Arts & Entertainment

Dishing with Bruce

Hollywood funny guy on ‘70s drugs, the Oscars and hanging out with Robert Reed

Published

12 years ago

October 17, 2013

Bruce Vilanch is in town to honor Carol Burnett at the Kennedy Center this weekend. He’s at Cobalt Friday night. (Photo by Rick Stockwell)

Bruce Vilanch — perhaps America’s favorite gay funny man — will be at Cobalt Friday night to greet fans. Famous for his Oscar jokes and appearances on “Hollywood Squares,” we caught up with him by phone two weeks ago where he was in a jovial mood, cracking jokes the whole time. His comments have been slightly edited for length.

WASHINGTON BLADE: Is it harder to make people laugh in the Internet age? How do you still make people laugh when they’ve seen it all?

BRUCE VILANCH: Well yeah, it’s harder to come up with original stuff because someone will write something, post it online then it’s out there before it’s even been performed. It’s like instantaneous. So it’s harder now to surprise people. But on the other hand, people are so much more connected now that they get every joke. Things are in touch almost to a sickening amount so that by the time you try something live, they get every reference because they’ve had a chance to be exposed to it. I guess there are plusses and minuses. I think also the chances of offending somebody have quadrupled.

BLADE: Why?

VILANCH: Everybody feels their opinion is valid and they have a place to post it publicly now. It used to be reserved for the people who had the platforms but now anybody can post their opinion.

BLADE: Is it hard to keep doing it? I think many of us outside of Hollywood imagine it must be constant pressure.

VILANCH: Well, you have to keep working at it. Fortunately as a writer, you can generate your own work. Actors have a hard time doing that. But then you have to go off and try to sell it. You can never afford to be asleep at the switch, unlike the people who run trains in Chicago. But thankfully there are no real term limits on these kinds of things. I guess at a certain point you start fighting a creeping ageism but if you’re distinctive enough, people don’t mind. Everybody loved Rodney Dangerfield and now he’s up there with God. God must be happier now.

BLADE: What brings you to our fair city?

VILANCH: I’ll be in town to be part of the Mark Twain Prize ceremony to Carol Burnett at the Kennedy Center (on Sunday), so while I’m here I’ll be making a little appearance at Cobalt as well.

BLADE: Will you be performing at Cobalt?

VILANCH: Not really a performance. More of a meet-and-greet and maybe answer some questions. And getting some phone numbers hopefully. Facebook is unreliable. You have to save them in your phone.

BLADE: Did you do any writing for Carol’s show back in the ‘70s?

VILANCH: No, I never did. She and her husband at the time believed in hiring writing teams. They seemed to like what they were getting with the contracts for a writing team and I didn’t have a writing partner. I had a sex partner, but that’s not what they were interested in. Later I worked with her on some specials and some personal appearances but not anything where she was in character.

BLADE: What was the show she did in the early ‘90s on NBC?

VILANCH: Oh yeah, “Carol & Company” I think. It did fairly well I think, but she stopped because she said it was like shooting a new pilot every week. Each episode was like a one-act play and that’s very hard to pull off on a weekly basis. I think she had some success with it but she just didn’t want to work that hard all the time.

BLADE: The Screen Actors Guild just came out with a study on actors and anti-gay discrimination. It seemed a little surprising considering how many power gays we have in Hollywood like Ellen and Neil Patrick Harris.

VILANCH: Who look remarkably similar, don’t they?

BLADE: We see lots of LGBT actors, but is it still squeamish in the boardrooms? What’s been your experience?

VILANCH: I think it’s a lot less squeamish than it was. I’m not really in the boardrooms, so I can’t really comment on that. It’s just like every place generally. We’ve become part of the mainstream. We’re probably getting very close to having a big male action or romantic star who’s gay. I don’t know who it would be. Maybe if Cheyenne Jackson got a big role or something we could test the long-held theory that they won’t buy you in a big action or romantic role if you’re gay. It’s happening more in pro sports. … Maybe someday we’ll have somebody say, “Yes, I’m James Bond. And I enjoy a good old fudgepacking.”

BLADE: Of course we have to talk about the Oscars. The host job seems notoriously brutal. The critics seem like they can’t wait to hate anybody new who tries it. Yet you always seem to come out smelling like a rose. Is it because you’re not out there on stage?

VILANCH: I’m flattered you think that but obviously you don’t read the same blogs I do. I get slammed all the time. I get slammed for Oscar shows I didn’t even write, that I had nothing to do with. People are always saying, “Why don’t they get rid of that guy?” I’m like, “Well, if you stayed to read the credits, you’d see,” but I guess nobody is awake to read the credits at 4 or 5 in the morning so I really can’t blame them. But that’s the hallmark of the Internet really. People cutting loose with ignorant opinions, so I continue to get blamed. I feel like I wake up covered in mud. Even when the show’s a hit, or I win an Emmy, people are saying, “Oh, it was boring, it was horrible.” I remember the producer of the Oscar show used to have two framed reviews on his office wall. One was a rave from the New York Times and one was a slam from the Los Angeles Times. They were as extreme as they could be and they were about the same show. So you really never win, except, I guess, when you do.

BLADE: But why are people so tough on the host? I remember watching David Letterman and Jon Stewart do it and laughing throughout the night. They may not have been the best ever, but they didn’t seem to me to be as bad as everybody thought they

VILANCH: Well, just by the sheer numbers you realize that a lot of people who watch must be unfamiliar with these hosts beforehand. Suddenly you’re up there in front of 35 million people, so everybody has an opinion. And they’re working within a certain limitation, so they can’t just do what they do on their own shows. And sometimes things play differently at home but didn’t play that well in the house. Sometimes it’s just the wrong energy. With Letterman I think it was kind of like, “OK, we don’t need TV boy here coming out and making fun of our names.” But then he used that as a running gag on his own show forever. … And a lot of these people who watch aren’t even people who go to the movies. It’s like people watching the Super Bowl who never watch football. It’s just kind of a cultural experience people feel they have to share in. It’s like the people going out on New Year’s Eve and that’s the only time they go out. So you’re not always working with the best possible audience to be honest.

BLADE: You wrote for the “Brady Bunch Hour.” Was Robert Reed out to you?

VILANCH: Oh sure. He lived with his mother but we would go out to clubs together. He was kind of into rough trade. But he was afraid to go anywhere much because he was afraid of being seen. So we would arrange to sit back in some dark corner. It was very pre-Stonewall. I mean, it wasn’t technically pre-Stonewall, but it still felt like pre-Stonewall.

BLADE: What was he like? Was he fun to hang out with?

VILANCH: Well, he was so deeply closeted it was hard to get him to let loose and just have fun. He was always very nervous about it. A lot of these people living this kind of big secret tend to be pretty tightly wound because so much is at stake. But yeah, once you broke through all that, he was fun. I was always out and I was this big flamboyant comedy type and he was comfortable with me. I kind of helped him lubricate his way so to speak (laughs).

BLADE: For all the great stuff you’ve done, you’ve also been involved in some of the most ignominious bombs in all of pop culture history with stuff like “The Brady Bunch Hour” and the “Star Wars Holiday Special.” I hope you’re not offended by this question, but did you have any sense at the time, these would attain such train wreck

VILANCH: Well, you always go into something thinking it’s a good idea but you have to remember, this was the ‘70s and so we were all a bit chemically altered at the time. You have to also realize, like with the Brady show, this type of variety show concept was still popular at the time. We didn’t realize it was breathing its last. It’s the kind of thing that could have been really terrific if any of them could sing and dance. I mean they did a little on their original show but it became clear pretty quickly when we tried this sort of hybrid thing, that it wasn’t going to work. It’s still fun to roll the dice. Now had you told me if would have become like this kind of cult thing, that would have surprised me at the time.

