Movies Like Heart Breaks Open

If you liked Heart Breaks Open (2011), a drama movie directed by William Maria Rain, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
A group of gay friends spend summer weekends together at a lakeside house in upstate New York. As the season progresses and secrets begin to surface, the complex relationships within the group are sometimes strained…
2
Rent (2019)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.
3
An Englishman in New York (2009)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and…
4
Flow (1996)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
A filmmaker talks about his work and love life with an unseen friend behind the camera. We also watch four of his short films.
5
Kids (1995)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
6
TalhotBlond (2012)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
7
Pretty Boy (2015)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
Sean is taken to a motel and is given a prostitute for his 18th birthday by his father. He must sleep with her to "fix" his questionable homosexuality. "Pretty Boy" is a coming of age story of a young bullied teen…
8
The Normal Heart (2014)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
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…
9
Buddies (1985)
★ 8.2/10Also drama
David, a naive graduate student, has volunteered to work as a 'buddy' for people dying of AIDS. Assigned to the intensely political Robert, a lifelong activist whose friends and family have abandoned him following his…
10
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
★ 7/10Also drama
The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills…
11
Boy Erased (2018)
★ 7/10Also drama
Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his…
12
A Month in the Country (1987)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
A destitute WWI veteran is hired to help carry out restoration work on a medieval mural in a rural Yorkshire church. While living in the quiet village, he forms a close friendship with an archaeologist and begins to…
13
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
14
Come Sunday (2018)
★ 5.8/10Also drama
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
15
And the Band Played On (1993)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.
16
The Death & Life of John F. Donovan (2019)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
A decade after the death of an American TV star, a young actor reminisces about the written correspondence he once shared with the former, as well as the impact those letters had on both their lives.
17
The Boys in the Band (2020)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
At a birthday party in 1968 New York, a surprise guest and a drunken game leave seven gay friends reckoning with unspoken feelings and buried truths.
18
Holy Lands (2019)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife…
19
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young…
20
Beast (2026)
★ 7.5/10Also drama
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal…