Film

First Girl I Loved

A modest coming-of-age film about a teen girl's first love for another girl at her Los Angeles high school, and the friendship fracture that erupts when she confides in her best friend. It's tender and honest without pretending the world cooperates with happiness. Made for people who remember how much a crush could hurt, and how messy loyalty gets when desire enters the room.

TMDb rating3.2

If you liked this

Heartstopper2022

A joyful, genuinely romantic series about queer teenage love that never condescends or traumatizes for the sake of it. It earns its sweetness by showing real obstacles without treating them as punishment for existing.

But If you want grit or edge, the earnestness might feel saccharine. Some scenes play almost too optimistically for a world that isn't always kind to these stories.

Heartstopper poster

The Half of It2020

A queer coming-of-age film that's also genuinely funny and smart about class, identity, and the lies we tell when we're terrified. It trusts its audience to laugh and feel at the same time.

But The ending is ambiguous in ways some viewers find frustrating rather than moving. It doesn't provide the resolution you might want.

The Half of It poster

Freeheld2015

Examines queer identity and belonging through the lens of a cop's final stand for her partner's rights. Emotional and urgent, with real stakes that extend beyond personal romance.

But Based on a true story it sometimes softens for mainstream palatability. The messaging can feel a touch didactic.

Freeheld poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from First Girl I Loved

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Moonlight2016

Both films explore how a first queer love shapes identity, but where First Girl I Loved is direct and present-tense, Moonlight gazes backward across a fractured life, asking what we become when we cannot claim who we love.

Structured as three chapters of a boy's life, this film captures how identity forms through desire, trauma, and connection. Shot in fragments and shadow, it's about what we cannot say out loud. A masterwork of visual poetry.

But Sparse and meditative to the point of oblique. If you need plot momentum or clear narrative throughlines, you'll find it frustratingly quiet and slow.

Moonlight poster
More like this (8)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post2018

A queer girl sent to conversion camp finds solidarity and resistance among other LGBTQ+ teens. It's angry and necessary, but never loses sight of the humor and humanity in the characters.

But The subject matter—institutional abuse—is heavy and disturbing by design. If you're sensitive to that, it will hurt.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post poster

Everything Sucks!2018

A comedy series set in the late '90s that captures adolescent chaos with real affection. The queer storylines are casual in the best way—just part of a messier, funnier picture of high school.

But Cancelled after one season, so there's no full arc. The comedy is broad, and not every subplot lands equally.

Everything Sucks! poster

Love, Victor2020

Follows a teen navigating his sexuality while contending with typical teenage pressures. It's warm, funny, and deeply interested in how you figure out who you are when everyone has opinions about it.

But Some find it safer than edgier queer media. It aims to be palatable to families watching together, which softens certain edges.

Love, Victor poster

Pray the Gay Away2018

A documentary following a girl's journey through and out of conversion therapy, with unflinching honesty about faith, family, and the cost of rejection. Her vulnerability is extraordinary.

But Intensely painful to watch. Not entertainment in the traditional sense—it's witness-bearing, and it asks a lot of you emotionally.

Pray the Gay Away poster

Tess1979

A masterpiece about a young woman undone by desire and circumstance. Polanski's direction is pristine, and Nastassja Kinski is luminous. A different era and register, but the emotional stakes are similar.

But Very long, very slow, and based on a novel that can feel dated in its fatalism. Also inextricably tied to Polanski's own crimes.

Tess poster

My Summer of Love2005

A British film about two girls whose connection explodes across a summer. It's sensual, strange, and doesn't resolve neatly. Both characters are complicated in ways that complicate the romance.

But Deliberately vague and uncertain. Some viewers feel unsatisfied by its refusal to clarify what happened or what it meant. Takes patience.

My Summer of Love poster

Princess Cyd2017

Both capture the disorienting arrival of queer desire in adolescence, but Princess Cyd goes sideways—the intimacy is intergenerational and resists naming, suggesting that sexuality doesn't always resolve into familiar categories.

A debut feature about a teenage girl visiting her estranged aunt in Chicago, where they develop an intimate bond that's queer but not romantic, sexual but not erotic. It redefines what closeness can mean. Funny, strange, tender, and alive.

But Minimal plot; it's almost entirely conversation and presence. Also sexually candid in ways some find uncomfortable. Moves by feel rather than momentum.

Princess Cyd poster

The Fits2016

Where First Girl I Loved is grounded and psychological, The Fits abstracts female adolescent desire into something ritualistic and physical. Both are about belonging and transformation, but one is intimate realism and the other is dreamlike and strange.

Shot in stark black and white, this is an abstract exploration of a girl's initiation into a dance troupe and the contagious, inexplicable intensity of female bonding. Body, music, and mystery. Hypnotic and genuinely unsettling.

But Experimental and cryptic. There's no plot explanation for the central phenomenon. If you need things clarified, this will frustrate you profoundly.

The Fits poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

Alma