Considered the very first film on homosexuality, "Different from the Others" was directed by Richard Oswald, who urged dropping Germany's Article 175, which made homosexuality a criminal offense. Pandemonium broke out at the film's premiere in a Berlin movie theater in 1919, but it wasn't prohibited because film censorship didn't yet exist. Article 175 was repealed decades later — in 1994.

Shirley MacLaine plays Martha, a gay grade school teacher who is in love with her colleague, portrayed by Audrey Hepburn. "The Children's Hour" is director William Wyler's second take on the play of the same name by Lilian Hellmann. The first time he filmed the story ("These Three"), he was forced to give it a happy end. In his remake decades later, Martha ends up committing suicide.

Luchino Visconti filmed the novel of that name by Thomas Mann. The protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach, a 50-year-old writer — in the movie, he's a conductor however — pines for a young man he sees on the beach and who lives in the same hotel. The film is about the suppression of forbidden passions and about a man's love for a young boy — a taboo subject then and now.

Director Rosa von Praunheim knew first-hand what it's like be a homosexual man battling self-hatred and guilt. The film takes a frank look at gay lifestyles, including common-law marriage, leather-clad men in the park and life in a gay commune.

A street punk named Danny in Stephen Frears' comedy drama film was the first major role for actor Daniel Day-Lewis. His character and Omar, a Pakistani friend, take over the management of a launderette in mid-1980s London and start a romantic relationship.

James Ivory filmed the story of an unhappy love affair in Britain in the 1910s. College students Maurice (James Wilby) and Clive (Hugh Grant) fall in love. Confessing to being gay would mean exclusion from society, however, so Clive marries a woman, while Maurice falls in love with another man - Clive's servant.

Mike (River Phoenix), a young gay street hustler, is on the road, searching for his mother. Scott (Keanu Reeves) joins him; both prostitute themselves during the road trip. Mike is in love with Scott, who is heterosexual and turns him away. The film rang in the era of New Queer Cinema of the early 1990s — the golden era of gay and lesbian cinema.

Macho meets drag queens: in this highly successful 1994 German comedy, actor Til Schweiger plays a womanizer who moves in with a gay man after his girlfriend dumps him, leading to all kinds of awkward situations. Sönke Wortmann's adaptation of a Ralf König comic has even been turned into a musical.

In "Brokeback Mountain," the two cowboys Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal, l.) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) poach, drink and sleep together, but their mutual attraction is a taboo among cowboys, so both marry women. For this neo-Western, Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee won three Oscars and created an unforgettable melodrama.

In "Carol", Kate Blanchett (right) and Rooney Mara play two women who fall in love in New York in the early '50s but have to keep their relationship secret: The sexual revolution, women's liberation and the gay rights movement are not yet on the horizon. Todd Haynes filmed the novel by Patricia Highsmith, who published her work under a pseudonym in 1952 due to the sensitive subject.