15 LGBTQIA+ movies to watch if you liked Love, Simon

Brokeback Mountain

Let’s point out the obvious: unlike most movies on this list, Brokeback Mountain is not a teen movie by any means. But it’s a movie worth acknowledging nonetheless.

Brokeback Mountain is a Western romantic drama film about two men hired to herd sheep in the Wyoming mountains in 1963. Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) work together for the summer, but after a night of heavy drinking, Jack makes a move on Ennis. He’s reluctant at first but soon gives in to Jac’s advances.

The men assure each other it was a one-time thing, as most closeted men do when they slip up, but then it develops into a passionate affair. When the summer ends and they go their separate ways. Ennis marries his fiancée and has two daughters. Jack moves to Texas and marries rodeo rider Lureen (Anne Hathaway), and they have a son.

Over the years, the two meet up to fuel their passionate love affair, but Ennis refuses to run away with Jack whenever he approaches the topic of the two of them starting a life together. Their marriages crumble over the years as the two pine for each other. It’s clear that the two men are madly in love, but because of the era they live in, they can’t really be together.

At the time of its release, and to this day, Brokeback Mountain was the butt of endless gay jokes, constantly being referred to as “the gay cowboy movie.” Even though it’s often mocked, the tale of two forbidden lovers in the 1960s is powerful, heart-wrenching and a good reminder to the younger generation.

There was a time when being gay was illegal. Gay men had to restrict their relations to secret locations and were forced to live fake, heterosexual lives out of fear of being arrested or killed for being gay. That’s a history lesson that queer teens need to learn, so they don’t take their freedom for granted.