Best movies like Mapplethorpe
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Mapplethorpe Starring Matt Smith, Marianne Rendón, John Benjamin Hickey, Brandon Sklenar, and more. If you liked Mapplethorpe then you may also like: Naked Boys Singing!, No Night Is Too Long, Relax... It's Just Sex, Before Night Falls, A Bigger Splash and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
A look at the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989.
Mapplethorpe
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No Night Is Too Long
A chance meeting, a stolen kiss and a sudden flare of passion sets a handsome young university student on a journey of betrayal, heartbreak and murder.
Relax... It's Just Sex
A tight-knit group of thirty-somethings -- gay, lesbian and straight -- struggle to live, love and stay friends in modern-day Los Angeles as circumstances conspire to tear them apart.
Before Night Falls
Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.
A Bigger Splash
A fictionalised biopic about the end of David Hockney's relationship with Peter Schlesinger which was named after Hockney's pop-art painting 'A Bigger Splash'.
Tom of Finland
Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
In 1958 New York Diane Arbus is a housewife and mother who works as an assistant to her husband, a photographer employed by her wealthy parents. Respectable though her life is, she cannot help but feel uncomfortable in her privileged world. One night, a new neighbor catches Diane's eye, and the enigmatic man inspires her to set forth on the path to discovering her own artistry.
Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
Biography of the British painter Francis Bacon. The movie focuses on his relationship with George Dyer, his lover. Dyer was a former small time crook.
It's My Party
Nick, a gay, HIV-positive architect, begins to display severe symptoms of AIDS and makes preparations to kill himself before he is unable to function normally. He arranges a party to reconnect and say goodbye to his closest friends and his confused parents. But when his ex-partner, Brandon, a television director who left Nick when he was diagnosed with HIV, shows up, what was supposed to be a celebratory event becomes much more difficult for everyone.
Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
Nude men in rubber suits, close-ups of erections, objects shoved in the most intimate of places—these are photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, known by many as the most controversial photographer of the twentieth century. Openly gay, Mapplethorpe took images of male sex, nudity, and fetish to extremes that resulted in his work still being labelled by some as pornography masquerading as art. But less talked about are the more serene, yet striking portraits of flowers, sculptures, and perfectly framed human forms that are equally pioneering and powerful.
Testosterone
Dean has been stumped for some time in his attempt to produce a follow-up to "I was a Teenage Speed Freak," his incredibly successful graphic novel. His fans expect great things from him and his editor, Louise, is hounding him. Instead of working, however, Dean spends his time searching for his Argentine lover Pablo, who went out one night for cigarettes and never came back.
The Last Straight Man
Lewis is a closeted gay man throwing a bachelor party for his straight best friend and secret crush, Cooper. After a night of drunken sex together, the two men decide to meet in the same hotel suite on the same night each year to hook up and catch up. Over the course of twelve years, we see four additional nights that depict how the two men grow and how their friendship changes.
Death Drive
Death Drive tells the story of a young man, who after emerging from a pool of water scrambles to piece together the previous night before embarking on a series of psychedelic adventures that reveal his darkest internal instinct.
The Living End
Two HIV-positive young men — a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler — tear off on a cross-country crime spree.
Zero Patience
The ghost of "patient zero", who allegedly first brought AIDS to North America - materialises and tries to contact old friends. Meanwhile, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton, who drank from the Fountain of Youth and now works as Chief Taxidermist at the Toronto Natural history Museum, is trying to organise an exhibition about the disease for the museum's "Hall of Contagion".
Holding Trevor
After finally breaking up with his drug-addicted lover, Trevor begins a new romance that unexpectedly complicates his other relationships.
ErOddity(s)
ErOddity(s) is a collection of four exceptional short stories set in the world of erotic fantasy. In "Forever Mine", a confused boy seeks a love that will last him a lifetime. A teen's long forgotten past leads to his short lived future in "A Mind of Their Own"; proving some things should remain in the closet! A Christmas present, in the hands of a young voyeur, leads to a holiday tale of woe in an "Unsolved Christmas". And finally, in "The Way To a Man's Heart", an abused lover gets his revenge from beyond the grave.
Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe
Crump directed the feature-length documentary film Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff + Robert Mapplethorpe, which premiered in North America at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and in Europe at Art Basel. It explores the influence curator Sam Wagstaff, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and musician/poet Patti Smith had on the 1970s art scene in New York City.
2 Minutes Later
When lesbian detective Abigail Marks teams up with gay guy Michael Dalmar to solve the disappearance of his twin, Kyle Dalmar, a famed portrait photographer, their investigation leads them into the Kyle's risque world. With Michael posing as Kyle, the pair uncover assistants who have designs on their bosses, clients who have an interest in detectives, and killers who want them stopped.
Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
Kenneth Williams was the star of the Carry Ons and Round the Horne. Despite his fame, he led a life full of mental torture as he tried to overcome his homosexuality in 1950s Britain. This film follows his life and eventual death based on the many diaries he kept
Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story
Breaking the Surface is about the tough times Greg Louganis had on his way to becoming one of the world's top Olympic divers.
All Kinds of Love
After his commitment-phobic husband divorces him, a stuck-in-his-ways gay man tries to start over. When he becomes accidental roommates with a younger hip nerd who is as romantically challenged as he is, sparks fly. “All Kinds of Love” is a feel-good comedy about people trying to follow their hearts, whether it involves an intergenerational romance, a middle-aged interracial throuple or an artistic trans man looking for love in all the wrong places.
Going Down in LA-LA Land
A fresh face comes to Hollywood to act in movies but only the gay porn studios are eager to provide him with work.
Bill T. Jones: Still/Here
Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly acclaimed dance Still/Here. At workshops around the country, people facing life-threatening illnesses are asked to remember the highs and lows of their lives, and even imagine their own deaths. They then transform their feelings into expressive movement, which Jones incorporates into the dance performed later in the program. For this documentary, Jones demonstrates the movements of his own life story: his first encounter with white people, confusion over his sexuality, his partner Arnie Zane’s untimely death from AIDS, and Jones’s own HIV-positive status.
Greek Pete
Just as doctors, lawyers and others strive to reach the top of their professions, Greek Pete longs to reach the pinnacle of his. The only difference is that he's a rent boy, and the recognition he seeks is a nod from the World Escort Awards.
Strapped
A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler into a series of life-changing encounters in this drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. As he wanders through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commonality, but out of that commodity comes raw, unguarded emotions for all.
The Houseboy
Distraught after he overhears his two 30-something lovers talking about finding a new "toy" to replace him, young Ricky looks for love through a series of random sexual encounters while house-sitting for the couple over the Christmas holidays. Meanwhile, he contemplates suicide. But when Ricky meets a compassionate new friend, he may be experiencing the sparks of real love in this compelling and sexy gay drama.
M15F1T5
In 2012, Casey, a gay teen started a group devoted to the environment and changing the world. In this small Texas town, the haters came out strong against the group accusing them of being a dangerous cult. Casey has a wonderful gift that he sees as a curse. He and his friends flee the small town, leaving the police with video tape clues, blood stained walls, and the testimony of a mentally unstable neighbor to solve the mysterious disappearance of all twelve members of the teen cult called The Tribe.
Deadly Screams of a Naked Siren
A college news reporter sets out to interview the niece of the only living person to escape a gender-changing Siren, eleven years prior. As secrets and truths are exposed, it turns out the motives of both parties are shrouded in darkness.
Pornography: A Thriller
A Thriller weaves together three different but curiously related stories centering on the mysterious disappearance of quintessential “boy-next-door” gay porn star Mark Anton.
Naked Boys Singing!
This whimsical Off-Broadway hit musical is aptly reworked and transferred to the screen. The self-descriptively titled Naked Boys Singing is a musical revue of songs that poke fun at gay life, body image, love, loss and yearning.