Love Stories

“Beautiful Thing telegraphed to its mid-1990s audiences something they hadn’t heard before: Gay people are just people.” —Brandon Tensley, The Atlantic

A filmmaking couple navigate love, recognition and Ingmar Bergman in Mia Hansen-Løve's triple-layered Cannes darling, a serene and self-reflective ode to film and storytelling.

Two strangers connect in the intimate confines of a train compartment in Juho Kuosmanen’s arresting sophomore feature.

In post-war Germany, Hans is repeatedly convicted for being gay. Over his many stints in prison, he develops a tumultuous friendship with Viktor. A moving film about the forces that conspire to destroy one man’s freedom.

Documentarian Heidi Ewing turns to narrative feature filmmaking in this lilting, graceful love story about two Mexican men whose bond is tested by distance, homophobia and hostile immigration systems.

An archaeologist reluctantly agrees to test-run a humanoid love robot programmed to fulfil her desires in this poignant comedy starring Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens.

Jacques Audiard’s charming exploration of the tangled work and love lives of three young Parisians is a beautifully-crafted love letter to the classics of French New Wave.

When neurosurgeon Márta abandons a brilliant career to follow her lover to Budapest, she instead finds a man who claims they’ve never met. “A treat – sinewy, seductive and beautifully strange.” —The Guardian

This queer coming-of-age romance combines all the sensuality of François Ozon’s best with the infectious energy of a CW drama and how meeting one person can open you up and change the trajectory of your life.

In love, newly engaged and maintaining a long-distance relationship, director Jan Oliver Lucks and his fiancée decide to throw traditional rules out the window by opening up their relationship before they tie the knot.

This captivating tale of fated lovers, drawing on myth and fantasy, is also a love song to Berlin.

A gentle exploration of the complexities of the human heart, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a balm for the soul.

Our Bill Gosden tribute wouldn’t be complete without a wall-to-wall Technicolor classic. Bill’s love of early cinema, vibrant studio-era musicals, and frankly anything starring Elvis could be felt throughout his retrospective programming, not least in the carefully curated Live Cinema events he looked forward to most. Douglas Sirk, Hollywood’s unrivalled melodramatist, influenced some of Bill’s absolute favourites — Fassbinder and Almodóvar, most famously — and this presentation of one of the director’s late masterpieces is a fitting occasion to luxuriate in larger-than-life filmmaking on the biggest screen available, as only Bill would have it.