Watch These 15 Gay Movies Before Heartstopper: Forever Drops on Netflix

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]What's up, Pride Play family?

[00:00:01]>> [music] >> Heartstopper Forever drops on Netflix July 17th, and before you sit down for that emotional finale of Nick's and Charlie's story, there are 15 incredible gay movies you absolutely need to watch first. These are the films that paved the way for stories like Heartstopper.

[00:00:17]So, let's get into it. Number one, Call Me By Your Name. You know, I run there.

[00:00:22]Read books, transcribe music, swim in the river, go out at night. Sounds fun. All right, later.

[00:00:29]We have to start here. Call Me By Your Name is set during a golden summer in northern Italy, where 17-year-old Elio, a bookish and quietly intense young man, lives with his academic parents in their sprawling villa. When Oliver, a confident and charming American graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father with his research, the two begin a slow, almost unbearable dance of attraction.

[00:00:53]What starts as curiosity becomes fascination, then desire, and finally an all-consuming love affair that unfolds over the course of just 6 weeks. The film doesn't rush anything. Every glance, every accidental touch, every moment of hesitation carries enormous weight. And by the time that final scene arrives, Elio's sitting by the fireplace as the credits roll, you feel like something has been permanently altered inside you. This film understands that first love is not just beautiful, it is devastating. Number two, Moonlight. What you looking at me like that for?

[00:01:30]For what, man? Come on, you just drove down here.

[00:01:34]Yeah.

[00:01:38]Moonlight tells the story of Chiron across three defining chapters of his life as a child, a teenager, and a grown man. Growing up black and gay in a rough Miami neighborhood, Chiron is quiet, withdrawn, and constantly navigating a world that has no space for who he really is. As a boy, he finds an unlikely father figure in Juan, a drug dealer who shows him a tenderness no one else does. As a teenager, he shares a brief electric moment of intimacy on a moonlit beach with his friend Kevin, a moment that will haunt him for years.

[00:02:12]And as an adult, now hardened and muscular and hiding behind a persona that protects him, he reconnects with Kevin and allows himself, for the first time, to be truly vulnerable. Moonlight is not loud. It speaks in silences, in the way a man holds his jaw tight to keep from crying. It won Best Picture at the Oscars and it earned every single bit of that recognition. Number three, Brokeback Mountain. Work together?

[00:02:38]I reckon it's time [music] we start drinking together.

[00:02:44]Whoa!

[00:02:46]In the summer of 1963, two young cowboys, Ennis and Jack, take a job herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. Alone in the wilderness, far from the rigid expectations of their world, they fall into a passionate relationship that neither of them expected or knows how to name. When the job ends, they go their separate ways.

[00:03:05]Both marry women, both have children, both try to live the lives they're supposed to live, but they can't stay away from each other. Over the next 20 years, they meet in secret, stealing weekends together in the mountains while their real lives crumble around them.

[00:03:20]Brokeback Mountain is a film about the cost of hiding. It is about what happens when the world refuses to let two people love each other openly. And the ending is one of the most quietly shattering moments in cinema history. Number four, God's Own Country. You've softened so far. Yeah, course you have.

[00:03:40]We're not running a charity for wayward [music] Australians, love.

[00:03:44]It's perfect for me.

[00:03:47]Johnny is a young farmer in the harsh, windswept Yorkshire countryside. He drinks too much, picks up strangers for meaningless encounters, and carries a bitterness that seems to seep into everything he does. When Gheorghe, a Romanian migrant worker, arrives to help during lambing season, Johnny treats him with hostility and suspicion. But Gheorghe's patient and steady, and slowly, through the physical work of farming, through mud and cold and exhaustion, something shifts between them. Johnny begins to let his guard down, and what emerges is something raw and real and achingly tender. God's Own Country is often called the British Brokeback Mountain, but it earns its own identity completely. Where Brokeback ends in tragedy, this film dares to offer something rarer in queer cinema, genuine hope.

[00:04:33]Number five, Weekend.

[00:04:37]on my league or whatever.

[00:04:38]And um you became like hitting me, and then you kissed me.

[00:04:43]Like you said you took my shirt off.

[00:04:45]Russell is a quiet, somewhat reserved lifeguard who goes out one Friday night and ends up going home with Glen, an outspoken and slightly abrasive artist.

[00:04:54]What follows is a weekend, just two days, during which these two men connect on a level neither of them anticipated.

[00:05:01]They talk, they argue, they get high, they have sex, they record each other's voices, and they slowly peel back each other's layers in ways that are uncomfortable and exhilarating and deeply intimate. But there's a deadline.

