Carol is deemed the best LGBT film of all time

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Carol

Carol

The best LGBT films of all time have been named. So how many have you seen, and do you agree with the choices?

Carol, last year’s lesbian romance, topped the list, which was released by the British Film Institute (BFI) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the London LGBT Film Festival.

Over 100 film experts, including critics, writers and programmers, cast their votes to compile the selection; encompassing 84 years of cinema and 12 countries.

Carol (read our review) is the acclaimed big screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s seminal 1952 novel The Price of Salt. Directed by Todd Haynes, it stars Rooney Mara as a Manhattan department store clerk who has an affair with a woman (Cate Blanchett) trapped in a loveless marriage.

Director Andrew Haigh’s The Weekend (2011), about two British men who meet and begin a sexual relationship as one of them plans to leave the country, came in second place.

Interestingly, The Weekend made a splash last weekend when it was released in Italy, earning the highest per-screen average in the country, despite being banned by the Catholic Church, which owns many of the nation’s cinemas.

Carol-named-best-LGBT-film-of-all-time-the-weekend

The Weekend

The top five was rounded off by Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai / 1997), exploring a gay Hong Kong couple’s turbulent relationship; the cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee/ 2005); and, Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston / 1990), the iconic documentary chronicling New York City’s drag balls.

Oddly, a number of recent, highly acclaimed films, like Milk (which won two Oscars) and Pride, were notably absent from the list.

The full BFI Top 30 LGBT Films of All Time list is published below (some films received the same number of votes, so they were tied in their placement).

1: Carol (Todd Haynes, USA 2015)

2: Weekend (Andrew Haigh, UK 2011)

3: Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea 1997)

4: Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, USA/ Canada 2005)

5: Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, USA 1990)

6: Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/France/Germany/Italy 2004)

7: My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, UK 1985)

8: All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain/France 1999)

9: Un Chant d’Amour (Jean Genet, France 1950)

10: My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, USA 1991)

11 Tangerine (Sean Baker, USA 2015).

11: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany 1972)

11: Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche, France/Belgium/Spain 2013)

14: Mädchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan & Carl Froelich, Germany 1931)

14: Show Me Love (Lukas Moodysson, Sweden/Denmark 1998)

14: Orlando (Sally Potter, UK/Russia/Italy/France/Netherlands 1992)

17: Victim (Basil Dearden, UK 1961)

18: Je, tu, il, elle (Chantal Akerman, France/Belgium 1974)

19: Looking for Langston (Isaac Julien, UK 1989)

20: Beau Travail (Claire Denis, France 1999)

20: Beautiful Thing (Hettie Macdonald, UK 1996)

22: Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, France 2013)

22: Theorem (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy 1968)

22: The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, USA 1996)

22: Pariah (Dee Rees, USA 2011)

22: Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, France/USA 2001)

27: Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke, USA 1967)

27: Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, USA 1975)

27: Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, Italy/France 1971)

27: Pink Narcissus (James Bidgood, USA 1971)

27: Sunday Bloody Sunday (John Schlesinger, UK 1971)

27: Tomboy (Céline Sciamma, France 2011)

27 Funeral Parade of Roses (Toshio Matsumoto, Japan 1969)

 

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