Swept Away by You, Me, and Tuscany
A Black woman centered in a box office rom-com with a happy ending and no struggle love.

Vivi is a young writer who is forced to find a roommate to pay the mortgage on her apartment. What she does not suspect is that Roy, the supposed perfect partner she found, has a peculiar lifestyle: he never pays rent.
A Black woman centered in a box office rom-com with a happy ending and no struggle love.
Although the budget was a dollar and a dream, Netflix's 'First Kill' managed to gain over 90 million viewing hours and a small cult following. So why was it canceled? Given the trends in series cancellations, it may have been because of the Black and queer protagonists.
“I’m always interested in exploring female fantasy, and the sexy witch is a loaded archetype that is simultaneously about men’s fears and fantasies about women, and women’s feelings of empowerment and agency. So whereas we are used to seeing the sexy witch or the femme fatale from the outside, I wanted to explore her from the inside.” - Anna Biller, on why she made The Love Witch
The “gay best friend”, an age-old trope, has been done in countless films and television series. Ranging from one-note (Sex and the City's Stanford and Mario) to nuanced (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Tituss), the gay best friend exists to support and advise the main protagonist, with their conflicts swept to the side.
This inspiring true story falls nothing short of filling the audience with a passion to strive for their wildest dreams.
Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion is a fan-favorite, as are some of the more science fiction angled movies like 28 Days Later or World War Z. I recently watched the 1995 Wolfgang Peterson-directed movie, Outbreak for the first time, which is currently available on Netflix.