FROM A NEW film about Asian American culture in New York to documentaries about Madonna and George Michael, the 2005 crop of gay-themed films offers something for everyone.

Many movies are still making their debut at gay film festivals nationwide. But “classics” or art-house divisions of major motion picture studios are joining gay-friendly independent-distribution mainstays like Lions Gate Films, a trailblazer when it comes to films with gay content.

In Park City, Utah, (home of the Sundance Festival — the Cannes of indies) Ellen Huang, founder of Queer Lounge, a non-profit group that works to establish gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender spaces at film festivals around the world, credits these trends to a shift in the movie culture’s paradigm. “Gay themes are becoming more mainstream,” she says. “They’re becoming more blended in mainstream stories, and that’s why [the storylines] can apply to everybody.”

Sony Pictures Classics is scheduled to release “Saving Face,” a film that focuses on Wilhelmina Pang (played by Michelle Krusiec), a 28-year-old Asian American lesbian in medical school who lives in New York City. Wil falls in love with another Asian American lesbian, Vivian, and keeps everything on the down low because of her family.

“It’s a film about a lesbian who hasn’t come out to her mother,” Huang explains. “It’s also about the secrets that are kept in [Asian] cultures, because you later find out that the mother has a secret of her own.” Lesbian filmmaker Alice Wu directed “Saving Face,” which also stars Joan Chen, a former model who played Josie Packard on the television show “ Twin Peaks.” In “Saving Face,” Chen portrays Wil’s mother.

Andrew Horn’s “The Nomi Song,” tells the story of Klaus Nomi, an ‘80s New Wave entertainer whose style mixed opera with pop. Horn died of AIDS-related complications. “The Nomi Song” won the 2004 Berlin Film Festival Teddy Award for Best Documentary.

Another Sony Pictures Classics’ film, which also takes place in New York City, is Ismail Merchant’s “Heights.” This movie features an ensemble cast that includes Glenn Close and a cameo appearance by Rufus Wainwright. It is slated to be released in mid June.

“Heights” focuses on five people whose paths cross, including a bride-to-be photographer, her fiancé, and the photographer’s mother (Close).

Fans of Scott Heim’s book, “Mysterious Skin,” can look forward to a film based on the book due in theaters in late May. Directed by Gregg Araki, “Mysterious Skin” focuses on two young men who once played on the same Little League baseball team and are reunited. When they meet again, one is a teenage hustler and the other is obsessed with alien abduction and a broken memory. The thorny topic of pedophilia plays a role.

On the lighter side, “Happy Endings,” from Lions Gate Films, revolves around blackmail and other sordid dramas between gay and lesbian couples. Children and the lives of straight people also are explored in this film, which opens in late July.

A story in “Happy Endings” revolves around a gay couple, Charley (Steve Coogan) and Gil (David Sutcliffe), who are convinced that their lesbian friends, Pam (Sarah Clarke) and Diane (Laura Dern), used Gil’s sperm to conceive their son. The women tell them that alternative did not work. Don Roos, who directed the wonderfully perverse comedy “The Opposite of Sex” in 1998, is the director on “Happy Endings.”

Cineastes expect “ Cote D’ Azur” to be a sleeper. This independent film was the 2005 “Label Europa Cinemas” Berlinale winner. “Cote D’ Azur,” directed by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, the creators of “The Adventures of Felix,” in 2000, highlights a family’s summer vacation at a house on the Mediterranean. In the film, Charly is waiting for his friend Martin, who is in love with him, to arrive. The twist is: Charly is not gay. “ Cote D’ Azur” is scheduled to be screened in New York in late June.

For lesbian film fans, Focus Features’ “My Summer Love” opens in mid-June. Adding to the lives of two teenage girls in Yorkshire who fall for each other are complexities of an encounter one has with Phil, who is straight. The result is 83 minutes of romance. Pawel Pawlikowski directed this film.

Another Berlinale award winner this year was Duncan Tucker’s “Transamerica.” This road movie stars “Desperate Housewives” actor Felicity Huffman. The film (please pay close attention here) focuses on a conservative transsexual who discovers that when she was a male he conceived a child with a woman. The child is now a teenage runaway on the streets of New York. A release date and distributor have not been announced for “Transamerica,” but the film has generated a lot of buzz in gay film circles.

Gay photographer David LaChapelle’s new documentary, “Rize,” captures the art of “krumping,” a form of dance developed by young residents of South Central California. This film opens in select cities in early July.

Madonna is scheduled to release a full-length feature film this year. The currently untitled film is to be a follow-up to her 1990 documentary, “Truth or Dare.” It follows Esther, now a mother of two, during last year’s “Re-Invention Tour.”

Another documentary that should hold appeal for gay filmgoers is “George Michael: A Different Story.” This film, which recently was screened at Berlinale, could possibly hit gay film festivals this spring.

Other film releases scheduled later in 2005 that should hold appeal for gay audiences include the late Jonathan Larson’s “Rent,” which is due out on Nov. 11. Jodie Foster is expected on the big screen in September in a film titled “Flightpan.”

Ang Lee’s “ Brokeback Mountain,” an early 1960’s love story between a cowboy and a ranch hand that stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger is expected in select theaters some time this summer.

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