[00:05:14]Glen is leaving the country on Sunday, and knowing that an ending is coming makes every moment between them more urgent and more painful. Weekend is a small independent film that feels enormous. It captures the way real people actually fall for each other, messily, unexpectedly, and with terrible timing. Number six, Love, Simon.

[00:05:35]Can I call you back?

[00:05:39]Dear Blue, I'm just like you.

[00:05:44]This was a mistake.

[00:05:47]Simon Spier is a 17-year-old living in suburban Atlanta. He has loving parents, great friends, and a life that looks perfectly normal from the outside. But, Simon has a secret. He's gay, and he's been hiding it from everyone. When he begins an anonymous email exchange with another closeted student at his school, known only as Blue, Simon starts to imagine what life could look like if he were honest. But, when a classmate discovers the emails and threatens to expose him, Simon's carefully constructed world begins to unravel.

[00:06:18]Love, Simon is a teen romantic comedy, and it wears that label proudly. It's warm, and funny, and sweet, and it gave [music] an entire generation of young gay men something they had never seen before, a mainstream, studio-backed coming-out story where the gay kid gets a happy ending. That matters more than you might think. Number seven, The Way He Looks.

[00:06:47]Leonardo is a blind teenager in São Paulo who is tired of being treated as fragile by his overprotective mother, and as dependent by the world around him.

[00:06:56]He wants independence. He wants adventure. And he wants something he can't quite articulate yet. When Gabriel, a new student, transfers to his school, the two quickly become close friends. Gabriel doesn't treat Leonardo differently because of his blindness, and that simple act of normalcy becomes the foundation for something deeper. As their friendship grows, Leonardo begins to realize that what he feels for Gabriel goes far beyond friendship. The He Looks is gentle and sweet without ever being naive. It understands the confusion of realizing you're falling for your best friend, and it tells that story with a quiet beauty that stays with you. Number eight, Beautiful Thing.

[00:07:37]Oi, what was his name?

[00:07:39]You Janus. [music] You Jamie, get back here now.

[00:07:45]Set on a working class housing estate in Southeast London, Beautiful Thing follows Jamie, quiet teenager who skips school to avoid bullies and Ste, his next door neighbor who is beaten by his father and brother. When Ste needs somewhere to sleep one night, Jamie's mother lets him stay and the two boys end up sharing a bed. What begins as comfort slowly becomes something more and amid the noise and hardship of their estate, Jamie and Ste discover a love that is tender and defiant and completely theirs. Beautiful Thing was revolutionary when it came out in the mid 90s because it showed working class gay teenagers not as victims, not as tragedies, but as young people capable of joy. The film ends with the two boys dancing together in public to the sound of Mama Cass and it remains one of the most celebratory endings in queer cinema. Before we continue, I want to take a quick moment to talk to you directly. If you enjoy Pride Play and want to support more LGBTQ movie content, you can become a channel member for just $1. Your small support helps us keep discovering, sharing, and celebrating powerful LGBTQ stories from around the world. Join the Pride Play membership today and be part of a community that supports queer cinema and the LGBTQ community. The link is right below this video. All right, let's keep going.

[00:09:05]Number nine, Maurice. I won't say that.

[00:09:07]He's in the right now. You can't drag in a woman. I won't have it. Jamie, leave it.

[00:09:11]Maurice, don't make it worse.

[00:09:17]Adapted from E.M. Forster's novel, Maurice is set in Edwardian England and follows Maurice Hall, a young man from a respectable upper middle class family who falls in love with his Cambridge classmate, Clive Durham. Their relationship is intense and intellectual, but when Clive decides to suppress his desires and marry a woman, Maurice is left devastated and alone. He struggles with his identity in a society that criminalizes his very existence until he meets Alec Scudder, a working-class gamekeeper on Clive's estate, and discovers a love that is physical, honest, and unashamed. Maurice is remarkable for its era because it refuses to punish its protagonist. In a time when most gay stories ended in death or despair, Maurice walks into the woods with the man he loves, and the film lets him stay there. Number 10, Shelter.

[00:10:07]I hear you've been hanging out with Shawn.

[00:10:09]>> [laughter] >> You know about him, right? What about him?

[00:10:15]Zach is a talented young artist living in San Pedro, California, who has put his own dreams on hold to take care of his nephew and manage the chaos of his dysfunctional family. When Shawn, the older brother of Zach's best friend, returns home from a writing career, the two begin spending time together, surfing, talking, and slowly falling in love. But Zach is terrified of what this means for his carefully held together life. His family depends on him. His [music] community isn't exactly progressive, and accepting his feelings for Shawn means dismantling everything he's built. Shelter is a tender film about the conflict between duty and desire, between the life you're expected to live and the one that might actually make you happy. The surfing scenes are gorgeous. The chemistry is undeniable, and the resolution feels earned. Number 11, Boy Erased.

