Annecy Review: Gay is more than okay in hilarious Jim Queen

I don't think there's a better movie to watch in June 2026 than Jim Queen, the raucous uber-gay comedy now playing in French theaters and is also showing at this year's Annecy, following its Cannes premiere. It's Pride Month in much of the world, and I've never seen a gayer animated feature than this one. And with its digs at soccer fandom, it's also a perfect movie to watch while most of the world tunes in to the World Cup. Truly, this movie couldn't arrive with better timing.

Directors Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athané, along with their co-writers, alongside Simon Balteaux and Brice Chevillard, have concocted a giddily queer adventure with Jim Queen. While people beg Disney and other major studios to drop a few queer crumbs into their animated tentpoles, here is a movie that is wall-to-wall capital-G Gay. It mines every corner of gay life for comedy, constructing a rainbow-hued world that is full of in-jokes and references that will make queerios feel extremely seen. Straight audience members will find plenty to laugh at and enjoy too, though a few of the jokes might not land quite the same for them, or pass them right by. 

It's nice to see a queer movie that doesn't ever feel like it's catering to a straight audience, though Jim Queen kind of manages to have its cake and eat it too, on that front. One of the film's protagonists, the sheltered twink Lucien, is taking his first steps into the gay world, so he gets a sort of primer from a kindly (and obviously fabulous) drag queen on the structure of the community: the bears, the pups, the gym queens (natch), and the twinks. It's like when you watch a YA adaptation, and the main character gets the lay of the land explained to them. That's just about all the help the heteros are going to get here, so hopefully they have a gay friend to help explain the rest.

Lucien, the son of the extremely homophobic health minister, has to keep his homosexuality tightly under wraps, though his mother pretty clearly knows what the deal is. In his closet, Lucien has a Pride parade's worth of paraphernalia squirreled away, a treasure trove akin to Ariel's of trinkets from a world he longs to be a part of. Indeed, he even sings a song that plays on "Part of Your World," where the thing-a-ma-bobs are fleshlights. When I tell you I cackled.

Lucien's main object of lust is the supremely popular beefcake influence Jim Perfect (or Jim Parfait, in the original French), whose book encourages everyone to be themselves, since everyone else is already taken. Jim spends his days at the gym and nights at the club, his dozens of abs a source of much lust and jealousy from everyone around him. The thing is: Jim is a total asshole, completely full of himself and uncaring about anyone else's feelings. The world is, to him, just an audience to boost his ego (and his follower count).

But when a new disease starts spreading through the community that turns gays straight, Jim is one of the early patients. The symptoms are dire: a loss of interest in maintaining a fit physique, an obsession with monogamy and having children, and -- most upsettingly -- a love for soccer. Jim is disturbed when he realizes he understands what "off side" means. I would be, too -- I have no clue what that refers to.

After some fumbles and foibles, Jim learns that his only hope for finding a cure lies in, of all things, Lucien. The bougie twink who has never stepped foot in a gay club is the key to finding a cure, so the two team up and journey through the gay world on a quest to save homosexuality itself.

The film's structure, once it gets going, is very video-game fetch-quest-y: they meet one character, who tells them to find another character, and so on and so forth. That linearity serves the film well, because it allows the characters to be dropped into different sub-communities and situations that are well-mined for material. It's eye-opening for Lucien, obviously, as he learns more about the world he's only dreamed of dipping his toe into. But it also gives Jim new perspective, starting to appreciate the people who are different from him, and the part they play in making the gay community so vibrant, weird, and fun. 

Without delving into too much detail (because that would ruin the fun), Jim and Lucien encounter drag queens, the world of cruising, the leather community (complete with pups), a bear bar, and a PnP party (that's one the straights will definitely need explained to them). In every instance, the movie doesn't just go straight-on and deliver what you might expect. There's always a clever twist or a humorous slant to the goings-on, whether it's the bears being literal bears, or the way asses continuously pop through the hedges at the cruising site. There are so many fantastic jokes and funny beats throughout this movie, keeping things upbeat and silly while also managing to be a sweet ode to our community. I laughed the whole way through.

I watch more than a hundred new release/festival premiere animated movies every year, and yet I see so few queer animated movies. Maybe because a lot of animation is geared toward a younger audience (and people still fear letting kids know that gay people exist?), or because queer movies are still seen as commercially niche (and animation can be expensive as is). I don't know. But it makes me so glad when I get to see an animated release that is so full-throated in its queerness, especially when it's doing it at this level. Jim Queen is one of the year's funniest movies, and one of its gayest. It's queer joy in jubilantly animated form.