21 Lesbian Movies on Netflix in 2023: A Historical Viewing Guide

1. Beauty (2022)

Best for: A closeted relationship, Black queer representation, and the pressures of a music career.

Beauty follows a young singer whose professional future is beginning to take shape while her family, public expectations, and relationship with Jasmine—her best friend and love interest—pull her in different directions. The music-industry setting gives the film a specific tension: success may require Beauty to manage, conceal, or compromise parts of herself.

Representation note: This is a queer coming-of-age and show-business drama rather than a simple romance. Its emotional focus is the conflict between private desire and a public identity.

Content notes: Family pressure, closeting, emotional distress, and career-related conflict.

2. Carol (2015)

Best for: A landmark period romance built around longing and social restrictions.

Set in the 1950s, Carol centers on Therese, a young photographer, and Carol, an older married woman. Their attraction unfolds in a society that offers little room for women who love women to live openly. The film is deliberately observant and intimate, relying on glances, pauses, photographs, and small acts of risk rather than a conventional romantic-comedy structure.

It is one of the strongest choices on this list for viewers who want a polished, serious romance with a comparatively hopeful emotional resolution. Carol’s marriage and social position also make the film more complicated than a straightforward coming-out story.

Content notes: Social discrimination, marital conflict, secrecy, and pressure surrounding family life.

3. Let It Snow (2019)

Best for: A light holiday watch with a teenage sapphic subplot.

This ensemble Christmas film follows several young people whose stories intersect during a snowstorm. The lesbian storyline belongs to Dorrie, a teenage waitress dating a closeted cheerleader. It is a relatively small part of the overall movie, so viewers looking for a lesbian-centered feature should set their expectations accordingly.

For a seasonal watch, however, Let It Snow offers a gentler option than many of the dramas and thrillers here. Its appeal is the combination of holiday atmosphere, teenage romance, and an accessible ensemble format.

Content notes: Closeting, anxiety about being outed, teenage relationship conflict, and family or social pressure.

4. The Valley of a Thousand Hills (2022)

Best for: An international drama about family expectations, tradition, and queer love.

This South African film follows Nosepho, whose family expects her to marry a man even though she loves Thenjiwe. The central conflict is not simply whether the couple can stay together; it is whether Nosepho can make a life that does not conform to the future her family has planned for her.

The setting and emphasis on tradition distinguish The Valley of a Thousand Hills from the more familiar U.S. and European titles on this list. It is a choice for viewers who want a serious, culturally specific story about the cost of hiding a relationship.

Content notes: Family pressure, forced expectations around marriage, homophobia, and emotional distress.

5. Elisa y Marcela (2019)

Best for: Historical queer resistance and an international period romance.

Rank #2

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Elisa y Marcela dramatizes the relationship between Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Their story became associated with Spain’s first recorded same-sex marriage in 1901, after Elisa assumed a male identity so the couple could marry.

The film is particularly useful for viewers interested in the history of lesbian relationships under legal and religious constraints. It presents love as an act of persistence, but the period setting also makes clear how much danger and concealment were built into the couple’s choices.

Representation note: This is a historical dramatization, not a modern identity narrative. Its significance lies in the women’s relationship and their resistance to the institutions surrounding them.

Content notes: Historical discrimination, religious and social pressure, concealment, and persecution.

6. ANNE+: The Film (2021)

Best for: A contemporary Dutch queer coming-of-age story about love, independence, and relationship boundaries.

This continuation of the Dutch web series ANNE+ follows Anne, a postgraduate living in Amsterdam. She is navigating a long-distance relationship while questioning what she wants from an open relationship and feeling attracted to a drag king.

Rather than presenting sexuality as a single crisis that must be resolved, the film is interested in the more ordinary uncertainty of adult relationships: what commitment means, how much freedom partners want, and whether attraction changes the life someone has already built.

Representation note: The film is queer and sapphic in focus, while its relationship questions extend beyond a simple lesbian-romance formula.

Content notes: Relationship conflict, uncertainty about commitment, and adult sexual or romantic situations.

7. Disobedience (2017)

Best for: A serious drama about faith, community, marriage, and rekindled desire.

After returning to her Orthodox Jewish community, a woman reconnects with Esti, her married childhood friend and former love. Their relationship brings private feelings into conflict with religious expectations, community judgment, and Esti’s marriage.

