10 unmissable lesbian films on Netflix to stream right now

Netflix has a deep bench of lesbian stories, and they are not just about candlelit gazes and dramatic breakups. We are talking identity, risk, secrets, survival, and yes, romance that actually has something on its mind. If you are in the mood for films that go from tender to gnarly and stick with you after the credits, start here.

1. Elisa & Marcela (2019)
   A century ago in Galicia, two teachers fall in love and run headfirst into a world that refuses to accept it. Elisa Sanchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas make history when Elisa adopts a male alias, 'Mario', so they can marry in a Catholic church. The fallout is immediate: scandal, pursuit across borders, and a fight to simply exist together.

   Director Isabel Coixet shoots it in striking black and white, all soft natural light and intimate close-ups that keep you inside their connection. Natalia de Molina and Greta Fernandez lead a story that moves through Spain, Portugal, and Argentina, digging into identity, sacrifice, and the guts it takes to love out loud when everything around you says no.

2. Ride or Die (2021)
   This one opens with a choice you cannot take back. Rei has loved Nanae for years, and when she decides to pull her out of an abusive marriage, things get violent fast. What follows is an on-the-run road drama soaked in longing and bad decisions.

   Based on Ching Nakamura's manga 'Gunjo', the film blends neon- soaked crime- thriller tension with a bruised romance. City lights smear across wet pavement, the highway feels endless, and the ocean looks like freedom you can almost touch. Kiko Mizuhara anchors it as Rei, while the story keeps pressing a tough question: can a relationship built on obsession, sacrifice, and a single irreversible act actually survive?

3. To Each, Her Own (2018)
   Simone is a Parisian with a big secret: she has been hiding her relationship with her girlfriend, Claire, from a conservative Jewish family that is very invested in tradition. Just as she finally works up the nerve to come out, she meets Wali, a charming Senegalese chef, and suddenly the road map she thought she had goes up in smoke.

   Director Myriam Aziza keeps the tone warm and funny without sanding off the tough stuff. Set against cozy cafes, crowded dinners, and a whole lot of irresistible food, it is a breezy watch that still pokes at identity, attraction, and how messy being honest with yourself can get.

4. The Valley of a Thousand Hills (2022)
   Lush green hills, golden light, and a love that has to hide. In rural KwaZulu-Natal, Nosipho is headed toward an arranged marriage picked by her family. Her heart, though, is with Thenjiwe. That tension between expectation and desire powers the entire film.

   Bonie Sithebe directs with an eye for the region's beauty and texture, wrapping the romance in earthy colors and lived-in cultural detail. It is quiet, intimate, and unflinching about the cost of choosing your own life. Fun fact for awards nerds: it picked up Best African Film at the 2022 Cannes Film Awards.

5. Honey Don't! (2025 )
   Imagine a sun-baked California noir that wandered into a queer crime farce and decided to stay. Margaret Qualley plays Honey O'Donahue, a whip-smart private eye whose latest job yanks her into a mess of cult-y church business, drug routes, and small-town rot. The more she digs, the weirder it gets, in the best way.

   Aubrey Plaza turns up as the mysteriously cool MG Falcone, and Chris Evans slips into the role of a dangerously charming pastor, Reverend Drew Devlin. With Charlie Day, Talia Ryder, Lera Abova, and Billy Eichner rounding out the cast, the whole thing is a retro-styled, sunburnt spin on the detective yarn that pokes at authority and keeps the surprises coming.

6. On Swift Horses (2024)
   Postwar America, all promise and shadows. Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) tries to settle into a neat 1950s life with her husband, Lee (Will Poulter), in California. Then Lee's younger brother, Julius (Jacob Elordi), blows through like a spark. He heads for Las Vegas and falls into a hidden romance with Henry (Diego Calva), while Muriel finds her own version of freedom at the racetrack, betting on horses and herself.

   Daniel Minahan adapts Shannon Pufahl's novel with an eye for period romance and secret lives. It is about choosing the riskier path because staying still would be worse: forbidden love, reinvention, and the gamble of making a life that is actually yours.

7. The Fear Street Trilogy (2021)
   Three movies, three centuries, one cursed town. Leigh Janiak turns R.L. Stine's books into a full-on horror epic with a queer love story at its heart. Deena and Sam (Kiana Madeira and Olivia Scott Welch) become the emotional throughline as Shadyside's bloody past refuses to stay buried.

   We jump from the fluorescent chaos of 1994 to the slasher heat of Camp Nightwing in 1978 and finally the witch-haunted 1666. Each era gets its own style, the kills are gnarly, the twists land, and under all the gore is a story about ripping up a rotten legacy and fighting for a future that is not cursed.

8. Do Revenge ( 2022)
   High school melodrama, but rendered like a sport. Drea's golden-girl life implodes after a brutal betrayal; Eleanor has been living under a nasty, persistent rumor. They team up to even the score, and the plan quickly outgrows both of them.

   Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke make a ridiculously watchable duo, and director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson builds a candy-colored world that nods to classic teen flicks while staying sharp and modern. What starts as a petty-war comedy shifts into a smarter look at friendship, image, and what winning actually costs.

9. Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
   Adèle is drifting until she locks eyes with Emma, an art student with shock-blue hair and the kind of self-possession that changes the weather in a room. Their attraction is immediate and all-consuming, and the film sits with them as years pass and love morphs into something more complicated.

   Director Abdellatif Kechiche goes intimate and handheld, capturing tiny glances, awkward silences, and the texture of everyday life in Lille. Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux give raw, lived-in performances in a story about first love's radiance and the way it can fray over time.

10. Shiva Baby (2020)
    One townhouse, a shiva, and a social panic attack in real time. Danielle (Rachel Sennott) shows up to a family gathering with her parents and promptly runs into her ex-girlfriend, Maya. Then her secret sugar daddy, Max, arrives with his impeccably put-together wife, Kim. It is a nightmare carousel that just keeps spinning.

    Emma Seligman directs it like a pressure cooker: tight frames, warm domestic lighting, and zero escape routes. It is hilarious, tense, and painfully perceptive about identity, control, and what happens when the version of you that everyone sees gets uncomfortably close to the real one.

However you like your romance served — tender, haunted, chaotic, or all of the above — there is something here worth queuing up on Netflix. Which one are you pressing play on first? Drop it in the comments.