Gay star Clifton Webb plays the queer-coded villain Waldo Lydecker in the 1944 film-noir classic LAURA.

Katharine Hepburn finds herself in some queer situations while disguised as a young man in gay director George Cukor’s 1935 film SYLVIA SCARLETT.

The 1931 pre-code Hollywood film PALMY DAYS features a “Pansy” buying a cake, drag, and two queer-coded leads

Agnes Moorehead and Lenita Lane are “roommates” in the 1959 thriller THE BAT.

The pre-code film THE BROADWAY MELODY of 1929 features a gay costume designer named Turpe (Drew Demorest).

Claude Rains and Gloria Stuart star in iconic gay director James Whale’s 1933 pre-code Hollywood horror film THE INVISIBLE MAN.

The 1935 Hollywood Hays Code-era Astaire & Rogers musical TOP HAT features three queer-coded side characters.

The 1933 pre-code adaptation of Eugene O'Neill’s 1920 play “The Emperor Jones” features a queer-coded character named Marcella, played by queer actor/comedian Jackie “Moms” Mabley.

The 1939 British romantic comedy OVER THE MOON features two gay characters.

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1922 silent drama MANSLAUGHTER briefly features what is credited to be the first erotically charged lesbian kiss in an American feature film.

The 1935 British drag comedy FIRST A GIRL, Victor Saville’s adaptation of VIKTOR UND VIKTORIA (1933).

Lauren Bacall is Amy, a queer-coded heiress, in the 1950 Michael Curtiz film YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, based on Dorothy Baker’s popular 1938 novel of the same name.

The French film UN CHIEN QUI RAPPORTE (1932) features a coded lesbian character in the Countess of Noyant, played by Laure Diana.

The 1950 women-in-prison flick CAGED! was based on notes and observations made by writer Virginia Kellogg who spent time undercover in the US prison system.

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.”