A Film Guide
Best Sapphic Movies: 20 Lesbian Films Worth Watching
The films that turn longing into light.
If you are after films that treat sapphic relationships as more than a subplot, this is where I would start. The list mixes romance, drama, coming-of-age, thrillers and a few lighter options — and where a film came from a novel, the book is listed alongside it.
It is also a natural companion to gothic sapphic fiction: readers who love atmosphere, period setting, and women who choose each other against the rules will find their next watch here.
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Essential Classics
The four everyone should see
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)★
Two women fall in love on an isolated island in 18th-century France while one paints the other's wedding portrait.
Gorgeously shot, emotionally devastating, and one of the greatest romance films ever made.
- Carol (2015)
A restrained, elegant romance between a department store clerk and an older woman in 1950s New York.
Adapted from Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, with career-best performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
- The Handmaiden (2016)
An erotic thriller with twists upon twists, relocating Sarah Waters's Fingersmith to 1930s colonial Korea.
Lavish, dark, funny, romantic and incredibly stylish. Definitely for mature audiences.
- Desert Hearts (1985)
One of the first mainstream lesbian romances to actually end on a hopeful note — a professor and a free-spirited sculptor in 1950s Reno.
A landmark film, and still one of the warmest.
Modern Favourites
Recent films worth your evening
- Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Crime, bodybuilding, romance and complete chaos. Think lesbian noir with steroids.
- Ammonite (2020)
A quiet period romance starring Kate Winslet as the paleontologist Mary Anning and Saoirse Ronan as the woman sent to convalesce beside her.
More melancholic than passionate.
- The World to Come (2020)
Two frontier wives find love in 19th-century America. Slow, intimate, heartbreaking.
- Drive-Away Dolls (2024)
A goofy crime comedy road trip. Very much a have-fun-and-don't-overthink-it movie.
Coming-of-Age
First loves and first honesty
- Booksmart (2019)
A hilarious high-school comedy with a sweet sapphic romance running through it.
- But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)
Camp, colourful satire about conversion therapy — funny while still having something to say.
- Pariah (2011)
A powerful coming-of-age story about identity, family and self-acceptance in Brooklyn.
One of the strongest independent films of the 2010s.
- The Half of It (2020)
A gentle Netflix romance inspired by Cyrano de Bergerac. More bittersweet than conventional.
Darker & Psychological
Desire with a knife under the table
- Mulholland Drive (2001)
David Lynch's surreal masterpiece: romance, mystery, dreams and nightmares in equal measure.
- Bound (1996)
A crime thriller from the Wachowskis before The Matrix. Clever, sexy, suspenseful.
- Disobedience (2018)
Two women reconnect within an Orthodox Jewish community, from Naomi Alderman's novel. Quiet and emotionally rich.
- Black Swan (2010)
Not a lesbian romance, but sapphic desire is an important part of its psychological tension.
Hidden Gems
Underseen and worth finding
- Saving Face (2004)
A romantic comedy about a Chinese American surgeon balancing family expectations and love.
Warm, funny, and deserves far more attention than it gets.
- Imagine Me & You (2005)
Perhaps the happiest lesbian rom-com ever made. Extremely charming.
- Rafiki (2018)
A vibrant romance set in Kenya, where same-sex relationships are criminalised. Hopeful despite difficult circumstances.
- Crush (2022)
A cute, modern teen rom-com. Easy comfort viewing.
If I Could Only Recommend Ten
The short list
- 1.Portrait of a Lady on Fire★
- 2.The Handmaiden
- 3.Carol
- 4.Pariah
- 5.Love Lies Bleeding
- 6.Saving Face
- 7.Desert Hearts
- 8.Bound
- 9.But I'm a Cheerleader
- 10.The Half of It
If You Want the Gothic Novel
Miss Chambers and the Countess
If The Handmaiden, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, or Carol left you wanting a novel with the same atmosphere — a remote house, a slow-burning intimacy, and a love story that risks everything — Miss Chambers and the Countess was written for that reader. A Victorian scholar and an ancient countess meet in a castle in the Carpathians. The house has rules. They break them.
Miss Chambers and the Countess
A reserved Victorian scholar travels to a remote Carpathian castle to catalogue ancient manuscripts and finds herself drawn into an intimate, dangerous relationship with the immortal Countess who lives there.
Miss Chambers and the Countess
by Aaron D. Stott
A reserved Victorian scholar travels to a remote Carpathian castle to catalogue ancient manuscripts and finds herself drawn into an intimate, dangerous relationship with the immortal Countess who lives there.
View all books →"Every sapphic film is a door. On the other side is a room full of books."
— Aaron D. Stott