Best movies like The Garden
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A nearly wordless visual narrative intercuts two main stories and a couple of minor ones. A woman, perhaps the Madonna, brings forth her baby to a crowd of intrusive paparazzi; she tries to flee them. Two men who are lovers marry and are arrested by the powers that be. The men are mocked and pilloried, tarred, feathered, and beaten. Loose in this contemporary world of electrical-power transmission lines is also Jesus. The elements, particularly fire and water, content with political power, which is intolerant and murderous.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Germany, Japan
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, art house, disturbing, cult classic, experimental, independent film, clever, offbeat
Best tv shows and movies like The Garden (1990):
Similar in 81%
Macho Dancer (1988)
Plot Summary:
A former American soldier becomes an exotic dancer and male prostitute in Manila.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 445
Genere: Drama
Country: Philippines
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags: erotic, rough, sexy, serious, realistic, disturbing, sexual, independent film, queer cinema
Similar in 90%
The Last of England (1987)
Plot Summary:
The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Fantasy
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 92 min
Plot tags: mind bending, political, cult classic, experimental, independent film, atmospheric, thought provoking, offbeat, bleak, serious
Similar in 86%
White Night (2012)
Plot Summary:
Flight attendant Won-Gyu (Won Tae-Hee) left Korea 2 years ago with painful memories and now comes back. Won-Gyu meets Tae-Joon (Lee Yi-Kyung), who is a quick service delivery man and has a special night with him.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, sincere, disturbing, bleak, contemplative, crying, queer cinema
Similar in 76%
La león (2007)
Plot Summary:
Deep in the lush river jungles of Argentina, Alvaro lives a solitary existence fishing and harvesting reeds. What sets him apart from the rest of his village is that he is gay. There are no other gay men in his world, his only means of expression is with the occasional outsider who passes through. Most of these men come via the river taxi El León, whose captain El Turu is a mean man with a homophobic streak and a secret. When illegal loggers appear in the jungle El Turu accuses Alvaro of aiding them, a dispute which leads both men towards confrontation.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 418
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, France
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, suspense, contemplative, gloomy, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 85%
The Angelic Conversation (1985)
Plot Summary:
The Angelic Conversation is a lyrical, haunting film about a young man’s search for love, in a dreamlike landscape. Offscreen, Dame Judi Dench recites a sequence of Shakespeare sonnets, that counterpoint the action. Jarman called it, “My most austere work, but also the closest to my heart.”.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 894
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: experimental, atmospheric, serious, surreal, contemplative, stylized, sexual, avant garde, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 75%
Off Beat (2011)
Plot Summary:
Lukas (Hans Jakob Mühlethaler) is a successful hip hop star on a drug fuelled fade, much to the annoyance of his producer/lover, Mischa (Domenico Pecoraio). When Mischa opts to include Lukas' brother Sämi (Manuel Neuburger) on his latest album, jealousy and rivalry tear the three apart.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 59
Genere: Drama
Country: Switzerland
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, captivating, emotional, gloomy
Similar in 81%
The Stranger in Us (2010)
Plot Summary:
In this verité-style drama, Anthony, a newcomer to San Francisco, attempts to come to terms with his abusive ex-lover when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a street hustler.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 530
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, emotional, captivating, independent film, touching, serious, crying, queer cinema
Similar in 81%
Phantom Images (2011)
Plot Summary:
A filmmaker continues shooting his film after his funding is pulled.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 48
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 73 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, disturbing, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 77%
Best Possible Taste: The Kenny Everett Story (2012)
Plot Summary:
Dramatisation of Kenny Everett's struggle to achieve personal and professional fulfilment.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 148
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: sincere, humorous, witty, semi serious, realistic
Similar in 86%
Blue (1993)
Plot Summary:
Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Biography, Drama
Country: UK, Japan
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, underground film, experimental, factual, thought provoking, avant garde, absurd, existential
Similar in 85%
Stories of Our Lives (2014)
Plot Summary:
Created by the members of a Nairobi-based arts collective — who have removed their names from the film for fear of reprisal — this anthology film that dramatizes true-life stories from Kenya’s oppressed LGBTQ community is both a labour of love and a bold act of militancy.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 103
Genere: Drama
Country: Kenya, South Africa
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, stylized, contemplative, queer cinema
Similar in 75%
Love in the Time of Civil War (2014)
Plot Summary:
Lauded Quebec filmmaker Rodrigue Jean (Lost Song) takes a fearless, unflinching look at the reality of addiction in this tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 498
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: touching, bleak, realistic, disturbing, serious
Similar in 84%
Fucking Different (2005)
Plot Summary:
Fifteen queer crossovers: lesbian filmmakers from Berlin were asked to make a short film about their idea of male gay love and sexuality and, vice versa, gay men were given the task of making a short film about lesbian sexuality and eroticism.
