Renting gay movies online

January 28, 2017 · By Sebastien Terrean

Not long ago the best place to rent gay movies was at your local gay neighborhood video store, but now in the present we’ve free to rent almost any film we wish at the touch of a button from several places. But who is the best?

There are three large options to choose from: iTunes, Amazon and Google Play, and it probably comes down to which devices you own. Whether you have a Roku, Google Cast or Apple TV, or your streaming from your laptop/tablet, you’ve probably picked your store based on your device.

I’m a fan of the Apple TV (I have had every major version including the original) for a number of good reasons; the on screen interface on the Apple TV is far better than most smart tv or on demand consoles, integration with my iTunes account is simple and seamless, plus I’ve been an Apple customer since before it was cool (okay, that’s less a good reason and more a fanboy one).

Another good device is the Google Cast, and of course if you’re subscribed to Amazon Prime Video then you’ll be wanting to have a FireTV stick (Amazon refuses to sell Google Cast and Apple TV devices because it competes with Amazon’s own video service).

You may also, as I do a lot now, watch movies and television shows right on your iPad (or MacBook). I usually pop on a film or show when I’m working at home… the iPad is my second screen. Of course Netflix is one of my main sources for tv and movies, and Netflix has a good selection of gay movies to stream.

Amazon

Over on Amazon you can rent or buy from hundreds of gay films in every genre and grouped into channels including the HereTV channel which produced a lot of their own content a decade ago. In addition to subscribing to Netflix, I have an Amazon Prime Video account, however I’ve not rented any films through Amazon that aren’t already on iTunes. There’s also no easy to find hub of gay films on Amazon, but we’ve found a way to link to all the gay videos on amazon.com.

Google Play

Google Play has a wide selection of LGBT movies nicely grouped and organized on the Play store. You’re likely going to find the exact same catalog of gay films on Google Play as you will on iTunes and for the same price, so again it really comes to what store your devices support. Despite owning an Android phone at one time, I found getting my payment details into Google never worked so the only films I have in my account are freebies.

iTunes

Apple has been in the movie rental business for over a decade beginning back when you could watch tv shows and films on the tiny iPod Video screen (and before the arrival of the iPhone & iPad). They also have a great selection of LGBTQ films covering all the genres. Each pride season Apple updates their LGBTQ section but it often disappears when pride is over (not that it’s ever truly over!), or the list is not a complete picture of every gay film available on iTunes. This is why we’ve been tracking our own list of gay films on iTunes and grouping them into genre sections for drama, comedy, foreign and even the tiny collection of gay horror films.

We’re building our own database of gay films and linking them to each of these three main stores. We already maintain our extensive list of gay movies available on iTunes which we just updated and improved with better results tied directly to our database. Sadly with most online video stores, some movies are often no longer available for rent.

All this is great if a video has been made available for rent, unfortunately there are many classic films, especially from the 90s, that haven’t been released online, including many Gregg Araki classic films like Nowhere and Doom Generation.

One final note on some of the other video rental players in the game. YouTube has attempted to remake themselves into a video renting service with mixed results. They also compete with Google Play, which is part of the same company. (HereTV dipped its toe into renting gay movies on YouTube for international customers, but a lot of content is blocked).