June is Pride Month, a time when LGBTQ+ individuals are encouraged to boldly embrace who they are. This can happen through Pride parades and sharing stories, but can also take place on a smaller scale. One of the best ways to relish the visibility Pride encourages and experience stories from other members of the community is to consume queer media, which platforms like HBO Max and Hulu are highlighting with special Pride collections.
While there are many iconic queer movies out there, no genre captures the joys of first love quite like teen movies do. Teen movies highlight the wonder of love for its own sake, which gave their featured LGBTQ+ couples a place in the optimistic, trope-filled narratives they have long been excluded from.
Cyd And Katie In Princess Cyd
Princess Cyd follows Cydney Loughlin as she spends the summer with her Aunt Miranda, a religious fiction writer. While in town, she meets a barista named Katie, who she gradually falls for. While the film is more about Cyd and Miranda’s relationship than her love story with Katie, that doesn’t make the couple insignificant.
It’s a beautiful representation of a bisexual character finding love with a woman without having her identity invalidated. Cyd and Katie’s relationship feels very authentic, avoiding overdone tropes while still highlighting the joys of young love.
Deena And Samantha In The Fear Street Trilogy
Switching to the horror genre, the Fear Street trilogy primarily focuses on a centuries-old curse that has prompted several murders in Shadyside. However, beneath that is a love story, with protagonist Deena just trying to live a peaceful life with her girlfriend, Sam. The girls and their friends try to avoid the killers and possessions prompted by the curse as they search for a way to end it for good.
Deena and Samantha’s love story perfectly captures life as a teenager pursuing their first love. Deena’s motivation throughout the entire trilogy is just to save Sam and have another date with her, and the fans were with her the whole time. Unfortunately, Sam spends a good amount of time possessed throughout the franchise, so there isn’t much time spent on the pair together.
Simon And Bram In Love, Simon
Love, Simon follows Simon Spier as he tries to discover the identity of his digital boyfriend, Blue. When he is outed to the entire school, Simon has to cope with social and family pressures, all the while clinging to his pen pal. Eventually, Simon puts himself out on a limb to get Blue to reveal himself, resulting in Simon and Bram finally meeting openly.
While Love, Simon gets a place of honor for being one of the first mainstream LGBTQ+ releases, Simon and Bram aren’t the best couple out there. It’s definitely sweet to see Bram finally show up for Simon at the Ferris wheel, but until that point, it seemed like it was going to be a romance movie without a happy ending, as the couple spent the majority of the film apart.
Emma And Alyssa In The Prom
The Prom follows Emma Nolan’s quest to be able to take her girlfriend to prom. She is aided by a group of publicity-hungry Broadway stars who eventually learn to be better people by helping her, with The Prom‘s musical numbers capture both the pain and joys of being a queer teen.
Emma and Alyssa are incredibly sweet together, with “Dance With You” showing the strength of the love between the two girls. However, their relationship is unbalanced, with Emma taking repeated political and social blows for Alyssa’s sake. It’s wonderful to see the two come together in the end, but many fans can’t help feeling that Emma deserved better.
Megan And Graham In But I’m A Cheerleader
Truly a classic in queer media, But I’m A Cheerleader follows Megan Bloomfield as her atypical interests provoke her family to send her to a conversion therapy camp. Megan doesn’t believe she is gay, as she doesn’t fit the stereotype, but the camp’s attempts to make her straight end up opening her up to her own sexuality and to finding love with fellow camper Graham.
Megan and Graham move from enemies to lovers, and it’s great to see both pushing the other to embrace who they are, rather than conforming to the system. That being said, their relationship takes a backseat to camp in this movie, so while it’s definitely worth watching, don’t expect their relationship to always be center stage.
Paige And AJ In Crush
Crush follows Paige Evans as she tries to find the culprit behind a series of pun-based graffiti incidents, and as she hopes to win over her crush Gabby. She ends up joining to track team as part of her investigation, which helps her get closer to Gabby – and Gabby’s sister AJ. She and AJ end up falling for each other, which leads to adorable couple moments and art murals.
It’s incredible to see a queer film where homophobia was not a central plotline, as it gives more time for the girls to develop their relationship. Both of Crush‘s female leads were incredibly likable characters audiences could root for. The two get all of the cliche moments queer movie watchers have been begging for for years, and their chemistry jumps off the screen.
Randy And Evie In The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love follows Randy Dean as she tries to build a workable relationship with her girlfriend Evie. The two face struggles involving disapproving parents, difficulty at school, and Randy’s ex’s jealous husband. All the while, the two girls grow closer together, finding stability in each other as everything else falls apart.
This 1995 throwback comes with the standard coming-out struggles but manages to do so in a way that never takes away from the love the two girls have for each other. Evie is nervous about the repercussions of their relationship, but it doesn’t stop her from consistently choosing Randy. It has all the joy of any rom-com, while also dealing with the complexities of finding love across racial and class divides.
Alex And Elliot In Alex Strangelove
Alex Strangelove follows Alex Truelove as he plans to have sex for the first time with his best friend Claire. All plans go off the rails, however, when Alex meets Elliot. Alex realizes that his feelings for Elliot are stronger than his feelings for Claire, which leads to some seriously awkward moments and an insanely sweet prom scene.
Alex and Elliot just work, with the movie capturing the sense of meant-to-be that all good teen romances include. The two click perfectly, and the actors’ performances really sell that. They can’t stop looking at each other, and the audience gets pulled into the joy they feel when around each other.
Lucy And Amy In D.E.B.S.
D.E.B.S. follows Amy Bradshaw, top of her class in spy school. She and her team have been tasked with stopping supervillain Lucy Diamond, who they believe is collaborating with a Russian spy. Despite Lucy and Amy both being tasked with taking each other out, they wind up falling for each other instead.
While the movie was a box office bomb, it has become a cult classic, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community. Lucy and Amy’s relationship is quirky and endearing, and the spy themes are perfectly campy. Their relationship checks every box, from enemies to lovers to changing each other for the better.
Leonardo And Gabriel In The Way He Looks
The Way He Looks is a Brazilian coming-of-age story about Leonardo, a blind teenager who wants to gain independence from his over-protective parents. After new student Gabriel joins his friend group, Leonardo shares that he wishes he could have his first kiss and mourns that he will never be able to ride a bike. By the end of the movie, with Gabriel’s help, he gets the chance to do both.
Gabriel and Leonardo are a great couple, each pushing the other to achieve their goals. While Leonardo and Gabriel deal with some traditional teen movie problems, the characters feel incredibly real, and Gabriel’s acceptance of Leonardo’s blindness makes it a rare example of disabled romance representation as well.
