So if you’re looking for more wholesome queer goodness, we’ve got you sorted. Taking up residence at a cabaret, he encounters love, friendship and, ultimately, tragedy with the outbreak of AIDS. Ultimately, Heartstopper shouldn’t be where your viewing starts and ends. In this colorful coming-of-age tale set in 1984, a gay teenage runaway travels to Amsterdam from Luxembourg in search of a new life. On Twitter, people have been sharing their ‘ My Heartstopper’ equivalents – characters that, intentionally or not, provided LGBTQ+ visibility for them when growing up. With COVID-19 majorly interrupting Pride Month celebrations over the last two years, the community has found unique and safe ways to still celebrate and raise awareness for LGBTQ+ issues. Such a statement discredits the many shows and movies preceding Heartstopper that have handled their queer coming-of-age stories with similar levels of sensitivity. There are thousands of movies on Netflix, but this list highlights the best of the best LGBTQ+ movies the streaming giant has to offer. Jump To / Table of Contents Atypical (2017 - present) The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) Queer Eye (2018 - present) The Danish Girl (2015) Sense8 (2015-2018). Some have described Heartstopper as the first of its kind.
And while it’s a rarity, it’s not the only uplifting tale of being young and queer available. There’s no denying Heartstopper is extremely lovely and that it will inevitably act as a source of validation for its Gen Z audience – with high schoolers played by appropriately-aged actors, most of whom also align with their character’s identity: a lesbian couple who are proud of the label (happy Lesbian Visibility Week!) a Black trans woman untethered from a traumatic subplot.