In cinemas this Friday, Carol stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as two women who fall in love with each other, but it being 1950's New York, their love was painfully taboo.
The movie is getting some serious Oscar buzz, and rightly so, as the two leading ladies delivery some heart-wrenchingly realized performance as two people who are forced to hide their love from the public.
Coming just a week after Ireland's first same-sex marriage, the movie couldn't be better timed as a Before-And-After picture of a world with-and-without marriage equality, and to that end, we're going to take a look back over some of the most romantic same-sex relationships in cinema.
THE BIRDCAGE (1996)
Yes, it's more comedic than romantic, but you can't look at the relationship between nightclub owner Armand (Robin Williams) and his partner/head-line act Albert (Nathan Lane) and wish that you're own relationship was even one tenth as funny and entertaining as theirs is.
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR (2013)
When young Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) meets the blue-haired Emma (Lea Seydoux), her life is turned upside down forever. A three-hour French movie about a burgeoning, tumultuous relationship probably doesn't sound all the riveting, but Blue Is The Warmest Colour is guaranteed to break your heart a little. Or a lot, depending on how emotional you are.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)
Reductively known as "that gay cowboy movie" (they both have wives, so surely they're bisexual?), Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) form an inescapable bond that even they can't fully explain, but one that they feel must be kept secret, even as the decades pass them by.
DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)
While the background setting of a bank-robbery isn't exactly the most romantic of settings, the reasoning behind it sure is. Sonny (Al Pacino) and Sal (John Cazale) need the money so Sonny's lover Leon (Chris Sarandon), a pre-op transsexual, can afford the gender reassignment surgery. The things we do for love...
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT (2010)
Two kids (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) want their mothers (Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) to tell them about their genetic father (Mark Ruffalo), which opens a can of worms within their relationship. Moore and Bening subtly underplay their relationship, using tiny moments (their "adult movie" choices) over grandstanding speeches to cement their relationship for the audience.
KISSING JESSICA STEIN (2001)
Getting fed up looking for Mr. Right, Jessica (Jennifer Westfeldt) ends up responding to a W4W personals advert, and embarks on her first relationship with another woman, bisexual art-gallerist Helen (Heather Juergensen). What folllows is a very cute adventure for one woman into the familiarly unknown.
LOVE IS STRANGE (2014)
We often see relationships at their passionate beginnings, or unhappy endings, but here we have Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) still madly in love, thirty-nine years deep. When life throws them a few late curve-balls - getting let go from jobs, having the move house - watching them trying to deal with it together is nothing less than adorable.
MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001)
Director David Lynch doesn't do things by halves, so surrounding his psychologically creepy amnesia thriller, he gives us Betty (Naomi Watts) and Rita (Laura Harring). Betty finds Laura in her home, cut and with no memory of who she is and who she go there. Trying to help her piece together her past, Betty and Laura slowly develop a physical relationship... before things go all Lynch-ian.
WEEKEND (2011)
Russell (Tom Cullen) abandons his straight friends to head to a gay bar by himself, where he picks up Glen (Chris New). Anticipating it to just be a one night thing, what happens next between them takes them both by surprise, but are they both willing to travel on this new path that life has opened up to them?
