You are not alone if you have fell in love with “Call Me By Your Name” and are looking for other films with same quality. Many of us yearned for that same seductive mix of summer romance, emotional vulnerability, and coming-of- age metamorphosis after Luca Guadagnino’s masterwork. The excellent news is While providing its own original viewpoints, several other LGBT films also have CMBgyn’s emotional DNA.
These 21 films, including “Call Me By Your Name,” have been carefully chosen to take you to the similar emotional terrain. From working-class London to Taiwanese military academies, from moonlit paths of identity to forbidden love in prestigious British universities, each film catches something of that CMByne enchantment while transporting you somewhere different. Some are secret jewels just waiting to be unearthed, others famous masterpieces.
So grab a peach (or maybe don’t), settle in, and investigate these amazing films like “Call Me By Your Name” that might just cover that Elio-and- Oliver-shaped hole in your heart.
In This Article
1. Moonlight (2016)
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Netflix, Kanopy, Amazon, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: Like CMBYN, Moonlight is a coming-of-age story that explores identity, sexuality, and self-discovery through different life stages. Both films feature stunning cinematography and approach their stories with poetic sensibility.
What We Like About It: Moonlight’s poetic approach to narrative sets it apart. Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s semi-autobiographical work—which he characterises as simply “artists trying to figure things out”—the film chronicles the path of a young Black child through three major periods of life.
Set in Liberty City, Miami, we follow Chiron as he negotiates the difficult facts of bullying, a drug-addled mother, and a fatherless life. Both films have an amazing sensory intimacy even if the environment couldn’t be more different from CMBYN’s wealthy Italian summer.
Like moonlight surf waves flowing over you, these flicks are genuinely connected by their emotional undercurrent. Moonlight becomes something universal—a narrative about becoming yourself—above labels of sexuality or colour. Like the protagonists in both movies, years later we might turn out to be someone we never would have anticipated, but we will always remember those early moments of connection that moulded us.
2. God’s Own Country (2017)
Country: UK
Where to Watch: Hulu, Amazon, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: Filmed in the rural countryside like CMBgyn’s Northern Italian backdrop, this film depicts a transforming summer romance between two young men from disparate backgrounds. Both films look at emotional awakening in remote, gorgeous settings.
What We Like About It: For good cause, this British indie beauty swept the UK Independent Film Awards and kept a nearly perfect 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Although the sheep-herding backdrop makes it sometimes known as “the British Brokeback Mountain,” its intimate narrative of unexpected bonding shares more DNA with CMBYN.
The way the movie contrasts real sensitivity with the severity of rural Yorkshire farm life is amazing. Though both films recognise that location is more than simply backdrop – it’s character – the muddy, rain-soaked terrain hardly be more from sun-drenched Italy.
3. Matthias & Maxime (2019)
Country: Canada
Where to Watch: MUBI, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Explores the blurry line between friendship and attraction when two lifelong friends confront their feelings for each other. Like CMBYN, it delves into the complexities of discovering unexpected desire for someone close to you.
What We Like About It: One kiss transforms everything – and Xavier Dolan masterfully catches that pivotal moment. The way Mat abruptly challenges everything about himself, including emotions for his closest friend he never thought existed, you could sense the ripple effect from the time the guys realise they will have to kiss for a student film.
This is a wonderfully seen trip through doubt, denial, wrath, and uncertainty. Like CMBYN, this movie shines in those quiet times when insight strikes. Seeing someone find aspects of themselves they never knew existed has a certain kind of magic.
I enjoy how this movie plays with your emotions: it builds you up with possibility before cutting your expectations. Dolan changes the emotional terrain just as you believe you know what is happening. That same mixed feeling is what keeps CMBgyn from leaving your head long after you saw.
4. Beautiful Thing (1996)
Country: UK
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, Tubi (free with ads)
Why It’s Similar: A tender coming-of-age story about two teenage boys who discover love in an unlikely setting. Like CMBYN, it captures the intensity and confusion of first love and self-discovery.
What We Like About It: Unlike CMBgyn’s sophisticated academic environment, “Beautiful Thing” dumps us into a working-class London house estate to tell its coming-of-age tale. Actually, this discrepancy emphasises what makes both films successful: they are finally about the universal feeling of first love, independent of situation.
