Love is love in these fantastic films and television shows that embrace all the colours of the queer rainbow.
Pose
Dive into the glory of all three seasons of this ground-breaking show, which takes us into life and society in New York in the 1980s, including the Ballroom community. From the moment Mother-in-the-making Blanca (MJ Rodriguez) splits from the House of Abundance, run by the acid-spitting Elektra (Dominique Jackson), to form her own logical family, Pose brings all the feels. Dreamt up by co-creator Steven Canals, it’s a joyous ode to Black and Latinx queer brilliance that soars through all the mighty ups and downs as the '80s bleeds into the '90s and the HIV/AIDS crisis crashes the party. Never losing sight of the gorgeous kids at its heart – including lovebirds Angel (Indya Moore) and Lil Papi (Angel Bismark) – it’s a testament to the togetherness in the face of adversity that forms the backbone of so many proud LGBTQIA+ communities.
Pose seasons 1-3 are now streaming at SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly on SBS Viceland starting Friday 14 February at 10:30pm.
Stream free On Demand
Pose
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
Triple Oh!
What happens when you combine star and Black Snow lead Brooke Satchwell in ambo overalls? A whole lotta chemistry, is what. They play front-line heroes on long, often hard shifts, staving off other folks’ deaths as best as they can while confronting car crashes both literal and metaphorical. The will-they- won’t-they (again) energy is strong after they hook up on their first shift together, and you’ll be hanging to find out where they wind up across five perfectly formed episodes. Written by Erica Harrison and directed by Poppy Stockell, this Australian highlight adeptly balances gross-out laughs with deep feelings delivered with panache.
Triple Oh! is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Triple Oh!
series • comedy
M
series • comedy
M
Dog Day Afternoon
The name Al Pacino doesn’t necessarily conjure queer storytelling as a first point of contact, but there was a red-hot moment there, between William Friedkin’s leather-clad erotic thriller Cruising in 1980, where Pacino played a cop who goes undercover to find a serial killer targeting gay men, and this 1975 heist flick from director Sidney Lumet. A biopic adapted by screenwriter Frank Pierson from a Life magazine feature by Thomas Moore and PF Kluge, it centres on three hapless first-time crooks who reckon robbing a bank is a no-brainer, only for everything to go wrong, spiralling dramatically out of control. Brilliant on those terms, it gets really interesting from an LGBTQIA+ cinematic perspective when the partner of Pacino’s Sonny shows up, with the expected haul intended to pay for their transitioning surgery. And it’s far more delicately handled than you might expect.
Dog Day Afternoon is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Dog Day Afternoon
Crime drama • lgbtq • 1975
Crime drama • lgbtq • 1975
Má Sàigòn
Feeling as if we are wandering freely through the queerer corners of what’s now known as Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, Canadian-Vietnamese filmmaker Khoa Lê’s lilting documentary drops in and out of a rainbow spectrum’s worth of fascinating characters who live, work and love here. There’s inter-generational wisdom to be had from a logical mother who cares for a bevy of found kids, trying to instil financial literacy, promising first dates and the casual snippiness of age-worn love that nevertheless gleams in a genuinely gorgeous snapshot of a place brimming with life.
Má Sàigòn is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Ma Saigon
documentary • lgbtq • 2023
documentary • lgbtq • 2023
Power Alley
Ayomi Domenica Dias’ promising young São Paulo-based volleyball player Sofía has the world at her feet. Things are going great with her girlfriend Bel (Loro Bardot) and their teammates, plus she’s about to play the biggest match of her emerging career, attracting the keen attentions of the sport’s sharpest-eyed scouts. But there’s one big bump between her big ticket towards the dream she’s always envisioned: she’s unexpectedly pregnant. With abortion extremely difficult to access in Brazil, she turns towards a seemingly sympathetic clinic and that’s when her problems really blow up in this searing indictment on patriarchal intrusion on a woman’s bodily autonomy that was nominated for the Queer Palm at Cannes.
Power Alley is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Power Alley
drama • 2023
drama • 2023
The Boy, the Queen and Everything in Between
Singer-songwriter, trans woman and star Ramon Te Wake is a queer hero who made history as the breakout talent of game-changing queer Māori Television hit Takatāpui. She has conjured up a gorgeously alternative family drama in this fabulous Aotearoa-born series in which Niwa Whatuira plays Jacob, a wayward son who has returned from a stint inside and badly needs to stay on the straight and narrow. This leads him to an unlikely gig at the queer club run by his drag queen dad Maxine (Adam Dehar). A comically uncomfortable odd couple dynamic unfolds between them as they try to figure out who each other really is without upending the bad apple cart.
The Boy, the Queen and Everything in Between is streaming at SBS On Demand until 30 April.
Stream free On Demand
The Boy, the Queen and Everything in Between
series • comedy
M
series • comedy
M
Blue Jean
“Is heaven any sweeter?” So asked the late, inimitably great David Bowie in the song that shares its name with British filmmaker Georgia Oakley’s 1988-set gem. Rosy McEwen of The Alienist fame plays Jean, a closeted PE teacher who daren’t risk telling colleagues that she’s a lesbian for fear of twisted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s menacing Section 28 clause that forbade local authorities, including schools, from “promoting homosexuality,” including “as a pretended family relationship”. Her down-low girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes) is an out-and-proud protester, creating tension in their relationship, but when a young newcomer to her high school (Lucy Halliday) encounters homophobic bullying, can she maintain her social shield?
Blue Jean will be streaming at SBS On Demand from 14 February and also airs 9.30 pm Thursday 20 February on SBS World Movies.
Stream free On Demand
Blue Jean
drama • lgbtq • 2022
drama • lgbtq • 2022
20,000 Species of Bees
We finish with a beautiful debut feature from Basque filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren. Set in idyllic countryside, the film stars a luminous Sofía Otero as Lucía, an eight-year-old trans girl who is far more comfortable in her skin than the family around her is with her true self, despite the halting efforts of her sculptor mother (Patricia López Arnaiz) who’s also struggling to step out of the shadow of her famous father. Finding solace in the humming beehives tended by her great-aunt (Ane Gabarain), we share that sense of calm in Solaguren’s tender gift of a film that rightly secured Otero the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at Berlinale.
20,000 Species of Bees is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
20,000 Species of Bees
drama • 2023
drama • 2023
Explore the at SBS On Demand, and look out for the Rainbow Pride focus on SBS World Movies, airing Monday to Friday nights, 17-21 February, with titles including Private Desert, Punch, Oskar's Dress and My Policeman (see for screening times).
