Movie Reviews -
Gay Themed

This final season keeps leaning on the same old formula, and once again never actually gives its main character any real sense of closure. Quick refresher, our lead is a university student who spends all his time frantically trying to dodge romance. No matter what he does though, the universe just keeps shoving him into one intimate situation after another. A lot of these setups are lifted straight from classic love story cliches. The whole point is watching him come up with creative ways to escape his fate and avoid falling for another guy. This season's still got six episodes, each around 23 minutes, and every episode features two of these tropey flags that could tip him into a BL storyline. Season three left off with Mob possibly caught in a love triangle between his ex Kikuchi and Hatano, the younger guy who's still a minor. Turns out that was all a dream sequence, but what hasn't changed is that Hatano is still into him. The first four episodes basically run through ev...

After a couple of years off, the creators finally dropped a third season of this show, oddly titled with 2024 in it for some reason I genuinely can't figure out. The story basically picks up right where things left off, following our lead Mobu as he keeps trying to survive inside this whole BL universe, just another character desperately trying not to fall for another guy. Season two left us with his relationship with Kikuchi, and this season kicks off right as Kikuchi heads off to university, which means Mobu's single again and honestly couldn't be happier about it. With six episodes, each running about 23 minutes, this is a quick, easy watch. Now that Mobu's back to being single, he's got to stay alert for every signal or trope that could end up pulling him into another relationship with a guy if he's not careful. So across these episodes, we watch him run into two of these signals per episode through the people around him and how they end up falling for each ...

Outside The Safehouse (India) Journey of Jai who is drawn to Bharatnatyam. His family throws him out but with the right teacher, he learns and becomes sensation. Over his journey he finds love with another man but jealousy soon creeps in and he faces heartbreak when love conflicts with his art. The film highlights resilience, identity, and the unjust societal pressures faced by the LGBTQ community. This film is based on the choices, the voids, and the struggles that the LGBTQ community has to go through on a daily basis. My Quarantine Diary (India) This film depicts a psychological journey of a 37 year old protagonist, a successful designer who returns during the peak of Covid 19 pandemic to his hometown in Assam, India from Paris. He plans to unite and live with his longtime lover. But, following the pandemic regulations, he had to stay confined in a hotel room for days where he recalls their previous conversations and slowly enters into a delusional phase. The film shows how the powe...

This one falls into that darker corner of gay cinema. There was real potential buried in here, but the execution feels so flat that at points it plays out more like a filmed stage play than an actual movie. It's a dark psychological drama built around a street hustler confessing to a brutal, confusing murder of his own lover. Black and white flashback sequences do a solid job laying out the details of what happened, but the real focus stays on the dialogue and the writing itself. Right at the start, a young hustler has already killed his male lover Claude. Three days go by before he calls the police to turn himself in for the murder. But instead of just reporting it somewhere ordinary, he actually summons the police and the local press directly into a judge's private chambers. Yves has keys to the place, which tracks given what he does for a living, but having the press waiting right outside makes the whole scene look like some elaborate blackmail scheme against the judge. The ...

I've always had kind of a love hate relationship with Chinese historical BLs. Some are genuinely excellent, but then there are others that cram in so much plot that keeping track of all the layers of betrayal and scheming gets exhausting, and I end up checking out mentally. Part of the issue is also just how much content is out there in this space, so something really has to stand out to keep me hooked. In this case, the production value is genuinely impressive, top tier stuff, but story wise, I just couldn't bring myself to actually care about these characters. There's a ton of political scheming and backstage manipulation running throughout. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, a hostage ends up falling for his own Prince Charming. The show runs eight episodes, each around 50 to 60 minutes long. After spending three years guarding the border, Fifth Prince Yin Qi gets called back to the capital because of a secret letter, only to end up walking straight into a deadly...

Is this technically a gay show? Even after getting through the whole thing, that's still kind of tricky to answer. There's never any physical intimacy shown between the two leads, not even a single kiss. What it gives you instead is something that goes way deeper than that. It traces an emotional bond that spans a full decade between two guys who are both dealing with their own baggage, and what they share basically amounts to being soulmates. The story moves across Japan, South Korea, and Berlin. Honestly, whether people want to call what they have a romantic relationship or not doesn't really matter to me. A relationship doesn't need a label like boyfriends attached to it to actually mean something. And closeness doesn't need to be physical to feel genuine. What this show captures is something quieter but way more powerful, a bond rooted in understanding, respect, and just showing up for each other. Across eight episodes, each running 35 to 45 minutes, this is one...

We've seen this combo before, blending gay romance with a murder mystery is a solid concept on paper, and it usually works fine. Unfortunately, not this time around. The investigation itself is basically a joke, riddled with plot holes everywhere you look. Most of the runtime, the two detectives are more focused on flirting with each other than actually doing their jobs. They can't keep the victims safe and they can't catch the killer either. All their light, romantic back and forth feels completely out of place next to the seriousness the mystery genre demands. This ended up being a total waste of my time, and honestly I wasn't invested in either the romance or figuring out who the killer was. The show runs 10 episodes, each clocking in around 50 minutes. It all starts at a college party where a group of seven friends are playing truth or dare while drinking. They all end up passing out, and when they wake up, one of them is dead. That kicks off a police investigation ...