What’s great is how the movie substitutes real warmth for theatrics. Those little gestures tell volumes; a few words said at the bedside, a gift from Mom inadvertently, a courageous hug in sunshine regardless of who might see. Here there is a genuineness that speaks to me.
The rather utopian dancing number in the climax precisely balances the narrative; everything left unsaid throughout the film finds expression. It brings to me the fireplace scene or final call name from CMBYN, those times when everything crystallises. Both films recognise how transformational love can be, particularly in youth when the world hasn’t been friendly.
5. Beach Rats (2017)
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Hulu, Kanopy, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Set during a languid summer along Brooklyn’s beaches, the film explores a young man’s struggle with his sexual identity. Like CMBYN, it uses summer and water imagery as backdrops for sexual awakening.
What We Like About It: While CMBgyn investigates sexual awakening amid an affluent milieu, “Beach Rats” looks at related subjects via a grittier prism. The film presents a striking juxtaposition to Elio’s intellectual independence following a Brooklyn youngster negotiating his sexuality inside a hypermasculine beach town.
Not its “gay narrative” but rather its character study distinguishes this movie. Though many viewers found the protagonist’s decisions – dating a female while covertly meeting guys – to be difficult, that’s exactly what gives it real rather than idealised feel. It’s more interested in internal struggle than in outside drama, much as CMBYN is.
Like CMBYC’s moonlit swims, the neon-lit nighttime beach vistas have a surreal feel suggesting areas where different rules apply. Both films know how environment shapes expression.
6. Weekend (2011)
Country: UK
Where to Watch: Criterion Channel, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: Captures an intense, brief romance that leaves a profound impact. Like CMBYN, it shows how even short relationships can transform us and linger in memory.
What We Like About It: While “Weekend is a wonderfully created miniature, compressing great emotional depth into just two days, “Brokeback Mountain” is an epic spanning decades. Like the difference between a magnificent bonsai and a tall oak, both gorgeous but on somewhat different sizes.
Andrew Haigh’s director work is outstanding; he shows how two people meeting by chance could go through something significant in just 48 hours. The movie zips in on shared cigarettes, post-coital chats, and debates about identity that seem entirely unscripted instead of great gestures.
The movie proposes a different route for gay films that CMByne would later take: you don’t need clichés, obvious sexuality, or high production standards; just honest writing and performances that catch the nuanced ways we relate.
7. Maurice (1987)
Country: UK
Where to Watch: HBO Max, Criterion Channel, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: A period piece set in early 20th century England, exploring forbidden love amid societal constraints. Like CMBYN, it’s an adaptation of a novel that deals with class differences and intellectual settings.
What We Like About It: “Maurice” is a story about a gay character’s journey written by a gay guy, filmed by a gay director, and has great potency regarding it. Its unwillingness to compromise on its ending reveals this threefold sincerity.
The picture, which is set in Edwardian England, feels shockingly current in its emotional honesty. It follows Maurice’s path from his intellectual relationship with Clive to his intense bond with the gamekeeper Scudder, finally choose love over social boundaries – a radical idea for a period drama.
The English countryside and Cambridge scenes in the movie are caught with the same respect as CMBgyn’s Italian home, therefore creating an immersive universe where landscape and architecture mirror emotional moods. Both films know how emotional resonance could be enhanced by physical beauty.
8. Shelter (2007)
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, Tubi (free with ads)
Why It’s Similar: Set against a backdrop of beaches and surfing in Southern California, this film explores unexpected love while navigating family responsibilities. Like CMBYN, it uses a summer setting for its love story.
What We Like About It: “Shelter” proved that emotional honesty comes first even with a small budget by sweeping film festival honours. Against the surfing scene of Southern California, it generates that same sunny, physical environment that makes CMBgyn so engrossing.
This movie is unique in that it emphasises responsibility alongside desire; our protagonist is not only negotiating his sexuality but also looking after his nephew and controlling family expectations. This extra dimension generates really realistic stakes.
Like CMBYN’s swimming scenes, the surfing sequences allow characters to physically convey what they cannot yet articulate. Both films realise how dynamically moving bodies may convey stories words cannot.
9. The Way He Looks (2014)
Country: Brazil
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Similar: A gentle coming-of-age story about a blind teenager who falls in love with a new student. Like CMBYN, it captures the tenderness and uncertainty of adolescent love.