Disobedience is less interested in an uncomplicated romantic escape than in the consequences of desire inside a tightly connected community. The religious setting is central to the story, and the film treats the characters’ choices as personal, spiritual, social, and marital decisions all at once.

Content notes: Religious and community pressure, marital conflict, secrecy, and emotional distress.

8. Fear Street Part 1: 1994 (2021)

Best for: A queer teen horror film with a strong central relationship.

The first installment introduces Deena and Sam, whose relationship is at the heart of a supernatural slasher story set in 1994. Their personal conflict becomes tied to a much larger danger, giving the film both teen-romance stakes and horror-movie momentum.

This is the best entry point to the series because it establishes the contemporary characters and the mystery that the later films expand. It should be watched as part of a trilogy if you want the relationship and historical storyline to reach their full context.

Content notes: Strong violence, gore, death, supernatural horror, and relationship distress.

9. Fear Street Part 2: 1978 (2021)

Best for: A camp-set slasher that deepens the trilogy’s historical and romantic stakes.

Rank #3

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Part 2: 1978 moves the story into the past, expanding the history behind the curse while continuing to connect it to Deena and Sam’s relationship. Its summer-camp setting and slasher structure make it the most overtly genre-driven chapter for viewers who want horror first and romance as part of the larger emotional engine.

The film works best after Part 1: 1994, since its revelations build on the first movie’s mystery rather than restarting the story.

Content notes: Strong slasher violence, gore, death, supernatural horror, and traumatic historical events.

10. Fear Street Part 3: 1666 (2021)

Best for: The trilogy’s origin story and its most direct connection between historical persecution and the central love story.

The final installment travels to 1666 to reveal the origins of the curse. It gives the trilogy’s supernatural conflict a historical foundation and adds meaning to the connection between Deena and Sam. The film then returns to the broader struggle established by the first two installments.

Together, the three Fear Street films form the strongest horror-and-action cluster in this guide. They should be counted as three movies, not one title, because each is a separate feature with its own setting and narrative role.

Content notes: Strong violence, gore, death, supernatural horror, persecution, and disturbing historical circumstances.

11. Colette (2018)

Best for: Literary history, creative independence, and a period story with bisexual and sapphic representation.

This biographical drama follows writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette as she fights for creative and personal autonomy. The film includes her relationships with women and places her sexuality within a larger struggle over authorship, marriage, public identity, and who receives credit for creative work.

Colette is a good choice when “lesbian movie” is being used broadly to include a historically important sapphic story rather than only a contemporary lesbian romance. Colette’s experiences are better understood through a bisexual lens, so the film should not be presented as evidence that all queer women share one identity or trajectory.

Content notes: Sexism, controlling relationships, social pressure, and conflict over creative ownership.

12. I Care a Lot (2020)

Best for: A darkly comic thriller centered on a queer couple.

Marla Grayson runs a guardianship scam that allows her to take control of vulnerable older people’s lives and assets. Fran, her partner, is involved in the scheme and shares Marla’s ambition. Their relationship is important to the film, but romance is not its main subject: the story is a ruthless thriller about exploitation, power, and consequences.

That distinction matters. I Care a Lot is a queer-couple thriller, not a conventional lesbian love story. Choose it for its morally dark central partnership and suspense rather than for tenderness or romantic wish fulfillment.

Content notes: Exploitation of older adults, coercion, violence, criminal activity, and disturbing situations.

13. Do Revenge (2022)

Best for: A glossy teen revenge comedy with an eventual lesbian romance.

Drea and Eleanor team up after each suffers a serious social betrayal. Their revenge plan drives the movie, while outing-related trauma and the cruelty of high-school status systems shape the characters’ choices. The relationship between the two girls develops through alliance, distrust, friendship, and eventual romantic feeling.

The film is lighter and more stylized than many entries here, making it a useful pick for viewers who want a colorful teen movie rather than a historical drama or an intense account of repression.

Rank #4

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Content notes: Bullying, betrayal, outing-related trauma, manipulation, and social humiliation.

14. Bruised (2020)

Best for: A sports drama in which queer romance is part of a larger recovery story.

Bruised follows Jackie Justice, an MMA fighter trying to rebuild her career while dealing with motherhood and the consequences of her past. Her complicated relationship with her trainer adds queer romantic material, but the film’s main concerns are competition, family, recovery, and the effort to reclaim control of her life.

This is a good option for viewers who want lesbian representation in a physically demanding sports narrative rather than a film organized primarily around courtship.