BLADE: Obviously when you’re writing an awards show, you have to know the material that’s nominated. How do you have time to watch whole seasons of TV shows and all the Oscar nominees?

VILANCH: Well, it’s a lot easier than it used to be because they just send you screeners now and you can sit at home. It sure beats having to go to screenings, which were horrible experiences. No popcorn. But I go to the movies anyway. To get paid for it just tickles me to no end.

BLADE: Obviously most of us are not Hollywood insiders, so something I’m always curious to ask people who are is this: Does the cream always rise or have you seen true cases of highly talented people who just never got the right break? Sometimes it feels surprising to watch some of the stuff that does get a green light.

VILANCH: Have I seen people fall through the cracks, yes I have. There’s a feeling that there’s a kind of natural selection at work and it’s survival of the fittest. You kind of have to have the right combination too. It’s not always enough to just have the talent. You have to have the talent and the ambition and the kind of personality that allows you to hang in there long enough and have a thick hide so that you can get through life with all that rejection. So yes, there have been lots of people who didn’t have just that right combination. Maybe there were too dependent on something or they just didn’t have the oomph to push themselves through. With others, the talent seems to rise briefly because they get lucky but the ones who really last really do have unbelievable stamina and manage to break through all the other stuff. It sounds terribly dry, but it’s true.

BLADE: Where do you live?

VILANCH: In West Hollywood. I was up in the Hills for 28 years, but now I have a fabulous loft right on the boulevard. I stand out on my balcony like Eva Peron for the AIDS Walk and Pride and Halloween. And now I can stagger home.

BLADE: Do you hang out at gay bars in West Hollywood?

VILANCH: Yeah, some. Usually the reason you go out to a bar is to meet people who don’t answer your job description. But now there’s Grindr and that stuff, so you don’t have to go out as much.

BLADE: Some of the stuff they try for the Oscars seems a little head scratching at times. Like one year, they handed out some categories down in the aisles. Another year they had all the nominees come up on stage. Do you have any say in those kinds of decisions?

VILANCH: Um, no. Listen, at the time that kind of stuff is usually a response to some criticism that’s come up. Like that year, somebody had said, “Gee, how can we save some time here?” All those technical awards, the people are sitting in the back and it takes them so long to get to the stage. Somebody thought maybe having some of that done in the aisle would save some time. That was the perceived solution, but then everybody thought it made them seem like second-class citizens. There’s a little bit of reinventing the wheel every year but with a lot of it, there’s not a whole lot you can do. And the networks aren’t really upset with the long running time, because that just allows them to sell more ads so even when it’s absurdly long, they’re still pretty happy. I think one year they added like three or four honorary awards and that ended up adding like 45 minutes to the show and the network said, “OK, guys, this is a little ridiculous.” But one thing that’s worked is to hand some of those technical awards out at its own separate function, then just show highlights as a clip package and that saved a lot of time. The innovation I really liked the most was when Bill Condon had previous winners come out and salute the nominees individually. Then they said, “Oh it was too long,” so they only did it in two categories the next eyar and it didn’t have the same impact at all. I thought it was a fabulous innovation but the only problem was after awhile you would run out of previous winners. You only get one each year in each category.

BLADE: Well, you could just keep having Luise Rainer (age 103) come out every year to do it, God bless her. She’s been great about coming back for the milestones.

VILANCH: Yes, wasn’t that great? And one year Olivia de Havilland flew in from Paris, that was just great too.

BLADE: What’s one thing you miss about ‘70s-era Hollywood and one thing you don’t miss?

VILANCH: Well I guess I miss the drugs. It was the ‘70s so there was all this hedonism so you had that and the porno mustaches, which I love. But on the other hand, to be honest, I don’t miss the drugs. I really don’t miss everybody being loaded all the time and they really were. It was probably the first time there was really this relentless

VILANCH: Um, no. Listen, at the time that kind of stuff is usually a desire to be young and that really hasn’t gone away but it was hysterical then when I was young. People would be wearing these flowered shirts with love beads and just trying very hard to be hip when really they were all barracudas. They did make us laugh.

