Movie - The gays had limited success at this years Academy Awards. Colin Firth had to settle with a Bafta (as if that's settling!) for "A SIngle Man" after Best Actor went to Jeff Bridges. Gay director Lee Daniels may not have won Best Picture for "Precious", but it did receive the Best Adapted Screenplay. So with the Noughties over, it seems like a good time to reflect on the big gay films of the past decade.

The decade began with a nomination for foreign language film "Before Night Falls". Javier Bardem starred as gay Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, years before he would receive an award for "No Country For Old Men". "Wonder Boys" had a couple of nominations, including screenwriting, and brought us Robert Downey Jr homoing it up with Tobey Maguire in a quirky adventure about a literature professor.

'02 was a silent year for mainstream queer cinema, but '03 was a classic season, particularly for Julianne Moore who starred in both "The Hours" and "Far From Heaven". The former scooped most of the awards for a twisting story of Virginia Woolf (don't mention the nose), her creation Mrs Dalloway and a modern woman Reading said novel. But for my money it was gay director Todd Haynes who created something timeless with his lush vision of 1950s repression. Julianne Moore has since cemented her respectable position within gay cinema, by featuring in this year's "A Single Man" and the newly Teddy award winning "The Kids Are Alright".

'04 saw the resurgence of the Killer Queen genre, earning Charlize Theron an Oscar for her portrayal of real life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in "Monster". "Kinsey" followed the next year - a film that, in my opinion, was as confused as its eponymous character was sexually ambiguous. But Hollywood loves a tragic biopic as we will continue to see.

'06 was surely the golden year of queer cinema, with Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" leading the charge. It was controversially beaten to Best Picture by "Crash", by gay director Paul Haggis. Another round of sub-par biopic came from "Capote", mostly because Philip Seymour Hoffman was due an award of some kind - you know how it works. For my money "Transamerica" was the most interesting of the queer offerings, with Felicity Huffman playing a trans parent trying to reconnect with her estranged gay son.

After a gay cinema overload, the next couple of years were fairly quiet, with only Judi Dench receiving a Best Actress nomination for her crazy lesbian in "Notes on a Scandal".

The biopic returned last year as "Milk" gave Sean Penn another Oscar. I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as "The life and times of Harvey Milk" which received the Best Documentary in 1985, and is much more likely to stand the test of time (with apologies to James Franco who is brilliant).

Really - what is it about a playing a "real" person that the Academy seems to think is so much more worthy than bringing any other character to life? Bored of it!

So what can we say about the decade in mainstream gay cinema? Biopics. Psychos. Repression. Tragedy and death. It certainly says something about the way we perceive our rise from persecution in the 20th century. It is only "Transamerica" which bucked the trend, and I feel, foreshadowed what will hopefully be a more prospective decade.

In the past couple of years I have noticed an emergence of family comedy drama in the queer film festivals. With ever increasing equality, modern gay families - marriage, adoption, and lgbt people invading suburbia, our concerns are much more the subject of positive portrayal and integration. Rather than being seen from the point of view of "Victim" these are the sort of films you could watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon on terrestrial tv with grandma (nearly). Let's hope the powers-that-be-that-give-awards realise the impact they could have by popularising said utopic visions, rather than honouring minorities for remaining so.