The Killing of Sister George (1968)
One of the greatest – but also most shocking – sapphic screen gems. Beryl Reid portrays George, the cigar-sucking dyke who loses everything before entering into an inadvisable femme-dyke-butch love triangle. The film did terrible business when it came out but has become a cult classic, thanks partly to that X-rated scene.
Another Way (1982)
The time: 1956. The place: Hungary. Two journalists who are campaigning against the corrupt communist regime fall deeply and desperately in love. The first Hungarian film to openly deal with LGBT issues, Another Way caused something of a stir.
Paris Was a Woman (1996)
An insightful documentary all about the bohemian Sapphos who lived in Paris’ chic Left Bank during the early 1900s. You’ll learn a lot about lesbian legends from Collette to Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein to Alice B. Toklas.
Bound (1996)
The Wachowksi siblings’ high-octane lesbo-crime-noir-caper written by feminist intellectual Susie Bright. All the masculinist conventions are subverted in this intelligent and wickedly funny story.
Dyketactics (1974)
Barbara Hammer’s explosive short film is a product of its times: liberated lesbians dance naked in a field while psychedelic music plays. Hammer went on to be probably the greatest of all LGBT avant-garde directors and is highly acclaimed for Born in Flames (1983), Desert Hearts (1985), and Go Fish (1994).