The winner of the 2023 Cannes Short Film Palme d’Or is a colourful orgy of ennui and desire.

Love seeps through the cracks in this touching tale of same-sex desire in metropolitan Nigeria, which won the Berlinale’s Teddy Award.

A chance encounter after dark offers an autistic man a moment of transcendence.

An intimate portrait of a single mother who turned to sex work during the pandemic.

Deep in the US’s Catskill Mountains of the 50s and 60s sat a refuge for transgender women and cross-dressing men to experience life without fear.

After being attacked outside a London nightclub, a drag queen decides to turn the tables in this Hitchcockian queer noir.

A twisted tale of broken legs, painkillers and phone sex that explores the dark heart of transactional relationships – and the sick thrill of a scam.

‘Would you choose them as your mates?’ asks this dark and dreamlike snapshot of a teenage friendship group.

A playfully inventive queer pop collage that turns its gaze on mainstream media representations of the male body.

A sun-drenched, hormone-laden trip of teenage kicks turns dark in this compellingly contemporary navigation of sexual politics.

A harrowing yet hypnotic true story from the frontline of North America’s abortion debates, told through hallucinatory episodes.

This lushly animated tale of sexual awakening, which screened in competition at Cannes, follows a humanoid bird as she matures from child to woman.

A pulsating, eerily ambient collage film exploring the impact of colonialism on human desire.

A diminutive middle-aged man hooks up with Batman in this playful, beautifully animated short.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s iconic final film is a ravishing adaptation of Jean Genet’s homoerotic classic about a deadly sailor on shore leave.

In the southern Estonian woods, a group of women talk and embrace the soul-cleansing power of steam in this Sundance award-winning documentary.

The winner of Best Short Film at both Toronto and Venice is a subtly menacing, Mongolia-set tale of sexual awakening.

In this affecting Melbourne-set queer drama, a teenager’s coming of age is complicated by an unexpected sexual awakening.

Following a tragedy at sea, the lives of two orphaned refugees and an Australian aid worker are inextricably woven together in this humanistic drama.