Best movies like Artificial Paradises

A prudish woman working on tenure as a literacy professor at a large urban university finds herself attracted to a free-spirited, liberal woman who works at a local carnival.

High school student Wendy has an odd relationship with her five friends: They're openly sexual with each other, swapping partners every week. But this is all thrown into turmoil when she meets Sean, a new student in school who has a crush on her. Wendy wants to be with Sean, but doesn't want to disappoint her friends, whom she has known since grade school. When she does decide to leave them, her best friend, Billie, threatens revenge.

Donna is sent to a reform school to take the fall for bad boy Vince. Inside, she makes friends and learns about herself.

Two professionals, Jeff and Marty, take a business trip to the Philippines. Their deep dissatisfaction with their lives leads them to forsake their friends and families for a return to the alcohol and drug-induced wanderings of their youth.

Claude and Ellen are best friends who live in a not-so-nice area of New York. They're involved in the subculture of 90s youth, complete with drugs, live music, and homophobia. All is changed one night when a violent and meaningless death rocks their lives.

A vending machine robbery by small time thief and drug addict Bobbie (Vincent Kartheiser) goes badly awry, and his friends contact street-wise thief and part-time druggie Mel (James Woods) to patch him up.Recognizing a kindred spirit, Mel befriends Bobbie and his girlfriend Rosie (Natasha Gregson Wagner), inviting them to join him and his long-suffering girlfriend Sid (Melanie Griffith) on a drug robbery which should set them up for life. The seemingly simple robbery is a great success, but the sale of the drugs afterward fails badly, and Mel and Bobbie are shot.The four take refuge with the Reverend, who charges them half of their haul from the robbery to care for them. In a desperate attempt to recover their losses, Mel involves the crew in a disastrous, ill-advised jewellery robbery, and they become caught up in a web of violence that rapidly spirals out of control.

August tells the story of two former lovers, Troy and Jonathan, who reunite after a long ago painful breakup. After spending several years in Spain, Troy returns to Los Angeles and decides to phone Jonathan and meet for coffee. A seemingly innocent rendezvous turns into an attempt to revive passions past. Only this time it's not that simple as Jonathan has a new beau, Raul, and is trying to make the right decision a second time around.

A young woman's friendship with a drug-dealing drifter evolves into a lesbian romance.

The wife of a pastor who preaches against homosexuality embarks on an affair with a female writer.

Sam and Gray are such a well-matched pair that it is difficult to believe they are brother and sister rather than husband and wife. They both share a love of 1940s movies and dancing, and when they meet Charlie, they have something else in common: They both fall in love with her. Sam must deal with unexpected feelings of jealousy, while Gray struggles to come to terms with her sexual orientation.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

Cliff receives an unusual 18th birthday gift from his younger sister — marijuana, alcohol, a subway token and the mission to lose his virginity. This results in Cliff meeting a young street hustler named Butch. At first, as Butch introduces Cliff to gay street life in Toronto, Cliff is excited by his new relationship. But as the two grow closer, he finds that Butch has problems, including drug addiction, that are cause for serious concern.

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

A wealthy Los Angeles teen and her superficial friends wants to break out of suburbia and experience Southern California's "gangsta" lifestyle. But problems arise when the preppies get in over their heads and provoke the wrath of a violent Latino gang. Suddenly, their role-playing seems a little too real.

Kitty and Stud are lovers. They enjoy a robust sex-life, which includes fellatio and light S&M, specifically, Stud belt-whipping Kitty. Three women come over for a party and Stud services them, one after the other.

Veronica is a white-bread beauty searching for a good man in Los Angeles. While slam dancing at a Halloween rave, she meets Abel, a sensitive poet. Then she meets Zed, a supersexy tattooed drummer with incredible biceps. Who will she choose? Does she go for true love or cheap sex? She can't decide so she chooses both. But after managing to nurture a picture-perfect threesome, along comes Ernest, a rich movie director with deep baby blues that sweep Veronica off her feet. What's a girl to do now?

At a sizable public college, high-minded student Eddy is forced to room with the slovenly Stuart, but the pair strike up a surprising friendship. When attractive co-ed Alex is assigned to live with the two male students because of her gender-neutral name, a roundabout love triangle ensues. Eddy secretly yearns for Stuart, who wants Alex, but she prefers Eddy. The complex situation leads to sexual experimentation and strained relationships.

