June is Pride month and this year we are showcasing the LGBTQ+ love stories that make this month so poignant. From cowboys herding sheep in Wyoming to Black teens in Brooklyn, these love stories are as universal as they are perfect for Pride.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain
From the start, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain was a classic, “that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center,” wrote Entertainment Weekly. “It’s a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story.” The story of two cowhands—Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal)—who meet in the summer of 1963 herding sheep in Wyoming and find a love that will last the rest of their lives has touched nearly everyone who has seen it. Gyllenhaal told Indiewire that when anyone joked about Ennis and Jack’s relationship, Ledger “was like, ‘No. This is about love.’” As a cultural event, the movie forever shifted the American Western. As a movie, novelist Rick Moody wrote that, “It's a great American love story.”
Brokeback Mountain is in select theaters this week—get tickets now!
The official trailer for Brokeback Mountain

Adepero Oduye in Pariah
Pariah
In Dee Rees’ Pariah, Alike (Adepero Oduye), a Black teen growing up in Brooklyn, struggles to make sense of the world she lives in. “She knows she loves women. That's not her struggle,” Rees told NPR. “Her struggle's more how to be in the world." Not attracted to her best friend Laura’s (Pernell Walker) toughness, Alike hopes to find love with a fellow student, Bina (Aasha Davis), only to discover that her first real evening of passion was just a one-night stand. The Playlist writes, Pariah is “a film with a universal sensitivity that relates the pangs of first love, the desirous ache of adolescent sexuality and the excitement of not just discovering yourself but finding those kindred spirits with whom you can share your life.”
The official trailer for Pariah

Evan Rachel Wood in Kajillionaire
Kajillionaire
A confidence caper, a comedy of manners, and a coming-of-age tale, Miranda July’s innovative Kajillionaire is also a deeply touching love story. When arguably the worst confidence team in Los Angeles, the Dyne family—Robert (Richard Jenkins), Theresa (Debra Winger), and their daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood)—meet Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), they think they’ve added a new member to their gang. What Old Dolio doesn’t know is that she has also met the woman who will change her life by melting her heart. Wood told Pride, “There was a love story in the film, but the film is not a queer love story. They just happen to be queer." Autostraddle writes, “Old Dolio has the desire to love and be loved, she just hasn’t seen an avenue to wholeness that involves selflessness on the part of others, not herself.” With Melanie, she finds real love.
The official trailer for Kajillionaire

Thom Green and Elias Anton in Of an Age
Of an Age
Set in Melbourne during the summer of 1999, Goran Stoleski’s Of an Age “explores the enduring nature of first love,” writes the San Francisco Chronicle. When 17-year-old Kol (Elias Anton) meets Adam (Thom Green), the older brother of his ballroom dance partner, his life skips a beat. The two men have only a day together—chasing down Adam’s sister, talking about books read and plans made—since Adam is slated to leave the country the next day. But in those 24 hours, Kol experiences feelings that will linger long into the future. Stoleski told RogerEbert.com, the film emerged from “this very vivid flashback of what it felt like on the inside to be that age in that time and place, and what it felt like for me and what I felt love was.” The brief romance, writes Flicks “is a timeless capsule of love at its most unguarded.”
The official trailer for Of an Age