2026 OUTFESTNEXT

After beginning a new chapter last year, OutfestNext returns with a summer film festival that celebrates LGBTQ+ experiences through cinema. For four days, July 23 to July 26, the fest will offer independent queer feature films, shorts, documentaries and engaging conversations. The screenings will be held at the LGBT Center Renberg Theater and Micro Cinema in Los Angeles.

Some of the films that will be featured include "I Want Your Sex", the first feature film in over a decade from filmmaker, Gregg Araki, one of the pioneers of the New Queer Cinema movement. This erotic comedy stars Olivia Wilde as an art-world provocateur and Cooper Hoffman as her new young assistant that she turns into her sexual plaything. Charli XCX, Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville also star. "Test" from director, Sam McConnell follows an amateur bodybuilder (Brock Yurich who also wrote the screenplay) in working-class Ohio who is working hard to achieve his dream of becoming a champion. But to afford his daily regime of meds required to bulk up, he discretely performs on the web for men. William Friedkin’s 1980 film "Cruising" was the controversial mainstream movie to depict gay life which involved a cop going undercover to solve a murder. The documentary from Jeffrey Schwarz, "Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders" examines the real-life killings that inspired the main narrative of "Cruising" while also exploring the legacy of this film today. This year's winner of the Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival from director, Brydie O'Connor, "Barbara Forever" looks at the life and work of the late, pioneering lesbian filmmaker, Barbara Hammer. "Maspalomas", from Spanish directors, Aitor Arregi and Jose Mari Goenaga, tells the story of an elderly man (José Ramón Sorois) who came out late in life and is now making up for lost time in the gay paradise of Maspalomas in the Canary Islands. But a stroke changes his life with his daughter moving him against his wishes into a conservative nursing home. And "Dreamboi", an erotically charged horror film set in the Philippines from director, Rodina Singh that was recently banned by that country's motion picture review board.









For the complete list of films and to purchase tickets, please click below:

OutfestNext 2026