IMDB Rating: 4.2
IMDB Votes: 123
Genere: Drama
Country: Germany
Duration: 88 min
Plot tags: sexy, thought provoking, touching, humorous, realistic, witty, semi serious, offbeat, sexual, anthology
Similar in 78%
On the Downlow (2004)
Plot Summary:
Isaac and Angel are two young Latinos involved in a south side Chicago gang. They have a secret in a world where secrets are forbidden.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 187
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: rough, touching, serious, emotional, realistic, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 85%
The Servant (1963)
Plot Summary:
A decadent London aristocrat hires a man-servant to attend to his needs. However, the balance of power starts to shift.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, sexy, surreal, thought provoking, neo noir, noir, mind bending, psychedelic, experimental
Similar in 89%
Hell Without Limits (1978)
Plot Summary:
Family honor, greed, machismo, homophobia, and the dreams of whores collide in a Mexican town. Rich, elderly Don Alejo is poised to sell the town for a profit, needing only to buy a whorehouse to own all the buildings and close the deal. It's owned by a man and his daughter: Manuelita is gay, aging, afraid; he cross-dresses and entertains as a flamenco dancer; he wants to sell and leave. His daughter wants to stay. The return of Pancho complicates things: he's a hothead Alejo tries to control and he scared Manuelita the year before. Things come to a head as Pancho breaks Alejo's hold on him, then flirts and dances with Manuelita and finds himself at risk of being called a "maricón.".
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Mexico
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: art house, offbeat, serious, emotional, realistic, homoerotic, queer cinema, campy
Similar in 88%
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 76%
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%
Querelle (1982)
Plot Summary:
Here is the story of a beautiful, proud and tough loner, a sailor named Querelle, whose commanding officer Seblon worships and desires him from afar. Querelle turns on his drugs-smuggling partner and murders him. He then goes to a notorious brothel run by the rapacious Lysiane, who leads Querelle into his first homosexual encounter. Then, Querelle has become vulnerable and soft, and soon the once powerful object of passion comes to belong to Seblon.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: West Germany, France
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: sexual, controversial, erotic, sexy, art house, stylized, emotional, twist ending, sensual, erotic drama
Similar in 75%
Darker Than Midnight (2014)
Plot Summary:
Davide is different from the other teenagers. Something makes him look like a girl. Davide is fourteen when he runs away from home. His intuition leads him to choose Villa Bellini, a park in Catania, as a refuge. The park is a world in itself, a world of the marginalized, to which the rest of the city turns a blind eye. But one day the past catches up and Davide has to face the most difficult choice, this time alone.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 355
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, captivating, realistic, queer cinema
Similar in 81%
Anatomy of a Hate Crime (2001)
Plot Summary:
This MTV film dramatizes the horrific hate-crime killing of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard (Cy Carter) in Wyoming. In 1998, Shepard, a gay college student, was savagely beaten by Russell Henderson (Ian Somerhalder) and Aaron McKinney (Brendan Fletcher), who left their victim to die. Flashbacks paint a picture of Shepard's life and provide insight into why the killers, who initially set out to rob the young man, would commit such a brutal murder.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 316
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: disturbing, thought provoking, emotional, bleak, serious, realistic, controversial, queer cinema
Similar in 78%
Nighthawks (1978)
Plot Summary:
A gay man is forced to hide his sexuality by day while living his secret life by night. A respectable geography teacher by day; by night, hanging out in London's gay bars, looking for a long-term relationship, but usually encountering only one-night stands. Ron Peck later talks about his experiences of growing up as a gay man, the attitudes to homosexuality in Britain, and his journey towards making this film in the 1991 movie "Strip Jack Naked: Nighthawks II".
