15 movies fabulously Sapphic movies that have played at Sundance

For the last 40 years, the Sundance Film Festival has been hosting great movies about queer women. Some of the best sapphic films of all time, including But I'm a Cheerleader, Pariah, and Appropriate Behavior have screened at the festival.

Here are 15 movies about lesbians and queer women that have screened at the festival that we love.

Desert Hearts (1986)

Often considered one of the first films to portray a positive lesbian romance, Desert Hearts is set in Reno, Nevada in 1959 and follows a divorcing university professor who finds true love when she meets a self-confident woman.

Go Fish (1994)

This drama centers around a group of lesbians in their 20s in Chicago meeting and falling in love. It’s considered groundbreaking for showing that lesbian stories can be marketable.

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995)

This rom-com is about two very different high school girls meeting, falling in love, and coming out.

Bound (1996)

Bound is an erotic crime thriller written and directed by the Wachowskis. It stars Jennifer Tilly as a woman dating a mafioso who meets and immediately is attracted to an ex-con played by Gina Gershon. As the two fall for each other, they decide to steal $2 million and get out of the crime world together.

High Art (1998)

Radha Mitchell starred in this drama as Syd, an assistant editor at a high-art photography magazine who has a chance encounter with a renowned photographer and soon falls in love with her.

But I'm a Cheerleader (2000)

Jamie Babbit's classic comedy is about a high school cheerleader who is sent to conversion therapy camp only to meet the true love of her life and come fully into her lesbian identity.

Thirteen (2003)

Catherine Hardwicke’s in-your-face teen drama stars Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed (who co-wrote the screenplay with Hardwicke) as two teen girls who form a tight bond and participate in escalating dangerous behavior together.

D.E.B.S. (2004)

This cult classic from director Angela Robinson is about a team of young women who were recruited to be spies from a secret test embedded in the SAT. When one of the spies actually meets their greatest enemy, the two women fall quickly in love.

Saving Face (2005)

Alice Wu’s terrific rom-com is about a successful Chinese-American woman who is a lesbian, but is not out to her mother. As she gets into a serious relationship with another woman and her mom becomes pregnant, the two bond in new ways.

The Runaways (2010)

This biopic about legendary rock band The Runaways features Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning as two of the founding members of the band, Cherie Currie and Joan Jett.

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (2011)

This campy comedy parodies low-budget sci-fi films of the 1950s and features a lesbian alien coming to earth and meeting a human woman and falling in love.

Pariah (2011)

Dee Rees’ stunning coming-of-age drama follows Alike, a 17-year-old Black girl coming to terms with her identity as a butch lesbian. It’s one of the best lesbian movies of all time.

Appropriate Behavior (2014)

This bisexual classic comes from Desiree Akhavan, who wrote, directed, and stars as a bisexual Persian American woman trying to rebuild her life after she breaks up with her girlfriend.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)

Based on the YA novel of the same name, Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Cameron Post, a teen girl growing up in 1993 rural Montana who is outed and sent to a Christian gay conversion therapy camp by her aunt.

Fancy Dance (2023)

Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone played a queer woman in this film set on the Seneca-Cayuga Nation Reservation where she is caring for her niece while trying to find out what happened to her missing sister and prepare for an upcoming powwow.