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There are as many paths to exploring queer history as there are people who have lived it, and many queer legends who are nearly forgotten and who, in a more just world, would be household names. Pride is a time to celebrate, honor, and remember all of it, whether you’re trans, bi, ace, poly, pan, intersex, nonbinary, or anywhere else on the gender and sexual identity and expression spectrum…or just proud to support your queer friends.
These 55 movies all reflect elements of modern queer (LBGTQIA+) history—sometimes dramatized, sometimes documentary, and sometimes because the film itself made history. They reflect decades of love, sex, activism, and artistry. Some call for tolerance, while others throw up a middle finger in response to narrow-minded bigotry. Many ask us to love one another, but others demand that we take up the battle cry: Be gay, do crimes. Or just put on your cha-cha heels and watch a good movie. You do you.
Set amidst the AIDS crisis in the early 1990s, BPM focuses, to some extent, on HIV-positive ACT UP activist Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) and his developing relationship with newcomer Nathan (Arnaud Valois)—though the film is very much an ensemble piece in the aggregate, a fact that ties into its meaning and messaging. Shifting focus allows the movie to explore, dramatically and rather fearlessly, the changing nature of ACT UP’s actions and activism. The messy internal battles over strategy, and questions as to how-far-is-too-far are part and parcel of every movement, and BPM beautifully dramatizes and personalizes those (still timely) struggles. Writer-director Robin Campillo and co-writer Philippe Mangeot brought their own ACT UP experiences to the film. You can stream BPM on Kanopy and Pluto TV or rent it from Prime Video.
Trans lead Daniela Vega gives a brilliant, inspiring, gut-wrenching performance as Marina Vidal, a waitress and club singer in Santiago, Chile. When her boyfriend Orlando dies unexpectedly, she’s subjected to a number of indignities—she’s deadnamed and harassed by the police, who assume she must be a sex worker, and his family is after her to surrender all of Orlando’s possessions and stay the hell away. Through all of it, Marina maintains a backbone of steel that doesn’t detract from her believable struggle, but keeps the story from becoming a tragedy. In 2017, this Oscar-winner seemed like a story of a strong woman in a particularly intolerant country—but that was just before a global tide of transphobia swept away many of the advances made in even countries that once seemed more progressive. You can stream A Fantastic Woman on Peacock or rent it from Prime Video.
In the roaring ‘20s, the rules governing depicting queerness in film were a bit looser than they would be later on. Germany produced a handful of queer-positive films, even as several American movies played fast and loose with gender and sexual roles. Case in point: Salome, a biblical epic produced by, and starring, queer provocateur Alla Nazimova.
Nazimova (usually referred to as just “Nazimova”) was one of Hollywood’s early power players, and an accomplished artist with a take on Oscar Wilde’s play that included female characters played by men in drag, overt sexuality, and silver lamé loincloths. It’s all wonderfully campy and stylized, and it didn’t make a penny, but it’s a reminder that there were queer folx making movies that your great-grandparents may have enjoyed.
With the rise of the Hays Production Code in America, and the Nazi party in Germany, it would be decades before movies could again do much more than hint about unsanctioned relationships. You can stream Salomé on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.
Like Faulkner said: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It’s especially true when it comes to queer history, as Paris is Burning makes plain. Exploring New York’s drag ball culture in the late 1980s, director Jennie Livingston’s documentary shines a particular spotlight on the Black and Latinx gay, trans, and genderqueer experience, with aspects both joyous and heartbreaking. So much of what was transgressive here has worked its way into pop culture, for better and for worse: Madonna gets credit for voguing, but the style has roots in Harlem ballrooms. Much of the language and culture here will make perfect sense to RuPaul or Pose fans, and many of the doc’s darker elements will also be familiar: Racism, poverty, and anti-trans violence are all still very real parts of the queer BIPOC experience. All the more reason to appreciate authenticity and self-expression, and to throw up a middle finger to gender expectations. You can stream Paris is Burning on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Apple TV.
The story of troubled schoolgirl Manuela (Hertha Thiele) who quickly gets hot for teacher at her all-girls school, Mädchen in Uniform arrived at a pivotal moment in German history: Paragraph 175, outlawing homosexuality, had been received its first significant legal challenge a few years earlier, and what would later be seen as the “decadent” Weimar era was in full swing. With queer women behind the camera and plenty of lesbian longing, and snogging, onscreen, the movie was a hit in much of Europe, while lobbying by no less than Eleanor Roosevelt ensured that American audiences got to see the film (a detail I adore). It’s a beautifully realized film about romantic longing that never devolves into melodrama; it also invites us to imagine the kinds of female-centric movies we might have had if there had been more women behind the camera during the golden age of cinema—and also what might have been had the Nazis not made anti-queer crusading a centerpiece of their rise to power. You can stream Mädchen in Uniform on Hoopla and Kino Film.
Look, we’ve all had those nights. You get down. You feel had. So why not put on some makeup, turn up the tape deck, and pull that wig down from the shelf? There’s a fair chance you’re already singing along, but, if not, Hedwig’s about a musical about a genderqueer German rock singer whose botched gender reassignment surgery left them with the titular angry inch. Anticipating a much-needed cultural conversation about gender binaries by over two decades, it is also an old-school rock opera par excellence, of the kind they just don’t make anymore. Based on the stage musical of the same name, the movie made no money whatsoever, but has earned a well-deserved status as a cult classic. You can rent Hedwig and the Angry Inch from Prime Video.
Director James Whale (whose later life was dramatized in Gods and Monsters) followed up what would have been the greatest of the monster movies with one of the most impressive feats in American cinema history: something altogether funnier, weirder, and far more queer, with gay icon Ernest Thesiger prancing through the Gothic sets, offering bitchy rejoinders and seducing his old protegé into reanimating the dead just one more time. His Dr. Pretorius comes back into the life of Frankenstein (Colin Clive) just as the doctor is about to begin life married to Elizabeth—but, given the choice, runs off to make life with Pretorius, instead. That’s all before Elsa Lanchester trades her Mary Shelley outfit for the Bride’s wire-cage wig, giving birth to an icon. You can rent Bride of Frankenstein from Prime Video.
At the peak of Japan’s New Wave, writer/director Toshio Matsumoto created this classic that blends ultra-realism with hauntingly beautiful, occasionally psychedelic imagery. The plot takes inspiration from, and flips, the story of Oedipus Rex, seamlessly blending the mythic with the mundane in following Eddie (Shinnosuke Ikehata) and other transgender women in the very swinging, very gay Tokyo of the 1960s (“Roses” being a sort of pun relating to pansies). At the time, the movie had no trouble securing a Japanese release, but struggled to get past American censors. You can stream Funeral Parade of Roses on Kanopy and Night Flight.
William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist and, rather more notoriously, Cruising) directs the film adaptation of the controversial off-Broadway play—controversial for the fact that every character is gay or bisexual, and controversial among queer audiences for, often, portraying its characters as self-pitying. It’s not entirely an uplifting portrait of being a gay man in America, but it reflects something real, if not always pretty, as a pre-liberation period piece. And there are plenty of aspects here that still feel sadly relevant. You can stream The Boys in the Band on Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
Ricardo Meneses is Sérgio, a Lisbon trash collector who goes on an existential odyssey while hunting for rough trade after escaping the advances of his female co-worker. Director João Pedro Rodrigues conjures a compellingly seedy and thoroughly horny underworld of kink, with a philosopher’s eye toward the meaning of it all. It’s a rare existential journey that involves latex gear and erotic asphyxiation, and queers can take pride in the fact that our own 50 Shades is quite a bit less embarrassing than the mainstream version. You can stream O Fantasma on Tubi.
This 2013 French film plays like an homage, in part, to the erotic thrillers of decades past, in much the same way that some of the better thrillers of the ‘80s paid tribute to film noir. Here, Pierre Deladonchamps plays Franck, a regular visitor to a nude beach and the surrounding woods, both popular cruising spots. Franck begins a passionate relationship (meaning: lots of sex in the woods) with Michel (Christophe Paou), who Franck later spots drowning someone in the lake. Which, OK: red flag. But the D is just that good. As the investigation into that event heats up, Franck finds himself struggling to give up a good thing, even in the face of murder. We’re firmly entering an era when queer people can be both prey and predator, without resorting to exhausting tropes. You can stream Stranger by the Lake on The Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and Mubi or rent it from Prime Video.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s dreamy queer film is about a handsome young sailor who finds himself caught up in a web of sex, sibling rivalry, and lightly sublimated lust at a French brothel. The plot here is almost entirely secondary, though: It’s all horny vibes, full of sweat and completely shameless sexuality. You can stream Querelle on Tubi, The Criterion Channel, HBO Max, and Prime Video.
Filmmaker Isaac Julien’s gorgeously shot, impressionistic tone poem explores the work of poet and playwright Langston Hughes, alongside other figures of the Harlem Renaissance (Richard Bruce Nugent, James Baldwin, and Essex Hemphill) in the context of their queer identities, often ignored even when the larger importance of their work as Black artists is recognized. Blending archival footage, scripted scenes, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography, Julien sets readings of Hughes’ work to scenes of queer love and sexuality, illustrating the value of viewing art through the artist’s own lens. You can stream Looking for Langston on Vimeo, and it’s widely available on YouTube.
It’s maybe a little too believable in its faux-documentary stylings to modern audiences—a little narrative pep might go a long way—but what’s here is still compelling as both a drama and a time capsule. Offering up a realistic (or so I’m told) portrait of gay London nightlife, the film follows Jim (Ken Robertson) teaching geography by day and hitting the clubs at night. An almost entirely positive portrait of the gay scene of the time, with a latter portion of the film dedicated to a frank conversation between Jim and his class about his life. You can stream Nighthawks on Prime Video.
Alfred Hitchcock worked with queer (out and otherwise) performers from the earliest days of his career, having his first big hit with Ivor Novello in 1927’s The Lodger. I’m not sure that he gave a lot of thought to queer identity, and that actually works to Rope’s advantage: it doesn’t feel like there’s any type of pro-or anti- gay framing here, just a murder involving a couple of…let’s say “flamboyant” roommates. Based on real-life lovers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who murdered a 14-year-old just to prove that they could, and a subsequent play, the movie removes any direct references to a same-sex relationship, but it’s all pretty hard to miss, especially when the leads were played by the openly (later in life) bisexual Farley Granger and gay actor John Dall. You can rent Rope from Prime Video.
A lot of early queer-positive movies were aimed squarely at a straight audience—depicting gays as angelic figures or as poor victims of society’s cruelty. John Waters skipped all of that well-intentioned nonsense by creating films in which there’s no greater crime than being dull. Though Pink Flamingos (with its memorable climax set to the tune of “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window”) is more famous, Female Trouble refines the Waters style with its story of high school reprobate Dawn Davenport (played by the drag queen Divine), who turns to a life of crime when her totally square parents won’t get her what she really wants for Christmas: “Nice girls don’t wear cha-cha heels!” Their cruel denial of such an essential accessory sends Dawn on a spree of sex and crime that plays a bit like a tribute to Mildred Pierce—if Joan Crawford had conceived her daughter on camera.
On a rotted old mattress.
At the dump.
It’s all appropriately outrageous, and audiences were outraged—but only the dull ones. You can rent Female Trouble from Fandango at Home or buy it from Prime Video.
Two prisoners are tormented by a voyeuristic prison guard in Jean Genet’s short film, full of homoerotic imagery that might be less shocking now, but no less effective. The two never touch, except in a fantasy sequence, but seeing the two men share a bit of smoke from a single cigarette remains one of cinema’s hottest images. If you’re searching under the film’s English title, don’t get confused by the slightly more straight 1947 Katherine Hepburn film of the same name. You can stream A Song of Love on Kanopy and Vimeo, and it’s widely available on YouTube and the Internet Archive.
It was sometimes called the “blackmailer’s charter.” Since 1885, English law had allowed for the criminal prosecution of homosexual acts, though by the 1960s, it was little enforced. Still, the mere threat of arrest, and the very public proceedings that would follow, made it distressingly common for blackmailers (gay and straight) to take advantage of well-off marks—in this case, a married London lawyer played by Dirk Bogarde. Approaching the social issue by way of neo noir thriller, Victim was an early instance of a major director and star taking a sympathetic approach to portraying gay characters, inevitably shocking audiences and censors by even acknowledging that such people even existed. It wasn’t a huge hit, but it came at a crucial moment: The ‘60s were well and truly underway, and attitudes were beginning to change. You can stream Victim on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
If Stonewall occasionally seems like ancient history, it’s important to remember that queer history didn’t begin there—not even remotely. Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg’s 1985 documentary looks at the earlier part of the 20th century by interviewing activists and writers who help chart the evolution of what would become a movement among people who were fighting to live their lives authentically at a time when the broader culture preferred to pretend they weren’t there.
The film is an important document, having captured so many important voices while they were still with us, but it’s also inspiring, and often joyous. It’s hard not to smile thinking about what these legends were getting up to while the rest of America was sleeping. (It underwent an HD restoration a couple of years ago, so it’s a particularly good time to check it out.) You can stream Before Stonewall on Kanopy and Dekkoo or rent it from Prime Video.
