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A List of 67 Trans Movies

We’re all about inclusive media and when we came to research how many Trans movies existed, we were blown away!

We’ve been collecting LGBTQIA+ media lists for years including Lesbian Movies, Gay Web Series and Gay TV Shows and here we are finding movies with transgender/transexual themes in the mainstream as well as independent / lower budget productions.

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So look no further than our extensive list of 67 trans movies if you’re looking to be entertained with a romcom, a documentary or a gritty drama.

If documentaries are more your thing, check out our list of Transgender Documentaries.

We’re sure we have more than covered all types of movies from our communi-‘T’ in LGBTQIA+.

Grab some popcorn, kick back and enjoy…

The Danish Girl (2015)

With support from his loving wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander), artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) prepares to undergo one of the first sex-change operations.

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Image Credit: YouTube

The film received some criticism for its inaccurate portrayal of historical events, but Redmayne and Vikander’s performances received widespread acclaim and nominations for all of the major acting awards. Vikander won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Redmayne was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

View the YouTube trailer here.

Stream ‘The Danish Girl’ on Amazon Prime Video

Buy ‘The Danish Girl’ Book on Amazon

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Mala Mala (2014)

mala mala best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube
Mala Mala is a documentary about the power of transformation told through the eyes of 9 trans-identifying individuals in Puerto Rico.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Albert Nobbs (2018)

Albert Nobbs works in a posh hotel and struggles to lead an independent life in Ireland.

Albert Nobbs best trans movies list
Image Credit: YouTube

He meets a handsome painter who comes to know of his real identity that he’s been hiding.

Watch the trailer on YouTube

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Buy the DVD on Amazon

Transmilitary (2019)

At a time when transgender people are banned from serving in the U.S. military, four transgender troops risking discharge fight to attain the freedom they so fiercely protect.

Transmilitary best trans movies and documentaries LGBTQIA
Image Credit: Transmilitary.org

2018 SXSW Audience Award Winner, Best Documentary.

Watch the Trailer on YouTube

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Buy the DVD on Amazon

Man on High Heels (2014)

Yoon Ji-wook, a revered homicide detective hides his desire to become a woman. He finally reaches the point where he decides to get a sex change operation.

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Image Credit: YouTube
However, before he has a chance to do so, an unexpected crisis interferes with his plans.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Probably the most well known and celebrated trans movies of all time. Sweethearts Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon), stuck with a flat tire during a storm, discover the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a transvestite scientist.

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Image Credit: YouTube
As their innocence is lost, Brad and Janet meet a houseful of wild characters, including a rocking biker (Meat Loaf) and a creepy butler (Richard O’Brien). Through elaborate dances and rock songs, Frank-N-Furter unveils his latest creation: a muscular man named “Rocky.”

Watch trailer on YouTube here.

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Buy the DVD on Amazon

The Pearl (2018)

The Pearl is a cinematic and intimate profile of 4 transgender women that come out in their senior years.

The pearl transgender movie 2018
Image Credit: The Pearl Film

Set in logging towns in the Pacific NW the visceral, observational story explores what it means to leave behind living as a man.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

3 Generations (2017)

3 Generations tells the stirring and touching story of three generations of a family living under one roof in New York as they must deal with the life-changing transformation by one that ultimately affects them all. Ray (Elle Fanning) is a teenager who knows he’s a boy, even though he was assigned female at birth. Ray has already been living as a boy for years but is now ready to start hormone replacement therapy.

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Image Credit: YouTube

His single mother, Maggie (Naomi Watts), must track down Ray’s biological father (Tate Donovan) to get his legal consent to allow Ray’s transition. Dolly (Susan Sarandon), Ray’s lesbian grandmother is having a hard time accepting that she now has a grandson. They must each confront their own identities and learn to embrace change and their strength as a family in order to ultimately find acceptance and understanding.

View the trailer on YouTube here.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

One of our favorite trans movies of all time and an emotional tearjerker. Young female-to-male transgender Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) leaves his hometown under threat when his ex-girlfriend’s brother discovers that he’s biologically female.

Image Credit: YouTube

Resettling in the small town of Falls City, Nebraska, Brandon falls for Lana (Chloë Sevigny), an aspiring singer, and begins to plan for their future together. But when her ex-convict friends, John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Tom (Brendan Sexton III), learn Brandon’s secret, things change very quickly.

View the trailer on YouTube here.

