Rico (Edward G. Robinson) and Otero (George E. Stone) are queer-coded gangsters in Mervyn LeRoy’s 1931 pre-code Hollywood film adaptation of W.R. Burnett’s 1929 novel “Little Caesar.”

Historian Shane Brown’s 2020 documentary “A Queer Romance: Gay Characters and Male Bonding in Early Film (silent film and pre-code),” based on his book “Queer Sexualities in Early Film: Cinema and Male-Male Intimacy.”

Antonio Fargas is the gay best friend in Paul Mazursky’s semi-autobiographical 1976 film NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE.

MUCHACHAS DE UNIFORME is the 1951 Mexican adaptation of the 1931 German film MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM; the film is thought to be the first Mexican feature to prominently include lesbianism as its main theme.

The 1932 pre-code Hollywood film CALL HER SAVAGE was one of the earliest mainstream American films to feature a glimpse inside what is likely a gay bar.

Rex O'Malley plays the queer-coded gay best friend in queer director Mitchell Leisen’s 1939 screwball comedy MIDNIGHT.

Prince Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) and his guard (Elmo Lincoln) share in one of Hollywood’s earliest onscreen same-sex kisses in D.W. Griffith’s 1916 silent epic INTOLERANCE: LOVE’S STRUGGLE THROUGH THE AGES

Clifton Webb is the queer-coded wealthy “bachelor” Elliott Templeton in Edmund Goulding’s 1946 adaptation of queer author W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel “The Razor’s Edge.”

Glenn Tryon swoons over Stan Laurel, and blows him a kiss, in the 1923 silent comedy THE SOILERS.

Candice Bergen, in her screen debut, plays a lesbian named Lakey in Sidney Lumet’s 1966 adaptation of Mary McCarthy’s 1963 bestselling novel “The Group.”

Ferdinand the Bull is a classic queer-coded character from Disney’s early days, featured in the 1938 animated short of the same name and based on Munro Leaf’s 1936 children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand.”