A fascinating time capsule, and frequently entertaining soap opera about a gay bar on Christmas Eve, filmed and set just a few years after Stonewall. A huge cast of characters wander through, some affecting, some just loosely sketched character types, but representing broad swathes of the community. It was made at a transitional time, when queer activism and visibility were on the rise, but hadn’t yet had the impact that was to come, and so the film gives off a vibe that alternates between joyous and terrified of what’s outside the door of the welcoming space of the bar.
(If all that weren’t enough to secure the movie’s place in queer history, it also features an early screen appearance from Rue McClanahan herself, just a year before she teamed up with Bea Arthur on Maude.) You can stream Some of My Best Friends Are… on MGM+ or on MGM+ via Prime Video.
A beautifully dark triumph from Wong Kar-wai, Happy Together follows a stunningly mismatched couple (Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) as their relationship falls apart during a trip to Argentina. The very hot but deeply codependent couple keep being drawn back into each other’s orbits—and they make being young, gay, and in sweaty love look so cool that you can’t help but hope they make it. The cinematography here is stunning, with every single frame feeling and looking like a mini work of art. There’s also a lot of subtext here having to do with the handover of Honk Kong from the U.K. to China, occurring right around the time that the film was made—a reminder that queerness involves layers of identity. You can stream Happy Together on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
Foul deeds are afoot on the set of a French gay erotic film shoot during this ultra-stylish, colorful, psychedelic tribute to not only Italian gialli of yore, but also to the golden age of 1970s porn. Director Yann Gonzalez crafted a film in which the queerness is far more than incidental: it’s rather the whole point (starting with the opening’s switchblade dildo), but it’s nonetheless one of the most effective and beautiful horror movies of the past decade. You can stream Knife+Heart on Tubi, Shudder, and AMC+ or rent it from Prime Video.
I’ve seen Rocky at least a dozen times, and can recite every line, but I still couldn’t tell you a thing about the plot. (That might have less to do with the movie itself than the state in which one traditionally watches it… but let’s say it’s both.)
On one level, it’s a celebration of many, many forms of queerness, and offers even the very straightest straight people an excuse to do a little gender role-play. It’s weird, and a little sloppy, and doesn’t make a ton of sense—and it’s more fun for all of that. You can rent Rocky Horror from Prime Video.
Stonewall had been building for a long, long time. It might have been the explosion of the modern queer liberation movement, but there were sparks for decades—one of which was the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966. Transgender people in San Francisco had been largely barred from gay bars (transphobia has never been an exclusively cis, straight phenomenon), and the all-night Compton’s Cafeteria had been a gathering place, a cheap coffee stop, especially for trans sex workers. Their very presence, of course, also made it a convenient for the local police, who found ready targets of harassment among the cafeteria’s trans and cross-dressing patrons. The iconic image of Stonewall remains a brick through a window, and the Compton’s Riot has a similar bit of iconography: a cup of coffee in the face of a cop who grabbed and tried to arrest a patron. What followed was one of the first public queer protests in U.S. history, and the beginning of trans activism in San Francisco. You can stream Screaming Queens on Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
By the mid-1980s, the tropes were already beginning to solidify: We were beginning a long run of movies (many of them brilliant) about HIV/AIDS, and square in the middle of an era of major films (Dressed to Kill, Cruising, Silence of the Lambs, Basic Instinct) that associated queer identity with extreme violence. In the middle of all that, Desert Hearts was an absolute breath of fresh air: Vivian, an English professor in the middle of a divorce, meets Cay, an uninhibited sculptor, at a ranch in Reno. The course of true love never did run smooth (or, in this case, straight), and so Vivian struggles a bit with the unexpected lesbian attraction. This romantic drama never veers toward tragedy, and is all the better for it. You can stream Desert Hearts on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
The best queer-themed movies understand that nobody is all one thing, and that any type of queer identity intersects with all of the other labels that we choose for ourselves (or that others choose for us). That’s why My Beautiful Laundrette isn’s just a great gay film, it’s also a great film about class, racism, and provides a vivid portrait of life in the Thatcher/Reagan-era 1980s. You can stream My Beautiful Laundrette on Tubi, Pluto TV, Kanopy, and Prime Video.
You want queer history? Fine. Let’s take it back to England in the 14th century for the story of Edward II, famously infatuated with courtier Piers Gaveston. Gay filmmaker, provocateur, and activist Derek Jarman removes any historical ambiguity from the relationship between the two and imagines medieval Europe as a postmodern fantasia, rife with intentional anachronisms and Annie Lennox on the soundtrack. Think Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, but much, much gayer. It also made a star of Tilda Swinton, who followed this up as the title character of another queer classic, Orlando. You can stream Edward II on Prime Video, Peacock, Pluto TV, and Kanopy.
The first Kenyan film to be screened at Cannes was also banned in its own country, as it challenged Kenya’s legal ban on gay sex. The romantic drama follows young women Kena and Ziki (Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva) as they develop a romantic relationship among the pressures to conform from family and community. The love story is joyous and charming, but the movie doesn’t shy away from the very real challenges. You can stream Rafiki (sometimes The Friend) on Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
A slick, funny, charming, and quotable bit of Hollywood entertainment starring some of the biggest names of the era, The Birdcage made real money selling a message of acceptance (in spite of a weird and entirely unnecessary R-rating). Unlike many of the earnest queer-adjacent films of the ‘90s, this one actually made it look like being gay could be kinda fun. And funny. And generally not tragic. Though the characters play into particular stereotypes, the movie makes clear that it’s way better (and totally OK) to be an outsized drama queen à la Robin Williams’ Armand than to be tedious and narrow-minded like the senator played by Gene Hackman. It’s all so scrupulously good-natured that it couldn’t help but draw in a broad audience, and thereby help pave the long, winding road to future queer-positive movies. You can stream The Birdcage on Prime Video and Peacock.
The mid ’90s saw a string of gay-themed Hollywood movies. These were movies with good intentions and big-name stars, even if they were largely male, straight, and white: the aforementioned The Birdcage, plus Philadelphia and In & Out, to name the biggies. But, even more significantly, it was a golden age for indie filmmakers who were beginning to make more personal, authentic, and idiosyncratic movies that move rejected heteronormativity—what came to be known as New Queer Cinema. Director/actor Cheryl Dunye plays Cheryl, who goes on the hunt for a fictional Black actress from Old Hollywood, exploring the life of someone who lived on the margins. You can stream The Watermelon Woman on Kanopy and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
Bound announced major new directorial talents in Lily and Lana Wachowski, a pair of siblings who would go on to create The Matrix and other imaginative successes (along with some equally imaginative flops). The noir-inspired thriller mixes violence and humor in a story that also presents a lesbian relationship that feels real, and an unashamed sexuality that never feels gratuitous—the chemistry between leads Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly is off the freaking charts.