BLADE: For all of us gays who love Carol, but will never get to schmooze with her, please give her our regards.

VILANCH: (laughs) OK.

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Books

Laverne Cox, Liza Minnelli among authors with new books

A tome for every taste this reading season

Published

8 hours ago

March 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

Spring is a great time to think about vacations, spring break, lunch on the patio, or an afternoon in the park. You’ll want to bring one (or all!) of these great new books.

So let’s start here: What are you up for? How about a great new novel?

If you’re a mystery fan, you’ll want to make reservations to visit “Disaster Gay Detective Agency” by Lev AC Rosen (Poisoned Pen Press, June 2). It’s a whodunit featuring a group of gay roommates, one of whom is a swoony romantic. Add a mysterious man who disappears and a murder, of course, and you’ve got the novel you need for the beach.

Don’t discount young adult books, if you want something light to read this spring. “What Happened to Those Girls” by Carlyn Greenwald (Sourcebooks Fire, June 30) is a thriller about mean girls and a camping trip that goes terribly, bloodily wrong. Meant for teens ages 14 and up, young adult books are breezier and lighter fare for the busy grown-up reader.

If you loved “Boyfriend Material” and “Husband Material,” you’ll be eager for the next installment from author Alexis Hall. “Father Material” (Sourcebooks Casablanca, June 2) takes Luc and Oliver to the next step. First was dating. Then was marriage. Is it time for the sound of pitter-patter on the kitchen floor?

Maybe something even lighter? Then how about a book of essays – like “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” bycomedian and writer Eliot Glazer (Gallery Books, Aug. 11). It’s a book of essays on being gay today, the irritations, the joys, and fitting in. Be aware that these essays may contain a bit of spice – but isn’t that what you want for your reading pleasure anyhow, hmmm?

But okay, let’s say you want something with a little more heft to it. How about a biography?

Look for “Transcendant” by Laverne Cox (Gallery Books, June 9), or “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This” by Liza Minnelli (Grand Central Publishing, March 10), and “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell (Amistad, July 14). Keep your eyes open for “Without Prejudice: My Life as a Gay Judge” by Harvey Brownstone (ECW Press, May 26) or “The Double Dutch Fuss” by Phill Branch (Amistad, June 2).

Then again, maybe you want some history, or something different.

So here: look for “Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession” by Antonio Pagliarulo (Weiser, June 1) for a little bit of faith-based gay. Music lovers will want “Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000” by Barry Walters (Viking, May 12). Activists will want “In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America” byformer Idaho state Sen. Cole Nicole LeFavour (Beacon Press, May 26).

And if these books aren’t enough, then be sure to check with your favorite bookseller or librarian. They’ll have exactly what you’re in the mood to read. They’ll find what you need for that patio, beach towel, or easy chair.

Music & Concerts

Gaga, Cardi B, and more to grace D.C. stages this spring

Shake off your winter doldrums at a local concert

Published

8 hours ago

March 13, 2026

Evan Caplan

Lady Gaga plays Capital One Arena on March 23. (File photo courtesy of Might Real Agency)

D.C. shakes off its winter blues this spring as the music scene pops off. We all know the big star is coming: Lady Gaga will perform at Capital One Arena on March 23. But plenty of other stars, big and small, will grace D.C. stages, including many LGBTQ and ally artists.

March

3/15, 9:30 Club, St. Lucia – Indie electronic music project known for its synth-pop sound, which blends ‘80s influences with electronic and indie rock elements.

3/31, Lincoln Theatre, Perfume Genius – Indie/pop singer/songwriter Mike Hadreas, also known as Perfume Genius, has toured with a full band, but he is stripping things back for this tour.

