Here’s what to put on if you loved the movie musical
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY COLUMBIA PICTURES
Happy New Year! We may be ringing in 2025, but Rent takes you on a journey from Christmas Eve 1989 to the same day in 1990, celebrating the first year of a new decade. Through this year (or 525,600 minutes as the opening song reminds us), we get glimpses into the lives of seven friends as they deal with their sexuality, addiction and the growing AIDS crisis.
The film is one of the few with a sapphic romance to tackle this time of year. Here are some other films you might like if you loved Rent.
I Hate New Year’s
This 2020 musical rom-com from Tello is a fab watch for this time of year. Layne Price is a successful musician who finds herself with creator’s block and heads back home to Nashville for New Year’s Eve. Her best friend, Cassie, is determined to confess her love for Layne but the musician is too preoccupied with one of her exes. If what you like about Rent is the sapphic spirit it brings to change of year, then this is the film for you!
Tick, Tick… Boom!
Rent was written by a man named Jonathan Larson, who died the night before previews for the show began Off-Broadway. His first successful musical was Tick, Tick… Boom!, an autobiographical story of how he and his friends coped with poverty and the AIDS crisis.
This Oscar nominated film didn’t include a sapphic storyline but it did feature Alexandra Shipp as Susan Wilson, a fictionalised version of Jonathan’s girlfriend, and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as Carolyn, a waitress at the Moondance Diner and Jonathan’s friend.
Cabaret
This movie musical, like Rent, deals with some pretty heavy topics. Principally, it dives into the dangers of being different in an intolerant society. Set in Germany during the advance of the Nazi Party, a young cabaret dancer falls in love with two men and their lives become intertwined. Some of the characters are queer and must hide this from the world for fear of how they will be treated by the government.
Cabaret has become known for embracing LGBTQIA themes and casts. Since its revival, several queer actors have taken on the iconic roles of Sally Bowles and the Emcee, including Auli’i Cravalho, Cara Delevingne, Self-Esteem and as of January 2025, Billy Porter.
In The Heights
Jonathan Larson’s protege was a man named Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote both Hamilton and this musical, In The Heights. This film also takes place in New York and follows the intertwining lives of several immigrant families.
While the film largely follows a man named Usnavi, there is a lovely sapphic relationship between Daphne Rubin-Vega’s Daniela and Stephanie Beatriz’s Carla.
Wicked
Rent saw the lives of several New Yorker’s changed for good and Wicked sees the same for two Ozians. Both are movie musicals, beloved by queer fans, that remind audiences that there is power in being different, even if the world does its best to forget that. Plus, both feature the vocal megastar that is Idina Menzel!
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