Best movies like Johan
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Johan details the director's quest for an actor to play his titular lover, the real deal having been incarcerated just prior to shooting on charges of petty theft.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 376
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 81 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, mockumentary, fake documentary
Best tv shows and movies like Johan (1976):
Similar in 85%
The Road To Love (2001)
Plot Summary:
Slow-burning and smart, French director Rémi Lange's The Road to Love is a romantic tale of self-discovery that also offers a fascinating historical take on homosexuality in northern Africa. French-Algerian sociology student Karim is having trouble finding interviewees for his term project, a video documentary on homosexual relationships in Islamic cultures. As his research progresses, he meets Farid, a handsome flight attendant. In Farid, Karim believes he has found an ideal subject for his film...but he soon begins to admire more than just Farid's insight. When Karim learns that some cultures have accepted and encouraged same-sex unions, he finally begins to face his own sexuality. Set in scenic locales from Paris to Marseilles to Amsterdam (with a brief detour to Jean Genet's grave in Larache, Morocco), The Road to Love is a shrewd and sensual tale of enchantment and desire.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 389
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: captivating, lgbt cinema
Similar in 82%
Crossway (2008)
Plot Summary:
A very interesting thriller about the coming of age of a troubled young man searching his place in this world. Teenage boy Jonathan (Fabien de Marchi) is having a hard time living with his father and stepmother. On a whim, he steals some money and embarks on a journey of forbidden pleasures. He spends the night in abandoned building and wakes up bound and is held prisoner by Antoine (Johan Libéreau), a young drug dealer wanted by the police. The two boys forge an ambiguous relationship between violence, compassion and fascination. Victim, Jonathan ends up taking a liking to his tormentor.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 168
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 53 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, serious, suspenseful, disturbing, lgbt cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 89%
Always Say Yes (2019)
Plot Summary:
Héctor travels from Hermosillo to Mexico City in the hopes of posing naked for photography collective Feral. His friend Carlos choses not to go with him. Héctor, determined to experiment with his desire without limits, promises himself to always say yes while in the Aztec capital.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 542
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Mexico
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: captivating, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 81%
Body Electric (2017)
Plot Summary:
Elias is a handsome young deputy manager in a garment factory in São Paulo. When he’s not working, he enjoys casual encounters in the big city. The arrival of a young African, Fernando, on the production line piques his interest and Elias finds himself increasingly drawn into socialising with his work colleagues.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 896
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: queer cinema
Similar in 77%
Lie with Me (2022)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: gay cinema
Similar in 79%
Even Lovers Get the Blues (2016)
Plot Summary:
After the sudden death of one of them a group of friends grieves trough sexual encounters.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 363
Genere: Drama
Country: Belgium
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sexy, homoerotic, psychological, sincere, unusual plot structure, captivating, contemplative
Similar in 89%
Luna Park (2013)
Plot Summary:
Alexia Bissett, ex actress turned producer, lives in New York where she now produces gay cinema. After being called to take care of a situation which involves her young mute brother Christi, she decides to send her right hand man Maxwell to deal with it instead. Alexia owns an apartment complex in California called Luna Park, where her young actors stay while on location. Christi is the apartment caretaker and has been caught hiding in the closet of one of her actors he has a crush on. Maxwell feels indebted to Alexia for taking him off the streets and accepts the task with little protest. When Maxwell and Christi fall in love, Alexia is suddenly forced to deal with the secrets of her past, one of which threatens the boys young love in a way they can't even imagine.