The directors remain among Hollywood’s highest-profile transgender filmmakers, and it all started with this instant classic. You can stream Bound on Paramount+ and Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
It’s not the queerest film in Pedro Almodóvar’s very queer filmography—that’s probably 1987’s Law of Desire, involving a complex love triangle between two cis gay characters and a trans woman. But All About My Mother solidified Almodóvar’s status as one of the world’s top filmmakers, blending his earlier, campier sensibilities with more dramatic material. When Manuela’s son is killed in a car accident, she sets out on a quest to find his other parent, a transgender woman named Lola whose identity Manuela had kept secret. On the way, she gets involved in the lives of other women, including scene-stealing trans sex worker Agrado and Rosa, an HIV+ nun also carrying Lola’s child. The movie was way, way ahead of its time in depicting queer themes, and it’s still a wildly entertaining and thoughtful movie about motherhood in all its forms. You can stream All About My Mother on The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
An experimental tour de force from Black, gay poet and filmmaker Marlon T. Riggs, Tongues Untied approaches the silencing of the experience of gay, Black males by both mainstream white and Black cultures, as well as gay white society. With interviews, poetry, and a non-linear style, Riggs examines the expectations around people like him, starting a discussion that continues to this day, for better and worse. You can stream Tongues Untied on Kanopy and The Criterion Channel.
The success of The Joy Luck Club in 1993 lead to a huge boom in movies with Chinese-American themes. And by “huge boom,” I mean that Hollywood only waited 11 years for the next movie to center Chinese Americans.
(Sighs audibly.)
But! On the bright side, Alice Wu’s Saving Face is a charming triumph, telling a love story between a closeted surgeon and her boss’s daughter. The backdrop is the traditional families and community of the two women, but ultimately it’s one of those romantic comedies where you can’t help but cheer on the leads. You can stream Saving Face on The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
There are several films on this list that involve a bunch of straight people making queer-themed movies, with mixed results. While Brokeback Mountain leans a bit too heavily on tragic tropes (by 2005, we’d seen more than enough movies about gays doomed to die), there’s an undeniable well of talent both behind and in front of the camera—more than enough to make for an affecting experience. The movie’s place in queer history, though, rests as much on the backlash it inspired as on the acclaim it received. By the time the movie lost Best Picture at the Oscars to Crash (her?), the discussion was more about homophobia in Hollywood’s old guard and among movie audiences in general than about either film’s virtues. Brokeback started a discussion, and, just as significantly, reminded studio bosses that queer content could get mainstream attention and make major bank. You can stream Brokeback Mountain on Prime Video.
Set largely at at the Dachau concentration camp, Bent follows Max (Clive Owen), arrested by the Nazis in the wake of the Night of the Long Knives, and as part of the Nazi’s targeted persecution of homosexuals. It’s harrowing and heartbreaking, of course, but with moments of real beauty. it also received an NC-17 for no good reason, which has a lot to say about how we treat any film with queer content. You can stream Bent on Peacock and Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
An essential documentary about the experience of queer Germans during the Nazi years, made just in time to capture interviews with survivors. There’s joy in the recollections of a more open and liberal Berlin in the pre-war years, which naturally and horrifically turns to heartbreak as the Nazis move to target queer identities. It’s very specific in its way, but feels timeless in its warning that progress can disappear with frightening ease. You can stream Paragraph 175 on Kanopy and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
This utterly unique Thai film bills itself as a “romantic psychological drama art film,” and I suppose that gives you some ideas of its weird and wonderful nature. At the outset, we think we’re in a romance involving Keng (Banlop Lomnoi), a soldier stationed in a quiet village who meets local Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee), kicking off a love story. That’s before the narrative splinters, and we’re following a soldier searching the jungle in the face of a troublesome spirit. It was the first Thai film to debut in the main competition at Cannes, and the first to win the Jury Prize. You can stream Tropical Malady on Kanopy.
It didn’t break out in a big big way, but Pariah still feels like the start of a new, more assured era in queer cinema. For one thing, it’s absolutely gorgeous, with stunning, expressionistic cinematography and confident, assured direction from Dee Rees. It’s a world you can get lost in. Pariah manages to tell a coming of age, coming out story that’s so deeply personal that it never feels like a queer message movie, even though it has plenty to say about identity through the journey of its young, black, lesbian lead Alike. You can stream Pariah on Peacock or rent it from Prime Video.
During the British mineworkers strike in the ‘80s, activist Mark Ashton and others realized that there existed a real opportunity to forge an alliance between the miners and the queer community, both of which had found themselves shafted (ahem) by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Pride reworks the story of the resulting movement (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) into a genuinely delightful comedy-drama (think The Full Monty) about the personalities behind the unlikely team-up that would ultimately bring queer issues to the forefront of British politics. You can stream Pride on Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
It may be more of a cult classic from our current perspective, but lesbian rom-com Go Fish made a couple million bucks (which was real money back in the day) on an extremely low budget, making it a bona fide mainstream hit. There was a minute or two during which people were talking about the viability of lesbian characters and queer themes in movies, and how director Rose Troche’s film could open he gates for further representation. That didn’t really come to pas, but the film offers up some verity-style New Queer Cinema swagger in the story of horny college student Max (co-writer Guinevere Turner) and her various romantic complications. The only tragedy here is Max’s mixed-up love life. You can rent Go Fish from Prime Video.
There’s much about Drunktown’s Finest that we’ve seen before: Set around a Navajo community near Gallup, New Mexico, it foregrounds poverty, alcoholism, and clashes between tradition and modern life. Rather than do away with those stereotypical themes, trans Navajo filmmaker Sydney Freeland explores their reality as part of the broader scope of the lives of three young Native Americans, including a transgender woman who dreams of becoming a model. It’s one of several successful films of the last few years to approach characters at the intersection of queer and Native identities. You can rent Drunktown’s Finest from Prime Video.
In 2006, seven out Black lesbian women were harassed and violently threatened in Greenwich Village. When they fought back, the ensuing brawl led to years-long prison sentences for four of the women, who were charged as though they were gang members. The press called them the “New Jersey Four,” and a “lesbian wolf pack.” One headline warned of an “Attack of the Killer Lesbians,” though, of course, no one was killed. The queer community has always had a fraught relationship with the American judicial system, as have women and people of color. The documentary speaks to the ways in which that long history lives on, especially where identities intersect. You can rent Out in the Night from Prime Video.