Content notes: MMA and sports violence, family trauma, career setbacks, and emotionally difficult recovery.

15. The Half of It (2020)

Best for: Teen yearning, friendship, and a less tragic queer coming-of-age story.

Alice Wu’s thoughtful reworking of Cyrano de Bergerac follows Ellie Chu, who agrees to write love letters for a boy. The complication is that Ellie is also developing feelings for the boy’s crush, Aster. What begins as ghostwritten romance becomes a story about identity, friendship, emotional honesty, and the fear of saying what one actually wants.

The Half of It is especially well suited to younger viewers and anyone looking for a queer story that allows room for uncertainty without reducing the characters’ future to tragedy. It is a coming-of-age film first, with romance woven through it.

Content notes: Bullying, isolation, family and school pressure, rejection, and emotional vulnerability.

16. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)

Best for: A powerful recording-session drama about race, ownership, performance, and queer identity.

Set during a 1920s recording session, the film centers on blues singer Ma Rainey and the musicians and business figures around her. Ma’s attraction to women and queer identity are part of a wider story about who controls Black music, who profits from performance, and how artists are exploited by the industry.

This is not a romance-led film. Its value for a queer-film list comes from the way Ma’s identity exists alongside her authority, anger, artistry, and resistance in a racially exploitative cultural system.

Content notes: Racism, exploitation, discrimination, emotional confrontation, and violence.

17. Tig (2015)

Best for: An intimate documentary portrait of a queer comedian, illness, career, and partnership.

This documentary follows comedian Tig Notaro through her cancer diagnosis, professional life, and relationship with Stephanie Allynne. Rather than presenting a fictional romance, it offers an observational portrait of a queer woman building a life while facing illness, uncertainty, and the demands of a public career.

Tig is one of the most directly documentary-oriented choices in this guide. It can work especially well for viewers who want a real-life account rather than a scripted love story.

Content notes: Cancer, medical treatment, grief, illness-related anxiety, and emotional distress.

18. The Prom (2020)

Best for: A bright, accessible musical about lesbian visibility and school discrimination.

Best Value

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Emma is an Indiana student who wants to bring her girlfriend to prom, but the school’s rules and community opposition prevent her from doing so. A group of Broadway performers learns about her situation and decides to intervene, creating a large-scale musical comedy about visibility, allyship, and the difference between public gestures and genuine support.

With its songs, ensemble cast, and optimistic tone, The Prom is a natural choice for viewers who want a celebratory lesbian-centered story. It still addresses homophobia and exclusion, but it approaches those subjects through a broadly accessible musical format.

Content notes: Homophobia, school discrimination, outing concerns, family conflict, and public humiliation.

19. Duck Butter (2018)

Best for: An experimental relationship drama with explicit intimacy.

Two women meet and agree to compress the experience of a relationship into 24 hours, spending that time together with unusual intensity and few boundaries. The film uses the experiment to examine attraction, vulnerability, performance, and the ways people try to manufacture certainty in a new relationship.

Duck Butter is a deliberately intimate independent film with an improvised, experimental structure. It is not the best choice for a casual family movie night, but it may appeal to viewers who want a challenging film about queer intimacy rather than a conventional romantic plot.

Content notes: Explicit sexual content, intense intimacy, substance use, relationship conflict, and emotionally difficult behavior.

20. Ride or Die (2021)

Best for: A Japanese psychological road thriller in which sapphic desire is tied to danger and obsession.

Rei helps a woman she has loved for years escape an abusive husband. Their flight becomes a dangerous journey shaped by violence, guilt, obsession, and unresolved desire. The film combines a road-thriller structure with a psychologically intense portrait of what love can become when it is mixed with fear and desperation.

This is a much darker recommendation than The Half of It or The Prom. It should be selected for its tense, unsettling approach to sapphic desire—not as a light romance.

Content warning: Domestic abuse, murder, graphic or disturbing violence, trauma, obsession, and psychological distress.

21. A Secret Love (2020)

Best for: An intergenerational documentary about a decades-long relationship kept private.

A Secret Love tells the story of Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel, who maintained their relationship privately for decades before sharing it more openly. The documentary looks at the compromises required by secrecy, the changing social context around queer relationships, and the challenges of aging together.

Its perspective is distinct from coming-out stories focused on adolescence. This is a portrait of an entire partnership and of the emotional cost of having to protect a love that could not always be acknowledged publicly.

Content notes: Closeting, family conflict, aging, difficult memories, and emotional distress.