Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

2021 was the year the world was still knee deep in covid, and it felt like the right moment to circle back to another pandemic that's honestly still just as relevant today as it was forty years back. This documentary walks us through four decades of HIV and AIDS, hearing directly from survivors about what it's actually like living with HIV and how stigma around it looks today, pulling in perspectives from different communities, organizations, and people across race, gender, and sexual orientation. Over the last forty years, seventy five million people have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, and in America alone nearly three quarters of a million of those people have died. With numbers like that, the film tries to give the whole thing some real context. Jonathan van Ness from Queer Eye narrates, and the film does a solid job reminding people that while this disease is still very much active, millions of people are also living with it and thriving despite the diagnosis. It kicks of...

We don't get a ton of BL content coming out of Cambodia, and honestly, if this is the kind of thing we'd be getting more of, I'm perfectly fine skipping it. I know that sounds harsh. But the whole concept of ordinary people in ordinary settings stumbling into love only really works if there's something genuinely compelling behind it. Both the leads and their romance here are so flat and generic that nothing about it is going to grab anyone who's watched a decent amount of BL or gay content before. At least it's only five episodes, each running twenty to twenty five minutes, so thankfully they don't drag it out longer than it needs to be. The setup involves a group of students who get assigned a project by their professor, meant to teach them about how rice gets grown and processed, and to help them appreciate what makes Cambodian rice special in the first place. While out in the field they run into Sal, a resort manager who offers to show them around, mainly...

This one falls into steamy gay romance territory, but it's really more about how a messy, possibly toxic relationship can end up dragging someone into a full blown spiral. It's set in Glória, which seems to be the gay neighborhood with its own local bar and known cruising spots where sex workers operate, and for the most part the film handles this world well, though there's a bunch of loose threads left hanging that make you question if some of it was even necessary. The story centers on Gabriel, a young literature teacher who's just relocated to Rio after losing his grandmother. He walks into a gay bar and meets Monica, the charismatic trans owner, along with her circle of escort friends who welcome him in right away. But his attention locks onto Adriano, this magnetic guy dancing across the floor. The two of them have this electric, undeniable chemistry, and what follows is an intense, messy, all consuming affair. Adriano works as an escort, and he shows Gabriel aroun...

I was a huge fan of season one, that sharp, satirical humor really worked for me and I rated it pretty high, so I went into this season with high hopes. Unfortunately it let me down hard. Not only did the jokes just not land for me this time, I actually found myself checking out and bored during nearly every episode. Honestly I'm not shocked the show got cancelled after this season. Same as before, it's ten episodes, each about twenty minutes long. Same cast is back, but everything felt off somehow. Alvarez's character Mr Evans shifts from being this loveable mess who deals with life through neurotic charm into more of a grown man trying desperately to fit into some kind of Bro Code Brotherhood of America thing. We've still got Malcolm as the boyfriend, Gwen as his high energy best friend, Markie the gym teacher, plus the principal and Rick. Evan and Malcolm are officially a couple now, but things are rocky between them. Markie's still saying offensive stuff with go...

This rom com had real potential but just doesn't cash in on it. The idea on paper sounds fun and had the makings of a genuinely funny film, but it just never gets there. It settles for doing just enough to keep you watching without ever really going for anything bold or memorable. Even the central romance ends up feeling pretty flat. Harry's a chef living in London who gets left at the altar on his own wedding day. Devastated, his best friend Yaiza, who's originally from the Canary Islands, whisks him away there for a getaway. Once they land, Yaiza discovers her friends have committed to hosting a wedding event that could really boost their business, except they don't have anyone lined up to cook for it. Harry offers to step in as the chef, figuring it'll help distract him from thinking about his ex. One night he gets pretty drunk and nearly drowns in the ocean, only to get rescued by this incredibly good looking stranger. The two of them kiss right there, and then ...

True to its title, this show tries to capture burnout not as some big dramatic collapse but as this slow, draining exhaustion that quietly eats away at relationships and how you see yourself, and honestly it makes the characters feel really real. The pace is slow on purpose, and everyone here is flawed and full of contradictions, nobody's simple. It uses this messed up boss and employee dynamic to sneak in some pretty smart commentary on society. The story digs into toxic work culture, mental health struggles, and how money ends up running our lives whether we like it or not. And yeah, there's a love triangle thrown in too, because of course there is. This one runs ten episodes, each around 45-55 minutes. Jira's twenty eight, broke, and struggling to make it as a painter. Nothing's going right for him, his art isn't selling, he's got no steady job, and he's basically on the edge of falling apart. His best friend Ing does what she can, finding him odd jobs an...

