard or loud or long as Dicks: The Musical.* — K.P.
How to watch: Dicks: The Musical is now streaming on HBO Max.
31. Disclosure (2020)Ask anyone over 20 to name the first time they saw a trans character portrayed on screen, and it'll likely fall into one of the following categories: a villainous monster, a mocked disgrace, or a sad tragedy ending in death. Sam Feder's documentary Disclosure charts the history of transness depicted across film and TV, showing that from cinema's silent origins to the modern series of today, trans people have always been present, but largely only to be derided, misrepresented, and gawked at. With a mix of archival footage and talking head interviews with dozens of trans actors, directors, and authors, Disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a trans perspective on the painful history of representation in media. It's vital educational viewing for cis audiences. For trans folks, it provides a cathartic look back on an ugly history, but with a hopeful promise of what visibility can look like. — O.W.
How to watch: Disclosure is streaming on Netflix.
32. The Matrix (1999) Credit: Moviestore / ShutterstockWhat better way to celebrate Pride than by watching the most famous trans movie of all time, The Matrix? (It's canon, deal with it.) The sci-fi action epic may not be explicitly trans on the surface, but as trans critics and audiences over the years have observed, Neo's tale down the rabbit hole is littered with subtextual allusions to trans identity. There's the red/blue pill "splinter in your mind" metaphor for hormone therapy, the "waking up" and "unplugging" from the Matrix as a realization of one's gender when the egg shell cracks, the fact that Neo keeps getting deadnamed by Agent Smith, the whole essence of Trinity — you can go on and on. Read this sci-fi classic how you will, but once you start spotting all the trans symbolism, in the words of Morpheus, "There's no turning back." — O.W.
How to watch: The Matrix is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
33. Swan Song (2021) Credit: Chris Stephens / Magnolia PicturesInspired by the real-life "Liberace of Sandusky, [Ohio]," Swan Song stars heralded character actor Udo Kier as a Mr. Pat, a retired and unapologetically flamboyant hairdresser out to secure his legacy with one last hurrah of a hairdo. Striding back into his old haunts to reconcile with his past, this wickedly funny hero finds new friends, old foes, and the glory of a mint-green vintage suit. With a fine wit, bold style, and a big heart, writer/director Todd Stephens' film pays dazzling tribute to a generation of gay men who were decimated by AIDS and societal indifference. Swirling together rage and gratitude into an intoxicating cocktail, Kier gives the best performance of his long and storied career.* — K.P.
How to watch: Swan Song is now streaming on Kanopy and available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime.
34. Moonlight (2016) Credit: David Bornfriend / A24 / Kobal / ShutterstockDirector Barry Jenkins' Academy Award-winning Best Picture may use some of the formulaic components seen in other coming-of-age stories, but it imbues them with such immense inventiveness and originality that to compare Moonlight to anything else feels like an insult. This film has rightly been called some of the most impactful filmmaking in history, a perennial meditation on abuse, regret, pain, and acceptance. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Moonlight is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
35. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)Hedwig and the Angry Inch is always best enjoyed on the stage. But when a visit to the theater isn't an option, director and star John Cameron Mitchell's screen adaptation more than does the trick. In this musical dramedy, Stephen Trask's spectacular songs once again come to life as the titular and iconic East German rock singer explores revenge, betrayal, and acceptance. — A.F.
How to watch: Hedwig and the Angry Inch is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
36-38. The Fear Street Trilogy (2021) Credit: NetflixA stellar example of queer horror hit in three parts in 2021, when R.L. Stine's beloved YA book series inspired a slasher trilogy centered on a lesbian couple. Kiana Madeira and Olivia Scott Welch are suffering the standard torments of teendom when the local legend of a vicious witch upends their lives — and may end them! Director Leigh Janiak ushers audiences through three eras of terror, chasing her heroes through shopping malls, summer camps, and colonial forests to unearth the dark truth of Shadyside. — K.P.
How to watch: Fear Street: Part One: 1994 is streaming on Netflix.
How to watch: Fear Street: Part Two: 1978 is streaming on Netflix.
How to watch: Fear Street: Part Three: 1666 is streaming on Netflix.