Mixes documentary interviews of memories of lesbian adolescence with the story of the 12-year-old girl Lou discovering her sexuality in 1960s America.

Two young girls experience awakening sexuality in the heated atmosphere of a Swiss girls' boarding school.

A coming-of-age story of a reluctant 13-year-old hustler named Nathan who will do whatever it takes to feel loved.

Claire of the Moon is set in the 1990s in the Pacific Northwest. Claire Jabrowski, a famous heterosexual author, decides to attend a retreat for all-female writers. Claire's rommate at the retreat is Dr. Noel Benedict, author of a book called The Naked Truth. The movie culminates in a sexual encounter between the two authors.

After finally breaking up with his drug-addicted lover, Trevor begins a new romance that unexpectedly complicates his other relationships.

A former child actress attends college in search of independence and ends up becoming romantically involved with a female professor. Their relationship thrives until an opportunity to return to acting forces her to make life-altering decisions.

Three men struggle to save their relationship while traveling across country in search of a doctor they believe will make one of them well.

April's Shower begins with a group of people gathered for a wedding shower for April. At first, it seems to be a normal gathering for such an occasion but, as time goes on, secrets and stories begin to be revealed. Alex is a chef and a maid of honor at April's wedding. She ultimately reveals her true feelings which ends up taking an effect on everybody at the shower.

Marine officer Alexandra is tough enough to kick any guy's ass in a bar fight, but there's one opponent she can't beat: military policy. When she returns to her conservative hometown from Iraq with a mysterious personal life, she finds herself charged with preparing a tempestuous teenage girl to boot camp.

On a Black Tar Road between nowhere and somewhere, two misunderstood women find love in between the cracks of hardships.

Jessica, Sabrina and Daiane have dreams, just like all young people of any social class or place in the world. They live in a low-income neighborhood in the periphery of Rio de Janeiro and find in prostitution a way to survive and satisfy their consumer desires. However, even faced with the trials of absolute uncertainty and lack of hope, Jessica, Sabrina and Daiane insist on loving, having fun and planning their future.

Julia is a 35-year-old English Literature teacher struggling with depression as she tries to get her life back together again after her long, intense love affair with Antonia. Feeling totally abandoned after she and her enigmatic girlfriend broke up, Julia is thrown into a desperate, painful process. Her life and her values have been tinged with unbearable melancholy and her life's measure seems reduced to out-of-focus fragments of her memories. Her inner turmoil and conflicts hamper a process now made necessary - that of readapting to her new life. It is impossible for her to disguise her pain when she attempts to narrate emotions.

The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.

Inspired by true events, Todd Verow’s Tumbledown is an explosive cocktail- an emotional rollercoaster ride through the dark sides of sexuality. A complicated love triangle develops after hunky Jay meets bartender Nick and invites him to spend the weekend with him and his partner in their country cabin. Soon, copious amounts of sex, drugs and alcohol lead to a dark obsession and even darker complications. Always bold and never less than riveting, Tumbledown is sure to leave you breathless.

Director/screenwriter Gabriel Fleming (One Thousand Years) explores the subtleties of loneliness, friendship, and sexuality with this tale of two high school friends who are forced to face their unspoken sexual history while wandering the streets of San Francisco on Halloween night.

Three women make a pact to experience as much uncommitted sex as possible, but when one of them falls for the guy next door, the others stick to their agreement and seduce their friend's new love.

Three young people arrive from different parts of the country to go to college in Sao Paulo. On their first day there, a strange and intense attraction unites them. Together, they rent an apartment and begin living together, in close quarters. Sharing kisses and fond embraces. They exchange words of endearment with the naturalness of ordering a sandwich at a diner. They threaten to break up and the next moment they are all laughing together again. College days however soon come to an end and, with each having different paths to trail, separation is imminent. And consequently, their gestures, words and attitudes take on a new weight. Touching each other now takes on a new significance. Words of love are weighed down by consequences.

In 2006, a journalist in financial problems, a woman who dresses as a man and a troubled taxi driver become friends, and gradually, an awkward, strong emotional bond emerges among them, especially when they decide to play a confidence game.