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 681
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, West Germany
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: psychological, sincere, serious, emotional, realistic, gloomy, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 88%
FAQs (2005)
Plot Summary:
After living on the tough streets of LA for a while, India hopes that every gay basher will meet his destiny. In this case Destiny is a black, 6 foot, high heel wearing, gun toting, drag queen with an attitude and a soft place in her heart for homeless gay boys.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 528
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, realistic, talky, sexual, sexy, queer cinema
Similar in 88%
Tattoo (2013)
Plot Summary:
Brazil, 1978. The military dictatorship that resulted from a coup in 1964 begins to stumble. In a cabaret-like theater located on the periphery between two cities in the northeast of Brazil, a group of artists challenges power and conventional morality with theater plays and public interferences. Led by Clécio Wanderley, the troupe Chão de Estrelas, strongly supported by its homosexual audience, along with intellectuals and other artists, practices political resistance through anarchy and mockery.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, disturbing, captivating, realistic, period piece, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 88%
Cal (2013)
Plot Summary:
Twenty-year-old Cal returns from France to Britain after receiving news that his mother is ill. His finds his home city of Bristol facing hard economic times brought on by the global economic crisis, with poverty and crime on the rise and rioting and looting almost a nightly occurrence. It is not a warm homecoming as his sick mother remains stubbornly homophobic and wants nothing to do with the now openingly gay Cal while his battered Auntie Jane, now living in a run down council house, dulls her stagnation with welfare funded booze and disturbing attempts to sexually seduce her nephew. Navigating his way across this new landscape he meets a young student who needs his help. However his act of kindness brings him into contact with a lawless drug dealing pimp and a race against time to make peace with his mother and get out of town as quickly as possible. An intense tale of a family mired in poverty, angry and lost but still searching for love, respect and acceptance.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 474
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, erotic, tense, gloomy, gay cinema, queer cinema
Similar in 86%
Brother to Brother (2004)
Plot Summary:
A drama that looks back on the Harlem Renaissance from the perspective of an elderly, black writer who meets a gay teenager in a New York homeless shelter.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: serious, thought provoking, touching, realistic, captivating, social, contemplative, queer cinema
Similar in 75%
Children of God (2010)
Plot Summary:
Johnny (Johnny Ferro) is an art student in Nassau whose technique is perfect, but he’s creatively blocked. His teacher sends him off to the rural island of Eleuthera where he meets Romeo (Stephen Tyrone Williams), a hot musician. They begin a clumsy dance of attraction and romance. Romeo has a fiancé and is identified as straight, but he’s been known to play with the boys on the side secretly. The Bahamas are bound by religious traditions that discourage homosexuality and end up forcing gay men into the closet. Lena is a pastor’s wife. Her husband demonizes homosexuality to further his career, yet he’s on the DL as well. When Lena discovers that her husband has infected her with VD, he accuses her of infidelities. These characters are all bound together in this intense drama of love, family and secrets.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: Bahamas
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, emotional, realistic, stylized, lgbt cinema, gloomy, crying, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 82%
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 88%
Pedro (2008)
Plot Summary:
An intimate biopic of Pedro Zamora, an HIV-positive Cuban-American, who was cast for the MTV reality show, The Real World: San Francisco, in 1994. Due to his experience on the Real World, Pedro became a celebrity and a sympathetic face of the AIDS epidemic for millions of Americans who had never met anyone with HIV/AIDS.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 535
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, touching, serious, realistic, sincere, contemplative, non-linear, queer cinema
Similar in 87%
The Last Year (2002)
Plot Summary:
Paul's homosexual affair at Bible College with a new student named Alex sets tongues wagging, mostly with un-Christian reactions. The dean, himself a closet case, threatens to expel Paul, and the football jocks have their eye on Alex. The church confessional is sure to be busy as spirituality and sexuality clash in this movie based on a true story.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 399
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: emotional, sincere, touching, serious, realistic, sexual, independent film, sexy, queer cinema