What We Like About It: Originally an award-winning short film, director Daniel Ribeiro developed this Brazilian treasure into a feature spanning festival honours. Its idea, a blind teen falling in love with a new classmate, generates a singular sensory experience whereby touch takes front stage as the main language of communication.
The way the movie veers from pure romance to independence and self-determination is amazing. Like CMBgyn, it sees first love as a means of inspiration for more general self-discovery rather than a goal in and alone. The protagonist’s path calls for asserting the freedom to make that decision as much as for who he loves.
Regardless of your sexuality, the movie catches those awkward, sensitive moments of adolescent discovery with such realism that you’ll be taken back to your own teenage years.
10. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: A sweeping romance set against breathtaking natural landscapes, exploring forbidden love and long-lasting emotional impact. Like CMBYN, it’s a critically acclaimed literary adaptation.
What We Like About It: Not only was “Brokeback Mountain” revolutionary in its broad appeal but also in its rejection of preconceptions regarding LGBT characters. Jack and Ennis are shown as working-class cowboys men who defy Hollywood’s inclination towards caricature by being generally macho.
Ang Lee’s deft direction reveals amazing restraint, allowing emotional power to develop through what’s unspoken instead than theatrical pronouncements. This similar method lends CMBgyn its strength; both films know that looks across a room has more weight than speeches.
What links these films ultimately is their universalising of particular events. Human stories about connection, desire, and the terrible gap between what we want and what society permits, not “gay stories.” We see these patterns since they are basic to how we love: the lingering, heartbreak, disagreements, compromises, challenges.
11. Sorry Angel (2018)
Country: France
Where to Watch: MUBI, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Set in 1990s Paris, this film explores a romance between a young student and an older writer. Like CMBYN, it features an age gap and intellectual conversations against a European backdrop.
What We Like About It: Filmed in early 1990s Paris, this movie catches a moment in homosexual history that seems both far-off and instant. The interaction between writer living with AIDS Jacques and much younger pupil Arthur produces an interesting intellectual and physical interplay.
This movie is unique in that it weaves a rich tapestry of connections from beyond its centre romance, including Jacques’s dying ex-boyfriend, his child with a female friend, his on-again, off-again lover, and neighbour. This neighbourhood snapshot provides the central love story more thorough background.
Their phone exchanges of letters, postcards, and poetry throughout time reveal the most exquisite moments. These establish an intellectual intimacy as strong as physical connection, much as the literary allusions in CMBYN. Both films see how words may become a kind of touch.
12. A Single Man (2009)
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: Though focused on an older character, the film shares CMBYN’s attention to visual beauty, sensory details, and emotional depth. Both films are meticulously crafted visual experiences.
What We Like About It: For good cause, Colin Firth received an Oscar nomination from fashion designer Tom Ford’s directing debut. Filmed in 1962 Los Angeles amid the Cuban Missile Crisis, it centres on a professor preparing his suicide after losing his sixteen-year companion.
It’s amazing how Ford crafts a sensual visual experience out of a weighty topic. Every frame feels painstakingly constructed, with colour palettes changing to mirror emotional states, just like in CMBYN. Both directors see films as a visual language rather than only a narrative one.
Though apparently limited in scope, the film achieves amazing depth one man, one day. For everyone confronting life’s turning points, every moment seems stretched and every detail matters. The movie catches that odd temporal dilation seen during emotional crises, whereby everyday events gain remarkable weight.
13. Holding the Man (2015)
Country: Australia
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Inspired by a memoir, this movie chronicles a 15-year relationship started in high school during the 1970s. Like CMBYN, it looks at how early love shapes our life.
What We Like About It: Based on a real story from Melbourne that had theatre audiences in tears, this Australian film follows a romance from teenage awakening to its sad end.
Its wide span, which shows how young love could develop through phases of discovery, societal pressure, happiness, and finally tragedy, sets it apart. Like the conclusion of CMBYN, the movie invites us to reflect on how early relationships impact our whole life.
This is ultimately a narrative about life itself – how two people negotiate the world together from young hormonal stirrings to adult commitment, overcoming every challenge together till the very last. This decades-spanning portrait’s genuineness adds remarkable emotional force.
