20 best movies like High Art (1998)

This intimate drama follows Rebecca, a woman who has kept her sexuality a secret from her friends but chooses to reveal it to a stranger. While Rebecca's revelations may not yield the results she expects, a perfect ending is still in reach.

High school athlete Cyd Loughlin lives alone with her depressive father in South Carolina, perpetually longing to get away from it all. When her aunt, famous novelist Miranda Ruth, agrees to host her for a few weeks during the summer, Cyd jumps at the opportunity. While there, she falls for a girl in the neighborhood, even as she and her aunt gently challenge each other in the realms of sex and spirit.

In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

An emotionally and sexually charged journey through the love, addiction, and friendship of two men. Documentary filmmaker Erik and closeted lawyer Paul meet through a casual encounter, but they find a deeper connection and become a couple. Individually and together, they are risk takers—compulsive, and fueled by drugs and sex. In an almost decade-long relationship defined by highs, lows, and dysfunctional patterns, Erik struggles to negotiate his own boundaries and dignity and to be true to himself.

A blind man has an operation to regain his sight at the urging of his girlfriend and must deal with the changes to his life.

In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tasmin. Over the summer season, the two young women discover they have much to teach one another, and much to explore together.

A young woman in the Army must make tough decisions when her love for an older woman causes her to question just where she is going. Adapted from Deb Shoval's 2011 short film of the same name.

Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.

One man does all he can to veil his Asian heritage; the other takes great pains to hide his sexual orientation. Both of these things begin to change when Ryan is hired to prepare film star Ning for a fashion shoot, and the men develop a bond.

Jane, a high school teenager, tries to deal with the discovery that she is a lesbian after developing an intense friendship with another girl who makes her discover her true sexuality, which is only the start of Jane's troubles when Jane's unaccepting mother, Janice, struggles with her surprising revelation of brought forth by her only daughter.

Victor is a cook who works in a greasy bar/restaurant owned by his mother, Dolly. It's just the two of them, a waitress named Delores, and a heavy drinking regular, Leo. But things change when Callie, a beautiful college drop-out, shows up as a new waitress and steals Victor's heart. But Victor is too shy to do anything about it, and too self-consciously overweight to dream of winning Callie away.

The story of straight-edge literature professor Vivian who travels to Reno to get away from a relationship breakup when she falls in love with an attractive and unconventional girl named Cay.

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.

A baseball legend almost finished with his distinguished career at the age of forty has one last chance to prove who he is, what he is capable of, and win the heart of the woman he has loved for the past four years.

Estranged twins Maggie and Milo coincidentally cheat death on the same day, prompting them to reunite and confront the reasons their lives went so wrong. As the twins' reunion reinvigorates them, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.

Docudrama about American poet Hart Crane, who committed suicide in April 1932 at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.

The story about the relationship between a manic depressive man, Mr Jones, and the female doctor who takes more than a professional interest in his treatment.

Too shy to make a proper introduction, a recent college grad devises to shoot a documentary about the NYC nightlife scene in order to meet the go-go guy he’s cyber-obsessed with.

When a foreign exchange student arrives in a small upstate New York town, she challenges the dynamics of her host family's relationships and alters their lives forever.

After she discovers that her boyfriend has betrayed her, Hilary O'Neil is looking for a new start and a new job. She begins to work as a private nurse for a young man suffering from blood cancer. Slowly, they fall in love, but they always know their love cannot last because he is destined to die.

An unexpected affair quickly escalates into a heart-stopping reality for two women whose passionate connection changes their lives forever.

Jack and Diane, two teenage girls, meet in New York City and spend the night kissing ferociously. Diane's charming innocence quickly begins to open Jack's tough skinned heart. But, when Jack discovers that Diane is leaving the country in a week she tries to push her away. Diane must struggle to keep their love alive while hiding the secret that her newly awakened sexual desire is giving her werewolf-like visions.

Jenny Farrell is getting married. But how will her straight-laced family react when they find out that the woman they thought was their daughter’s roommate is actually her fiancée? As the old-fashioned Farrells attempt to come to terms with the prospect of a surprise daughter-in-law, they face a difficult choice: either adapt with the times or risk being left behind.

1921 New York. An immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.

Ned (Liev Schreiber) is in the throes of a mid-life crisis. His work as a writer on an outrageous, semi-pornographic TV show is less than satisfying. His fifteen year old son has just told him he is gay and his eleven year old is afraid of, well pretty much everything. When his wife, Jeannie (Helen Hunt), moves her sick and embittered father (Brian Dennehy) from Detroit into their home in NY, it puts added stress on an already strained marriage. And when a sexy female co-worker (Carla Gugino) puts the moves on Ned, the temptation sends him spiraling. EVERY DAY is about one family's struggle to survive the unexpected curve-balls that are simply part of real life; aging and death; commitment and freedom; love and acceptance. It's an uncompromising look at an ordinary family making an extraordinary journey towards themselves and towards each other.

A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.

An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.

Death in Love is a psychosexual-thriller about a love affair between a Jewish woman and a doctor overseeing human experimentation at a Nazi German concentration camp, and the impact this has on her sons' lives in the 1990s.

