With a few exceptions (think: 1993's Philadelphia and 1999's Boys Don't Cry, which earned Tom Hanks and Hilary Swank acting Oscars, respectively), LGBTQ+ cinema was considered a fringe interest in the 1990s. In recent decades, however, the tide has turned in Hollywood, mirroring a broader shift in attitudes in Western society. Although awards are sometimes viewed as an unreliable criterion for merit, they do seem to reflect current societal moods. It's no surprise, however, that as the general public has become more accepting of LGBTQ+ identities and relationships, more films depicting LGBTQ+ storylines have been nominated for prizes.Two of the most well-known examples from the early 2000s are Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Milk (2008). The former, Ang Lee's adaptation of Annie Proulx's story about a tortured gay affair between two cowboys, won three Oscars and was the frontrunner for best picture until Crash was controversially beaten to the punch. The latter, a dramatization of San Francisco's first openly homosexual mayor, Harvey Milk, won best actor Sean Penn and best adapted screenplay Dustin Lance Black. Then, in 2016, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight became the first film with a gay protagonist – whose lifelong struggle with his sexuality is the major narrative – to win Best Picture, marking yet another watershed moment in the acknowledgement of LGBTQ+ tales. With overtly LGBTQ+ films like A Fantastic Woman (2017), Call Me by Your Name (2017), and The Favourite (2018) being widely championed on the awards circuit, the formerly trickle has become more of a stream.
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