Some of the gay and lesbian stereotypes in these films are clearly damaging, others are celebrated as coded queer classics in a time when “sex perversion” was forbidden in Hollywood. An interactive version of this list, with notes on each film, can be found at Letterboxd.
- Sex Madness (1938, Dwain Esper)
- Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock)
- Turnabout (1940, Hal Roach)
- Dance, Girl, Dance (1940, Dorothy Arzner)
- The Philadelphia Story (1940, George Cukor)
- The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
- Cat People (1942, Jacques Tourneur)
- The Seventh Victim (1943, Mark Robson)
- The Ghost Ship (1943, Mark Robson)
- The Uninvited (1944, Lewis Allen)
- Lady in the Dark (1944, Mitchell Leisen)
- Laura (1944, Otto Preminger)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945, Albert Lewin)
- Children of Paradise (1945, Marcel Carné)
- The Lost Weekend (1945, Billy Wilder)
- Night and Day (1946, Michael Curtiz)
- Beauty and the Beast (1946, Jean Cocteau)
- Fireworks (1947, Kenneth Anger)
This is bonus content for the upcoming Part 6 of “10 Years 10 Films: Every Year of World Cinema.”