Top 10 Queer and Queer-Adjacent Summer Picks

Read Time:6 Minute, 19 Second

Curated by Panta Mosleh for Screenmancer

So this summer isn’t just about blockbusters with capes, it’s about stories with soul! From queer coming-of-age dramas to chaotic anime royals, this list is a love letter to the films and shows that made me laugh, cry, scream “OMG YAAAAS,” and enthusiastically recommend them to strangers. Some are messy, some are healing, some are just HAWT!!

But they all mean something. Whether you’re here for sapphic fantasy, brown family drama, or Bowen Yang’s naked shoulders, there’s something in this mix for anyone who’s ever felt like the main character and the sidekick at the same time.

Ok so here is my list broken down into several categories: Past Films, Anime picks because yes I AM an ANIME NERD! She is loud and proud honey! And Japanese Anime really inspires my filmmaking as well in real life.

Oh and speaking of coming out!

My comedy special CULTURE SHOCK COMEDY SHOW is on Amazon and Apple so go give a watch and some giggles (I wouldn’t be a filmmaker if I didn’t name drop my own work so bear with me here).

But also, back to the article, I also have a coming-soon to theaters list of must-watch as well. Read on…

PAST FILMS

1. The Persian Version (2023) Directed by Maryam Keshavarz This one hits close. It’s loud, messy, deeply Iranian, and unapologetically queer. Watching a daughter clash with her immigrant mother while discovering a whole family secret? Yeah, been there. It’s got dance numbers, Farsi insults, queer joy, and generational pain, and it somehow manages to make it all feel like a hug. I laughed, I cried, I went through all the emotions.

2. Moonlight (2016) Directed by Barry Jenkins This film isn’t just iconic, it’s elemental. The silence, the water, the softness between two Black boys in a world that doesn’t let them breathe. I revisit this film every year and it still destroys me, in the most healing way. It redefined what queer cinema could be. Honestly, if it’s not in your top five, start over.

3. The Queen of My Dreams (2023) Directed by Fawzia Mirza A queer Pakistani-Canadian coming-of-age story told through wonderful array of colors, ancestral ghosts, and queer longing? Yes please. Fawzia Mirza delivers a multigenerational mother-daughter drama with all the charm and chaos of a big brown family reunion, but gay. And Amrit Kaur? Just give her everything.  4. Fire Island (2022), Directed by Andrew Ahn This one healed something in me I didn’t know needed healing. It’s hilarious, horny, and full of heart, and somehow manages to make a bunch of messy gays feel like a Shakespearean love story. Joel Kim Booster’s script is sharp, but it’s Bowen Yang’s vulnerability that guts me every time. It’s not just fun, it’s necessary.

5. Call Me by Your Name (2017) Directed by Luca Guadagnino Yes, it’s controversial. Yes, it’s slow. Yes, the peach scene. But there’s something undeniable about the way this film captures the ache of a summer romance that’s both formative and doomed. Elio’s heartbreak is tender and raw, and Sufjan Stevens’ “Visions of Gideon” still guts me. Also, the soft lighting? Italian countryside? Devastating first love? She did what she came to do.

6. Darby and the Dead (2022) Directed by Silas Howard Not queer, but she it brought joy to my queer little heart and she literally talks to dead people and breaks the fourth wall with more confidence than I’ve ever had at a pitch meeting. This is the kind of fun, weird teen movie I feel I would totally be watching when I was younger so it has that nostalgic vibes to it. It’s cheeky, smart, and lets the misfit girl win, and I will always root for that. It’s kind of giving Mean Girls but with a twist.

ANIME PICKS

7. Bloom Into You / やがて君になる (Yagate Kimi ni Naru) (2018) Directed by Makoto Katō This one is gentle in all the right ways. It’s about learning to want. Yuu doesn’t fall in love right away, and that matters. It’s about queerness blooming at its own pace, and it gives space for emotional ambiguity without rushing to resolve it. Also: the lighting in this series is its own character. Quiet, intentional, and beautiful, like a Miyazaki film but with internal monologues and lesbian tension.

8. The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady / 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 (Tensei Ōjo to Tensai Reijō no Mahō Kakumei) (2023) This is pure joy. We’ve got a chaotic tech-nerd princess, a disgraced genius noblewoman, a magical kingdom, and yes, they fall in love and get married. It’s not subtext. It’s text. And I ate it up. Watching them fight for each other and rewrite the rules of their world? That’s the kind of fantasy I want more of.

COMING SOON TO THEATERS

9. The Wedding Banquet (2025) Directed by Fire Island’s Andrew Ahn   This remake of Ang Lee’s classic is everything I wanted, queer, hilarious, and starring two of my favorite humans, Bowen (SNL royalty) and Lily Gladstone (our Indigenous queen). It’s about chosen family, cultural performance, and queer bodies being soft and complicated. It’s giving chaotic love story, real heart and a plate full of drama! I’m all for it! I don’t have any drama in my life so I enjoy watching it on the big screen.

10. Honey Don’t! (2025) Directed by Ethan Coen This is not BIPOC and I do not care. Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza? Together? YUM! They are giving unhinged + horny and I want to bottle their chemistry and sell it. The press tour already gave us the ass grab of the year, and the movie is apparently full of lesbian noir camp chaos. Kitty kitty meow meow!(watch my comedy special, you’ll get it!) I will be seated, rewinding, and blasting on IG obsessively YAAAS!!!

Anyway thanks for listening to me blab away about some of my favorite and to be fav flicks! And also don’t forget go and watch my comedy special CULTURE SHOCK COMEDY SHOW on Amazon and Apple Tv!! Produced, Directed by and Starring yours truly xoxo!! But also some other AMAZING talented diverse comedians as well!!

CULTURE SHOCK COMEDY SHOW is highly recommended by Screenmancer Staff. Panta Mosleh was just signed to Paradigm Talent Agency.

ABOUT PANTA

From Groundlings School of Comedy in Los Angeles, Singapore-born Panta Mosleh received a 2021 SNL scholarship, She’s also a multi-hyphenated, Queer Middle Eastern/West Asian-Canadian Writer-Producer-Director, who splits her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles. Panta is an Alumni of the women in director’s chair, Reelworld Warner Access and Bell Producing Program, NSI EAVE development program, Sundance writing for television program, Sundance Directing program and, the Emerging top 20 writers in Canada program with Reelworld. She is currently part of the AMAZON/MGM writing series program with REELWORLD. She is a member of the DGC and the CMPA and has worked in productions for a decade as a production coordinator, production manager, producer and a director. She has recently directed three tv movies for A&E, Lifetime and TF1. She is currently working on a feature documentary.

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