Army gays, tortured playwrights, sapphic painters & more queer period pieces to stream this weekend

Welcome to your weekend streaming recommendations, a.k.a. the Weekend Watch, a handy guide to the queerest film and TV content that’s just a click away!

Everyone’s talking about the new miniseries Fellow Travelers, which chronicles the intense relationship between two men (out actors Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey) from the McCarthy-era 1950s to the AIDS-riddled 1980s. While most of the discourse has understandably been about the sweaty sex scenes—that must be the first gay toe-sucking scene on mainstream TV, right?—Fellow Travelers has us thinking about other sexy period dramas that tell our community’s stories throughout history.

Read on for more excellent queer period dramas to stream this weekend.

Firebird

Written and directed by Peeter Rebane, this 2021 romantic drama tells the story of Sergey (Tom Prior), a young Soviet private, who falls in love with the confident and more experienced Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii) during the Cold War. Roman and Sergey’s intense love affair continues for several years, with the usual obstacles—marriage, babies, the KGB—getting in the way of their happiness. Firebird is a sensual, melodramati,c and occasionally overwrought film, but the boys sure are cute! Interestingly, Firebird is based on a real-life memoir, The Story Of Roman, by Sergey Fetisov, who Rebane was able to interview prior to his passing.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Available to rent on Google Play, YouTube, Vudu, DirecTV, and Apple TV.

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Wilde

Oscar Wilde, the famed gay playwright behind such masterworks as The Importance Of Being Earnest, is played by the brilliant Stephen Fry in Brian Gilbert’s glossy 1997 film. The biopic, which also stars Jude Law and Vanessa Redgrave, chronicles Wilde’s sexual awakening, arrest for “gross indecency,” and untimely death following his release from prison. Wilde, which has had a second wind thanks to some sexy Jude Law memes in recent years, is a fascinating look at the controversial and beloved writer’s life.

Now streaming on Tubi. Available to rent on Amazon, Apple TV, Vudu, and Microsoft Store.

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Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

This 2019 French romance by Céline Sciamma tells the story of Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter commissioned to create a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), an upper class woman about to be married off to a Milanese nobleman. Marianne and Héloïse strike up a deep friendship that soon turns sexual, and they have a passionate (and possibly doomed) romance. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire was the first film directed by a woman to win the Queer Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Now streaming on Hulu and Kanopy. Available to rent on Google Play, YouTube, Vudu, Apple TV, and Alamo Drafthouse.

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Operation Hyacinth

This 2021 Polish film, directed by Piotr Domalewski, is set in the mid-1980s against the backdrop of the real-life Operation Hyacinth, in which the Polish communist party tried to find and persecute gay men under the pretext of trying to stop the AIDS epidemic. In the film, Tomasz Ziętek plays Robert, a young investigator who sets out to stop a serial killer targeting gay men in Warsaw. Of course, Robert is in the closet himself and is challenged when he meets openly gay Arek (Hubert Milkowski).

Now streaming on Netflix.

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The Kicker…

In this Saturday Night Live sketch, Bridgerton hottie Regé-Jean Page (seriously, we can’t stop thinking about his sex scenes from the first season)  and Chloe Fineman struggle with “intimacy” coordinators Mikey Day and Pete Davidson.

Related:

Before Stonewall: 9 must-see queer period pieces set in the mid-20th century

“Queer people didn’t just show up at Stonewall—we’ve been around forever.”