He was the absolute epitome of mid-century, mid-American ideals of masculinity and good looks: a slightly bland but undeniable hotness. With his blond hair, killer smile, and chiseled features (as well as a voice that landed him a couple of hit pop singles), he was a movie star deliberately branded to make suburban teenage girls go nuts. His public romances with stars like Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood gave fans something to fantasize about when they weren’t actively swooning. Of course, even then there was gossip about Hunter’s sexuality, and he confirmed those rumors in the 2005 memoir upon which this award-winning doc is based. It’s a very personal look into the actor’s life in Hollywood, and at the lengths to which the studio system went to keep some of its biggest stars hidden in the closet. You can stream Tab Hunter Confidential on Prime Video.
Modern tech has opened up opportunities for filmmakers that they could only dream of back in the day. Imagine if queer directors of earlier generations had been able to shoot a movie on their phones with professional-looking results? The stories that could have been told? Director Sean Baker and company make a virtue of the intimacy and immediacy of that shooting on a couple of iPhones brings, and the results don’t feel shoddy nor cheap. It’s a girlfriend/buddy/revenge comedy about Sin-Dee Rella and Alexandra, two trans sex workers on the hunt for the man who did Sin-Dee wrong. It’s a ton of fun. You can stream Tangerine on HBO Max and Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
Two words: Best Picture. Moonlight actually won a ton of awards, but the most groundbreaking by far was that Oscar. And, yes, they did accidentally read the wrong card and make everyone think that La La Land won—but after 89 years of Academy Awards, it was worth an extra few seconds to learn that the first film with a lead queer character (as well as an all-Black cast) had claimed Hollywood’s biggest prize. Good movies don’t always make history (and this is a great one), but Oscar winners sure do. You can stream Moonlight on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.
Picking up where Paris is Burning left off, Kiki looks at the current state of the drag ball scene. It’s not a sequel, but in examining kiki culture in New York City more than a quarter century after that earlier doc, it provides a fascinating glimpse of everything that has, and hasn’t, changed for a community whose influence has only grown. Many of the same struggles remain: HIV/AIDS hasn’t gone away, especially for those without the money to pay for treatment, nor have over-policing and discrimination. But a broader cultural acceptance of queerness and the mainstreaming (to some extent) of drag have opened doors for many of the young, often trans people of color the film focuses on, who also manifest a fierce and inspiring strain of activism. You can stream Kiki on AMC+ and Kanopy or rent it from Prime Video.
There are as many perspectives on the Stonewall uprising as there were people who were there, but if you’re looking to educate yourself on those events, you could do worse than to start with a close look at Marsha P. Johnson. Coming into the spotlight during an era when labels were very much in flux, Johnson self-identified as gay and as a transvestite who generally used female pronouns. She was also a sex worker and a drag queen, as well as an activist, model, and mentor—a generally fascinating person who was on the frontline when Stonewall went up in flames in 1969. Director David France’s film explores not just Johnson’s life, but also a recent investigation into her tragic and mysterious death in 1992, which the NYPD ruled a suicide without much examination. You can stream The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson on Netflix.
They crank these things out by the dozens. There’s an entire, year-round industry dedicated to feeding an entire nation’s insatiable appetite for schmaltzy, made-for-TV holiday movies, very frequently involving a hard-driving career woman who discovers the true meaning of the season while visiting her hometown for Christmas. There’s comfort in conformity, and so there’s been surprisingly little variety to the form in spite of the sheer volume of these movies—at least until the last couple of years. Non-white faces have become just a bit more common, and 2020 saw the sudden appearance of not just one, but at least seven holiday movies centering queer romances (and queer actors). Which only makes sense—is there a better audience for campy, cheesy, over-the-top love stories than gay people? Hulu’s Happiest Season had better marketing, slightly bigger stars, and an overall better pedigree than some of the others, and therefore became the biggest focus of attention. If you’re asking if it’s any good, you’re missing the point entirely: It’s dorky TV comfort food, sure, but it’s dorky TV comfort food with and about lesbians—and damned if that doesn’t feel like progress. You can stream Happiest Season on Hulu.
In the Happiest Season vein, this rather successful adaptation of the Casey McQuiston feels schmaltzy in all the right ways—a rom-com about a prince and a President’s son for the gays. A glossy and competently made romance for the rest of us. Where Royal Blue goes a bit further, though, is in the heat its two leads (Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine) generate. The sex might be PG-13 at most, and would hardly make a stir in a straight movie, but this feels like a leap forward for the mainstreaming of cisgender man-on-man action. You can stream Red, White & Royal Blue on Prime Video.
Representation on screen isn’t everything, but it matters. For most Americans, everything they know about transgender people comes from media representations, and that’s also true for trans youth, who may have no other role models than those they get from TV. Disclosure takes a look at over a century of transgender stories in film and on TV (going way back to A Florida Enchantment in 1914), an era of very, very, very slow progress that’s taken a giant leap forward in just the last few years with the rise of popular trans celebrities, many of whom are interviewed here. While focusing on celebrities, the film also acknowledges that added visibility carries dangers as well, and that the spotlight hasn’t necessarily made life safer. Disclosure investigates those generally problematic, often quite hurtful old movies and shows to figure out how they’ve tracked with the realities of trans lives, and how far we’ve come. You can stream Disclosure on Netflix.
The real-life Queen Christina of Sweden, like Greta Garbo who portrays her, enjoyed a well-earned reputation for gender ambiguity and queerness, some of which is on display in this pre-code film that sees her entertaining several suitors, both male and female. To some, she’s a weak-willed woman; to others, she’s unsuitably domineering. The old story: too horny for some; too frosty to others. This was 1933, before the Hays production code took a hammer to much of the sex and nearly all of the overt queerness in American movies, and it would be decades before we’d start to claw back some of what they stole from us. You can rent Queen Christina from Prime Video.
Smart and humane where it might have been salacious, director Ira Sachs crafts a lovely, moving portrait of the disintegrating marriage between Martin and Tomas (Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski). Though long in coming, the precipitating event is unexpected: Tomas meets Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), with whom he develops an instant connection. Not only is it a brilliantly acted film, it’s also a refreshing, matter-of-fact take on modern sexual fluidity. You can stream Passages on Mubi or rent it from Apple TV.
Once you’ve watched all of the films on this list, get some added context via the essential documentary about the history of queer Hollywood. The film examines the stereotypes, the hidden messages, the secret codes—everything that made the movies queer, in spite of the restrictions placed upon them. You can stream The Celluloid Closet on Tubi or rent it from Prime Video.
