Our Staff Picks column takes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme and the "Staff Picks" section was the place to find out what films were worthy of one's time. Of course, our version of Staff Picks has a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out which films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, we cover a classic: lesbian indie movies!
As you now know, it is pride month and I hope you are not already sick of seeing beautiful naked women kiss each other because I'm not and I intend to show you a lot more. This is one of my personal favorite genres: the lesbian indie movie. Why? Because indie movies tend to have more nudity than mainstream movies - especially with lesbian scenes. A-listers don't always love getting nude, as we know, and it is really rare to see an A-lister get really down and dirty in a lesbian scene. Enter the indie movie where no-name actresses, who are often actually into women in real life, take it all off for the sake of the movie. To me? That's art!
Here are my Staff Picks for Lesbian Indie Movies!
The Watermelon Woman
It is no secret that I absolutely love this movie. I know that I have written about it at length before, praising writer/director/lead actress Cheryl Dunye for giving us a bold lesbian-forward comedy in 1996. Cheryl plays a woman who works at a video store and dabbles in filmmaking on the side. While the main plot of the movie involves her tracking down an old Black actor, she also falls in love with a slinky white woman.
Cheryl has a passionate sex scene with Guinevere Turner in which both women go fully nude and press their pairs against one another. Their suck sacks look as juicy as watermelon to me!
The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
This underrated 1995 flick is enjoying a resurgence as it played at the Sundance Film Festival this year and it was released on Blu-ray for the first time this year. Director Maria Magnetti told the story of two teen girls who come from totally different walks of life: one is a college-bound girl who gets good grades and comes from money. The other is a rough-and-tumble girl who lives with her lesbian aunt and works as a mechanic. They seem so different,y but they are so undeniably attracted to one another that they fall in lust.
Laurel Holloman plays the tough girl who seduces Nicole Ari Parker. This comedy features two nude scenes from the babes. Their seductive sex scene is genuinely sweet and shows boobs from both girls. The next morning they have to wake up naked and in a hurry when Nicole's mom comes home and discovers what they've been up to!
Margarita, with a Straw
This 2014 film by directing pair Nilesh Maniyar and Shonali Bose gives us an Indian take on sapphic sexiness. Laila, played by Kalki Koechlin, is a teenager in India who has cerebral palsy. She wants to grow up to become an electronic musician and after heartbreak, she decides to get far away from India. She accepts an offer to go to New York University which changes her life entirely! When she is in the USA, free from her family and everything that knew back home in India, she starts hooking up with men and women!
This is more of a bisexual movie, but there aren't a ton of those. I'm lumping it into this category because her sex scenes with Sayani Gupta are extra spicy. Laila explores who she is and becomes more assertive in what she wants in this world from her music aspirations to her love of sex with men and women! Good for you, girl!
Becks
Becks isn't quite as indie as the other two because 90s darling Mena Suvari starred in the movie. Mena couldn't say no to a hot lesbo film like Becks! This 2017 flick was directed by Daniel Powell and Elizabeth Rorhbaugh who tells us the story of a musician named Becks, played by the Tony-winning star Lena Hall, who has recently gone through a difficult breakup with her girlfriend. She briefly moves back home to Missouri with her religious mother who is at odds with Becks' city rockstar life.
Things work out for Becks who starts playing local gigs and manages to start an affair with a married woman named Elyse who is played by Mena. Whoops! The two have three hot scenes, one of which shows us nudity! Isabella Farrell also goes nude in a scene in which she shows off her tan-lined tits.
Saving Face
Alice Wu's personal, funny, and sexy romantic comedy is definitely worth watching. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004 and it charmed the pants off of audiences, becoming both a queer classic and a Skin Classic. The movie is a standard romantic comedy infused with traditional Chinese values as a woman struggles to make her Chinese immigrant family happy while also trying to follow her heart. And her heart tells her to be in love with a hot woman!
Michelle Krusiec plays a sexy surgeon who falls in love with a limber ballerina played by Lynn Chen. The surgeon is used to putting her career first, but she knows that she can't let this new love interest slip through her fingers.
Desert Hearts
Donna Deitch directed the hell out of this fun 1985 film that is filled to the brim with lesbian action. Helen Shaver is in a 1950s marriage that the does not want to be in, so she moves to Reno where she can get a divorce easily. While she is living it up in Reno, she falls for Patricia Charbonneau who is an open lady lover and a rancher's daughter. She's a woman who could care less what other people think which is exactly what Helen's character needs.
The two explore each other's bodies and go nude several times. Andra Akers also bares her boobs in a lesbian scene. This film is filled with hot, steamy sex scenes that are sure to satisfy you.
Do you want more lesbian action? Check out this playlist that features lots of scissoring:
