10 Sapphic Shows to Binge When You Need a Good Cry

Sometimes you just need a show that gets it. Not a show where the queer girl dies in episode four, or where the sapphic storyline is a three-episode detour before she ends up with the male lead. A real show. We made you a list.

For the Sporty Emotional Wreck: A League of Their Own (2022)

The Prime Video reboot of the 1992 classic isn’t just good. It’s generationally important. The show follows the Rockford Peaches through the 1940s women’s baseball league, and it does something rare: it centers queer joy alongside queer grief. Abbi Jacobson’s Carson and D’Arcy Carden’s Greta have chemistry that makes you want to throw your phone across the room (in a good way). The show was cancelled after one season and people are still mad about it, rightfully. Watch it anyway. It’s worth it.

For the Thriller Brain: Killing Eve (Seasons 1 and 2)

Villanelle and Eve Polastri are one of the most chaotic, electric, impossible-to-look-away-from pairings in television history. Killing Eve is a spy thriller about an MI5 agent obsessed with the assassin hunting her, and vice versa. The first two seasons, written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, are near-perfect television. Watch those. Pretend the show ends at season two. Trust the process.

For the Aspiring Career Girl: The Bold Type (Seasons 1-3)

Kat Edison is a main character if there ever was one. The Bold Type follows three young women at a fashion magazine in New York, and Kat’s storyline exploring her sexuality through her relationship with artist Adena is genuinely sweet and thoughtfully done. The show is warm and optimistic and a little escapist, which is sometimes exactly what you need.

For the Tender Heart: Heartstopper

Yes, it’s technically about two boys, but the whole show is so thoroughly queer and so thoroughly gentle that it belongs on this list. Tara and Darcy’s sapphic subplot is the girls are giving from the jump. It’s a show about being young and figuring yourself out, told with a kindness that doesn’t feel naive. All three seasons are on Netflix. Bring tissues.

For the Gothic Soul: Gentleman Jack

Based on the real diaries of Anne Lister, a 19th-century landowner in Yorkshire who never hid that she loved women. Suranne Jones plays Lister with an intensity that is deeply unwell in the best possible way. It’s a period drama, so it’s slow, but every scene earns its runtime. A show about a woman who refused to be small. No notes.

For the Chaos Enjoyer: The L Word: Generation Q

The original L Word was messy and important and iconic. Generation Q is the reboot that actually tried to fix some of the original’s problems. It’s still messy, which is part of the appeal. New characters Dani, Sophie, and Micah bring the show into the present while Bette Porter continues to be the most compelling disaster in television history. It’s comfort food. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Put on whichever one fits your current emotional state. They’re all worth your time, and none of them are going to make you feel like an afterthought.