SEE ALSO: Netflix kicks off R.L. Stine's 'Fear Street' saga with a splash 39. The Watermelon Woman (1996) Credit: Dancing Girl / Kobal / ShutterstockDirector Cheryl Dunye's cinematic debut brings utter fearlessness to righting wrongs. In this romantic comedy, Dunye plays a pseudo-autobiographical version of herself intent on giving credit to the Black actors and filmmakers that came before her but were too often left unnamed. Widely regarded as the first feature-length film directed by an openly lesbian Black woman, The Watermelon Woman remains a triumph almost 30 years later. — A.F.
How to watch: The Watermelon Woman is streaming on Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
40. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)In this charming, sexy, and silly comedy from Stephen Frears, Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis play childhood friends-turned-lovers struggling to make the most of their meager means. When the pair take over a laundromat together, they must face the normal pitfalls of operating a business as well as battle the political climate surrounding immigrants in '80s Great Britain. — A.F.
How to watch: My Beautiful Laundrette is streaming on Kanopy and Pluto TV, and is available to rent or purchase on Prime Video or Apple TV+.
41. Rift (2017)Want something uniquely chilling? Then check out this 2017 Icelandic thriller set in a frigid and frightful landscape. Written and directed by Erlingur Thoroddsen, Rift follows a man (Björn Stefánsson) to a remote cabin, where he hopes to help his distraught ex-boyfriend (Sigurður Þór Óskarsson) and maybe find some closure over their breakup. However, their reunion is rattled by a series of strange events that suggest they aren't alone. Something is in the darkness, watching and waiting. This fantastic film lures you in with beautiful vistas and a slow-burn pace, then spirals into scares sure to linger like a cold shiver down your spine.* — K.P.
How to watch: Rift is streaming on Kanopy and is available to rent or purchase on Prime Video.
42. Carol (2016)Based on Patricia Highsmith's groundbreaking 1952 novel, Todd Haynes' Carol brings the lives of Carol Aird and Therese Belivet to the screen through actors Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. This masterful rendition of a Christmas-set romance will pull at your heartstrings in all of the right ways, permanently nestling into a corner of your soul. — A.F.
How to watch: Carol is streaming on Hulu and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: 'The Babadook' filmmaker Jennifer Kent on how her character became an LGBTQ+ icon, and why we will never see a sequel 43. Benedetta (2021) Credit: IFC FilmsWhen you hear that the director of Showgirls made a movie about lesbian nuns, you might suspect Benedetta to be outlandishly raunchy and ferociously campy, reveling in the trashy tropes. However, Paul Verhoeven brings exquisite artistry to this stranger-than-fiction tale, delivering a biopic full of outrageous moments with a sophisticated yet wicked wit. Virginie Efira stars as 17th-century Italian nun Benedetta Carlini, who drew raised eyebrows in her convent not only because of the miracles she seemed to perform but also because of her romance with a fellow sister (Daphne Patakia). — K.P.
How to watch: Benedetta is streaming on AMC+, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: 'Benedetta' is a sexy nun biopic with wicked wit 44. Weekend (2011)Tom Cullen and Chris New redefine the chance encounter in director Andrew Haigh's Weekend. Told over the course of a 48-hour period, this stirring, passionate romance considers the impacts strangers can have on one another — even when their time together is cut all too short. — A.F.
How to watch: Weekend is streaming on The Criterion Channel and Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
45. Tongues Untied (1989)Artist Marlon Riggs' experimental film Tongues Untied addresses the onslaught of racist and homophobic prejudices Black gay men have been forced to endure and navigate for decades. Combining documentary footage with scripted personal accounts, this 55-minute film remains an impactful and relevant point of reference in intersectional LGBTQ activism. — A.F.
How to watch: Tongues Untied is streaming on Kanopy.
46. Love, Simon (2018)Folks looking for a heartwarming, sweet, and goofy romp to accompany the perfect at-home Pride celebration can stop their search. Love, Simon, starring the always charming Nick Robinson, broke ground as the first major studio film to focus on a gay teen romance. Delightful as it is important, this movie combines the best of rom-coms and coming out stories to check every box on a movie lover's list. — A.F.
How to watch: Love, Simon is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV+, YouTube, and Google Play.
