The best of 2023: queer love stories blossomed on movie and TV screens

Viewers tuning into the Jan. 29 episode of “The Last of Us” expecting a zombie attack ended up watching something else entirely: a gay love affair.

In its third episode, the HBO drama (which streams on Crave in Canada) expanded upon its source material — a postapocalyptic PlayStation 4 video game — to introduce a new back story starring “Parks and Recreation” alumnus Nick Offerman and “White Lotus” actor Murray Bartlett as lovers in a dangerous time.

After initially bonding over their shared affection for a Linda Ronstadt song, the couple settle into comfortable domesticity in the midst of surrounding chaos, growing old together before finally departing the world side by side.

“It felt like a cultural touchstone this year, as one of those cultural moments that everyone was talking about,” said Keith Bennie, the senior director of public programming at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I think the left turn of it — the unexpectedness of a gay romance within that narrative — created some of that momentum. But I also think it resonated because of its beautiful performances and how authentically it was rendered. There was something mundane but tender in how the two men interacted, ate food together and tended to their space.”

The episode ended up being a preview of things to come, with the months that followed bringing a steady stream of gay romances. From “Passages” — an Ira Sachs film that begins as a relationship between two married men but later develops into a love triangle with a woman — to Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” a short western starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as newly reunited ex-lovers, rarely has a year introduced so many high-profile additions to the gay cultural canon.

That said, these movies and TV shows have also contributed to a larger conversation about who gets to experience onscreen love.

“A criticism within the LGBTQ-plus community is that the cis white gay man continues to be the dominant identity featured in these stories,” said Bennie. “Part of that is the studios and who they allow to tell stories. But we absolutely have to move the dial on that.”

The film “Rustin” makes some headway, touching on the romantic life of Black gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (played by Colman Domingo in a Golden Globe-nominated performance) as part of a larger story about his role organizing the 1963 March on Washington. Meanwhile, movies “Mutt” and “Close to You” both flirt with love interests as part of their day-in-the-life portrayals of transgender men, while films “Nyad” and “Bottoms” showcase lesbian friendships as their own form of meaningful union.

But in 2023, many of the most compelling romantic arcs went to the same type of gay male leads. Nevertheless, these narratives are being rightfully celebrated for the rare poignancy they achieved.

Last week, actor Matt Bomer received a Golden Globe nomination of his own for his role opposite Jonathan Bailey in “Fellow Travelers,” a Showtime miniseries (streaming on Paramount Plus) about two political staffers who engage in a passionate but secret relationship from the 1950s through the 1980s.

In many ways, the historical epic is a reminder of the positive progress that both society and Hollywood have made so far. “I’ve been in this industry almost 30 years and there’s a level of cynicism that comes with having been in it at a time when these kinds of stories truly couldn’t be told and, if they were told, I certainly wouldn’t have been cast in them,” Bomer said in an interview. “The fact that we now have beautiful queer narratives and we’re actually engaging queer artists to be a part of them is really mind-blowing.”

Another of this year’s Golden Globe nominees is Andrew Scott, who stars alongside Paul Mescal in the movie “All of Us Strangers,” a portrait of a budding gay relationship intertwined with a gothic ghost story.

“That, for me, is one of the great films of 2023,” said Film Quarterly editor B. Ruby Rich.

Back in 1992, Rich coined the term “New Queer Cinema” to describe the surge of queer representation in film at the start of the ’90s. Since then, she has seen queer cinema’s reach grow: moving from small film festivals to suburban multiplexes and streaming services, all the while evolving in style and subject matter.

“I think Andrew Haigh” — who directed “All of Us Strangers,” and previously helmed TV series “Looking” and the movie “Weekend” — “is an example of a new generation of queer filmmakers that has made films that are very centred on gay relationships,” she said. “His work is almost in the tradition of old Hollywood melodramas; it’s all about feeling.”

Part of what makes “All of Us Strangers” so stirring are its frank depictions of physical touch.

“Passages” and “Fellow Travelers” also make candid sex scenes a central part of their storytelling, something that Bomer found particularly refreshing about his project. “I don’t think we need to see another sanitized version of gay intimacy,” he said. “In a piece like (Fellow Travelers), intimacy is so inherent to who the characters are: it’s such an externalization of what’s going on with them emotionally and psychologically, and it’s the way that they work out their traumas together.”

While “Fellow Travelers” moves from McCarthyism to the AIDS epidemic, this year also produced several gay romances set in the present day that felt refreshingly lighthearted.

“Red, White & Royal Blue,” a fizzy rom-com about the first son of the United States falling for the prince of England, briefly acknowledged that tolerance has never been the British monarchy’s strong suit and yet, international relations quickly triumphed. And “Dicks: The Musical” — which won TIFF’s People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award this year and could, in its own absurd way, be considered a love story — established itself as the ultimate celebration of gay joy.

“It just goes so far over the line in its campiness,” Bennie said. “In a very tightly controlled industry, there’s such a triumph when you can watch a film like that.”

Bennie has seen firsthand the positive impact of this year’s more upbeat fare at various TIFF screenings. “Gay audiences are really appreciating seeing stories that they can recognize in their own lives that aren’t just the same gay trauma narrative,” he said.

Rich is similarly encouraged to see queer cinema moving in fresh directions. “I think we’re finally beyond the decades-long obsession with coming out stories,” she said. “And that’s a good thing.”

Granted, not every coupling that played out onscreen in 2023 had a happy ending, but the ones that did gave more hearts reason to soar. As we close out a banner year for gay romance, here’s hoping that Hollywood is already matchmaking for the next chapter of queer love stories.