All Recommendations
Firebird
At the height of the Cold War, a troubled soldier forms a forbidden love triangle with a daring fighter pilot and his female comrade amid the dangerous surroundings of a Soviet Air Force Base.
Departure
An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.
Adult Life Skills
Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30 and has just moved back to her rural home-town, and into a shed in her mother’s backyard. She spends her time working a menial job at a local boating center and hides in the depths of her imagination, making movies with her thumbs. Irritated by her childish behavior, Anna's mother insists that she move out of her shed and on with her life. When a troubled young boy starts hanging around, the two form an unlikely bond. Through their strange yet mutually beneficial friendship, Anna slowly begins to confront her perpetual state of arrested development.
Geography Club
A coming-of-age movie that tells a story unfolding in every high school around the country -- a story of kids hiding their true identities in plain sight, even as they feverishly pursue their hearts' desires.
The War Boys
David, George, and Greg, best friends since high school, are “The War Boys”. They used to perch on the US-Mexican border, waiting to spot illegal immigrants who were trying to run into the United States. Sometimes, without a thought for the immigrants, the boys chased them across the wasteland and back across the border – just for fun. It was just one of those games boys played to make themselves feel big. But high school’s over now. David is unexpectedly home from his freshman year of college and the War Boys have been reunited.
Blessed Boys
In a sunny district of Naples where everyone knows each other, Mario and Lino, two inseparable friends, live day by day in the monotony of neighborhood life until their fraternal friendship is put to the test.
The Inspection
Ellis French is a young, gay Black man, rejected by his mother and with few options for his future, decides to join the Marines, doing whatever it takes to succeed in a system that would cast him aside. But even as he battles deep-seated prejudice and the grueling routines of basic training, he finds unexpected camaraderie, strength, and support in this new community, giving him a hard-earned sense of belonging that will shape his identity and forever change his life.
The Last Straight Man
Lewis is a closeted gay man throwing a bachelor party for his straight best friend and secret crush, Cooper. After a night of drunken sex together, the two men decide to meet in the same hotel suite on the same night each year to hook up and catch up. Over the course of twelve years, we see four additional nights that depict how the two men grow and how their friendship changes.
M/M
Wayward Canadian, Matthew, crushed by the isolation of being new to Berlin, turns his sexual desires toward Matthias that spiral into a dark fixation of assumed identity. Soon, this obsessive power struggle between the two, careens toward brutal passion and violence in a bid for dominance.
Floating Melon
A journey of passion, a bitter night. Xiao Cheng ask for help to resolve a big trouble, the guy with whom he spend the afternoon is dead on his bed from the effect of a drug, not something the Chinese authorities look kindly on.
Descending the Mountain
What happens if you give magic mushrooms (psilocibine) to experienced Zen practitioners who have never used drugs? What does that teach us about the mystical experience of oneness with nature? Based on these questions, psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider and Zen master Vanja Palmers set up a legal science experiment in a monastery at the top of Mount Rigi in Switzerland. Exactly 50 years after the magic mushrooms were officially banned, a new story begins in what is now called the “psychedelic renaissance”. While in 2021 most studies with psychedelics mainly focus on their promising medical applications, Frans and Vanja are already going a step further. Can the combination of meditation and psilocibin help humanity get out of the mess we have created on ourselves and the planet with our neo-liberal society?
East of the Wall
Felix from West-Berlin falls in love with Thomas in East-Berlin. At first they keep their relationship going by regular visits from Felix, but the curfew forces him to return every evening. When the East-German authorities become suspicious, Thomas decides to try and flee to the West.
Just Friends
Joris is trying to come to terms with his broken family relationships on the 10th anniversary of his father’s death when he meets the free-spirited, Yad. Also dealing with family issues, Yad has returned home to The Netherlands after living on his own. Joris and Yad spark an instant connection and decide they want to be more than “just friends,” but fear their families could threaten their relationship.
Lie with Me
An author returns to his hometown of Cognac for the first time in 35 years to help promote a distillery. Once there, he meets his first love’s son, Lucas. Memories come rushing back to him: irrepressible attraction, bodies becoming one in the heat of desire, a passion that can never be revealed… His first love’s name was Thomas. They were 17.
The Small Victories
Between her roles as mayor and teacher in the small village of Kerguen, Alice's days are very full. When an unexpected new student, 60-year-old Emile, finally decides to learn to read and write, her daily life threatens to become unmanageable. Especially since Alice will also have to save her village and her school...
Dear Evan Hansen
Evan Hansen, a high schooler with social anxiety, unintentionally gets caught up in a lie after the family of a classmate who committed suicide mistakes one of Hansen’s letters for their son’s suicide note.
Cairo Conspiracy
A fisherman's son is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, dies and the young student becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite.
Shelter
Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son. Questioning his life, he paints, surfs and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe. When Gabe's older brother returns home for the summer, Zach suddenly finds himself drawn into a relationship he didn't expect.
The Catholic School
Three well-off young men—former students at Rome’s prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno—brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat.
The Occupant
An unemployed executive is forced to sell his apartment. When he discovers that he still has the keys, he becomes obsessed with the family that now lives there and decides to recover the life he has lost, at any price.