SEE ALSO: 'Love, Simon' is a gotdamn delightful rom-com, and it's gay as hell 47. Shiva Baby (2021) Credit: UtopiaHere's a nightmare scenario: You're a young, bi Jewish woman (Rachel Sennott) who just finished hooking up with one of your sex-work clients — he's rich and cute and, hey, maybe you kinda like him. You show up at the shiva your parents dragged you to, and oh fuck, Sugar Daddy walks in…with a hot wife…holding a newborn baby. And he knows your parents. Oh, and your ex-girlfriend, who's been a total flake lately, is there too. Emma Seligman's debut feature is like the Jewish comedic version of Trey Edward Schults' Krisha, only it finds the humor (and the suffocating anxiety) in the chaos. And it does it all in only an hour and 17 minutes.* — O.W.
How to watch: Shiva Baby is streaming on Kanopy and Netflix, and is available to rent or buy on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: 'The Film Library: A Kanopy Podcast' highlights the best movies you can stream with no fee 48. Happy Together (1997) Credit: Block 2 Pics / Kobal / ShutterstockDirected by Wong Kar-wai, this nail-biting romantic saga depicts a tumultuous relationship on the brink of collapse. The film's leads, Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, explore passion and its limitations as Happy Together provides a unique, if not jarring, glimpse into affairs of the heart. — A.F.
How to watch: Happy Together is streaming on HBO Max.
49. But I'm a Cheerleader (2000)Natasha Lyonne stars as a cheerleader forced to attend a conversion therapy camp in what may very well be the greatest lesbian fairytale of all time. Directed by Jamie Babbit, But I'm a Cheerleader was met with lukewarm reviews in 2000 but has since garnered a well-deserved cult following. Come for the promise of RuPaul trying to pretend he's straight; stay for a first kiss scene featuring Clea DuVall that will knock your pom-poms off. — A.F.
How to watch: But I'm a Cheerleader is streaming on Tubi and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: 21 years later, 'But I'm a Cheerleader' is still the perfect fairytale 50. Wig (2019)One of the most iconic events of New York City Pride, Wigstock has taken many forms over the years. Watch as director Chris Moukarbel follows present-day queens as they attempt to revitalize the festival made popular by legends, like Lady Bunny, in 2018. — A.F.
How to watch: Wig is available to stream on HBO Max.
51. Velvet Goldmine (1998) Credit: Peter Mountain / Zenith / Killer / Kobal / ShutterstockAnother glittering gift from Todd Haynes, this '70s-set drama plays like fan fiction, penned about queer icons like David Bowie, Lou Reed, and Oscar Wilde. Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as a glam rock star who wins the heart of a headstrong American punk (Ewan McGregor), a glitzy party girl (Toni Collette), and the devotion of a young teen coming into his own (Christian Bale). Stuffed with incredible music, scintillating spectacle, and unapologetically queer lust, Velvet Goldmine is beautiful and bold even before you realize Haynes mopped its narrative structure from Citizen Kane. — K.P.
How to watch: Velvet Goldmine is now available for rent or purchase on Prime Video.
52. Paris Is Burning (1990)It's the film you knew had to be on this list. Director Jennie Livingston's unparalleled documentary Paris Is Burning captures the New York City drag ball culture of the late '80s with style, grace, and intelligence. It's a powerful reflection on wealth disparity, race discrimination, and stigma surrounding the LGBTQ community — a must-see if there's ever been one. — A.F.
How to watch: Paris Is Burning is now streaming on The Criterion Channel and on HBO Max, and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
53. Brokeback Mountain (2005)Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger shepherd a nuanced narrative of passion, fear, romance, and shame in director Ang Lee's tale of star-crossed lovers in rural Wyoming and Texas. A timeless reflection on what it takes to unite who you are expected to be with who you really are, Brokeback Mountain can be a little sappy — but its faultless message always lands. — A.F.
How to watch: Brokeback Mountain is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
54. How to Survive a Plague (2012)Reporter David France looks back on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this riveting, comprehensive documentary. Weaving hundreds of hours of archival footage into a cohesive narrative on the LGBTQ community's fight against biased healthcare practices, How to Survive a Plague bottles what it means to make societal change happen before it's too late. — A.F.
How to watch: How to Survive a Plague is streaming on Pluto TV, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
55. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) Credit: NeonWriter-director Céline Sciamma will blow you away with this historical French drama. Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel lead as a painter and her unwilling subject whose intimate time together begins a secret romance that threatens to unravel them both. Painful and poetic, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the under-appreciated watch you need to make time for. — A.F.