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Buy the DVD on Amazon

Bixa Travesty (2018)

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Image Credit: YouTube
A documentary that follows Mc Linn Da Quebrada, a black trans woman, performer and activist living in impoverished São Paulo. Her electrifying performances (with plenty of nudity) brazenly take on Brazil’s hetero-normative machismo.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

52 Tuesdays (2013)

52 Tuesdays is centered on the relationship between James (Del Herbert-Jane), a mother undergoing gender transition, and her precocious teenage daughter Billie (Tilda Cobham-Hervey). Looking forward to starting his gender transition but weary of how the process might affect his daughter, James asks Billie to move in with her father Tom (played by Beau Travis Williams). To make up for the abrupt separation, mother and daughter make a commitment to meet every Tuesday afternoon, no matter what.

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Image Credit: IMDB
As the year progresses, James and Billie watch each other change in ways that sometimes threaten their once-unshakable relationship. As both individuals explore deep personal issues and struggle to remain connected, a complex tale of human desire and ultimately, physical and psychological transformation, emerges.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Buy the DVD on Amazon

Kumu Hina (2014)

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Image Credit: YouTube
A transgender Hawaiian school teacher inspires a girl to follow her desires and lead the school’s male hula troupe despite the teacher being unable to find a committed relationship and companionship in her own life.

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The Crying Game (1992)

In this successful psychological thriller, a reluctant agent of the Irish Republican Army discovers that some people just aren’t who you expect them to be. Fergus (Stephen Rea) is an IRA “volunteer” who, despite personal misgivings, takes part in the kidnapping of a black British soldier, Jody (Forest Whitaker), stationed in Northern Ireland. The IRA hopes to use Jody as a bargaining chip to win the release of IRA operatives behind bars, but, while guarding Jody, Fergus becomes fast friends with his prisoner. Jody makes Fergus promise him that if he dies, Fegus will look in on his girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), and see if she’s all right. Jody escapes, and Fergus doesn’t have the heart to shoot him; as fate would have it, Jody runs from the woods into a street only to be run over by a British police vehicle, which then flushes out the IRA compound.

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Image Credit: IMDB

Fergus escapes to London, where he’s wanted by the law for Jody’s kidnapping and also by his former girlfriend, IRA operative Jude (Miranda Richardson), who thinks he knows too much to fall into the hands of the British authorities. Good to his word, Fergus tracks down Dil, and soon the two outcasts find themselves entering into a love affair, although Fergus discovers that Dil is not the sort of woman he thought she was.

View the trailer on YouTube here.

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In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)

This bizarre Fassbinder drama centers around Elvira Weishaupt’s lonely quest for love.

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Image Credit: YouTube
Elvira is a man who became a woman to please his/her man. Just prior to that, Elvira had been jilted by her previous live-in partner, a man. However, she has the operation to win the heart of another.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

Women in Revolt (1971)

This film is a satire of the women’s liberation movement, staring a trio of female impersonators. Candy is an aloof heiress caught in an unhappy relationship with her brother. Jackie is a virginal intellectual who believes women are oppressed in contemporary American society.

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Image Credit: YouTube
And Holly is a nymphomaniac who has come to loathe men, despite her attraction to them. Together, they join a militant feminist group, P.I.G. (Politically Involved Girls), but their newfound liberation doesn’t make them any happier.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)

Filmmakers re-examine the 1992 death of transgender legend Marsha P. Johnson, who was found floating in the Hudson River.

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Image Credit: Netflix
Originally ruled a suicide, many in the community believe she was murdered.

Watch the trailer on YouTube.

Watch on Netflix

Growing Up Coy (2018)

Growing Up Coy follows a landmark transgender rights case in Colorado where a 6-year-old transgender girl named Coy has been banned from the girls’ bathroom at her school.

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Image Credit: YouTube
Coy’s parents hire a lawyer to pursue a civil rights case of discrimination, and the family is thrust into the international media spotlight, causing their lives to change forever. A timely topic as states across the US battle with this particular civil rights issue. The film also asks a universal question that every parent may face: How far would you go to fight for your child’s rights?

Watch on Netflix.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the ‘Growing Up Coy’ DVD on Amazon

20 Centimeters (2005)

Marieta (Mónica Cervera), born Adolfo, is a preoperative transsexual who cannot wait to get rid of a certain bothersome appendage.

