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!
The sidekick. The gay best friend. The sassy shoulder to lean on. All of these tropes have been done to death in movies, often to problematic effect. But every so often, a movie comes around that gets the gay sidekick so right that it elevates the entire thing. These picks avoid stereotypes, give their queer characters an authentic voice, and are all-around fun to watch.
Read on for films with great gay sidekicks to stream this weekend.
My Best Friend’s Wedding
P. J. Hogan’s 1997 romantic comedy stars Julia Roberts as food critic Jules, who sets out to stop her best friend and former lover, Michael (the always dreamy Dermot Mulroney), from marrying Kimmy (Cameron Diaz) and choose her instead. As Jules schemes and gaslights her way through the wedding weekend, her gay best friend, the dashing George (out actor Rupert Everett) shows up as her supposed boyfriend to make Michael jealous, while also gently reminding her what she’s doing is wrong. George, who stops the show multiple times, including leading the cast in a wild musical number of “Say A Little Prayer,” also delivers the film’s most famous line: “Maybe there won’t be marriage. Maybe there won’t be sex. But by god, there will be dancing.”
Now streaming on Starz and DirecTV.
Easy A
In this 2010 teen comedy by Will Gluck, the gay best friend is the catalyst for the whole plot. When Olive (Emma Stone) is accused by a conservative classmate (Amanda Bynes) of being promiscuous, her gay friend, Brandon (Dan Byrd), begs her to pretend she had sex with him so he’ll stop being mercilessly bullied. The lies spiral, and Olive soon finds herself inundated with requests by guys to “pretend” to sleep with them for their reputations. The film also acknowledges Brandon’s trauma, and doesn’t play him as a punchline. In one powerful line, he tells Olive: “It’s like I’m being suffocated, and sure we can sit and fantasize all we want about how things are going to be different one day, but this is today and it sucks… So please just help me. I can’t take another day of this, I don’t know what I’ll do.” While Olive’s lies spiral, Brandon decides to come out and runs away from home and has a happy ending with a hottie new boyfriend.
Now streaming on Fubo and DirecTV.
Billy Elliot
Stephen Daldry’s 2000 dance drama tells the story of Billy (Jamie Bell), a pre-teen boy who lives in Northern England during the 1984-1985 miners’ strike and discovers a passion and talent for ballet. As he secretly trains with local instructor Sandra (the fabulous Dame Julie Walters), he learns his best friend, Michael (Stuart Wells), is gay. Despite his tough upbringing, Billy supports Michael, who remains his friend through adulthood and is seen at the end of the film watching Billy perform professionally. This lovely, heartwarming film will warm even the coldest British weather.
Available to rent on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store and Redbox.
G.B.F.
This 2013 comedy by Darren Stein turns the trope of the “gay best friend” completely on its head. Tanner Daniels and Brent Van Camp (out actors Michael J. Willett and Paul Iacono, respectively) are two best friends who are only out to each other and their very small, tight-knit friend group. Brent realizes that coming out could make him popular, and a series of hijinks—including a misguided Gay-Straight Alliance going on a witch hunt to find an actual gay kid—leads to both Tanner and Brent being outed and becoming the hottest commodities in the school’s three cliques, run by Sasha Pieterse, Andrea Bowen, and Xosha Roquemore. This wacky comedy is also sexy, sweet, and has a poignant message.
Now streaming on Peacock, YouTube, Hoopla, Vudu, Tubi, realeyz, Pluto, Plex and Flix Fling..
The Kicker
Why should straights use us as sidekicks? Bowen Yang befriends the ultimate straight best friend in NFL hottie (and Taylor Swift’s new boo?) Travis Kelce in this hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch.
cuteguy
The SNL skit is hilarious but so true
Jim
I’d forgotten what a treasure “Billy Elliott” is.
Fahd
Billy Elliott is a great movie and story.
The Hungarian State Opera in Budapest had prepared a Billy Elliott opera and went through rehearsals, was on the performance schedule (a big deal in Budapest) and then before they had any performances the government censored it, i.e. prohibited it from being performed, based on Hungary’s so-called “gay propaganda” laws. A really sad state of affairs.
One wonders if Bilie Elliot might meet a similar fate in 21st century Florida.
519
@Fahd – that’s not true at all. There were performances, and then some asshole “journalist” wrote an article about how it’s promoting gay propaganda and how little children will turn gay if they see this, so all hell broke loose among the right wing nutjobs and 15 performances were cancelled. The government didn’t really have anything to do with this, though, as all this happened in 2018 and their anti-gay law censoring books (which just became a laughing stock due to a missing colon, by the way) was introduced in 2022.
Pietro D
Look to your own country of America where the latest is to
remove all books from classrooms and libraries that even have
the word “GAY” in them. That already took effect in Florida.
America is in very deep shit~! You gay dudes have to so something
significant before you are stripped of any semblance of “gay” rights.
Fahd
@519 Thanks for the clarification, so it was censored or performances cancelled because of right wing bullying, not the actual government censorship. I should have checked back to review the circumstances, instead of misremembering that it was the government who cut off the performances.
I’d be interested in knowing more how the anti-gay law censoring books has become a laughing stock over a colon.
Meanwhile, things in Florida are going from bad to worse.
519
@Fahd – A bookstore has been penalized for 12 million HUF (about 32 500 USD) because they were selling the Heartstopper books among books for children. The store appealed, and they pointed out, that the legislators left out a colon, so the law basically says “if the books depicting or promoting homosexuality are sold separately from other books, they should be wrapped in plastic” instead of “the books depicting or promoting homosexuality should be sold separately from other books and they should be wrapped in plastic” as they originally intended. Hungarian is a funny language when it comes to colons.
Fahd
@519 I see … well , that is funny… the Hungarian language doesn’t have enough grammatical cases (sarcasm), the colons are also important… so I guess it pays to have a lawyer who knows his punctuation.
I used to read the Hungarian news (in English) regularly, but I´ve fallen behind.
Please comment more often, if possible.
Rank Amateur
I’ve seen all of those except “Easy A” and they are all entertaining. “Billy Elliott” is quite a bit better than the others; well made, well acted and great story.
bachy
My Best Friend’s Wedding is easily the top romcom of all time, and Rupert Everett’s absolutely hilarious and utterly charming turn as the GBF is central to its success. A bachy-approved must-see!
FreddieW
You forgot “Scott Pilgrim Saves the World”.
MacAdvisor
Give the topic is the gay best friend trope, the preview of Billie Elliot doesn’t even show him, so it seems a bit out of sync. However, in the musical version, he really gets the spot light with a song of his own:
htt ps :// ww w.y outu be. com /wat ch? v=AKm -pKfYQwg
Sorry about putting in the spaces, but Queety has an allergy to URL links. You will have take them out, but this bit from the musical is worth it. After all, there’s nothing wrong with expressing yourself.
Claytonisahobo
I’ve seen all these movies and for me GBF is the best one. It’s hilarious.