How to watch: Portrait of a Lady on Fire is streaming on HBO Max and Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
56. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pearce star as drag performers traveling the Australian outback in this heartfelt comedy packed with iconic one-liners and costume changes. (It should be noted that this film contains some outdated, racist portrayals of non-white characters. Many argue the film remains a historic text for the changes it brought about in mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ art.) — A.F.
How to watch: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is streaming on Tubi and Prime Video.
57. Upstairs Inferno (2015)Documentarian Robert L. Camina remembers the catastrophic fire that took the lives of 32 people at New Orleans gay bar UpStairs Lounge on June 24, 1973. Witnesses to the tragedy reflect on the lives lost, the expected arsonist behind the attack, and the city's lacking response to community devastation. This is a heartbreaking but essential chapter in any LGBTQ history book. — A.F.
How to watch: Upstairs Inferno is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
58. Kiki (2016)There has never been a better time to revisit Sara Jordenö's breathtaking Kiki. Centered on the drag and ballroom scene of New York City and those communities' roles in rebuffing systemic intersectional bias, this documentary is an inspiring reminder that joy and love can bring about lasting change — but not without profound struggle. — A.F.
How to watch: Kiki is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
59. Pariah (2011) Credit: Chicken and Egg / MBK / Northstar / Kobal / ShutterstockAdepero Oduye devastates in this coming-of-age story. A cinematic journey that leaps from the screen straight to your soul, Pariah follows a 17-year-old Black girl as she fights to accept her lesbian identity and reconcile her sexual orientation with her family's vision of the future. — A.F.
How to watch: Pariah is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
60. Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019)Queer horror is a genre full of cringeworthy moves. But fans of the much-maligned A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge came to embrace its quirky dance number and its groundbreaking scream queen, Mark Patton. Teaming with documentarians Tyler Jensen and Roman Chimienti, this fascinating leading man steps back into the spotlight to share his story as a closeted gay actor who survived public mockery and the AIDS crisis to find a love and community that takes pride in him. — K.P.
How to watch: Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is streaming on Tubi, and is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV+.
61. The Favourite (2018)Only star Olivia Colman walked away with an Oscar for her work on The Favourite, but the 2018 historical black comedy more than earned its fair share of praise. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, this Best Picture nominee tells the story of two courtiers, played by Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, vying for the favor of Queen Anne (Colman). An excellent argument against aristocracies — and owning too many rabbits — this darkly hilarious and queer romp is well worth a watch. — A.F.
How to watch: The Favourite is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV+, YouTube, and Google Play.
62. We Were Here (2011)Director David Weissman's documentary We Were Here transports viewers back to the San Francisco LGBTQ scene of the '80s and '90s as interview subjects relive their struggle to contend with the unfathomable HIV/AIDS crisis. A testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of community, this is a history lesson worth paying attention to. — A.F.
How to watch: We Were Here is streaming Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
63. Call Me by Your Name (2017)Timothée Chalamet leads in director Luca Guadagnino's stunning coming-of-age romance. Winner of Best Adapted Screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards, Call Me By Your Name approaches its starring couple with tenderness, understanding, and unshakable warmth. This is the perfect pick for a cozy-yet-ethereal night in. — A.F.
How to watch: Call Me by Your Name is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: 'Call Me By Your Name' is the rare case where you should watch the movie before reading the book 64. Tomboy (2011)Another installment from writer-director Céline Sciamma. Tomboy paints a staggering portrait of a gender non-conforming child grappling with societal expectations in a new environment. Full of hope but grounded in its true-to-life performances, this film exists as a testament to becoming who you really are at any age. Then-10-year-old Zoé Héran positively dazzles with her lead role. — A.F.
How to watch: Tomboy is streaming on The Criterion Channel.
65. A Fantastic Woman (2017) Credit: Sony Classics / TIFFWinner of Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, director Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman is a tragedy and triumph for the ages. Daniela Vega plays a woman who loses her partner unexpectedly. Amidst her grief, she must contend with her late partner's family and their transphobia. This film offers exquisite cognizance of the pain prejudice can add to existing loss. — A.F.
How to watch: A Fantastic Woman is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: Why 'A Fantastic Woman' star Daniela Vega should be the first trans performer nominated for Best Actress 66. My Own Private Idaho (1991)Keanu Reeves and the late River Phoenix star in this 20th-century retelling of Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V. Director Gus Van Sant guides his leads through a tense, melancholy exploration of intimacy, power, and uncertainty that never fails to deliver poignant reflection despite its adventure-fueled storyline. Oh, and the pair's chemistry is...searing. — A.F.