14. End of the Century (2019)
Country: Argentina
Where to Watch: Criterion Channel, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Filmed in Barcelona, this film moves with time and memory as two men re-connect. Like CMBgyn, it looks at how fleeting interactions could reverberate across our life.
What We Like About It: The first plays of Argentine director Lucio Castro blurbs three distinct eras in the relationship between a poet and his Spanish girlfriend, in intriguing ways.
The film’s masterwork is in its transitions, which shift across timeframes using things like a camera, a t-shirt with a kiss print, rubber duckies, and refrigerators in various states. Water becomes a strong motif signifying desire; their initial meeting in the sea, a key encounter by a fountain.
These watery components produce a dreamy effect whereby conventional norms seem to be suspended, much as CMBgyn treated the swimming pool. Both films see how physical surroundings could transform into emotional terrain where memory runs between past and present like water itself.
15. Esteros (2016)
Country: Argentina/Brazil
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Two childhood friends reunite as adults at one’s family beach house, rekindling unresolved feelings. Like CMBYN, it uses a summery, waterside setting for its romance.
What We Like About It: “Esteros” deftly swings between adult reconnection and childhood companionship, therefore augmenting both eras. Set in the Iberá Wetlands of Argentina, the sweltering environment adds still another element to the narrative.
This movie links to CMBgyn because of its view of summer as a unique period when usual rules seem to be suspended. “What did one do around here?” one character in the book version of CMBYN asks. Not nothing. Wait for the summer to fade. What then one done in the winter? … Hold out for summer to arrive. Seasonal circumstances in both films help to produce emotional pressure cookers.
The slow tempo lets little moments of attraction stretch endlessly, generating that wonderful expectation that frequently surpasses the gratification of resolution. It’s about the road towards love, not about its domesticated reality—that brief, ideal moment before everything changes.
16. Departure (2015)
Country: UK/France
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: Set in the south of France, this film follows a sensitive British teenager’s sexual awakening during a summer vacation. The setting and coming-of-age theme directly parallel CMBYN.
What We Like About It: Two outstanding performances in this movie are from Phenix Brossard, playing against type as a muscular, angry straight character, and Alex Lawther (from “The End of the F***ing World”).
The film’s purposefully sluggish tempo, subdued colour palette, and simple score produce an almost mesmerising viewing experience. Though I first focused on the performers, I discovered myself captivated into the nuanced emotional relationships despite (or maybe because of their demanding nature.
This goes beyond conventional coming-of- age fare in that it explores family dynamics: a profoundly closeted father and bereaved mother building the setting in which our protagonist must discover himself. Like CMBYN, the movie recognises how surroundings define identity; the French countryside takes front stage itself.
Every glance has purpose; every sentence has subtext; every feeling has past. The director creates a film that feels experienced rather than just watched by approaching the content like a poet rather than a storyteller.
17. Summer of 85 (2020)
Country: France
Where to Watch: Hulu, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Set during a summer in a seaside town in Normandy, the film chronicles an intense teenage romance with nostalgic overtones. Like CMBYN, it captures the heightened emotions of youth.
What We Like About It: The chemistry between the leads in “Summer of 85” is electrifying, maybe even better than CMBgyn’s well-known coupling. Filmed in a beach hamlet in Normandy, François Ozon’s work catches the seductive rush of adolescent love with sun-drenched images and 1980s pop music.
Given its working-class environment, this movie seems more approachable than CMBYN. These lads have summer jobs, ride mopeds, and sneak into movie theatres; they are not the children of academics with Italian villas and live-in housekeepers. Their remarkable relationship has something really normal about it.
The rollercoaster scene captures the emotional terrain of the movie exactly: that ideal mix of exhilaration and horror defining first love. These times of physical freedom reflect emotional rebirth, much as CMBYN’s bike excursions over the countryside.
18. Handsome Devil (2016)
Country: Ireland
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Set at a rugby-obsessed boarding school, this film explores the developing relationship between two mismatched roommates. Like CMBYN, it examines how connection can develop in enclosed, intense environments.
What We Like About It: Filmed in an Irish boarding school steeped in rugby, this film examines the unusual connection between artistic outcast Ned and athletic new student Connor. Though mostly on friendship rather than romance, it reflects CMByne’s curiosity on how intellectual connection may heal apparently insurmount divisions.
