February is not that girl. I love my Aquarian and friends and family, but it is colder than shit, my apartment is tiny and the plague ravages the outside. Yet, this precarious situation presents a unique opportunity to seek shelter and watch a film.

It is in this season of dread that love also springs from the darkness of winter– Valentines Day. This day can be even more hazardous for my LGBTQ+s (cishets don’t get all the shine). We experience the same range of emotions that love is and deserve for that to be showcased.

The following is a list to encompass a range of emotions as complex as our love lives because being queer is not all about sex…But we love that too, because horniness is a valid trestle of the love shack. These are films that will make you cry or bang or cuddle or sit stuck in solitude high as fuck!

The Way He Looks (2014)

The Way He Looks - Official US Trailer (HD)

Based on the short film I Don’t Want to Go Back Alone (2010), also very cute, this film is gaggily adorable. It follows three highschool age friends Gabriel, Leonardo, and Giovana as the former two move past friendship into dating territory. Often from blind Leonardo's (Ghilherme Lobo) point of view the film is tender and shows the growing pains of adolescence and the triumph of first love.

Weekend (2011)

Weekend - Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films

A British film that peers into the window of a one night stand developing into a deeper connection. When you wake up and your post-club-fuck is making you coffee, you know you it was good. This film follows two gay men who seem to have found something in each other they can’t get enough of. It is gorgeously filmed and stays with you like a memory. Reminds me of a ray of light that flows to the floor through a hanging window prism art thing and you only see it from the horizontal angle of your bed.

A Fantastic Woman (Una Mujer Fantastica 2017)

A Fantastic Woman | Official Trailer HD (2017)

In the words of our beloved SOPHIE, rest in power, “It's ok to cry.” Seriously, a good cry can be very cathartic and this is the perfect film to do it. The protagonist and trans starlet, Daniela Vega, gives a powerhouse performance in a story of love and loss. Powerfully acted and directed with an artistic eye, A Fantastic Woman portrays sorrow that only love can produce and centers the ingdignities suffered by trans and queer people in the modern world.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de La Jeune Fille en Feu 2019)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire [Official Trailer] – In Theaters December 6, 2019

Desire, hidden like a burning fire inside of us, radiates throughout this film. Set in the late 18th century, two women find love and lust in one another. Too Marianne and Heloise passion can begin with a glance. When the painting sessions begin, the intrigue ensues and hot feminine wooing begins! Alas, they are victims of their time and this love could never flower. But while their love was in frame it was beautiful and true much like a good painting…

Pariah (2011)

Pariah - Official Trailer

Pariah is a film of self discovery and the radical self love that comes from accepting ourselves. Alike (played by Adepero Oduye) is a highschool age girl whose homelife is unaccepting of her butchness. Living in NYC, Alike is able to dive head first into a authentic lesbian life and see a future for herslf. It’s a tale of loneliness that queers know all too well. One thing we know better is resilience and finding a community outside the heteronorm.

Equation to an Unknown (1980)

Equation to an Unknown - trailer

Okay, so, this is where horny enters the chat. This is a porno but albeit a gorgeous one! Set in provincial France surrounded by factories and countryside, a boy is on a journey to get some. As we follow him to seemingly random pornesque scenarios, the fashion is sumptuous, the choreography is engaging, and the men are sexy. An OG Netflix and Chill film.

Gods Own Country (2017)

God's Own Country - Official UK Trailer #2

This is the superior gay release of 2017, with the lesser being Call Me By Your Name. It stars Josh O’Connor as a rough trade farmer type. In one of the opening scenes, he fucks a man at a animal show in a cattle car. HOT?! Yes, it's hot. When a seasonal migrant worker arrives (Alec Secareanu) Johnny Saxby (O’Conner) is faced with a man of his own making, something he finds very very intriguing. This film is a Broke Back Mountain/CMBYN hybrid set in England with the guts to engage in on camera gay love and nudity.