How to watch: My Own Private Idaho is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Google Play.
67. The Half of It (2020) Credit: KC Bailey / NetflixSince arriving on Netflix last year, The Half of It has quietly built a following of young queer people enchanted by its presentation of coming out. Starring Leah Lewis as Ellie Chu, an introverted Chinese-American high schooler, this romantic comedy is yet another retelling of the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac, but with an intense honesty to its subject that makes it stand out. — A.F.
How to watch: The Half of It is streaming on Netflix.
SEE ALSO: Netflix's 'The Half of It' is a pretty good rom-com that could've been a great one 68. Milk (2008)In director Gus Van Sant's astounding biopic, Sean Penn stars as activist and politician Harvey Milk. The first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, Milk progressed the rights of LGBTQ Americans by unprecedented leaps and bounds. Milk honors that legacy with its heartfelt imagining of an icon. Penn won Best Actor for his portrayal of Milk at the 81st Academy Awards. — A.F.
How to watch: Milk is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
69. Tangerine (2015) Credit: Augustas Quirk / Magnolia / Duplass Brothers Prods / Kobal / ShutterstockDirector Sean Baker's low-budget tour de force follows transgender sex worker Sin-Dee Rella (played by the effervescent Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) as she seeks to enact revenge on the man who cheated on her and the cisgender woman he cheated with. Bittersweet and hysterical, Tangerine is a one-of-a-kind viewing experience you'll cherish forever. — A.F.
How to watch: Tangerine is streaming on Kanopy and HBO Max, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
70. The Birdcage (1996) Credit: Lorey Sebastian / United Artists / Kobal / ShutterstockIn the wake of an unexpected wedding, The Birdcage chronicles the chaotic blending of two very different families. Along the way, Nathan Lane dons full drag, Robin Williams dances his pleated pants off, and Gene Hackman brings remarkable depth to his straight-man role. This is the perfect pick if you want something light and fun to watch with your chosen family. — A.F.
How to watch: The Birdcage is now streaming on Hulu and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
SEE ALSO: 'The Birdcage's tale of queer love and drag queens is as timely as ever 71. Rafiki (2018)Starring Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva as burgeoning lovers, Rafiki was banned in Kenya "due to its homosexual theme and clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya contrary to the law." As a result, of course, much of the rest of the queer world embraced it as a symbol against censorship. Director Wanuri Kahiu treats those viewers to a positively enchanting romance, one that only emphasizes the need for LGBTQ equality everywhere. — A.F.
How to watch: Rafiki is streaming on Kanopy, and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
72. Welcome to Chechnya (2020)The third film from Academy Award-nominated documentarian David France, Welcome to Chechnya takes viewers on a guerilla-style investigation into the anti-gay purges that still plague the constituent republic of Russia.
Not only does the explosive project detail the abhorrent policies created by Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to criminalize homosexuality, it also delves into the insidious culture the government has instilled in its citizens to encourage hate crimes. It’s a painful watch that demands attention from viewers, focusing in large part on the courageous efforts of underground networks working to help LGBTQ people escape the region.* — A.F.
How to watch: Welcome to Chechnya is streaming on HBO Max, and is available to purchase on Apple TV+.
73. The Living End (1992) Credit: Strand / Desperate / Kobal / ShutterstockOften dubbed the gay Thelma & Louise, Gregg Araki's The Living End follows the reckless road trip of two HIV-positive, anti-establishment gay men who go on the run after killing a homophobic cop. There's Jon (Craig Gilmore), a slender, downbeat film critic who just found out his HIV status, and Luke (Mike Dytri), a hustler hunk who looks like he walked right out of Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising. The two become lovers and quickly set out on a fuck-everything crime spree across California. A fixture of New Queer Cinema that put Araki on the map, this low-budget punk queer road movie is sizzling with radical rage, and feels as fresh as ever today. — O.W.