Jane Shoenbrun wrote I Saw the TV Glow, their trippy, psychological horror drama, in the midst of their own transition, using the film to explore the feelings that the process stirred: exhilaration, anticipation, and visceral horror at the choices laid before them. What does it mean to sacrifice stability and safety in favor of authenticity? While other trans coming-out narratives focus on the external threats or emphasize the positive aspects, Shoenbrun isn’t afraid to acknowledge and confront the inherent terror in this story of two teen friends who bond over a TV show that seems to gradually be drawing them into itself, and which increasingly feels more real than real life. Queer cinema of the past often dealt with themes in highly metaphorical ways, because speaking openly was far more dangerous. Shoenbrun approaches transitioning through allegory, and without fear. You can stream I Saw the TV Glow on HBO Max or rent it from Prime Video.
Veteran columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols declared that Firefox was “dead” to him in a scathing opinion piece Tuesday that cites Mozilla’s strategic missteps and the browser’s declining technical performance as evidence of terminal decline. Vaughan-Nichols argues that Mozilla has fundamentally betrayed user trust by removing a longstanding promise never to sell personal data from its privacy policy in February, replacing it with a weaker pledge to “protect your personal information.”
The veteran technology writer also criticized Mozilla’s decision to discontinue Pocket, a popular article-saving service, and Fakespot, which identified fake online reviews, while pursuing what he called a misguided AI strategy. He cited user reports of Firefox running up to 30% slower than Chrome, consuming excessive memory, and failing to properly load major websites. Mozilla has also become financially more vulnerable, he argued, noting CFO Eric Muhlheim’s admission that the company depends on Google for 90% of its revenue. According to federal data he cited, Firefox holds just 1.9% of the browser market, leading him to conclude the browser is “done.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Looking to grab an official Tires shirt or a sandwich based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s FUBAR? Netflix will have you covered in the near future. The streaming platform’s long-promised Netflix House amusement centers will open up shop in Dallas and outside of Philadelphia by the end of the year, with a third location coming to Las Vegas in 2027.
These 100,000-square feet behemoths will operate throughout the year and will celebrate all things Netflix. There’s a retail component, a restaurant called Netflix Bites and all kinds of “immersive story-driven experiences” based on some of its biggest shows. The locations will also offer mini-golf, which maybe is a tribute to that one episode of Cobra Kai? We aren’t sure about that one.
As for the aforementioned story-driven experiences, the locations will include stuff like the iconic “Red Light, Green Light” race from Squid Game and a Demogorgan chase inspired by Stranger Things. Netflix says each location will “regularly update its offerings” so these experiences should vary.
The platform promises experiences based on hits like Wednesday, One Piece and the Knives Out movie franchise. Sadly, there was no mention of Is it Cake? or the social media-adjacent reality show The Circle. I want to sit in a weirdly-decorated room and talk to strangers on the internet! Wait a minute. I already do that.
The Philadelphia location is being built at King of Prussia Mall and the Dallas branch will exist at Galleria Dallas. The third location pops up in the Las Vegas Strip at BLVD Las Vegas in 2027. Netflix-heads can sign up for an early visit right here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-first-two-netflix-entertainment-complexes-will-open-at-the-end-of-the-year-152129495.html?src=rss
The Trump administration has locked horns with a federal judge who ruled on Monday that more than $1 billion in DEI-fueled cuts to federal health research clearly discriminated against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people.
In what The New York Times dubbed a “damning assessment” of Trump’s motives, Judge Williams G. Young ruled from the bench that the cuts were “void and illegal,” saying it was his “duty” to immediately order funding restored.
“I would be blind not to call it out,” Young said, declaring that in 40 years, he has “never seen government racial discrimination like this.”
Nissan has unveiled its third-generation Leaf EV with a completely new design. The 2026 model sheds the last vestiges of its original compact car body and leans fully into crossover SUV territory. The new look offers some design features that are commonly seen in the all-electric vehicle marketplace, allowing it to compete against other models in its class. These include available dual 14.3-inch displays, flush door handles for better aerodynamics, and liquid-cooled lithium-ion batteries.
The new Leaf is also the latest EV to adopt the NACS charging port after Tesla made it open-source in 2022. Since then, just about every major automaker from Ford to Mercedes has adopted the standard, with these brands getting access to Tesla’s Supercharger network on a rolling basis. For added convenience, a J1772 port, the most common standard for Level 2 chargers, is included on the driver’s-side fender. The Leaf’s video announcement highlights bi-directional V2X technology that allows drivers to power their homes, send power to the grid, or provide power when camping, though details are sparse.
In the same video, Nissan’s head of global design, Alfonso Albaisa, explains the lengths the company went to in making the car as aerodynamic as possible in order to achieve the car’s stated 300-mile range. The rear door handles, for instance, are built into the C-pillar, which could make for an awkward angle when trying to open the door with your hands full. The body of the Leaf has a chunky, SUV-like stance, with a wide front reminiscent of the Volkswagen ID.4. In the end, all these design choices helped the new Leaf reduce its drag coefficient by 10 percent from the previous generation.
Nissan is also bringing the new Leaf’s battery thermal management to par with other major EV brands, which will improve charging performance in cold weather. The car will capture wasted heat from the drive motor and the on-board charger, and use it to help warm the battery to its ideal temperature for charging. In frigid conditions it can also use the car’s heat pump, and a dedicated battery heater to further maintain battery temperatures.
Design easter eggs throughout the car pay homage to the brand’s name by incorporating “2-3” iconography in the form of stripes, which are meant to represent the kanji writing of two and three in Japanese, pronounced “ni” and “san.”
The new Leaf is built on a 75-kWh, liquid-cooled battery pack and packs a 214-horsepower electric motor. It will be offered in a wide variety of color options along with a slew of optional features like 19-inch wheels, dimming panoramic roof and 64-color ambient lighting. Built-in Google integrating Google Maps, Google Assistant and the Play Store into the Leaf is also an available option. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto will be standard on the Leaf S and S+. Nissan says a cheaper 52-kWh version with a 174-horsepower motor will become available at a later date.
This major redesign comes amid a turbulent last year for Nissan, culminating in its CEO stepping down after a failed merger with Honda. The automaker had previously gone through a downsizing last year as part of its mission to cut billions of dollars in costs.
