Portrayals of gay love stories are hitting the mainstream in a big way this year, with The Imitation Game, Pride and even the TV show How To Get Away With Murder.
Despite the hype, though, America still seems stunted in its acceptance of gays and their rights. It’s still not easy coming out as a young adult. It’s not easy being married and gay, no matter what the laws say. Some people just can’t accept that being gay is now an openly embraced way of life.
In homage to this year’s award-nominated films and all the LGBT films that have come before, we’ve rounded up the best of the best and found the words that make these movies special.
1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
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“Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh. Erotic nightmares beyond any measure, and sensual daydreams to treasure forever. Can’t you just see it? Don’t dream it, be it.”
2. Pride (2014)
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“I’m in Wales, and I don’t have to pretend to be something that I’m not. I’m home and I’m gay and I’m Welsh!”
“When you’re in a battle with an enemy that’s so much bigger, so much stronger than you, to find out you had a friend you never knew existed, well, that’s the best feeling in the world. Can you see what we’ve done here, by coming together, all of us? We made history!”
More: 11 Times Benedict Cumberbatch stood up for gay rights
3. Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss (1998)
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“Even if he is gay and attracted to you, he’s gonna be coming out of the closet, and you know what we boys do when we’re coming out the closet!”
4. The Imitation Game (2014)
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“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”
5. The Birdcage (1996)
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“Yes, I wear foundation. Yes, I live with a man. Yes, I’m a middle-aged fag. But I know who I am, Val. It took me 20 years to get here, and I’m not gonna let some idiot senator destroy that. F*** the senator, I don’t give a damn what he thinks.”
More: 4 Heartrending documentaries that’ll open your eyes about diversity
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
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“My doctor said we can’t choose where we come from but we can choose where we go from there.”
“Patrick never likes to be serious, so it took me a while to get what happened. When he was a junior, Patrick started seeing Brad on the weekends in secret. I guess it was hard, too, because Brad had to get drunk every time they fooled around. Then Monday in school Brad would say, ‘Man, I was so wasted. I don’t remember a thing.’ This went on for seven months. When they finally did it, Brad said he loved Patrick and then he started to cry. No matter what Patrick did, Brad kept saying that his dad would kill him and saying he was going to hell. Patrick was eventually able to help Brad get sober. I asked Patrick if he felt sad that he still had to keep it a secret, and he said no. Because at least now Brad doesn’t have to get drunk to love him.”
7. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
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“Ice-cold beer, a little riding in. Well, take my woman dancing. You know? I want kids. I mean, I got one… one life, right? Mine. But sh… F***, I want somebody else’s sometimes. Sometimes I just feel like I’m fighting for a life I just ain’t got time to live. I want it to mean something.”
8. Beautiful Thing (1996)
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Jamie: Scared of being called queer?
Ste: Are you?
Jamie: Maybe… maybe not.
Ste: And are ya?
Jamie: Queer?
Ste: Gay.
Jamie: Very happy. I’m happy when I’m with you…
9. The Kids Are All Right (2010)
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“I need to say something. It’s no big secret your mom and I are in hell right now, and… bottom line is, marriage is hard. It’s really f***ing hard. Just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing. It’s a f***ing marathon, OK? So, sometimes, you know, you’re together so long that you just… you stop seeing the other person. You just see weird projections of your own junk. Instead of talking to each other, you go off the rails and act grubby and make stupid choices, which is what I did. And I feel sick about it because I love you guys, and I love your mom, and that’s the truth. Sometimes you hurt the ones you love the most. I don’t know why.”
More: How kids react to the idea of gay marriage
10. A Single Man (2009)
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“Let’s leave the Jews out of this just for a moment. Let’s think of another minority. One that… one that can go unnoticed if it needs to. There are all sorts of minorities — blondes, for example… or people with freckles. But a minority is only thought of as one when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority. A real threat or an imagined one. And therein lies the fear. If the minority is somehow invisible, then the fear is much greater. That fear is why the minority is persecuted. So, you see, there always is a cause. The cause is fear. Minorities are just people. People like us.”
11. Philadelphia (1993)
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“This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics.”
“We’re standing here in Philadelphia, the, uh, City of Brotherly Love, the birthplace of freedom, where the, uh, founding fathers authored the Declaration of Independence, and I don’t recall that glorious document saying anything about all straight men are created equal. I believe it says all men are created equal.”
12. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
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“Bottom line is… we’re around each other and… this thing, it grabs hold of us again… at the wrong place… at the wrong time… and we’re dead.”
“You ever get the feelin’… I don’t know, er… when you’re in town and someone looks at you all suspicious, like he knows? And then you go out on the pavement and everyone looks like they know too?”
More reading
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