Want to see your favourite lesbian in the spotlight?
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY ORION PICTURES
From Best Actress Oscar winners to SNL veterans, lesbians make incredible leading ladies. There are, of course, some incredible TV shows with lesbians at the helm – such as Jane Lynch in Glee (Sue Sylvester is, obviously, the main character) – and many films in which they make incredible supporting actors, like Miriam Margolyes as the Nurse in Romeo + Juliet. But, in honour of Women’s History Month and the recent Oscars, we’ve rounded up some of the best films to star lesbians in the leading role.
Jodie Foster in Silence Of The Lambs
This film won five Oscars, including a Best Actress award from the incredible Jodie Foster. She plays Clarice, an FBI trainee who is recruited to the Behavioural Science Unit to interview a cannibalistic serial killer called Hannibal Lecter. Why? There’s a new serial killer out there and the FBI needs Hannibal’s help tracking him down. As Clarice and Hannibal talk, she must keep her wits about her to not be manipulated herself.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for the amazing roles Jodie has taken on, but it is one of the greats nonetheless.
Lily Tomlin in 9 To 5
In this film, Lily Tomlin stars as a widow and mum of four, Violet Newstead. She is one of three women who, frustrated with their boss, kidnap him and run his business on their own.
Lily has always been incredible in comedies, as proven by her later roles in Grace & Frankie. In 9 To 5, she appears alongside country icon Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda. The latter woman and Lily form one of the most beloved queer-ally friendships out there.
Guinevere Turner in Go Fish
This 1994 rom-com was groundbreaking for its celebration of lesbian culture and helped launch the career of lesbian actor Guinevere Turner.
Guinevere plays Max, a young lesbian who has not found love yet. Her friends set her up with Ely (V. S. Brodie), an older woman who seems to have nothing in common with Max. Through both women and their friends, the film dives into lesbian identity.
Cheryl Dunye in The Watermelon Woman
Both directed by and starring Cheryl Dunye, The Watermelon Woman is one of the most beloved lesbian films out there. Cheryl plays a fictionalised version of herself and is also called Cheryl. In the film, she is a young, black lesbian filmmaker working at a film rental shop. She decides to make a film about the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress.
Heather Matarazzo in Welcome To The Dollhouse
Heather went on to be Lily Muscovitz in The Princess Diaries and Stacey Merkin in The L Word, but she got her first big break as middle-schooler Dawn Wiener in Welcome To The Dollhouse.
In this 1995 film, Dawn is teased constantly at school and, as the middle sibling, feels she doesn’t belong at home either. She goes to extreme lengths to earn the respect of her schoolmates.
Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters
Was it the best Ghostbusters? Maybe not. But the 2016, all-female reboot has got to be on many people’s guilty pleasure lists. In the film, Kate takes her SNL comedy to a new level as Jillian ‘Holtz’ Holtzmann, an engineering physicist and one of the four women you call when there’s something strange in your neighbourhood.
Clea DuVall in Wildflowers
We would love to include Clea’s role in But I’m A Cheerleader here, but as per the rules of the list, Graham is a supporting role and therefore needs to be saved for later. But, the same year, Clea was in a little film called Wildflowers, where she plays Cally, a teenager who becomes obsessed with a woman she believes to be her birth mother.
As she tracks this woman down and throws herself into her life, the question becomes even more pertinent: Is this woman Cally’s mother, or is she just deluding herself?
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