IMDB Rating: 3.3
IMDB Votes: 195
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: erotic, queer cinema
Similar in 78%
I Am Happiness on Earth (2014)
Plot Summary:
Emiliano looks at his life with the eyes of a film director, mixing the objective reality with the processes of the artistic creation. The story he is filming flounders with his daily life, until his world is trapped in the lens of his camera. Confused, always alone and in front of a screen, now become a transfigured reality, but at the same time a measurable, controllable and manipulable one, he listens in loop to a song: one of those songs you sing or repeat as a prayer and forcing you to remember, believe and convince yourself.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, erotic, queer cinema
Similar in 81%
Love Forbidden (2002)
Plot Summary:
Rodolphe Marconi writes, directs, and stars in the coming-out drama Défense d'Aimer (Love Forbidden). Marconi plays Bruce, a young student from Paris who accepts a fellowship in Rome. He takes a flat at the Villa Medicis and writes full time. He eventually meets Italian native Matteo (Andrea Necci) and develops feelings for the man. However, Bruce is confused because Matteo also seems interested in the American student Irene (Irene D'Agostino). Love Forbidden premiered in the U.S. at the 2003 New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
IMDB Rating: 5.5
IMDB Votes: 273
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, sexy, serious, realistic, stylized, gloomy, sexual
Similar in 77%
Little Gay Boy (2013)
Plot Summary:
A young gay boy, from his birth to his teenage years, in which he experiments his sexuality and his own boundaries, to the day he finally meets his father.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 164
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, disturbing, experimental, avant garde, queer cinema
Similar in 75%
José (2018)
Plot Summary:
José (19 years old) lives with his mother (50s) in Guatemala: a tough life in one of the world's most dangerous, religious, and impoverished countries. José is her youngest and favorite child, and her life is going to church and selling sandwiches. Jose spends his days on crowded buses and in the streets delivering food. Resigned and aloof, in free moments he plays with his phone and looks for random sex. When he meets Luis, Jose is thrust into a dimension of passion and pain and self-reflection that was previously unimaginable.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 820
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, Guatemala
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, queer cinema
Similar in 84%
Aya Arcos (2014)
Plot Summary:
When successful writer Edu falls in love with a young hustler, Fabio, his initial fear is about contracting HIV, but emotional matters soon loom large as well.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 165
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil, Germany
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: touching, realistic, gay cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 80%
Wild Awakening (2016)
Plot Summary:
Toni and Emma are brother and sister who owns a stable farm. Ramon and his son, Aaron works for them. Toni is openly gay and loves to party, Emma has a crush on Aaron who is a closeted gay who is afraid that his father might find out, but his father also has a secret.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 274
Genere: Drama
Country: Spain
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, captivating, disturbing, homoerotic, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 80%
Boys to Men (2001)
Plot Summary:
A four-part anthology film dealing with homosexuality from the young to the old. Crush, detailing the budding friendship of a 12-year old girl and a 16-year old boy, who bond over their favorite TV program and musical tastes. The Mountain King, details a young street hustler who makes a play for a straight man on a deserted beach one afternoon. . Lost is a look at a day in the life of a young man who is first seen engaging in unsafe sex with a random partner,. The Confession, a dying Catholic asks his partner of 35 years to send for a priest, even though the partner is greatly opposed to such a request. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 438
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, psychological, captivating, disturbing, anthology, queer cinema
Similar in 88%
The Night of the Wolf (2014)
Plot Summary:
A mythical journey of the customs of homosexuality.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 44
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: lgbt cinema, sexy, psychological, light, art house, homoerotic, gay cinema
Similar in 75%
Sexual Tension: Volatile (2012)
Plot Summary:
Have you ever met someone who made your body heat up, get a little nervous and sweaty, and made your crotch stir a bit? Sexual Tension: Volatile will reignite those lustful feelings as it weaves six scintillating experiences of men in various stages of nudity and many forms of erotic male bonding. A pulsating, sexually-charged thrill ride.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, USA, France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, erotic, anthology, touching, captivating, gay cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 77%
120 Beats Per Minute (2017)
Plot Summary:
Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, art house, psychological, sentimental, captivating, disturbing, political, lgbt cinema, social, gay cinema
Similar in 86%
Man at Bath (2010)
Plot Summary:
Omar and Emmanuel go to great lengths to prove they are not in love.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 72 min
Plot tags: emotional, realistic, contemplative, psychological, captivating, erotic, sincere, serious, sexual, independent film
Similar in 77%
While Paris Was Sleeping (2016)
Plot Summary:
Théo and Hugo meet in a club and form an immediate bond. Once the desire and elation of this first moment has passed, the two young men, now sober, wander through the empty streets of nocturnal Paris, having to confront the love they sense blossoming between them. Ducastel and Martineau's most ambitious film to date and a candid insight into 21st century life.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: disturbing, suspense, thought provoking, touching, sexy, educational, erotic drama, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 89%
Tomcat (2016)
Plot Summary:
Andreas and Stefan lead a happy and passionate life: Together with their beloved tomcat Moses, they live in a beautiful old house in Vienna's vineyards. They work as a musician and as a scheduler in the same orchestra and they love their large circle of friends. An unexpected and inexplicable outburst of violence suddenly shakes up the relationship and calls everything into question - the blind spot that resides in all of us.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Austria
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: homoerotic, psychological, light, sincere, touching, unusual plot structure, melancholic, contemplative, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 82%
Love Actually... Sucks! (2011)
Plot Summary:
Love Actually... Sucks! was inspired by real-life events, and opens with a dramatic wedding feast. It tells a variety of stories about love that has gone wrong: a brother and sister in an illicit relationship, a married painter who falls in love with his young male life model, a dance school teacher who is besotted with his senior student, and a lesbian couple, one of whom has role-play paranoia, and is caught in a complex love triangle. The film celebrates the belief that life is love.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 516
Genere: Drama, Romance
Country: Hong Kong, China
Duration: 83 min
Plot tags: suspense, erotic, psychological, rough, disturbing, sexy
Similar in 80%
Venus in the Garden (2011)
Plot Summary:
Mid-summer heatwave. Nikos and Alain, two male prostitutes and a female pimp, Monica, get tangled in a peculiar relationship after meeting in a dark street called POUTANA. They fall in love, play with guns and talk about card games, money and theatre castings. Is this a game of role playing the three of them have invented to pass their time in a remote, empty summer house? Have they been reading Jean Genet? Whether a mirror image of the characters’ reality or an elliptic depiction of their distorted, dream-like perception of it, I Afroditi Stin Avli, by juxtaposing disparate literary and art references, leads its isolated characters towards dissolution. And yet, in its strange language, it presents this dissolution as a triumph.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 63
Genere: Drama
Country: Greece, Germany
Duration: 63 min
Plot tags: avant garde, sentimental, romantic, sexy, touching, unusual plot structure, melancholic, contemplative, homoerotic, gay cinema
Similar in 85%
Paths (2017)
Plot Summary:
Andreas and Martin share all the ups and downs of everyday life, and their son is maturing. A cautious approach to the traces of a long relationship. The love story of two people. Not about how they come together, not a phase they go through, but all of their shared experiences: all the years between the first kiss and today.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 508
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, romantic, sexy, touching, unusual plot structure, melancholic, queer cinema
Similar in 79%
Label Me (2019)
Plot Summary:
Sex is power, and Waseem, a Syrian gay-for-pay hustler seeking asylum in Cologne, wields it like a shield. Keeping his johns at an emotional arm’s length while satisfying their most carnal desires in order to eke out a living, he meets his match in Lars: a kind, affluent professional with a growing personal interest in Waseem. This gripping tale of transactional identity explores the tactical exchange of trust and intimacy in a partnership, and the divisions between immigrants and their host countries in contemporary Europe.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: psychological, sentimental, romantic, sexy, touching, unusual plot structure, melancholic, contemplative, gay cinema
Similar in 86%
The Prince (2019)
Plot Summary:
The Prince, moved by jealousy and doubts about its sexuality, kills the Gipsy, his bestest friend. In jail he'll meet the Horse, a respected gangster in prison through which will discover, by force, the immense human need of love and being loved.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile, Argentina, Belgium
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, sexy, unusual plot structure, suspense, suspenseful, independent film, queer cinema
Similar in 79%
Sauvage (2018)
Plot Summary:
Leo is 22 and sells his body on the street for a bit of cash. The men come and go, and he stays right here... longing for love. He doesn’t know what the future will bring. He hits the road. His heart is pounding.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: rough, melancholic, suspense, suspenseful, bleak, erotic, romantic, crying, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 81%
Interior. Leather Bar. (2013)
Plot Summary:
Filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews re-imagine the lost 40 minutes from "Cruising" as a starting point to a broader exploration of sexual and creative freedom.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: psychological, disturbing, sexual, offbeat, serious, realistic, independent film, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 76%
Reinventing Marvin (2017)
Plot Summary:
A young gay man determined to reinvent his life leaves everything behind on his quest for self-realization.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: France
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: non-linear, psychological, tense, captivating, thought provoking, unusual plot structure, contemplative, art house, gay cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 75%
Wandering Heart (2021)
Plot Summary:
Santiago, gay single father, has reached a tipping point in his life. Reeling from a bitter breakup, he is facing the impending departure of his daughter Laila, with whom he shares a close yet emotionally charged relationship. As the fear of being alone threatens to swallow him whole, his behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Over the course of a chaotic summer divided between Argentina and Brazil, Santiago must learn to let go of Laila so each can find their own freedoms.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 601
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Chile
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: psychological, romantic, touching, emotional, talky, lgbt cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 89%
End of the Century (2019)
Plot Summary:
Two men meet in Barcelona and after spending a day together they realize that they have already met twenty years ago.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: unusual plot structure, sexy, psychological, sentimental, romantic, captivating, melancholic, lgbt cinema, queer cinema, gay cinema