The way this movie emphasises self-definition versus social norms makes it unique. The film’s rallying call, “Don’t borrow others’ voices!” – which promotes authenticity in a conformist setting – originates from the exhortation of the English instructor.
Andrew Scott (Moriarty from “Sherlock”) and Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton from “Game of Thrones”) give subtle performances that transcend conventional teen fare, surprisingly brilliant. Like Mr. Perlman of CMBgyn, these mature characters offer vital viewpoint without distorting the narrative.
19. Your Name Engraved Herein (2020)
Country: China
Where to Watch: Netflix
Why It’s Similar: Set in 1980s Taiwan as martial law ends, the film follows two male students at a Catholic school who develop feelings for each other. Like CMBYN, it’s a period piece about forbidden love with a nostalgic atmosphere.
What We Like About It: Filmed in early 1990s Taiwan right after martial control was lifted, this deeply personal lens depicts a turning point in history. Two Catholic students negotiate their emotions in the context of fast evolving societal conventions: girls being accepted into their university while homosexuality is still forbidden.
This movie is unique in how it positions personal struggle inside historical change. Documenting both how far society has come and how difficult that trip has been for people caught in transition, it marks a turning point in Taiwan’s LGBTQ film.
Like the 1980s setting of CMBgyn, the period features produce both nostalgic distance and instantaneous emotional recognition. Both films know how social circumstance impacts expression without dictating it totally. Though clearly products of their time, the characters challenge limits.
20. Close (2022)
Country: Belgium
Where to Watch: MUBI, Amazon
Why It’s Similar: Follows the intense friendship between two 13-year-old boys that gets disrupted when they begin secondary school. Like CMBYN, it explores the blurry boundaries of intimate same-sex relationships.
What We Like About It: Second movie by Belgian director Lukas Dhont following his award-winning “Girl” examines the close friendship between two 13-year-old boys destroyed under social pressure. The title aptly catches the two ideas of closeness and loss in the movie.
The visual grace of this film distinguishes it. With such sensitivity, Dhont captures the physical intimacy between the boys – sleepovers, whispered secrets, shared hobbies – it makes their later estrangement physically uncomfortable to see.
Like CMBYN, the movie recognises how hard decisions are created by society expectations about masculinity. Both look at how outside forces could contaminate the most pure relationships and make characters decide between acceptance and authenticity. The simplicity of the narrative just accentuates its emotional power.
21. Boys (2014)
Country: Netherlands
Where to Watch: Amazon, Apple TV
Why It’s Similar: Set during a summer athletic training camp, the film follows two teen runners who develop feelings for each other. Like CMBYN, it uses summer and physical activity as a backdrop for awakening desire.
What We Like About It: This Dutch coming-of- age movie set in a summer athletic training camp reflects the same physical freedom CMBgyn gets from its swimming scenes. Both films know how bodies in motion convey what characters cannot yet say.
“Boys” stands out from CMByne in my opinion because of its distinctiveness; whereas Elio’s narrative may fit with gender-swapped protagonists, Sieger and Marc’s connection seems especially male in its presentation. Their connection has a genuineness that cannot be replicated in a heterosexual dynamic.
The movie masters building emotional suspense without contrived drama. Everything runs naturally, catching that particular sadness of first love without romanticism. Watching it makes me recognise rather than feel sympathy; that’s the characteristic of a narrative that speaks to something universal via very particular experience.
Finding Your Next Cinematic Love
These 21 films cover many aspects of what made “Call Me By Your Name” particularly unique. Some get that same slow summer mood, others the intellectual depth or emotional rawness. While some concentrate on the passion of youth, others look at how early loves resound in our life.
Their shared quality is a real approach to narrative that defies easy classification. These are films on human connection that centre same-sex relationships, not merely “gay films,” as CMBgyn is. They remind us how universal, independent of sexuality or situation, the experience of desire, self-discovery, and transformation can be.
Depending on what you most loved about CMBYN, which of these films speaks to you? Was it the summer location, the academic environment, the coming-of-age narrative, or just the emotional honesty? If you appreciate films that capture emotional authenticity in same-sex relationships, you might also enjoy our collection of Japanese gay cinema that offers similarly profound explorations of desire and identity. Whichever quality attracted you, there is something on this list that will carry you back to that same emotional terrain.