How to watch: The Living End is streaming on Kanopy and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
74. Imagine Me and You (2005)There are two types of queers: those who saw beloved lesbian rom-com Imagine Me & You early in their queerness and were forever changed, and those who've never heard of the undersung British movie. If you're in the latter camp, I’m so thrilled to finally introduce you to this silly, charming romance. Rachel (Piper Perabo donning a British accent) is about to marry her best friend, Heck (Matthew Goode), but as she's walking down the aisle, her eyes catch a woman named Luce (Lena Headey), and something indescribable happens. It's love at first sight, as they say, and thus begins a sweet love story between Rachel, who's only ever dated men, and Luce, an openly gay florist in the most '00s lesbian wardrobe you've ever seen. It's delightfully cheery and has an ending that will, shockingly, leave you teary-eyed with joy. A queer rom-com classic through and through. — O.W.
How to watch: Imagine Me & You is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV+, and YouTube.
75. Before Stonewall (1984)Filmmakers Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg did a public service in their creation of the seminal documentary Before Stonewall. An educational yet humorous work that provides essential context to the LGBTQ community's long-fought campaign for civil rights, this is a great starting place for anyone eager to better appreciate just how far acceptance has come and how far it still has to go. — A.F.
How to watch: Before Stonewall is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+.
Asterisks (*) indicate the write-up comes from a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: May. 23, 2025, 2:57 p.m. EDT This list has been updated with active links and additional movie recommendations.
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TL;DR: Live stream PSG vs. Inter Milan in the 2025 Champions League final for free on discovery+. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
Following on from the Europa League and Conference League finals, the main event is finally here.
PSG take on Inter Milan in the Champions League final. We're expecting a really entertaining matchup between two talented sides with contrasting approaches. PSG will likely aim to attack from the start, with their pacey front three looking to cause problems. Inter on the other hand are all about organization and discipline. Which style will come out on the top in Munich?
If you want to watch PSG vs. Inter Milan in the 2025 Champions League final for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.
When is the 2025 Champions League final?PSG vs. Inter Milan in the 2025 Champions League final starts at 3 p.m. ET on May 31. This fixture takes place at the Allianz Arena.
How to watch the 2025 Champions League final for freePSG vs. Inter Milan in the 2025 Champions League final is available to live stream for free on discovery+. All you need to do is sign up for a free account to watch this final on discovery+.
This free live stream is not available all around the world, but anyone can secure access with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK, meaning you can live stream the 2025 Champions League final for free on discovery+ from anywhere in the world.
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Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections?The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for May 31 Here's a hint for today's Connections categoriesWant a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Yellow: Crevices
Green: Things you win
Blue: Heard in a bakery
Purple: Uses one's lips
Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:
Yellow: Alcove
Green: Ways to recognize achievement
Blue: Verbs in breadmaking
Purple: Things you can blow
Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today's Connections #720 is...
What is the answer to Connections todayAlcove: CAVITY, HOLLOW, NOOK, RECESS
Ways to recognize achievement: CERTIFICATE, MEDAL, PLAQUE, TROPHY
Verbs in breadmaking: FERMENT, PROOF, REST, RISE
Things you can blow: BUBBLE, FUSE, KISS, RASPBERRY
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 31Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.
If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game.
Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on MashableBy providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.
If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferrined pace.
SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for May 31 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 31 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Next to the bobby pinsThe words are beauty-related.
Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explainedThese words are ways to adorn hair.
NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?Today's NYT Strands spangram is vertical.
NYT Strands spangram answer todayToday's spangram is Hair Accessories
Featured Video For You Strands 101: How to win NYT’s latest word game NYT Strands word list for May 31Clip
Barrette
Claw
Hair Accessories
Scrunchies
Headband
Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, and if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!
Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Strands.
Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.
If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for May 31 Where did Wordle come from?Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
What's the best Wordle starting word?The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.
Is Wordle getting harder?It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.
SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for May 31, 2025 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:A routine.
Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?There are no recurring letters.
Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...Today's Wordle starts with the letter H.
SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. The Wordle answer today is...Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to today's Wordle is...
HABIT.
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 31Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.
SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hintThe Christian religious text.
SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air is $300 off at Amazon. And yes, I’m tempted. Hurdle Word 1 answerBIBLE
Hurdle Word 2 hintTo hold up something.
SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for May 31, 2025 Hurdle Word 2 AnswerDELAY
Hurdle Word 3 hintSeating at a bar.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 31 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 31, 2025 Hurdle Word 3 answerSTOOL
Hurdle Word 4 hintWeek.
SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for May 31 Hurdle Word 4 answerFRAIL
Final Hurdle hintTo submit.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answerPOSIT
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
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