This HBO original movie follows much of the conventional music biopic pattern-the rise, the disillusionment and self-destruction, the tragic fall. The characters in (most of-more on that “most” later) these films have been through those early crucibles, and are now contending with different challenges, curiosities, and passions. Which is why, in honor of Pride month but really any for any time, I’ve compiled this list of 10 LGBT movies, all available to stream on various subscription services, that aren’t about coming out or first encounters. It’s awfully rare that we get to see, on film, the life that lies past those first forays. (Even in real life, in my experience, it’s hard to get through a first date without eventually arriving at each other’s coming-out stories.) And while so many coming-out films are vital-the tentative reaching of Moonlight, the full-throated embraces of Carol-the sheer amount of them piles up to make an imbalanced kind of portraiture. Because the realization of self, and the tacit or direct assertion of that self, is a foundational part of LGBT people’s identity, that process been restaged and reimagined many times in LGBT cinema.