In 1951, New York poet Elizabeth Bishop travels to Rio de Janeiro to visit Mary, a college friend. The shy Elizabeth is overwhelmed by Brazilian sensuality. She is the antithesis to Mary’s dashing partner, architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Mary is jealous, but unconventional Lota is determined to have both women at all costs. This eternal triangle plays out against the backdrop of the military coup of 1964. Bishop’s moving poems are at the core of a film which lushly illustrates a crucial phase in the life of this influential Pulitzer prize-winning poet.

The world of a young housewife is turned upside down when she has an affair with a free-spirited blouse salesman.

The inspiring true story of Seretse Khama, the King of Bechuanaland (modern Botswana), and Ruth Williams, the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of fierce opposition from their families and the British and South African governments. Seretse and Ruth defied family, Apartheid and empire - their love triumphed over every obstacle flung in their path and in so doing they transformed their nation and inspired the world.

A woman learns about the death of her Orthodox Jewish father, a rabbi. She returns home and has romantic feelings rekindled for her best childhood friend, who is now married to her cousin.

A hotel room in the center of Rome serves as the setting for two young and recently acquainted women to have a physical adventure that touches their very souls.

The true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.

Cynical hit man Mick is tiring of his job and asks his boss George for time off. However, George gives him the assignment of his life, prompting Mick's soul-searching to reach new heights. Mick is asked to kill sultry Fiona, who owes George money and claims she wants to die. But as Mick spends time with her, he finds himself falling for her.

Autumn in New York follows the sexual exploits of Will Keane - New York restaurateur, infamous verging-on-50 playboy, master of the no-commitment seduction - until he runs into an unexpected dead end when he meets Charlotte Fielding. Charlotte is half Will's age and twice his match, a 21 year-old free spirit yearning to get out and taste the excitement of adult life.

Lukas, 20, is a prisoner in his own body. As a pre-op transgendered person, he is constantly finding himself trapped in uncomfortable, compromising positions. His best friend, Ine introduces him to the gay scene in Cologne where he meets the confident and gorgeous, Fabio. The two develop a romantic relationship that tests the boundaries of love. ROMEOS forgoes stereotypes and conventions to offer an honest and humorous examination of the most basic of human conditions: friendship, sex, and love.

In a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Kurdish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. When Lateef is given heavier tasks to compensate for new Afghan worker Rahmat, he resents his displacement and treats Rahmat cruelly. After one of his pranks, however, Lateef discovers Rahmat's secret--he is a girl named Baran. Latif's heart softens towards Baran and he shows his new affection for her by doing what he can to ease the hardships she suffers at work. revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.Baran is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi, based on an original script by Majid Majidi. The movie is set during recent times in which there are a large number of Afghan refugees living on the outskirts of Tehran. Almost a silent movie, Baran won a number of awards both nationally and internationally for the director and writer Majid Majidi.

An airline pilot and his wife are forced to face the consequences of her alcoholism when her addictions threaten her life and their daughter's safety. While the woman enters detox, her husband must face the truth of his enabling behavior.

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in modern day East Village, New York, USA. The story centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a former tragedy has made Roger numb to life, Mark tries to capture it through his attempts to make a film. In the year that follows, the group deals with love, loss, HIV/AIDS, and modern day life.

A Catholic New Yorker falls in love with a girl and decides to marry her. But then he learns that she was once raped.

Recovering from an ill-fated affair with a married man, Gabe finds solace in the relationship he maintains with his ex-wife and daughter. On the other side of town, Ernesto evades life at home with his current live-in ex-boyfriend by spending much of his spare time in the hospital with an ailing past love. Impervious to the monotony of their blue-collar world, they maintain an unwavering yearning for romance. The emotional isolation the two men have grown accustomed to is captured in a subtle, optimistic, poetic fashion while avoiding melodrama.

Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland. The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl's fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother - which only fed Florence's need to stay in the spotlight.

Irene, a thirty-something housewife with a successfull husband and a young son, has her life thrown in a spin when she becomes attracted to Billy, a member of a landscape crew outside her house. When Irene's husband and son leave for a weekend fishing trip, Irene wanting to see Billy, gets locked in the back of his trailer and ends up at remote Lake Consequence with Billy and his girlfriend Grace where they take Irene on a trip into the nearby town to a Chinese New Year Festival, and through a series of adventures they bring out the repressed sexual needs Irene has been holding inside for a long time.

A troubled man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her in the process.

A sensuous and ethereal story of two young women falling in love for the first time. Young, beautiful Àsia lies in a coma, her mother and boyfriend keeping constant vigil by her side. In flashback we see what led up to her accident, her life studying architecture at university, the somewhat overbearing relationship she has with her mother and her passionless relationship with Nathaniel.

Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer.

The wife of a Marine serving in Vietnam, Sally Hyde decides to volunteer at a local veterans hospital to occupy her time. There she meets Luke Martin, a frustrated wheelchair-bound vet who has become disillusioned with the war. Sally and Luke develop a friendship that soon turns into a romance.

Respected lawyer, Henry Turner survives a convenience-store shooting only to find he has lost his memory, and has serious speech and mobility issues. After also losing his job—where he no longer 'fits in'—his loving wife and daughter give him all their love and support.

When Laura and Christine meet Maria, their friendship takes an intense turn to vulnerability, love and sex.