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Image Credit: YouTube

She falls asleep at inopportune times, then she dreams of elaborate musical fantasies in which she is the star. One day, she meets a handsome fruit stocker (Pablo Puyol) who loves her just as she is. Though Marieta is quite fond of her new lover, she does not want anything to get in the way of her destiny.

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Ma Vie En Rose (1997)

Translating to ‘My Life in Pink’, Ma Vie En Rose centers on seven-year-old Ludovic (Georges Du Fresne) announces to his startled parents, Pierre (Jean-Philippe Écoffey) and Hanna (Michèle Laroque), that he is in fact a girl.

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Image Credit: YouTube
His parents first view his newfound taste for girls’ clothes and toys as a harmless phase, but as other neighborhood parents grow concerned — particularly Albert (Daniel Hanssens), Pierre’s prudish boss and the father of Jerome (Julien Rivière), the boy Ludovic has decided he wants to marry — they take steps to “cure” him.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Gun Hill Road (2011)

After three years in prison, Enrique (Esai Morales) returns home to the Bronx to find the world he knew has changed. His wife, Angela (Judy Reyes), struggles to hide an emotional affair, and his teenage son, Michael (Harmony Santana), explores a sexual transformation well beyond Enrique’s grasp and understanding. Unable to accept his child, Enrique clings to his masculine ideals while Angela attempts to hold the family together by protecting Michael.

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Image Credit: YouTube
Still under the watchful eye of his parole officer (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), Enrique must become the father he needs to be or, once again, risk losing his family and freedom.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Anything (2018)

Anything is an unconventional romance about Earl, a middle-aged widower who moves to Los Angeles to be with family, and who asserts his independence by renting an apartment in a sketchy neighborhood full of “colorful” characters.

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Image Credit: YouTube

Most colorful of all is Frida, a transgender next door neighbor who happens to find Earl-the quintessential Southern Gentleman-just as exotic as he finds her. Forming a relationship that is at once unexpected and inevitable, this mismatched pair give each other much-needed trust, respect… and more. The film caused quite a lot of controversy at the time of it’s release with trans activist demanding a boycott due to the main character being play by a cis man.

View the trailer on YouTube here.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives (2010)

Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives is a 2010 rape and revenge exploitation film directed by Israel Luna.

ticked off trannies with knives list of the best trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB

The film follows a trio of trans women who exact revenge on the men who brutally assault them and murder two of their friends. The film is split into five chapters, one of which is a missing reel.

Watch the Trailer on YouTube
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The Pearl of Africa (2016)

The Peal of Africa is a trans movie that documents an intimate struggle for the right to love.

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Image Credit: YouTube
We follow a Ugandan transgender girl, forced to leave her country.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Visit The Pearl of Africa’s official website

A Kid Like Jake (2018)

Alex Wheeler and her husband, Greg, are trying to find the right primary school for their 4-year-old son, Jake. Described as gender-expansive by his adviser, Jake’s increasingly erratic behavior starts to cause a rift between the couple.

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Image Credit: YouTube

Alex worries that the adults in her son’s life are labeling him prematurely, while Greg wonders if Jake’s fondness for dressing up might be more than just a phase.

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A Fantastic Woman (2015)

Marina and Orlando are in love and planning for the future. Marina is a young waitress and aspiring singer. Orlando is 20 years older than her, and owns a printing company. After celebrating Marina’s birthday one evening, Orlando falls seriously ill. Marina rushes him to the emergency room, but he passes away just after arriving at the hospital. Instead of being able to mourn her lover, suddenly Marina is treated with suspicion. The doctors and Orlando’s family don’t trust her.

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Image Credit: YouTube

A detective investigates Marina to see if she was involved in his death. Orlando’s ex-wife forbids her from attending the funeral. And to make matters worse, Orlando’s son threatens to throw Marina out of the flat she shared with Orlando. Marina is a trans woman and for most of Orlando’s family, her sexual identity is an aberration, a perversion. So Marina struggles for the right to be herself. She battles the very same forces that she has spent a lifetime fighting just to become the woman she is now – a complex, strong, forthright and fantastic woman.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Boy Meets Girl (2014)

21-year old Ricky is a transgender woman living in a small town in Kentucky with big dreams to move to New York and attend a school of fashion design.

