The Out Oscars 2025: The best LGBTQ+ films and performances

Oscars nominations will be unveiled this week. As the world waits to see what the Academy deems award-worthy, let's review 2024's LGBTQ+ standouts, as selected by Out's editors. The pink envelope, please!

Best Original Screenplay: Jane Schoenbrun / I Saw the TV Glow

In I Saw the TV Glow, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun bottles the transgender experience better than perhaps any film before. Schoenbrun does so through an allegorical tale about a young man (played superbly by Justice Smith) who becomes obsessed with a TV show from his childhood — to the point where he starts questioning if this fictional story is in fact his reality. In this tense and dreamlike thriller, the choice is to continue existing in one’s current nightmare or potentially sacrifice everything one knows for a chance at a better life — a decision trans people know far too well. It’s terrifying, true to life, and tremendously visceral. —Mey Rude

Best Actress: Karla Sofía Gascón / Emilia Pérez

Karla Sofía Gascón plays a Mexican cartel boss who transitions in the brilliant Netflix film Emilia Pérez Emilia Pérez. One shouldn’t overlook the fact that, if nominated, Gascón would become the first out trans actor ever to be in the running for an Oscar. But beyond representation, the proof is in the pudding. Gascón’s performance is filled with nuance and layers, restraint and fury, love and curiosity, and a deep desire for redemption. She perfectly plays the film’s title character both pre-transition and post-transition, delivering a stunningly grounded performance in a French-directed, Spanish-language musical that also has people dancing and singing about vaginoplasty. —M.R.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Justin Kuritzkes / Queer

Making an adaptation of the unfinished 1985 novella Queer by William S. Burroughs had been a dream of director Luca Guadagnino since he was a teenager. That dream became a reality when, while working with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes on Challengers, he mentioned the project. Likewise captivated by the source material, Kuritzkes took on the challenge of adapting Burroughs’s postmodern work about an American expatriate (Daniel Craig) who falls for a GI (Drew Starkey) in 1950s Mexico City. The story is strange and surprising — most notably, for a hilarious and haunting scene where the characters trip on ayahuasca in the Ecuadoran jungle. But Kuritzkes manages to translate this 20th-century fever dream into a timely tale about the harms of gay repression and the universal longing of lost souls to connect. —Daniel Reynolds

​Best Original Song: Maren Morris, “Kiss the Sky”/ The Wild Robot

Maren Morris has the perfect voice and precise songwriting prowess to bring a song like “Kiss the Sky” to life. As the opening track of The Wild Robot (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), “Kiss the Sky” dares to ask and inspire its listeners to go further and reach for the stars. It poses dilemmas familiar to queer folks — like risk versus self-preservation and chance versus comfort. These themes have added meaning from the out singer and Out100 honoree, who is known for challenging biases toward women and LGBTQ+ people within the music industry. Written by Morris, Ali Tamposi, Jordan Johnson, Michael Pollack, Stefan Johnson, and Delacey, “Kiss the Sky” is a timely and vibrant Oscars contender for Best Original Song. —Bernardo Sim

​Best Supporting Actor: Jonathan Bailey / Wicked

Between turning the meticulous eldest Bridgerton son into a tender man capable of love and grounding Fellow Travelers with his embodiment of the idealistic and kinky Tim, Jonathan Bailey delivers another wholly distinctive performance as Fiyero in Wicked. He defies any gravity that once pulled and chained queer actors to a limited set of roles. Bailey brings zeal and direction to an otherwise desultory “himbo” character, injecting an X factor and sense of humor that updates this cinematic Fiyero in a meaningful way. It’s no surprise that all students, regardless of gender, want to tap-dance through life with Fiyero at Shiz. —B.S.

Best Animated Film: The Wild Robot

Who knew a story about a machine could be one of the most human films of the year? There’s a lot LGBTQ+ people can resonate with in The Wild Robot, which shows how a shipwrecked service robot named Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) learns to survive in the wild with the help of animal friends — chief among them, an orphaned goose named Brightbill (Heartstopper’s Kit Connor) that she adopts. In addition to Connor, the voice cast of this darling Dreamworks film teems with LGBTQ+ and ally actors like Catherine O’Hara, Stephanie Hsu, and Pedro Pascal. And its heartwarming testament to the power of found family (paired with dazzling animation) establish this wild production as a new classic for kids and adults alike. —D.R.

