20 best movies like Strapped (2010)

Cuba is not a country for young gays. Teen rent boy Reinier falls in love with a mate in the slum soccer field at their neighbourhood in Havana. Although obsessed with moneymaking to hold up his baby, teen wife and wife's granma, gambler Reinier always fails in getting the stoke of luck he looks for. At the same time he cannot help being infatuated by Yosvani. Handsome Yosvani will give up his wealthy -and elder- girlfriend whom he hooked to pay him a lavish life in the big city, and the works he makes for her father, a loan thug, so much in love he is with Reinier. But the boys would fight hard to keep this love in the reckless Havana streets.

FIVE DANCES, written and directed by Alan Brown, is a creatively adventurous narrative feature film set in the New York 'downtown' modern dance world. The story follows the rocky emotional journey of an 18-year old dancer (the amazing Ryan Steele) with talent to burn, who must choose between his responsibility to his broken family in the Midwest, and forging a life and career for himself. The film features five of New York's most gifted dancers acting on film for the very first time, and performing the choreography of internationally acclaimed choreographer Jonah Bokaer.

After a decade of living in San Francisco, Jesse is forced to move back to his Midwestern roots because he can no longer afford the city. On his final night in the city, friends and ex-lovers gather for a going away party that promises to heighten Jesse's already bittersweet feelings about leaving.

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.

A slice of life story about a young man named Ruben, who returns home to take care of his ailing father. He reconnects with his boyhood friend Jimmy after starting a job with his Uncle.

When eight male cadets are left behind at an isolated military high school, the greatest romantic drama ever written seeps out of the classroom and permeates their lives.

A quirk in time and space gives a failed filmmaker the chance to reshape his destiny when he visits his peculiar alma mater.

A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.

Two men embark on an unconventional romance in Todd Verow's sexy Parisian-set drama. Claude finds a young man passed out in the street and, taking pity on him, decides to take him to his apartment to safely sleep. Awakening the next morning, the sexy stranger soon makes a play for his forty-something host, kick-starting a passionate romance. But will the chance meeting develop into more than just lust or will the pair's differences drive them apart? An accomplished, serious and very modern gay romance .

A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

Summertime. A cruising spot for men, tucked away on the shores of a lake. Franck falls in love with Michel, an attractive, potent and lethally dangerous man. Franck knows this, but wants to live out his passion anyway.

An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.

A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Adapted from a 1964 novel of the same name, the film follows a day in the life of George Falconer, a British college professor reeling with the recent and sudden loss of his longtime partner. This traumatic event makes George challenge his own will to live as he seeks the console of close friend Charley who is struggling with her own questions about life.

As the face of law enforcement in America for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life.

A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.

BOY MEETS GIRL is a funny, tender, sex positive romantic comedy that explores what it means to be a real man or woman, and how important it is to live a courageous life not letting fear stand in the way of going after your dreams.

The story of the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s, taking an unflinching look at the nation's sexual politics as gay activists and their allies in the medical community fight to expose the truth about the burgeoning epidemic to a city and nation in denial.

The 38-year-old bodybuilder Dennis would really like to find true love. He has never had a girlfriend and lives alone with his mother in a suburb of Copenhagen. When his uncle marries a girl from Thailand, Dennis decides to try his own luck on a trip to Pattaya, as it seems that love is easier to find in Thailand. He knows that his mother would never accept another woman in his life, so he lies and tells her that he is going to Germany. Dennis has never been out traveling before and the hectic Pattaya is a huge cultural shock for him. The intrusive Thai girls give big bruises to Dennis' naive picture of what love should be like, and he is about to lose hope when he unexpectedly meets the Thai woman Toi.

The interwoven stories of three couples which are forced to make life altering decisions in the face of a disastrous war. Inspired and sometimes blinded by their love, Len, Mia, Andy, Esther, Anna and Erik are as flawed and beautiful as any of the billions who are facing this human-made biological disaster.

Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. While successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.

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.

Born out of wedlock early in the last century, Violette Leduc meets Simone de Beauvoir in postwar Saint-Germain-des-Près. An intense lifelong relationship develops between the two women authors, based on Violette's quest for freedom through writing and on Simone's conviction that she holds in her hands the destiny of an extraordinary writer.

The movie centers on a piano competition whose winner is assured of success. It is Paul's last chance to compete, but newcomer Heidi may be a better pianist. Can romance be far away? Will she take a dive despite the pressure to win from her teacher, Greta, or will she condemn Paul to obscurity?