Merman BL shows seem to be having a moment, this is actually the third one I've come across that centers on that whole merman fantasy vibe. The setup here actually starts off kind of intriguing, but it doesn't take long before the show just leans into the cheapest stuff it can, mostly shock value and skin. There's a ton of moments in this that made me cringe hard. But honestly, once you see it's from Oxin Films, the same studio behind Hermoso which I'd also watched, you kind of already know what you're signing up for. Every single episode has some random sex scene crammed in, and they even flash a little message telling you to subscribe for VIP access if you want the uncensored version. Gross, honestly. This one runs ten episodes, each sitting around fifty to sixty minutes long. The first ten minutes lay out the basic setup. Kai's a merman who's basically being held captive by this tacky witch named Ursula, and because of her hold on him, he can't le...

This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...

I walked into this series expecting basically nothing, and honestly that turned out to be the right call. Because this thing genuinely fell short, plain and simple. The actual plot here is razor thin, honestly the kind of story you could tell in a short piece, not stretch into a full series. But the people behind it decided to pad it out into eight episodes running about twenty four minutes apiece. And the frustrating part is the story clearly wraps up by episode six, with seven and eight feeling like they just got tacked on for no real reason. There's three central characters carrying this thing. You've got a music producer whose career's kind of stalled out, and a hugely talented young singer who's painfully shy and scared of people, so much so that he only performs live online while wearing a mask. Once the singer lands a job at the company, the producer's floored to realize this is the same masked singer he's been trying to track down for years, the one behi...

This one's huge for fans, we've all loved the three seasons of Heartstopper on Netflix. I was excited but also a bit nervous, wondering how they'd fit everyone into just two hours. The show was mostly about Nick and Charlie figuring out when to say I love you or whether to have sex. This movie's different, it's more about whether teen relationships can actually last into adulthood. That question matters even more since it's Nick's last year of school and uni is coming up fast. Let me walk you through what happens first, then I'll give my honest take. It's Nick's final year of high school and a lot's changed. He's figuring out which university to pick and ends up choosing Leeds, about three or four hours away. Charlie's not the shy kid anymore either, he's running for Head Boy and trying to start a club for queer students. He's still working through his eating disorder and urges to self harm, but being honest about his feelings...

This Thai BL leans hard into the reincarnation trope, and it's got all the usual suspects, a scheming female villain, a love story that crosses lifetimes, the same sprawling mansion I swear I've seen in like ten other shows by now, and honestly as a viewer you can pretty much predict where it's headed. That said, I'll give credit where it's due, the execution is solid, the leads have real chemistry together, and there's enough mystery woven in to keep you watching. My issue is the plot just drags in way too many spots. With twelve episodes running over fifty minutes each, this is a real time investment. The story bounces between two timelines, looks like early 1900s and mid 1900s, with basically the entire cast from the past life getting reborn into similar roles and relationships in the present. In the current day we meet Kaewta, who's struggling financially and lives with his mom. Out of nowhere two men show up claiming he's a distant relative of Khun ...

Watching my first fully AI-generated vertical BL was a genuinely strange experience and I am still not sure how to feel about it. Short AI-generated clips are one thing, but sitting through something feature-length built entirely this way felt different in a way I cannot quite put into words. Whether I keep going down this road or quietly back away from it is a question I have not answered yet, my head and my gut are pulling in different directions on this one. What I can say is that for something made by an AI with presumably no limits on what story it could tell, the choice to lean on the exact same worn-out tropes this genre has been recycling forever is a real letdown. And on top of that, the whole thing carries a very obvious hangover from Heated Rivalry. Adam and James are hockey rivals who genuinely cannot stand each other, until a shared punishment somehow ends with them hooking up, which catches them both completely off guard. If that was not already a lot to process, they the...