This is pretty much your standard holiday season Christmas movie, just with gay characters in the lead roles. Probably made for TV originally, and honestly I'm not sure how this one slipped past me when it first came out, because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that these kinds of movies really need to be watched while you're actually in a holiday mood. Outside of that window, they tend to feel exaggerated and a bit off. The core idea and plot here were fine enough, but this low budget indie film leaned into some pretty over the top dramatic beats, which, weirdly enough, I kind of saw coming anyway. For the first time in five years, Gary decides to break from his usual pattern and actually head home to Atlanta from Miami to spend Christmas with his family. After telling his mom Rachel, who's always pushing him about family stuff, that he's coming, Gary drops a hint that he won't be arriving solo. Then, right before the trip, the guy he's been...

On the surface this looks like your typical university rivals to lovers setup, and honestly it is, but it's such a beautifully put together story about two guys who are clearly meant to end up together but can't find the nerve to admit it. It really nails that terrifying, electric, heart aching feeling that comes with first love. A lot of that comes down to how naturally it's executed, the strong character work, and a cast that really brings the whole thing to life. This Chinese - Hong Kong co-production runs 8 episodes, each about 35 to 45 minutes. Yu Lei and Chen Ke are our two leads, and their story kicks off when they move into the same dorm at a new university. Chen Ke's an experienced piano player, and the university president, who happens to be Yu Lei's older cousin, pays him extra attention. Both guys are top students, and Yu Lei throws himself into competing with him relentlessly, until he realizes the jealousy he's feeling isn't about his cousin at...

Even though this film is something like 30 years old at this point, so much of it still feels weirdly relevant today. Gay relationships still get messy, people still hide things from each other, couples still carry their own insecurities, and balancing love with sex is still a real struggle. The movie basically follows three couples, or something close to couples, who head out to the countryside together for a weekend. Right from the start we get quick intros to all three pairs. First up are Paul and Ben, together for five years now, though things between them aren't great at the moment. Paul's been on edge lately, especially since losing his brother, and this whole weekend trip is actually meant to celebrate his birthday. Then there's Matt and Owen, who only met three months ago, with Matt already convinced he's found the one and asking Owen to move in with him, while Owen just feels smothered and a little too loved for comfort. And finally there's Will and Adam, w...

This is a low budget, moody gay supernatural horror flick that mixes emotional character work with psychological unease. Horror movies always run on questionable decisions, like why would anyone go wandering around dark corners of a house they have no reason to be in. Same logic applies here, why would you travel out to some isolated family property just because a random guy you met on a gay dating app invited you. Well, you kind of asked for whatever happens next. Albert's a middle aged, married, closeted English teacher, and Devon's a younger paramedic who's built himself a quiet pattern of going after married men who can never fully be his. The two connect on an app, things heat up over messages, and they decide to meet up at Albert's remote family cabin, way out in the middle of nowhere during the off season, just to see what happens between them. They talk, have some drinks, swap stories about their pasts, but something feels a little off to both of them. Separatel...

This 8 part Korean drama runs on one central question about messing with fate. If you had the chance to go back and change how things turned out for someone you love, even knowing there's no guarantee it works out better, would you actually do it? That's basically what this whole show is chewing on, second chances, regrets that just won't let go, and this fragile hope that maybe love can outlast time itself. Each episode clocks in around 30 minutes. There's a fair number of issues with the story, but the leads have enough charm to carry you through it, even if none of it really sticks with you once it's over. In the present, Hye Seong is a painter who's made it. While digging through an old sketchbook to prep for a guest lecture at his old school, he suddenly finds himself pulled back ten years, landing on the exact day he transferred into a new school, trapped in the art room as his teenage self. He's caught off guard at first, but with no way back, he just...

This one's a beautiful, tender, quiet romantic drama with a moody atmosphere, set in a tight knit Welsh fishing community. It's a touching story about a man waking up sexually in the middle of his life, and how he, his family, and everyone around him deal with it, which makes it emotional and sentimental without ever getting over the top. The slow burn plays out against a landscape that's as bleak as it is gorgeous, where quiet, closed off men are stuck inside rigid ideas of what masculinity should be. Some people might be reminded of "God's Own Country," but I think both films are lovely in their own way. Jack is a middle aged guy who co-owns a mussel farm with his rough around the edges brother Dyfan, and the tension between the two of them is simmering under the surface right from the start. Dyfan's three sons all help out with the work, while Jack's sulky teenage son Tom keeps skipping out. Jack's been with his wife since they were both 16, and...

Let's just cut right to it, this show was painfully boring. There, I said it. A story built around partial amnesia has real potential, but between the choppy scene structure and random flashbacks thrown in constantly, the whole plot ends up feeling more tangled than it needed to be. The romance doesn't fare much better either, it's written so poorly that I never really found myself invested in this couple. Both leads come across stiff on screen and deliver their lines in a really awkward way. The show runs 8 episodes, each somewhere around 30 to 35 minutes. Hanuel, a 29 year old language teacher, wakes up after an accident only to realize his memory stops at age 19. It turns out he'd been in another accident back then too, which is why his memories cut off at that point. He has zero recollection of the fact that he's currently living with his childhood friend Saebyeok, who's now a huge celebrity. That makes the whole situation even harder for Hanuel to wrap his ...

This documentary, made by Chase Simmons, brings together eight black gay men from Atlanta who open up about their relationships with their fathers and eventually read letters they've written to them. In the director's own words, he talked about growing up unable to find any media that reflected who he was, and wanting to give black gay men actual faces and stories they could see themselves in and connect with. The whole project came out of watching a former friend go through intense emotional pain because of how his family reacted to finding out he was gay. Same gender loving people are met with a variety of challenges. Same gender loving black men are met with a particularly unique set of social and systematic challenges that impact how we experience life. Arguably a central figure in a young mans rearing is his father, especially young men of color. Add not being heterosexual to the equation and a lot of these young men lose a connection with their father early on and are pus...