CJ Entertainment, Scanbox Entertainment, Warner Bros
Across all of the entertainment world, books included, LGBTQ+ storylines are getting lauded and we're seeing more and more representation as a result. Which is great news. However, oftentimes, there's a lot of focus on men and there isn't always as much love to our lesbian friends within the community.
Fortunately, there are still a solid number of books that revolve around lesbian subplots, and plenty of them have also been made into some pretty stellar movies -- and some even have more than one adaptation.
Here are 10 lesbian movies you can watch that are based on books, and believe us you're gonna want watch AND read them all!
There are a lot of reason's Alice Walker's The Color Purple is a classic novel, especially with its depiction of same-sex and bisexual relationships among its main characters. It's gone on to now have two different adaptations of the source text (although as of this writing, the next one comes out in a few days.) The 1985 film stars Whoopi Goldberg in her film debut as Celie, whose story chronicles her abuse as a child and her journey to find her own voice (and Shug Avery, swoon) as an adult later on in life.
Shamim Sarif's 2008 novel I Can't Think Straight deals with coming to terms with not only your sexuality, but also how to deal with interfaith relationships when they start to push up against the line of tradition and love. Sarif's longtime partner, Hanan Kattan, produced the film version, which stars Lisa Rey as the Christian Tala and Sheetal Sheth as the Muslim Leyla, who must work together in multiple ways to let their love shine.
Another novel that has two different adaptations is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. The book, published in 2002, is a historical crime novel set against the backdrop of Victorian-era Britain. The 2005 miniseries, which stars Elaine Cassidy as Maud and Sally Hawkins as Sue, sticks to the book's plotline. The 2016 South Korean film Handmaiden, on the other hand, takes the murderous plot seen within the main characters and puts it in a more modern-day setting in Japan, where the handmaiden Sook-Hee (Kim Tae-ri) plots to take the inheritance of Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee).
The Price of Salt was released by Patricia Highsmith in 1952, originally under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. It's based on a true story from her own life and tells the thrilling tale of Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), a stage designer whose life is turned upside down when she meets Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett). The 2015 film tells the tale on the screen in riveting performances from the main actresses.
Have you ever heard of the #MeToo movement? Yeah, you can thank Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey for breaking the story on Harvey Weinstein and all of the "alleged" assault that's coursed through Hollywood for years. The film, starring Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, takes the contents of the book and puts it into a heartpounding tale on screen that chronicles the trials, tribulations, and dangers the journalist's faced as they worked to break arguably one of the most important stories in history.
Taylor Jenkins Reid is a great author with some incredible stories, and Daisy Jones & the Six is no exception. In the book, character Simone Jackson, played by Nabiyah Be onscreen, is not explicitly queer, though she is depicted as such in the film. The plot of the story is influenced by the breakup of Fleetwood Mac, and the adaptation, which is produced by Reese Witherspoon, is set up as a documentary style that blends in with its gritty 1970s backdrop.
Another Sarah Waters classic that's lasted the tale of time is Tipping the Velvet, which is also the author's debut novel. It's set during 1890s England, when a young woman named Nan (Rachael Stirling) falls in love with a male impersonator named Kitty (Keeley Hawes) and follows her to London as she continues to search for herself. The BBC adapted the novel into a three-part miniseries for the small screen.
Stephen Daldry's 2002 adaptation of Michael Cunningham's The Hours is arguably a little better than the book, which is rare, but each have their own prospective strengths. Partially influenced by the life of Virginia Woolf, the plot follows three women, Clarissa (Meryl Sreep), Laura (Julianne Moore) and Virginia (Nicole Kidman), who each exist in a different time and place as the story weaves them closer together. Woolf, when she was alive, was famously depressed and bisexual, both of which are examined in the story.
Fried Green Tomatoes is an example where the queerness, particularly between Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker) and Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson), is more explicit in the book than it is in the film. That said, both are equally entertaining and follows around a trapped housewife named Evelyn (Kathy Bates) who befriends an elderly woman named Ninny (Jessica Tandy) and shares stories of their lives and exploits, ultimately leading Evelyn to make better decisions for herself.
Erica Fisher released Aimée & Jaguar in 1994 that tells an equally tragic and heartwarming tale of the two Berlin women, Lily Wust (Juliane Köhler) and Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader), who try to let their love endure during the Nazi persecution of World War II. The plot is based on real events, and the onscreen adaptation from director Max Färberböck puts the weight of the affair they endured front and center on the screen.
