FILMS THAT POTRAYED LGBTQI+ SERIOUSLY

MY BROTHER NIKHIL (2005)

It took an Onir to take the nausea out of gay romance when the film had Sanjay Suri as Nikhil Kapoor, a national swimming champ who is diagnosed with HIV with only his lover Purab Kohli and sister Juhi Chawla to support him.

HONEYMOON TRAVELS PVT. LTD (2007)

Vikram Chatwal plays the character of Bunty, a closeted homosexual who marries Sandhya Mridul, who has just bounced back from a failed relationship.

FASHION (2008)

Samir Soni played gay designer Rahul Arora, who is forced to marry a girl because of familial pressure and is not able to get a grip on his sexuality.

I AM (2011)

In Onir’s anthology I Am – The story of Rahul Bose and Arjun Mathur in I Am Omar used the gay character more as a subterfuge to a con game.

BOMBAY TALKIES (2013)

Randeep Hooda and Saqib Saleem played same-sex lovers in the one of the stories in this anthology film. Rani Mukerji helps her husband, played by Randeep, come out of the closet.

LOEV (2015)

This film with an unknown cast was slated to be India’s first full-fledged film on same-sex relationships, but the film vanished without a trace.

ALIGARH (2015)

Inspired by the real tale of Professor Ramchandra Siras from AMU after his sex tape with a man went viral, this Hansal Mehta film film was a watershed in this subject. It stars Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao in the lead.

KAPOOR AND SONS (2016)

In the climax of the film, Fawad Khan tells his family about his sexual orientation, leading to Alia Bhatt getting embarrassed because she had forcefully kissed him earlier in the film. But the family coming together to be with him in the end was an acceptance of his character in the mainstream. Rishi Kapoor, who had played a gay character hitting on the PT Teacher in Karan Johar’s Student Of the Year, sees his gay son in the film finally becoming family in the Karan production.