Taking in everything from Cannes Film Festival favourites to a Darwin-set drag queen documentary showcasing fabulous First Nations talent, the offers a rainbow spectrum of gorgeous LGBTQIA+ perfection.
Here are a few of our faves.
Joyland
Queer filmmaker Saim Sadiq’s luminous character study made history when, in 2022, it became the first film from Pakistan to be officially selected by the Cannes Film Festival. Winning both the Queer Palm and the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, it’s a soaring tribute to the trans community of Lahore. Trans actor Alina Khan is incredible as the erotic dancer, Biba, who captures the heart of married man Haider (Ali Junejo). An Armistead Maupin-like logical family tale, it does not airbrush out Haider’s devoted wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) in its open-hearted approach.
Joyland is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Joyland
drama • 2022
drama • 2022
Triple Oh!
Every day is a matter of life and death when you’re an ambo. Brooke Satchwell’s Tayls deals with the pressure straightforwardly: lose a life on the job, make it back by hooking up. Only Tahlee Fereday’s new recruit Cate isn’t happy her mentor blurred the lines by sleeping with her after their first shift together, only to move on immediately. How this dynamic works out will keep you smiling as they attend to a series of eye-opening medical emergencies in this grand miniseries that’s packed with gallows humour.
In its Australian television premiere, Triple Oh! is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Triple Oh!
series • comedy
M
series • comedy
M
Kiki
Celebrate the indomitable power of queer youth, even when faced with heinous adversity, by checking in with the vogue-ing children of the Houses of Unbothered Cartier, Juicy Couture and more. Sara Jordenö’s propulsive doco about young people of colour who find solace and strength in their found families feels like a spiritual successor to classic New York ballroom scene documentary Paris is Burning. Dancing from club catwalks to the Christopher Street Pier, it underlines why its important to protect trans youth as the backlash against rights won intensifies.
Kiki is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Kiki
documentary • lgbtq • 2016
documentary • lgbtq • 2016
The Handmaiden
Superb South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s comic book-inspired twisted thriller Oldboy ruined ordering calamari for a generation. He’s at it again here, with something writhing unsettlingly in the basement of a gothic mansion in which Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) is to be seduced by Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a pickpocket posing as a maid, then relieved of her fortune by order of conman Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo). Only nothing and no one is up to what you think they are for most of this sumptuously sexy cat-and-mouse game based on the twisty, turny betrayals of British author Sarah Waters’ saucy Victorian era-set historical fiction, transplanted to Korea under Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s.
The Handmaiden is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Handmaiden
drama • romance • 2016
drama • romance • 2016
Erotic Stories
Smashing star of stage and screen Tim Draxl was up for an AACTA award for his turn as Jet, a sharp-suited businessman by day, leather daddy by night, who has a kink for guys with disability. Only emerging actor with cerebral palsy Joel Lago’s CJ isn’t crash hot on being objectified for his leg crutches in Melbourne-set episode ‘Bound’, written by Alistair Baldwin, a knotty highlight of this steamy anthology series with plenty of queer entries, including the finale, ‘Masc Up’, featuring Triple Oh! star Tahlee Fereday.
An anthology of eight different short stories, SBS anthology Erotic Stories is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Erotic Stories
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
The Blonde One
Argentinian director Marco Berger has carved a career out of crafting languorous gay erotica that glistens with testosterone-charged sweat, but more often than not denies release, preferring the art of the tease. Well, that finally changed with this surprisingly sweet, if hardly chaste, Buenos Aires-set romance. Single father Gabe (Gaston Re) has left his young daughter in the care of his parents while he picks up a woodworking gig (not a euphemism). Here he meets, and soon moves in with his colleague Juan (Alfonso Baron). Both ostensibly straight, the spark between them is undeniable, but, as the Bard once said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
The Blonde One is streaming now at SBS on Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Blonde One
drama • lgbtq • 2019
drama • lgbtq • 2019
Black Divaz
Director Adrian Russell Wills, a Wonnarua man, captured the glittering glory of Darwin’s inaugural Miss First Nations drag pageant in 2017, as organised by his good mate and all-round blooming lovely queen . The big-hearted documentary that followed is a soul hug, with the refreshingly non-bitchy and mutually supportive hopefuls dreaming of wearing the crown, all about building each other up. They included magnificent Tiwi Islands sistergirl Crystal Love and Dunghutti diva Nova Gina.
Black Divaz is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
The Man with the Answers
Wandering hearts will lap up the lush locales of Greek filmmaker Stelios Kammitsis’ gently unfurling sophomore feature. Former Olympic diving champ Victor (Vasilis Magouliotis), licking his wounds after the death of his beloved gran, hits the road in his beat-up car and hops on a ferry to the Italian city Bari, where he promptly picks up German hitchhiker Matthias (Anton Weil). If it isn’t exactly love at first sight, comically so, the gradual thawing that occurs by the time they reach the Bavarian Alps will set your soul a-melting.
The Man With The Answers is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne
Speaking of trips, The Neon Demon star Cara Delevingne skips across the globe in search of answers as to what it is, exactly, that makes us all tick in this sex-positive voyage into the known and unknown of sexuality, gender, love and lust. That includes confronting her in-the-closet days, probing the orgasm gap between men and women, shooting an ethical porno, learning about ancient cultures that smashed the binary yonks ago, unmasking religious interference and teaming up with the always excellent genderqueer performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon. All and more are unwrapped via her terribly posh and incredibly droll attitude to life.
Six-part series Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne
series • documentary
MA15+
series • documentary
MA15+
Explore more films, television shows and documentaries in the at SBS On Demand.