April

4/8, Capital One, Cardi B. Cardi B, from New York, unapologetic and proud, is the first solo female artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. This year, she’s on her Little Miss Drama Tour, in support of her second studio album, “Am I the Drama?”

4/13, Lincoln Theatre, The Naked Magicians. Australia’s The Naked Magicians are two performers who deliver live magic and laughs while wearing nothing but a top hat and a smile.

4/18, Capital One, Florence and the Machine. Longstanding indie rock back from Great Britain, much-loved for lead singer Florence’s powerful vocals. On their Everybody Scream Tour.

4/16, Capital One, Demi Lovato. Singer/songwriter from Texas, who came out as nonbinary, is traveling on her “It’s Not That Deep Tour.”

4/21, The Anthem, Calum Scott. Platinum-selling gay singer/songwriter Calum Scott released his latest project, Avenoir, last year. Scott rose to fame in 2015 after competing on Britain’s Got Talent, where he performed a cover of Robyn’s hit “Dancing on My Own“.

4/26, Atlantis, Caroline Kingsbury. American queer pop musician from Los Angeles. She released her debut album in 2021, and has two additional EPs. She’s played Lollapalooza 2025 and All Things Go 2025, as well as gone on a co-headlining U.S. tour with MARIS. Shock Treatment is her latest EP.

4/26, Anthem, Raye. This bisexual artist, known for her current chart-topping “”Where Is My Husband!” single, blends pop, jazz, R&B, and more.

4/30, Union Stage, Daya. This bisexual singer/songwriter is on her “Til Every Petal Drops Tour,” touring the album of the same name that was released last year.

May

5/1, The Anthem, Joost Klein. Eurovision comes to D.C. in Joost Klein: Originally a Youtuber, he was selected to represent the Netherlands at Eurovision in 2024 with his song “Europapa.” He released a new album on New Year’s Day.

5/1, Fillmore, MIKA. MIKA is on his Spinning Out Tour. Born in Beirut and raised in both Paris and London, MIKA sings in multiple languages and has co-hosted Eurovision.

5/7, 9:30 Club, COBRAH. Clara Christensen, is a Swedish singer, songwriter, record producer, and club queen, making electronic dance music.

5/19, Atlantis, Grace Ives. New York-born singer/songwriter, known for her high-energy synth/electronic, bedroom-pop-style music.

June

6/2, The Anthem, James Blake. English crooner got big from his self-titled debut album in 2011. He won two Grammys and just released his 7th album,Trying Times, in March.

Television

Spring’s best in queer TV and film

Miranda Priestly the highlight of a slow season

Published

1 day ago

March 12, 2026

John Paul King

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Stanley Tucci return in ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ opening on May 1. (Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios)

It’s surely a sign of the times that this year’s spring preview of upcoming screen entertainment doesn’t hold nearly as much boldly out-and-proud queer content as we would like – but then again, there are only a small handful of noteworthy titles overall – especially on the big screen, where, just like any year, the top-grade content is being saved for summer.

Even so, we’ve managed to put together a list of the movies and shows on the horizon that offer a much-needed taste of the rainbow; a mix that includes returning favorites, “don’t-miss” events, and a few promising big screen crowd-pleasers, it should keep you occupied until the summer season brings a fresh new crop of (hopeful) blockbusters with it.

Scarpetta (Prime Video, March 11). Proving once again that she’s on a quest to accumulate more screen appearances than any other actor in history, Nicole Kidman returns for another star turn by way of this true-crime-ish mystery series, adapted from the bestselling “Kay Scarpetta” novels by lesbian author Patrica Cornwell, as a “brilliant and beautiful” forensic pathologist who uses her knowledge to solve murders. If that’s not enough to draw you in, her co-stars include fellow Oscar-winners Jamie Lee Curtis (as her feisty older sister) and Ariana DuBose (as her nosy lesbian niece), as well as Bobby Cannavale and Simon Baker.

