But Love, Simon is a mainstream film for teenagers.”Īnd, honestly, who doesn’t love a mainstream teen flick - especially one that eschews heteronormativity? Try these movies like Love, Simon if you want to deep dive into the world of teenage drama. They include Oscar-winning films like 'Philadelphia,' 'The Danish Girl,' and best picture winner 'Moonlight.' They also include Netflix originals like 'I Am Jonas,' and international movies like 'Blue is the Warmest Colour.
Netflix has a great selection of movies that focus on an LGBTQ story. As Shelia O’Malley wrote on in their review of the movie, “Recent films like Call Me by Your Name and Blue is the Warmest Color show characters who are not punished for their sexuality by the world, their parents, their peers, and these films are huge steps forward. A24/TriStar Pictures/Focus Features/Universal Pictures. We can’t talk about Love, Simon without addressing the importance of its LGBTQ-teen representation and what it did for representation in mainstream movies. Of course you’re on the hunt for more movies like Love, Simon - it’s fantastic. Instead, his coming-out struggle and story get woven seamlessly into the storyline, aligning it with other fun, thoughtful teen rom-coms that we watched growing up. It’s one of the first mainstream movies in which a teenage protagonist isn’t punished or tormented by his sexuality.
But you get the point, right? It wasn’t until 2018, though, when Love, Simon was released, that a glossy teen rom-com also centered around a teen (Simon, in this case) struggling with coming out. Well, maybe just since the heyday of movies like them in the 1980s. Teen rom-coms and coming-of-age stories have been around since the dawn of time.