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Image Credit: YouTube

Ricky is working as a barista and spends most of her time hanging out with her only friend Robby who has been by her side for the past 15 years. One day while Ricky is at work, a woman from town named Francesca walks in, a friendship unexpectedly blossoms, which then turns into an affair.

View trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Glen or Glenda (1953)

In his heart-felt cinematic debut, Edward D. Wood, Jr. himself stars under the pseudonym Daniel Davis as a young man with a dilemma: should he tell his lovely young fiancee (played by real-life girlfriend Dolores Fuller) about his burning desire to cross-dress? She has begun to notice articles of clothing missing from her closet; the suspense builds…what should he do? Bela Lugosi plays the omniscient narrator; note his conviction as he “pulls the strings.” Amidst this unintentionally hilarious mish-mash of melodrama, social commentary and inexplicable stock footage, there is something for every taste: countless cross dressers, hallucinatory dream sequences, sex-change surgeries, spirited cat fights, borderline-pornographic simulated sex scenes, poetic monologues, a haunted house, and a stampede of wild buffalo.

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Image Credit: IMDB
Released under various titles across the country — I Lived Two Lives, I Changed My Sex — this fiasco bombed across the board but managed to gain Wood enough notoriety in the “B”-movie world to launch a career that is today the stuff of legend. Hailed by most critics as the worst film of all time, Wood nearly matched his first effort with such atrocities as Bride of the Monster, Night of the Ghouls, the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space, and, perhaps the world’s first topless horror film, Orgy of the Dead. Although few may count Wood among the best American cinema has to offer, Glen or Glenda certainly places him among its most memorable.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Bad Education (La mala educación) (2004)

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez) a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school.

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Image Credit: YouTube

Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer (Gael García Bernal) who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.

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Laurence Anyways (2013)

Laurence, a French teacher and soon-to-be-published author, enjoys an intense and mutually loving relationship with his fiancée, Frédérique. But on the day after his 35th birthday, Laurence confesses to Fred that he longs to become a woman, asking her to support his transformation.

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Image Credit: IMDB

The film follows the course of the couple’s on-again, off-again relationship throughout the 1990s. 

View trailer on YouTube here.

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All About My Mother (2010)

A Greek saying states that only women who have washed their eyes with tears can see clearly. This saying does not hold true for Manuela. The night a car ran over her son Esteban, Manuela cried until her eyes ran completely dry.

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Image Credit: YouTube

Far from seeing clearly, the present and the future become mixed up in darkness. She begins looking for his father who has become a transvestite.

View the trailer on YouTube here.

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Girl (2018)

Girl tells the story of 15-year-old Lara who wants to become a ballerina, with a classical training for female dancers. Lara is accepted in a ballet school and her dream seems closer than ever.

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Image Credit: IMDB

But there is one challenge, Lara was born into the body of a boy. A body that she will push to its limits in order for her to succeed.

View the official international trailer on YouTube here.

Watch ‘Girl’ on Netflix

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

In a prison cell somewhere in Latin America, two very different men warily confront each other. Molina (William Hurt) is first seen wrapping his head in a towel, in the shape of a turban, while Valentin (Raul Julia), bearded and classically macho in appearance, watches with a mixture of fascination and revulsion.

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Image Credit: YouTube
During the time spent together, the two men come to understand and respect each other.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Flawless (1999)

Walt Koontz is a retired security guard, ultraconservative and proud of it, living in New York City’s Lower East Side. Late one night, while trying to help neighbor in trouble, Walt suffers a stroke which leaves him with partial paralysis.

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Image Credit: IMDB
Refusing to leave his apartment for therapy, Walt very reluctantly agrees to a rehabilitative program that includes singing lessons with a performer who lives upstairs — a street-tough drag queen named Rusty.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Saturday Church (2017)

Ulysses is a shy and effeminate boy who finds himself coping with new responsibilities as man of the house after the death of his father. Living alongside his mother, younger brother, and conservative aunt, Ulysses is also struggling with questions about his gender identity.

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Image Credit: YouTube
He finds an escape by creating a world of fantasy filled with dance and music. Ulysses’ journey takes a turn for the better when he finds a vibrant transgender community.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Tangerine (2015)

A comedy-drama film directed by Sean Baker, starring Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, and James Ransone.

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Image Credit: YouTube

The story follows a transgender sex worker who discovers her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her. The entire film was shot with three iPhone 5s smartphones.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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The Badge (2002)

Billy Bob Thornton stars as Darl, a homophobic Louisiana sheriff assigned to investigate the murder of a local transsexual. Ever so gradually shedding his animosity toward the gay community, Darl finds himself shunned by his own friends and coworkers.

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Image Credit: IMDB
But worse is still to come, as his investigation threatens to expose a far-reaching coverup by several high-ranking city and state politicians. Patricia Arquette costars as Scarlett, a stripper-prostitute who was once married to the murder victim.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Hedwig and the Angry Itch (2001)

A German emigrant living in a trailer in Kansas is the victim of a botched sex-change operation.

hedwig and the angry itch best trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB

Adapted from the critically acclaimed off-Broadway rock theater hit, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” tells the story of the “internationally ignored” rock singer, Hedwig, and her search for stardom and love.

View the trailer on YouTube here.

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The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

One of the best drag queen movies around, there is also a current touring theater production of the same name with the same plot. When drag queen Anthony (Hugo Weaving) agrees to take his act on the road, he invites fellow cross-dresser Adam (Guy Pearce) and transsexual Bernadette (Terence Stamp) to come along.

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Image Credit: YouTube

In their colorful bus, named Priscilla, the three performers travel across the Australian desert performing for enthusiastic crowds and homophobic locals. But when the other two performers learn the truth about why Anthony took the job, it threatens their act and their friendship.

Watch the YouTube trailer here.

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Paris is Burning (1990)

This documentary focuses on drag queens living in New York City and their “house” culture, which provides a sense of community and support for the flamboyant and often socially shunned performers.

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Image Creidt: YouTube

Groups from each house compete in elaborate balls that take cues from the world of fashion. Also touching on issues of racism and poverty, the film features interviews with a number of renowned drag queens, including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija and Dorian Corey.

View trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Just Charlie (2017)

Young soccer star Charlie has the world at his feet. With a top club desperate to sign him, his future is seemingly mapped out. But the teenager sees only a nightmare.

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Image Credit: IMDB
Trapped in the body of a boy, Charlie is torn between wanting to live up to her father’s expectations and shedding this ill-fitting skin. Charlie’s next move will tear the family apart and threaten everything they hold dear.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Law of Desire (1987)

When porn director Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) reluctantly breaks up with his boyfriend, Juan (Miguel Molina), he encourages him to stay in touch. Juan moves away to live in a lighthouse and eventually writes his ex, but in the interim Pablo has taken up with a psychotic new lover, Antonio (Antonio Banderas).

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Image Credit: IMDB
Antonio intercepts their correspondence and flies into a towering rage, terrifying Pablo, but also inspiring him creatively as he works on a play about his transsexual sister (Carmen Maura).

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Tomboy (2011)

A French family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure and 6-year-old Jeanne, moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holidays. With her Jean Seberg haircut and tomboy ways, Laure is immediately mistaken for a boy by the local kids and passes herself off as Michael. Filmmaker Céline Sciamma brings a light and charming touch to this drama of childhood gender confusion.

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Image Credit: IMDB

Zoe Heran as Laure/Michael and Malonn Levanna as Jeanne are nothing less than brilliant. This is a relationship movie: relationships between children, and the even more complicated one between one’s heart and body.

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Different for Girls (1996)

Kim Foyle (Steven Mackintosh) is a postoperative transvestite who values her well-structured lifestyle. That routine, however, is disturbed when a car accident reintroduces Kim to Paul Prentice (Rupert Graves). As youngsters in Catholic school, they excelled in making trouble, a talent Paul never outgrew.

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Image Credit: YouTube
Paul does not recognize Kim as his childhood pal, and she does not remind him, fearing rejection. However, a budding romance between them is complicated when Paul realizes who Kim used to be.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970)

Taken from the autobiography of the world’s first transsexual, George Jorgensen (John Hansen) is a woman trapped in a man’s body who opts for surgery and hormone treatments to make him a woman. Events of his childhood are covered, showing young George preferring dolls over contact sports. Inducted into the Army, the sexually confused George learns to hide his emotions during his military experience.

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Image Credit: YouTube
He travels to Denmark where a pioneering team of doctors agree to perform the surgical process for the first time ever. His kindly aunt in Denmark (Joan Tompkins) gives George the name of Christine after her late daughter. Hansen is unconvincing as a woman, and there are several passages in this biographical drama that lead to unintentional hilarity.

Watch the full movie on YouTube here.

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Normal (2003)

After a 25-year marriage to Irma (Jessica Lange), Roy Applewood (Tom Wilkinson) shocks his family when he reveals that he has a gender identity disorder. The Applewood family is further thrown into turmoil when Roy decides to have a sex change operation to relieve the pain of being trapped in a man’s body.

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Image Credit: YouTube
Roy’s co-workers are baffled, his church rejects him and his son, Wayne (Joe Sikora), struggles with the humiliation of having a father who now goes by the name Ruth.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

Trans America (2005)

Right in the midst of important changes in her life, Bree Osborne (Felicity Huffman) learns that she fathered a son, Toby (Kevin Zegers), 17 years ago. Bailing him out of jail in New York, Bree poses as a Christian missionary.

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Image Credit: IMDB

She plans to take Toby to his stepfather’s house, but when she learns that the stepfather sexually abused the boy, Bree brings her son back to Los Angeles with her. As Toby begins to fall for Bree, she must find a way to reveal who she really is.

View trailer on YouTube here.

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Buy the DVD on Amazon

Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

Incetion star, Cillian Murphy, performs in Breakfast in Pluto which centers on an Irish boy who becomes an emotional and sexual outcast as the 1960s fade into the 1970s in this period drama from director Neil Jordan. When he was just a baby in the early ’60s, Patrick Braden (Conor McEvoy) was abandoned by his mother and left on the doorstep of a church overseen by Father Bernard (Liam Neeson). Placed in a foster home, sensitive Patrick doesn’t much care for the emotionally chilly attitude of his new “family,” and psychologically buffers himself against the world by writing stories that make fun of Father Bernard and the other authority figures in his life. As he grows into adulthood, Patrick (played as an adult by Cillian Murphy) also discovers that he enjoys dressing in women’s clothes and prefers the company of men, and as a teenager he falls into an affair with Billy Hatchet (Gavin Friday), a nightclub performer who also runs guns for the Irish Republican Army.

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Image Credit: Netflix

In the early ’70s, Patrick — who has since taken on the drag name “Kitten” — makes his way to London, where he becomes involved with Bertie (Stephen Rea), a small-time nightclub magician who gives the young man a place to say, a sense of security, and a job as his on-stage assistant. However, Patrick’s idyllic life with Bertie proves short-lived when his old friends come to town on IRA “business”.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

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Watch on Netflix.

Something Must Break (2014)

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Image Credit: YouTube
A gritty story taking place in Stockholm, about the passionate love between the self-abusive Sebastian who wants to be a woman, and the easy-going Andreas who is certainly not gay.

Watch the trailer on YouTube here.

Buy the DVD on Amazon

A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story (2006)

Imagine feeling as if you’re trapped in the wrong body, that there’s been some sort of mistake-that you’re supposed to be a girl instead of a boy.

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Image Credit: YouTube
How would you tell our family and friends that you wanted to change genders? And what would you do when society not only refused to accept the new you but was violent toward you?
Watch on Amazon here.

View the trailer on YouTube.

Stream on Amazon Prime Video

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The World According to Garp (1982)

A nurse during World War II, Jenny Fields (Glenn Close) conceives with a dying pilot and bears a boy named T.S. Garp (Robin Williams) whom she raises alone. When Garp grows up, he has some success writing fiction, but not nearly so much as his mother has with feminist-themed nonfiction.

the world according to garp trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB
Rich and famous, she starts a center for troubled women, and while Garp marries and has children, he remains a constant, if somewhat critical, observer of the strange community that forms around Jenny.

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Soapdish (1991)

soapdish best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube
Celeste Talbert (Sally Field) is the star of the long-running soap opera “The Sun Also Sets.” With the show’s ratings down, Celeste’s ruthlessly ambitious co-star, Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarty), and the show’s arrogant producer, David Seton Barnes (Robert Downey Jr.), plot to aggravate her into leaving the show by bringing back her old flame, Jeffrey Anderson (Kevin Kline), and hiring her beautiful young niece, Lori Craven (Elisabeth Shue).

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Catalina: A New Kind of Superhero (2009)

When General Krillgarth the Negative steals the most powerful substance in the known universe there is only one Superhero who can stop him. Ben Gerick is a rising star for a major corporate law firm.

Catalina: A new kind of superhero best trans movies lgbtq
Image Credit: Vimeo

By day he wears smart business suits, but at home he takes on a new persona…that of Catalina – a superhero transvestite. Starring Nathan Lubbock-Smith, George McCluskey and Laura Martin.

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Soldier’s Girl (2003)

In 1997, new Army recruit Barry Winchell (Troy Garity) is assigned to a base in Tennessee. He quickly befriends the quick-tempered Justin Fisher (Shawn Hatosy), who struggles with drug problems. One night, they venture out to a local bar hosting a drag show.

soldiers girl best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube

Calpernia Addams (Lee Pace), a transsexual drag queen, fascinates Barry, and they strike up a relationship. As Barry and Calpernia grow closer, Justin becomes bitter and recruits another soldier (Philip Eddolls) to help get revenge.

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I Want What I Want (1972)

A sensitive Englishman experiences an intense sexual identity crisis after realizing he is a man trapped in a woman’s body. The only time Roy (Anne Heywood) feels truly comfortable is when he’s wearing women’s clothing. But when Roy’s cruel father catches him dressed up like a lady, the conflicted young man escapes to a place where he can be safe, and fully embraces his female persona.

i want what i want best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube
Now living under the name Wendy, he suffers a harrowing encounter with a vicious new neighbor who beats him mercilessly after discovering his sexual secret. In the wake of that brutal attack, Wendy decides that his only option is to rid himself of his troublesome manhood once and for all.

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Wild Side (2004)

A transsexual prostitute leaves Paris for the French countryside to care for her dying mother. In tow are her two lovers, Mikhail, a Russian army deserter, and Djamel, a French-Arab who also occasionally works as a prostitute to earn a little extra cash.

wild side best transgender movies
Image Credit: YouTube
The film tells, through both flashback and their growing relationships in the isolated farm, how they each came to their current life but does so with humanity and affection.

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Southern Comfort (2001)

Kate Davis’s award-winning documentary chronicles the final four seasons in the life of Robert Eads, a female-to-male transsexual dying of ovarian cancer in rural Georgia.

southern comfort best trans movies documentaries
Image Credit: Amazon
Striking a balance between Robert’s biological family — mother, father, sons and grandson — and his “chosen” family of transgender friends including Maxwell, Cas and Lola Cola, his male-to-female transsexual partner, Davis documents Eads’s final days at the Southern Comfort Conference, a national transgender gathering.

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Romeos (2011)

Starring Rik Okon and Max Befort, Romeos is a German drama centered on the relationship between a two young men. We navigate through the story of the difficulties experiences in the life of a transgender man.

romeos best transgender movies
Image Credit: IMDB

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Just Like a Woman (1993)

Just Like a Woman is a contemporary cross-dressing farce played as if it were a romantic comedy. But still, in the deep recesses of the celluloid, the narrator from Ed Wood’s Glen Or Glenda can be heard intoning, “Remember, transvestites are not homosexuals.” The story begins when businessman Gerald (Adrian Pasdar) is kicked out of his house by his wife, who discovers Gerald in the possession of a strange woman’s underwear.

just like a woman best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube
After being cast out of hearth and home, he ends up living in a rented room at the home of fortyish divorcee Monica (Julie Walters). The two proceed to fall in love, and all is well until Monica spots a mysterious woman creeping upstairs to Gerald’s room. When Monica investigates, it turns out that the mystery woman is, in fact, Gerald. Monica is taken aback, but only for a moment, and they continue their affair — dresses, panties, garter belts and all. As one of Monica’s friends points out to her, “It’s ‘is ‘obby, luv . . . like golf . . .except you see more of him.” Unfortunately, so does Gerald’s boss, Miles Millichamp (Paul Freeman) who abruptly fires him for being a transvestite. But Gerald’s firing affects his firm’s negotiations with an important Japanese company and he must muster up enough fortitude to both straighten out his career and his panty hose.

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Beautiful Boxer (2005)

Based on the true story of Thailand’s famed transgender kickboxer, Beautiful Boxer is a poignant action drama that punches straight into the heart and mind of a boy who fights like a man so he can become a woman.

beautiful boxer best trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB
Believing he’s a girl trapped in a boy’s body since childhood, Parinya Charoenphol sets out to master the most masculine and lethal sport of Thai boxing to earn a living and to achieve his ultimate goal of total femininity. Touching, funny and packed with breathtaking Thai kickboxing sequences, Beautiful Boxer traces Nong Toom’s childhood, teenage life as a traveling monk and grueling days in boxing camps.