[00:11:05]Tell me the truth, that's all.

[00:11:09]I think about men.

[00:11:12]Jared Eamons is the son of a Baptist preacher in a small Arkansas town.

[00:11:16]When he is outed to his parents, they enroll him in a conversion therapy program that promises to cure him of his homosexuality. What Jared encounters inside that program is a system built on shame, psychological manipulation, and the systematic destruction of identity.

[00:11:32]The counselors demand that the young men confess their sins, denounce their desires, and perform masculinity in ways that conform to rigid expectations.

[00:11:41]Jared must decide whether to submit to the process or risk losing his family by walking away. Boy Erased is based on a true story, and it handles its subject matter with a restraint that makes the horror even more effective. It doesn't sensationalize. It simply shows you what conversion therapy does to a human being, and it trusts you to be outraged.

[00:12:02]Number 12, Pride. Who are you representing in this case? Lesbians and gays of all the miners. I was hoping you could clear something up for me about lesbians. It did surprise me. Let's get that settled in first, shall we? Oh.

[00:12:15]It's 1984, and Britain's coal miners are on strike against Margaret Thatcher's government. In London, a group of gay and lesbian activists, led by the charismatic Mark Ashton, decides to raise money for the mining communities because they recognize a shared struggle against oppression. The only problem is that the miners don't exactly want their help. What follows is a funny, moving, and ultimately triumphant story about an unlikely alliance between two marginalized groups who discover that solidarity is the most powerful weapon they have. Pride is based on a true story, and it is one of those rare films that makes you laugh, cry, and want to march in the streets all within the same 2 hours. It reminds you that the fight for LGBTQ rights was never fought alone.

[00:13:01]Number 13, A Single Man.

[00:13:13]George Falconer is a British college professor living in Los Angeles in 1962.

[00:13:19]His partner, Jim, has recently died in a car accident, and George is drowning in grief. The world doesn't acknowledge his loss because the world doesn't acknowledge what he and Jim were to each other. So, George moves through a single day teaching his class, visiting his friend Charlie, encountering a young student named Kenny, >> [music] >> while quietly preparing to end his life.

[00:13:39]A single man is directed by Tom Ford, and every frame is composed with the precision of a fashion photograph, but beneath the aesthetic beauty is a devastating portrait of loneliness and the particular cruelty of grieving someone when society refuses to recognize that your love existed at all.

[00:13:58]Number 14, Holding the Man. Tell him to leave. We love each other, Dad.

[00:14:03]>> [music] >> There's nothing you can do about it.

[00:14:06]We've been together since high school, constantly.

[00:14:10]Based on Timothy Conigrave's memoir, Holding the Man tells the real-life love story of Tim and John, who meet as teenagers at an all-boys school in Melbourne in the 1970s. Tim is theatrical and bold. John is the school football captain. Their love affair is immediate and passionate, and it endures through decades, through university, through family disapproval, through the social upheaval of the gay liberation movement, and ultimately through the AIDS crisis that devastates their community. This is a film that takes you through the full arc of a relationship, from the giddy electricity of first love to the profound, gut-wrenching pain of loss. It doesn't flinch from the reality of what the AIDS epidemic did to an entire generation of gay men, and it honors the love that survived even when the lovers did not. Number 15, Closet Monster.

[00:15:01]You look like >> [music] >> Thanks.

[00:15:06]I'm Andrew.

[00:15:09]>> [music] >> Hi.

[00:15:11]Oscar Madly is a creative, imaginative teenager growing up in Newfoundland who witnessed a violent homophobic attack as a young child, an event that buried itself deep in his psyche and now manifests as a literal physical ailment he cannot explain. As Oscar navigates his final year of high school, he begins to fall for Wilder, a co-worker at the hardware store where he works. But every step toward accepting his feelings triggers a visceral, almost body horror response. His repressed trauma literally trying to claw its way out. Closet Monster is unlike any other coming out film you've seen. It uses surrealism, fantasy, and a talking hamster voice by Isabella Rossellini to explore the way internalized homophobia lives in the body. It's weird. [music] It's beautiful. It's disturbing. And it captures something deeply true about the cost of hiding who you are. And those are [music] 15 gay movies you need to watch before Heartstopper forever hits your screen. Let me know in the comments which ones you've seen and which ones are going straight to your watch list.

[00:16:12]If you're new here, hit subscribe so you never miss a Pride Play video. And I'll see you [music] in the next one. Stay proud.