The 2026 Nissan Leaf will hit showrooms this fall, though pricing has yet to be announced.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/nissan-unveils-the-third-generation-leaf-ev-145620303.html?src=rss
Because some people actually bother putting their know-how to good use, this is a video of Youtuber Engineezy building and playing a physical version of the Flappy Bird video game. It’s a very impressive build, featuring pipes that rotate on a conveyor belt, randomly adjusting their height as a player attempts to flap their way through. It also dispenses different colored coins for achieving certain scores. I would totally play this at the arcade, especially if those coins were redeemable for a plushie to give my girlfriend. Did you know the creator of the original Flappy Bird removed it from app stores because “he felt guilty over what he considered to be the game’s addictive nature and overusage?” That’s wild, because if I were a betting man (which I am, keep an eye out for my bookie) I’d have bet 100% of the population would have sold that game for top dollar and not cared if it destroyed lives. Are we sure he’s even human? I’ll bet you he’s an alien.
There are a few undeniable truths in this world: the sky is blue, Mario Kart is always a good idea and Sony’s 1000X line of headphones is amazing. The latter was proved true once again when Sony released the WH-1000XM6 edition of its wireless noise canceling headphones in May. The only downside is its price, coming in at $450 — $50 more than its predecessors launch price.
Amazon is throwing all of us a bone, though, and having a sale of sorts. Right now, you can get the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones and a $30 Amazon gift card for $448. Yes, that is $2 less than the headphones on their own. It’s no secret that the “bundle” serves as a nice incentive to buy Sony’s new headphones from Amazon, but, hey, a $30 gift card never hurt anyone.
Sony released the WH-1000XM6 headphones three years after their predecessor, but the new model quickly proved to be worth the wait. We gave the M6s a 94 in our review thanks to features like improved sound and better active noise cancelation. One of the best things about this model compared to the M5s is the return to a folding design — I love my M5s but it’s very annoying that they don’t shrink at all. The M6s are also very comfy and have a wider headband for easy wear.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazon-includes-a-free-30-gift-card-when-you-buy-the-sony-wh-1000xm6-headphones-144511244.html?src=rss
AI use among U.S. workers has nearly doubled over two years, with 40% of employees now using artificial intelligence tools at least a few times annually, up from 21% in 2023, according to new Gallup research.
Daily AI usage has doubled in the past year alone, jumping from 4% to 8% of workers. The growth concentrates heavily among white-collar employees, where 27% report frequent AI use compared to just 9% of production and front-line workers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We now know that the 2025 edition of Amazon’s blockbuster Prime Day sales event will start on July 8, and it’s set to be bigger than ever as it will run for four days. But you don’t need to wait until then for tasty deals. There will be plenty in the lead up to the event, including this one for the Levoit Core 400S air purifier. At $185, the device is $35 off.
It’s not quite the lowest price we’ve seen for this model. However, it’s not too far off that mark of $176.
The Levoit Core 400S is our current pick for the best air purifier overall. Sure, it might not have the prettiest design of all the options we have tested and the companion app might have a little too much going on. But the Core 400S does its job and does it well.
This smart air purifier is slated to clean the atmosphere in spaces of up to 1,733 square feet in as little as one hour. The Core 400S has a cylindrical shape with vents at the top and a touch display that shows air quality readings. You’ll be able to get a sense of the current air quality in your space at a glance with a color-changing ring that will light up in blue, green, orange or red. The 360-degree filtration system is said to be capable of capturing over 99.9 percent of pollutants as small as 0.3 microns, such as dust, pet dander and pollen.
There is an auto mode that should suffice for maintaining air quality, but the Core 400S is compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant voice controls too. The fan isn’t too loud, even when it’s operating at maximum speed — the volume topped out at 62dB in our testing. Meanwhile, at $50 each, the air filter replacements aren’t too expensive compared with those from many of Levoit’s competitors.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/our-top-air-purifier-is-35-off-in-an-early-prime-day-deal-143224919.html?src=rss
A new benchmark assembled by a team of International Olympiad medalists suggests the hype about large language models beating elite human coders is premature. LiveCodeBench Pro, unveiled in a 584-problem study [PDF] drawn from Codeforces, ICPC and IOI contests, shows the best frontier model clears just 53% of medium-difficulty tasks on its first attempt and none of the hard ones, while grandmaster-level humans routinely solve at least some of those highest-tier problems.
The researchers measured models and humans on the same Elo scale used by Codeforces and found that OpenAI’s o4-mini-high, when stripped of terminal tools and limited to one try per task, lands at an Elo rating of 2,116 — hundreds of points below the grandmaster cutoff and roughly the 1.5 percentile among human contestants. A granular tag-by-tag autopsy identified implementation-friendly, knowledge-heavy problems — segment trees, graph templates, classic dynamic programming — as the models’ comfort zone; observation-driven puzzles such as game-theory endgames and trick-greedy constructs remain stubborn roadblocks.
Because the dataset is harvested in real time as contests conclude, the authors argue it minimizes training-data leakage and offers a moving target for future systems. The broader takeaway is that impressive leaderboard jumps often reflect tool use, multiple retries or easier benchmarks rather than genuine algorithmic reasoning, leaving a conspicuous gap between today’s models and top human problem-solvers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
You’d assume that the latest game from the studio that made Little Nightmares 2 is going to be a bit spooky and dark, and Section 9’s End of Abyss is that. However, it’s also a little easier to describe and explain: an atmospheric sci-fi shooter with Metroidvania-style exploration.
While there’s no shortage of Metroidvanias to draw inspiration from, when I played a demo at SGF 2025, all I could think of was Alien. It might be the scanner, which the protagonist can use to glean information, spot hidden items and tag room details for further exploration once you’ve got new skills or weapons. Mattias Ottvall, co-creator of the game, praised my tendency to scan everything, which netted me several secret item caches during my demo playthrough.
You’ll have to tag between the scanner and your gun pretty often, too, as biped monsters, spidery little parasites and beefier foes swing their literal heads at you. Fortunately, End of Abyss’ isometric layout is paired with the ability to move and shoot with each analog stick. If things get a little too dicey, your character also has a very forgiving dive roll.
After some early teething issues (scanning an alien zombie instead of shooting it down), the control setup eventually became second nature, and I was tumbling out of the way of an alien golem boss, firing shotgun rounds into its flank. The shotgun, unfortunately, has finite ammo (which you can both craft and find in the world), so I resorted to chipping away with my pistol at a distance.
The brief demo (and teaser trailer) suggest a dark and shady atmosphere similar to the studio’s previous games. Naturally, there’s the occasional scare as you explore this rundown facility.
If you do get overwhelmed, the character gets respawned back into the world — as do the monsters — but any doors unlocked and skills gained are saved. Even better, with a game that centers on exploration, when you come across something that you can’t yet interact with (for example, a weakened wall that could be demolished or a security door that requires a key), scanning it in-game will ‘tag’ the feature on the menu map, making it easier to circle back once you have what you need to progress. During the demo, I unlocked explosives for tackling the weakened walls that were tagged, but I also spotted grapple hook fixtures, presumably for a later point in the game.