It’s Dorothy! (Peacock, March 13). Filmmaker Jeffrey McHale first won our attention with his fun and insightful “Showgirls” documentary, and now he’s back with a look at perhaps the ultimate queer icon in popular culture: none other than Dorothy Gale, that Kansas farm girl who taught us all that “there’s no place like home” in L. Frank Baum’s classic novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and its sequels – and of course, in a certain movie adaptation starring Judy Garland. Charting the journey of the fictional heroine across a century of cultural reiterations – on the page, the stage, the screen, and beyond – with a mix of archival material, artistic interpretations, and commentary from queer and queer-friendly voices such as John Waters, Rufus Wainwright, and Lena Waithe, it’s sure to be required viewing for every “Friend of Dorothy” – and all of their friends, too.

The 37th Annual GLAAD Media Awards (Hulu, March 21). Sure, it’s already happened and you already knew (or can find out with a few quick taps of your phone screen) who and what the winners were – but, hey, we already know that the Oscars aren’t going to offer much in the way of queer victories (since there are only a small handful of queer nominees), so why not plan to watch the GLAAD ceremony (recorded live on March 5 for later streaming)?

The Comeback: Season 3 (HBO Max, March 22). Another returning gem is this inventive “mockumentary” style sitcom-about-a-sitcom, starring Lisa Kudrow as a “B-list” television star trying to revive her own faltering career. Slow to catch on in its first season (which originally aired in 2005), it won acclaim (and new fans) when it was rebooted in 2014 by Kudrow and collaborator/co-creator Michael Patrick King (former executive producer of “Sex in the City,” and now returns after a 12-year hiatus for another installment, which tracks “never-was” has-been Valerie Cherish through yet another attempt to make stardom happen. If you like cynical, sharp-edged satire, especially when it’s aimed at the behind-the-scenes world of show-biz, then you’ve probably already discovered this one – but if you haven’t, now’s your chance to jump on board.

Heartbreak High: Season 3 (Netflix, March 25). Fans of this imported Australian teen “dramedy” series – itself the “soft reboot” of another popular Australian series from the ‘90s – will be thrilled for the arrival of its third and final installment, which picks up where it left off in the lives (and sex lives) of the students and teachers of a suburban high school. As always, it can be expected to push the envelope (and some buttons) with its irreverent treatment of issues of class, race, and sexuality – and to deliver another season’s worth of the colorful and striking costume designs that have been acclaimed as a highlight of the show. And yes, it includes a refreshingly significant number of variously queer characters, so if you’re not already on board with his hidden gem of a streamer, we suggest you should give it a shot – you can probably even catch up on the first two seasons before this one drops.

Pretty Lethal (Prime Video, March 25). Fresh from a March 13 debut at the SXSW Film and TV Festival, this girl-power fueled action thriller from director Vicky Jewson and writer Kate Freund centers on a troupe of ballerinas who, while en route to a prestigious ballet competition, are stranded by a bus breakdown and must take shelter at a remote roadside inn run by Uma Thurman as a ruthless crime boss. Needless to say, the girls are forced to adapt their dance prowess into combat skills before the night is over. With a cast that includes Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Avantika, Millicent Simonds, and Michael Culkin, our bet is that it’s sure to be campy fun with a feminist twist.

Forbidden Fruits (Theaters, March 27). Adapted from the play “Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die” by Lily Houghton (who co-wrote the screenplay with director Meredith Alloway), this comedy/horror film about a group of young witches who operate a “femme cult” out of the basement of a mall store called “Free Eden” looks like another campy treat, full of witchy wiles and bitchy rivalries, but something about its theatrical pedigree tells us it will also be more than that. Even if we’re wrong, though, we’ll be perfectly happy; why would anyone say no to a delicious piece of camp, especially when it has a cast led by Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, and Alexandra Shipp, with creator/influencer Emma Chamberlain in her film debut and heavyweight talent Gabrielle Union thrown in for good measure? We’re ready to join the coven.