​Best Supporting Actress: Katy O’Brian / Love Lies Bleeding

The fact that Love Lies Bleeding — a lesbian romantic thriller directed by Rose Glass involving a gym manager and a bodybuilder — has become Katy O’Brian’s origin story as a Hollywood star and heartthrob should not eclipse the powerhouse performance that she delivers. O’Brian’s strength is not just in her physicality as the iron-pumping Jackie. This lived-in personification is realized by her acting choices and nuances that guide viewers through the love, the lies, and the bleeding in her complex love story with Lou (Kristen Stewart). As a performer, O’Brian gives emotional heft to Jackie in a heavyweight portrayal of a groundbreaking role in cinema. —B.S.

​Best Actor: Colman Domingo / Sing Sing

Colman Domingo made LGBTQ+ history in 2024 when he was Oscar-nominated for portraying Black gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. He may repeat that feat with Sing Sing, in which he gives life to a wrongly incarcerated man who is part of a theater group with fellow inmates. As he fights for his freedom while rehearsing for the stage, Domingo delivers a tour-de-force performance that challenges the injustice of the criminal justice system. That many of his castmates were formerly incarcerated themselves (and graduates of Sing Sing’s real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program) further uplifts the artistic and cultural power on display. —D.R.

​Best International Feature: Housekeeping for Beginners

Poignant and kinetic, Housekeeping for Beginners is a love letter to queer love and chosen family from Of an Age’s gay director Goran Stolevski. Lesbian couple Dita and Suada, whose house is already full of kids and their gay friend Toni, provide a safe space for gay teen Ali just as Suada receives a grim cancer diagnosis. Suada begs Dita to marry Toni so they can provide for their kids when she’s gone. North Macedonia’s official Oscar submission in 2023, the film touches on ethnic disparities for the Roma people like Suada and her daughters, who face segregation in schools. It also explores how queer people primarily remain closeted for their safety. —Tracy E. Gilchrist

​Best Director: Pedro Almodóvar / The Room Next Door

Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature film follows titans of their craft Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton as they navigate friendship, memory, and death. Friends Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton) reunite years after they worked at a magazine together, with Ingrid having just published a book and Martha battling terminal cancer. The boundaries of their friendship are explored when Martha requests that she accompany her to a remote home where one night she will die by suicide. The 75-year-old gay director of dozens of films — including Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Volver, and Pain and Glory — delivers an elegiac masterpiece featuring his signature color blocks and a moving score by his frequent musical collaborator Albert Iglesias. —T.E.G.

Best Documentary: Will & Harper

After the 2024 election, many trans Americans are more fearful than ever that their neighbors will reject them. Enter Will & Harper. In this Netflix documentary, comedy icon Will Ferrell and his longtime best friend and creative collaborator, Harper Steele (a former SNL head writer), go on a road trip across the country following Steele’s coming-out as a trans woman. Yes, they encounter hatred — but they find there’s actually a lot more acceptance than the internet would have one believe. It’s a moving film about friendship, the American dream, accepting people as they are, and loving oneself. If more people saw this film, trans Americans would have a lot less to fear. —M.R.

​Best Picture: Wicked

Wicked was the big blockbuster of 2024, breaking records left and right for a stage musical that was (finally) adapted for the big screen. The news couldn’t be more wonderful. Led by an out woman of color (Cynthia Erivo) as Elphaba and a gay icon as Glinda (Ariana Grande), the supporting cast — including Jonathan Bailey as the heartthrob Fiyero, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Bowen Yang as Pfannee, and Bronwyn James as ShenShen — is also magically LGBTQ-inclusive. Out’s own Tracy E. Gilchrist went viral for proclaiming that queer people are “holding space for the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’” with good cause. The song and the film are anthems for the outsider and awakenings to the truism that “together, we’re unlimited.” —D.R.

This article is part of the Out January/February issue, which hits newsstands February 4. Support queer media and subscribe— or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting January 23.