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Second Serve (1986)

Richard Radley (Vanessa Redgrave) is an ophthalmologist with a successful career, a beautiful fiancée and a secret life. Despite outward appearances, Richard is a woman at heart.

second serve best transgender movies
Image Credit: YouTube
When his psychiatrists — including his mother (Louise Fletcher) — fail to “cure” him, Richard leaves his life behind, moves to California and has a sex change to become Renee. Finally herself, Renee takes up professional tennis — but when a reporter outs her sex change, she must fight for her right to compete.

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Gender Revolution: A Journey With Katie Couric (2017)

Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric is a 2017 documentary film about gender identity, produced by Katie Couric, National Geographic, and World of Wonder.

gender revolution best trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB
The film originally aired on the American network National Geographic on February 6, 2017.

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A Soap (2006)

Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm), the owner of a beauty salon, breaks up with her abusive boyfriend and moves into her own apartment. Below her lives Veronica (David Dencik), a preoperative transsexual.

a soap best transgender movies
Image Credit: IMDB
The two become tentative friends after Charlotte saves Veronica’s life, and Veronica protects Charlotte from her ex-lover. Both are surprised and confused when friendship turns into romance.

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Dressed To Kill (1980)

When Liz Blake (Nancy Allen), a prostitute, sees a mysterious woman brutally slay homemaker Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), she finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police think Liz is the murderer, the real killer wants to silence the crime’s only witness.

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Image Credit: IMDB
Only Kate’s inventor son, Peter (Keith Gordon), believes Liz. Peter and Liz team up to find the real culprit, who has an unexpected means of hiding her identity and an even more surprising motivation to kill.

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Drunktown’s Finest (2014)

Drunktown’s Finest is the coming-of-age story of three young Native Americans – a college-bound Christian girl raised by white parents, a rebellious and lost father-to-be, and a promiscuous yet gorgeous transsexual – as they struggle to escape the hardships of life on the Navajo reservation.

drunktowns finest best trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB
This film portrays modern Native American youths struggling to find their place in the world, but more importantly reveals the same struggles that many young Americans face while growing up in small town U.S.A.

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Myra Breckinridge (1970)

myra breckinridge best trans movies
Image Credit: IMDB
After undergoing gender reassignment surgery, an aspiring actress travels to Hollywood, where she also wants to make a claim on her wealthy uncle’s estate.

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By Hook or by Crook (2001)

Two women find love while trying to learn the fine art of bank robbery in this independent comedy-drama. Shy (Silas Howard) is a young butch lesbian from a small town in Kansas who has never figured out what she wants to do with her life. After the death of her father, Shy decides it’s time she did something with herself; unable to think of a better career option than becoming a bank robber, she decides to hit the road for California, where the banks have more money than those at home.

by hook or by crook best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube
A long the way, Shy meets drag king Valentine (Harry Dodge) while rescuing her from a beating by a pack of rednecks, and for Shy and Valentine it’s love at first sight. Shy and Valentine decide to join forces and head West like a same-sex Bonnie and Clyde, while Valentine also hopes to track down her birth mother along the way. But if Shy and Valentine are to become career criminals, it would be helpful if they had guns or knew anything about bank robbery, and the voyage teaches them a few practical lessons about living on the wrong side of the law. By Hook or by Crook was written and directed by its leading actresses, Silas Howard and Harry Dodge.

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Red Without Blue (2007)

Mark Farley and his twin brother Alex Farley were born and raised in Montana, a place where people who are “different” are not always welcomed — something they discovered after they went public with their homosexuality when they were in their early teens. Coming out damaged Mark and Alex’s relationship with their divorced parents (especially their mother Jenny Farley, who may have issues with her own sexuality), and made them the target of bullies and pedophiles, which led them to consider killing themselves. Now grown men, Mark and Alex agreed to participate with filmmakers Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills and Todd Sills in making a documentary about their lives, and Red Without Blue captures them at a time when the brothers are both still coming to terms with their identities.

red without blue best trans movies
Image Credit: YouTube
Mark, an art student, is in the midst of his first lasting relationship with another man, while Alex has chosen to live as a woman, adopting the name Claire and considering a sex change operation. The twins are attempting to mend their relationships with their parents, while Mark wonders if Alex’s transsexuality may be an effort to distance himself from his family and sibling.

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