The best LGBTQ movies on Amazon Prime Video (September 2022)

A 2018 Best Picture nominee, Call Me By Your Name centers on precocious American-Italian teenager Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) in the summer of 1983 in northern Italy. Elio enjoys a close relationship with his Greco-Roman professor father, Samuel (Michael Stuhlbarg), and translator mother, Annella (Amira Casar), who both envelop Elio in high culture and intellectual pursuits. Elio’s intellectualism makes him appear older than he is, so when he meets Oliver (Armie Hammer), a charming American doctorate student tasked to be his father’s intern for the summer, the two form an instant connection. That connection soon becomes an awakening for both men.

Julie Cohen and Betsy West weren’t looking to find an unsung hero of the civil rights struggle when they first came upon Pauli Murray’s name. Instead, they were delving into the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the 2018 documentary RBG, and the name of this relatively unknown lawyer and activist kept popping up as one of Ginsburg’s biggest influences. As early as the 1940s, Pauli Murray was fighting for women’s rights and ultimately proved instrumental in adding the Equal Protection Clause to the 14th Amendment. Through archival footage and the extensive recordings Murray left behind when she passed away in 1985, My Name Is Pauli Murray paints an intimate portrait not only of an influential activist whose name has gone unspoken on too many tongues for too long but someone with a surprisingly contemporary understanding of gender that many today are still struggling to wrap their heads around.