Two couples are enjoying their summer at the beach, but when the grown son of one couple arrives, it surprisingly stirs something in the husband of the other couple, will the forbidden feelings end badly?

Set during a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

North Carolina mountains at the end of the 1920s – George and Serena Pemberton, love-struck newly-weds, begin to build a timber empire. Serena soon proves herself to be equal to any man: overseeing loggers, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. With power and influence now in their hands, the Pembertons refuse to let anyone stand in the way of their inflated love and ambitions. However, once Serena discovers George’s hidden past and faces an unchangeable fate of her own, the Pemberton’s passionate marriage begins to unravel leading toward a dramatic reckoning.

Both original and incredibly romantic, Redwoods tells the story of an already-partnered man whose love is tested when a mysterious drifter passes through his small Northern California town.

A young man employed as a 'fluffer' in the adult entertainment industry finds himself falling for a gay-for-pay porn star whose hedonistic lifestyle may lead them both to destruction.

Young Tim Cornish's life has begun with great promise. Blessed with extraordinary good looks, Tim enjoyed much attention and cared little of broken hearts. At university he was a favored student in a prestigious creative writing course, but a chance meeting, a stolen kiss and a sudden flare of passion sets Tim on a journey of betrayal, heartbreak and murder.

The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.

In Moscow in 1983, an American journalist interviews Guy Bennett, who recalls his last year at public school, fifty years before, and how it contributed to him becoming a spy.

Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.

When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world.

Two Navy fighter pilots find themselves in the midst of a forbidden relationship throwing their lives and careers into disarray.

When Sebastian meets Andreas for the first time, he knows they belong together. While Sebastian defies gender norms — flouting convention in his androgynous fluidity — straight-identifying Andreas becomes unable to accept his attraction to another man, as their relationship progresses. Struggling with his identity, Sebastian becomes increasingly determined to become “Ellie,” even if it means walking away from Andreas. Something Must Break brims with raw electricity as it explores questions of gender and sexuality with refreshing candor.

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.

Dorian realizes he is gay in his final year of high school. He meets another gay youth locally, but remains confused. He starts therapy, then resorts to confession in the Church, and finally comes out to his brother. Dorian then decides to come out to his father; he gets kicked out of the house.

Across a language barrier, a Turkish groom-to-be on an engagement party in Kyev meets a Ukrainian that represents the 'other woman' for a marriage there.

Pim lives in a run-down house in a dead-end street somewhere on the Flanders coast, together with his mother Yvette Bulteel. Life here smells of cold French fries, cheap cigarettes, vermouth and stale beer. Mother Yvette uses her friend Etienne, with his lousy grey Fiat, as a driver for the nights she has to “perform”. As a kid Pim dreams of a better life, imagining princesses and beauty queens. But when Pim turns 16 he dreams of Gino, the handsome boy next door, instead. Ever since they were children there has been this tension between them. Now Gino is Pim’s motorcycling hero. Cold mockery, little humiliations and tiny bits of hope make up Pim’s life. No wonder he sometimes flees to his dream world.

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

This is a fast-paced comedy about a 40-year-old gay man who finds himself dating two equally lovable men - a secure 50-year-old who came out later in life, and an adventurous 30-year-old who wasn't looking for a relationship. What he doesn't find out right away is that the two men are, in fact, father and son. And as they say, wackiness ensues.

Emily Delahunty is an eccentric British romance novelist who lives in Umbria in central Italy. One day while travelling, the train she is on is bombed by terrorists. After she wakes up in a hospital, she invites three of the other survivors of the disaster to stay at her Italian villa for recuperation. Of these are The General, a retired British Army veteran, Werner, a young German man, and Aimee, a young American girl who has now become mute after her parents were both killed in the explosion.

Seventeen-year-old Anne just fell in love with Sasha, the most popular girl at her L.A. public high school. But when Anne tells her best friend, Clifton—who has always harbored a secret crush on her—he does his best to get in the way.

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

In Havana, Raul dreams of escaping to Miami. Accused of assault, he appeals to Elio to help him reach the forbidden world 90 miles across the ocean. One night, full of hope, they face the biggest challenge of their lives.

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.

The story of Nathan, a young teenager who tries to flourish in a romantic relationship with neighbour Roy. The two young men will have to face the brutal reality of the rural south of the United States in the late 1970s.

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.