The tagging is a nice touch for anyone who struggles to keep track of their path in sprawling Metroidvania games, although this is contingent on how expansive End of Abyss turns out to be. The original Little Nightmares turned out to be a short, but sweet escape – how deep will the abyss go?
End of Abyss is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/end-of-abyss-is-when-metroidvania-meets-space-horror-140049187.html?src=rss
Enough is never enough. Chevrolet has only just released the Corvette ZR1, which at 1,064 horsepower is the fastest, quickest and most outrageous production car ever to wear a bowtie on the hood.
It can keep the neckwear, but its performance crown has already found a new home. Meet the new ZR1X, an even higher-performance Corvette that will take America’s sports car to new heights. It has 1,250HP, all-wheel drive and accelerates to 60MPH in less than two seconds.
Oh, and yes, it’s a hybrid. I got an early look at the thing at a private debut recently, and here’s everything you need to know about America’s new hypercar.
The ZR1X joins an increasingly busy lineup of Corvette models that ensures buyers with budgets ranging from generous to extreme all have something to covet. The Stingray is still the base model, with a starting price of just over $70,000 and 490HP.
From a financial standpoint, next up is the Corvette E-Ray, the hybrid model introduced in 2023. It adds a 160HP electric motor to the proceedings, resulting in a total output of 655HP. The E-Ray is positioned as something of a grand tourer: really fast but with a somewhat relaxed attitude. That also starts at a little over $100,000.
From there, you can step up to the higher-performance, more track-focused Z06 model, which, unsurprisingly, is also higher priced. It has a much racier 5.5-liter V8 engine making 670HP and a spendier starting price of just over $110,000.
Those were recently joined by the new ZR1, which adds turbochargers plus numerous engine updates to deliver that whopping 1,064HP and a wild 233MPH top speed. Its asking price is also wild, starting at around $175,000. That already makes it the most expensive Corvette ever, but things are about to get more extreme.
The ZR1X is something of a melding of the ZR1 and the hybrid E-Ray. It borrows the electrical layout from the E-Ray and mounts it inside a ZR1, including that car’s turbocharged V8 and wild aerodynamic appendages. Layer on some tasty upgrades to both the electric drive system and other aspects of the car, and you have the new 1,250HP ZR1X.
Combining the ZR1 and E-Ray gets you a good way towards creating the ZR1X, but there is a lot more to it than that. The ZR1X uses a battery pack with a revised internal construction, resulting in a capacity increase of 26 percent. But keep in mind this isn’t a plug-in hybrid. You’re still talking about something with a battery capacity of less than three kWh. You won’t be driving in your ZR1X emissions-free.
The hybrid system is there for more performance, and to that end, the car has a few new drive modes to help optimize the delivery of energy from that new pack. First is Endurance Mode, where the ZR1X will provide full power to the front motor but not tax the battery so much that you have to worry about running out of charge mid-session.
Then there’s Qualifying Mode. Select this, and the ZR1X will dump all the energy it can through the front motor to give you the outright maximum single-lap pace. There’s also a “Push to Pass” button, providing a brief period of maximum acceleration for those times when you absolutely need to get past that lollygagger ahead who’s costing you precious seconds on your commute.
All that extra speed necessitated some upgrades in the stopping department. The ZR1X wears a set of massive carbon brakes from Alcon, the company that makes these parts for some of Chevrolet’s racing machines. The 16.5-inch discs at the front equate to 1.9G of braking force. Installing a race harness might be a good idea so that you don’t go flying out of the chair the first time you hit that left pedal.
Despite the extra power at the front axle from that electric motor, the ZR1X rolls on the same size tires as the less-powerful, rear-driven ZR1. “We were tempted to go wider,” the Corvette’s chief engineer Josh Holder told me. “That’s a delicate balance between unsprung mass and driving dynamics off-power, and we believe we’ve made the right choice.”
Holder said it came down to working with Michelin on tire development plus some tweaks to the car’s traction management software. “That’s one of the things that we had to tune very carefully, given the power output now in ZR1X, just to make sure that we’re not spinning up the front axle when you’re at a high lateral load,” he said.
Keith Badgley, development engineer on the ZR1X, said that, despite the extra power and everything else, the ZR1X will still have the same accessible performance feel that defines the Corvette line: “We designed this to be as composed as the Stingray with but with two and a half times the power. We wanted ultimate traction, maximum acceleration.”
“I would say it doesn’t drive differently, in terms of being able to claw out over the corner, being able to balance the car with power delivery from the front axle,” Holder said. “You can do things in the E-Ray and the ZR1X that, if you did in the rear-drive car, would not work out so well for you… But that balance and dynamics, they behave similarly to the ZR1X has more capability.”
But what it probably won’t offer is the same level of attainability that the Corvette has historically been known for. Chevrolet isn’t saying how much the ZR1X will cost when it goes on sale later this year. But it surely won’t be cheap.
Again, the ZR1 starts at about $175,000. The E-Ray carries a price that’s roughly $30,000 over the base Stingray. If we apply the same premium here, we’re in the ballpark of $200,000. Add on the other upgrades, like the fancy Alcon brakes and better battery pack, and it’s easy to assume that this thing will be priced within reach of some European exotics.
Will it be worth it? We’ll have to wait and see until we get a go behind the wheel, but Chevrolet has already been testing the thing extensively around the Nurburgring, covering over 600 miles at the greatest vehicular performance playground on the planet. Hopefully, it does just as well on the streets and circuits closer to home.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/meet-the-corvette-zr1x-americas-1250-horsepower-hybrid-hypercar-140018897.html?src=rss
The first company
On a sunny April afternoon in Seattle, around 40 activists gathered at the Pine Box, a beer and pizza bar in the sometimes scruffy Capitol Hill neighborhood. The group had reserved a side room attached to the outside patio; before remarks began, attendees flowed in and out, enjoying the warm day. Someone set up a sound system. Then the activists settled in, straining their ears as the streamed call crackled through less-than-perfect speakers.
In more than a decade of climate organizing, it was the first time Emily Johnston, one of the group’s leaders, had attended a happy hour to listen to a company’s quarterly earnings call. Also the first time a local TV station showed up to cover such a happy hour. “This whole campaign has been just a magnet for attention,” she says.
The group, officially called the Troublemakers, was rewarded right away. TeslaCEO Elon Musk started the investors’ call for the first quarter of 2025 with a sideways acknowledgement of exactly the work the group had been doing for the past two months. He called out the nationwide backlash to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an effort to cut government spending staffed by young tech enthusiasts and Musk company alumni, named—with typical Muskian Internet-brained flourish—for an early 2010s meme.