Club Cumming (WOW Presents Plus, March 30). Queer icon Alan Cumming (currently riding high as host of “The Traitors”) takes us inside his NYC East Village gay bar, nightclub, and showplace for a behind-the-scenes reality series that spotlights the talent, fashion, and fabulously queer vibe that makes the establishment one of queer New York’s most iconic nightspots. Cabaret singer Daphne Always, go-go dancer and drag performer Michelle Wynters, Drag queen Brini Maxwell, Drag king Cunning Stunt, and Comedian Jake Cornell are among the many reasons why this little slice of the queer New York scene is reason enough alone to become a subscriber to World of Wonder’s streaming platform – though if you’re a “Drag Race” superfan, chances are good you already are.

The Boys: Season 5 (Prime Video, April 8). Amazon’s violent superhero satire, complete with its divisive and deliciously challenging emphasis on queer storylines and its in-your-face caricature of contemporary American “culture war” politics, returns for its fifth and final season, along with all the thorny issues of racism, nationalism, and xenophobia it has showcased all along, and an ensemble cast that includes Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, and the rest of the usual players. A decidedly queer-informed game-changer in the mainstream fan culture, it’s a show that will be sorely missed – but with several spin-offs already in existence (including the even-queerer “Gen V”) and another (“Vought Rising”) on the way, we can take comfort in knowing that its influence will live on.

Euphoria: Season 3 (HBO Max, April 12). The controversial Sam Levinson-created drama that is HBO’s fourth most-watched series of all time is back after a lengthy hiatus, rejoining the lives of its dysfunctional characters – queer struggling addict Rue (Zendaya), trans teen Jules (Hunter Schafer), abusive sexually insecure football star Nate (Jacob Elordi), and the rest – a full five years later, away from the social traumas of high school and settled into what we can only assume is an equally-dysfunctional life as young adults. Renowned for its cinematic visual styling and its no-holds-barred treatment of “triggering” subject matter, this long-awaited return is likely to be at or near the top of a lot of watchlists – and ours is no exception.

Mother Mary (Theaters, April 17). One of the most promising (and queerest) offerings of the season is this psychological thriller set in the world of pop music, helmed by acclaimed filmmaker David Lowery (“A Ghost Story,” “The Green Knight”) and starring Anne Hathaway (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “Les Misérables”) as a pop singer who becomes entwined in a twisted affair with fashion designer Michaela Cole (“I May Destroy You,” “Black Earth Rising”). Besides its two queer-fan-fave stars, it features trans actress Hunter Schafer (“Euphoria”), FKA Twigs, and Jessica Brown Findlay (“Downton Abbey”) in supporting roles, and to top it all off, it includes a soundtrack full of original songs. With a celebrated director behind it and an award-winning pair of leading ladies, this one has all the potential of a future classic.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (Theaters, May 1). Meryl Streep is back as Miranda Priestley, need we say more? We know the answer to that is “no,” but we still need to remind you that Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are all part of the deal, too, as this hotly anticipated sequel hits the screen just ahead of the summer rush. Along for the ride are Kenneth Branagh, Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, B.J. Novak, Conrad Ricamora, Sydney Sweeney, Rachel Bloom, Donatella Versace, and Lady Gaga herself. We trust that will be sufficient to ensure that you will show up on opening day – dressed accordingly, of course.

The Sheep Detectives (Theaters, May 8) Rounding out our roundup with a fun-for-the-family treat that blends live action with animation for an inter-species “whodunnit” with an all-star array of talent, this adaptation of Leonie Swann’s 2005 novel “Three Bags Full” centers on a flock of sheep as they attempt to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd. Boasting onscreen performances from Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, and Molly Gordon, along with character voices provided by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, and Rhys Darby, this one might be just the kind of lightweight entertainment we all need as we move deeper into the confounding year of 2026.

And if not, stay hopeful – the films and shows of summer will be here soon enough.