This film drops us into communist Yugoslavia in the late 1950s, and it's this strange mix of gorgeous and gutting, following a circle of friends who all work in film and end up hunted down, humiliated and punished simply for being gay. It's a real gut punch of a movie about loyalty, bravery, and what it actually costs to hold your ground on what you believe. There are four friends at the center of this, Lovro, Nenad, and two others, and they'd all fought the Nazis together as partisans back in WWII. Fast forward sixteen years to the late fifties and they've become well known filmmakers. Because of their military service they've got backing from higher ups in government, which lets Lovro and Nenad work on set without anyone bothering them, and their relationship is out in the open, even their parents are fine with it. Trouble starts though when Lovro tries sneaking in a scene for their new film that basically implies a border guard and a soldier from the Yugoslav Peo...

Just like the first season, this follow up keeps that same calm, warm, genuine feeling going. Nothing here is high stakes or dramatic. The first series was all about getting this couple together, and now we get to watch them figure out who they are on their own and as partners who back each other up, and honestly watching love just keep deepening like that feels rare to see on screen. Their relationship comes across as genuinely sweet, built out of these small ordinary moments that feel pulled straight from real life. This season also runs ten episodes, each clocking in around twenty five minutes. Mamiya and Sahashi have moved in together at this point and things are going well for them as a couple. Mamiya's stepped up to Chief of his department at the store and he's thriving there. Toma, meanwhile, has gotten serious about his career and has his sights set on becoming the top makeup artist out there. A leading makeup artist spots something special in Toma's steady skill an...

Regional Indian cinema rarely ventures into gay love stories, so a Gujarati film taking that on already feels significant, and this one genuinely wants to say something meaningful about self-acceptance in a world that makes it so hard. The Narmada river villages it is shot across are visually stunning, and you can feel the care that went into capturing that world. Where things fall apart is in the telling. Scenes drag on without purpose, and a sharper edit that kept the camera focused on how these two men actually fall for each other would have done this story a lot more justice. Raaymal is a fisherman who pulls Ratan out of the water when he is drowning. Ratan is gentle and withdrawn, someone who has not had much of a chance to learn about life, and Raaymal takes it upon himself to change that, teaching him to cook, to row, to find his footing, and a genuine friendship grows between them. Ratan does not eat meat and Raaymal is devoted to his fish curry, which turns out to matter more ...

There is something rare about a film that genuinely transports you back in time, and this 2024 Cannes premiere does exactly that for the 1990s and the HIV/AIDS reality that gay and bisexual men were living through during those years. It plays less like a modern film looking back and more like something that could have actually been made in that era, a proper time capsule. When you think about it, gay-themed films set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis are surprisingly hard to come by, which makes this one feel even more necessary. The emotions it brings out, and the love and respect it carries for that period, are handled with real care, and the story at its centre is warm enough that pretty much anyone could find themselves connecting to it. The story opens in 1990, where young couple Sammy and Emma both end up kissing a stranger who offers them ecstasy at a party. That moment shakes something loose in Sammy and he tells Emma the truth about his bisexuality. She does not see it c...

Thai vertical BL content is flooding in from everywhere right now, and honestly the FOMO of it all is what keeps pulling people like me in even when we know better. This one is a perfect example of that trap. Bad story, basic acting, and every lazy trope that this format leans on when the only real goal is churning out content and hoping nobody notices. Ramin grew up with a loving family until his parents died and everything changed. He got taken in by a man named Chai, who had zero interest in actually raising him and instead used him as a political prop to build influence and public support. Years of being controlled, manipulated and abused in that household shaped who Ramin became. Then Napat walks into his life, the son of a mafia king, though nobody around him knows that. These two feel a pull toward each other and end up sleeping together twice, with Napat genuinely falling for this man without having any idea that Ramin is basically living under Chai's thumb. Neither of them...

Just Not Naked Enough (USA) On the morning of their shared birthday, Alex and David-married but quietly separated-reunite at the Los Angeles home they once shared. Their polite poolside conversation slowly reveals the fractures beneath their marriage: depression, sexual estrangement, professional imbalance, and unresolved betrayal. As the tension rises, a small but devastating detail emerges-a stranger's watch discovered beside their bed-forcing them to confront the truth about infidelity and the emotional distance that has grown between them. Over the course of a single morning, the couple must decide whether pride and resentment will finally pull them apart, or whether they are willing to become emotionally "naked enough" to fight for their relationship. IUS Del Tiempo (Spain) [IUS of Time] In a remote village in northern Spain, a young photography student arrives to reconnect with his roots and meets Xuan, an aging cheesemaker weighed down by long‑standing rumors about...