Unique Queer Cinematic Stories at NYFF63

This year’s New York Film Festival has bounced back this year when it comes to offering a host of diverse and exciting queer fare.

Last year, the pickings were slim with Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” Alain Guiraudie’s wonderful “Misericordia,” Jacques Audiard's “Emilia Pérez” and Trương Minh Quý's “”Viet and Nam,” the only LGBTQ-themed/related narrative features. This year that number has almost doubled. And the films are vastly better, “Misericordia,” excepted.

The richly inventive queer-themed/adjacent movies selected for this 63rd Fest tell unusual, unique compelling stories that add to the LGBTQ canon. 

Pillion

Brit gay slang for pillion is ‘bottom,’ but its literal meaning is the seat behind the driver of a motorcycle. With his first feature, Brit director Harry Lighton dives helmet-first into the world of BDSM with a rare authenticity and boldness. In the openings scenes of Pillion, seemingly, shy bloke Colin (Harry Melling) catches the cruisey eye of gorgeous leather-clad Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and becomes instantly obsessed.

“What am I gonna do with you?” asks the sexy, blunt Ray.

“Anything you want,” replies Colin, anxious and excited.

Colin and Ray soon embark on a cinematic journey into the world of a seldom explored gay subculture where intense dom-sub behavior is a way of life. Based on the 2020 Adam Mars-Jones novel, “Box Hill,” “Pillion” examines a complex relationship between two guys who enjoy taking the master/slave scenario to an extreme. Colin is a newbie but very eager to learn.  And Ray is an impatient, but detailed, teacher.  There are many treats in this often-funny film including a wonderfully uncomfortable dinner scene with Ray and Colin’s parents where mom (Lesley Sharpe) challenges Rays treatment of Colin and he gives it right back to her by proclaiming, “People have different ways of expressing themselves.” And in a wild BDSM biker party sequence, Lighton does not hold back with the antics that occur—eager bottoms lying in wait, naked, for when their master’s wish to indulge in, well, whatever they wish. Melling (Harry Potter films) is extraordinary in a breakthrough performance. Skarsgård mixes super-cool, super-sexy and super-enigmatic for an explosive combination. His mesmerizing work should be in the awards conversation. 

“Pillion” is the best queer-themed film I’ve seen so far this year. 

An A24 Release.

Drunken Noodles

Argentinian writer-director Lucio Castro’s trippy, sensual flick, “Drunken Noodles,” centers on Adnan (Laith Khalifeh) a gay art student looking for love and/or sex, depending on the mood and season.  Broken into five chapters, the non-linear narrative follows Adnan, first connecting with a food delivery driver in NYC. Later in the feature, although earlier time-wise, an excited Adnan hooks up with Sal (Ezriel Kornel), an older gay artist who specializes in erotic needlepoint depicting men in all kinds of X-rated positions. Finally, and even earlier in time, we see a disturbed Adnan unable to connect with his sig other (Matthew Risch), who doesn’t seem to desire him anymore. The film is loaded  is with surreal moments, one mystical one involving a faun-like creature in a forest who does something naughty with a flute. Khalifeh, in his feature debut, is a find. The actor is sexy as fuck, has charm to spare and is perfectly understated when needs be. 

A Strand Release

Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes

Gabriel Azorín’s stirring, beguiling debut feature, “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes,” is quite a cinematic marvel. Exquisitely shot by DP Giuseppe Truppi, this atmospheric gem is set in the Roman baths of Bande, Spain, near the Portuguese border, and is initially focused on five pretty Portuguese boys on a visit to the mystical ruins—built by Roman soldiers in the first century A.D. At the baths, António (Santiago Mateus) and his mentor Jota (António Gouveia), are alone and António revealed his tremendous admiration for Jota, but also his disappointment with him for not pursuing his dreams. It’s an uncharacteristically honest talk. Then the camera shifts focus to two different dudes also at the baths, Aurelius (Oussama Asfaraah) and Pompey (Pavel Čemerikić), but they’re wearing togas and speaking Latin. The narrative has gone back in time about 2000 years. The conversation is strangely similar to the contemporary one with great emphasis on the friendship and camaraderie that keeps these young men going. In ancient Greek and Roman times, according to many historians, it was common for men at war to have sex with one another. It was also common for boys to become the lovers of their male mentors. (A new documentary, Army of Lovers—The Sacred Band of Ancient Greece, by Lefteris Charitos, dives into the elite Greek army made up of 150 pairs of male lovers.) There is a palpable homoerotic vibe in many of the scenes. These guys share a deep emotional bond that you could easily believe is also carnal (although the film never quite goes there). No matter. Male bonding this intense is rarely explored this raw onscreen. It’s brave stuff. And the shots of the lovely young men in the staggering landscape leave you breathless. 

Blue Moon

Theater queens are either gonna plotz or grouse! Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon” offers a potpourri of backstage gossip and theatrical name dropping.  The film takes place on March 31, 1943, the night Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical, Oklahoma! opened on Broadway.  Rodgers’ partner for decades, lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), has been replaced. And he’s bitter about it. In the audience at the opening, he scoffs at how bad the lyrics are. He then flees to the famous restaurant Sardi’s where the Oklahoma! Cast and crew will eventually gather to await the reviews. Hart cozies up to the congenial bartender (Bobby Cannavale), flirts with the cute, young pianist (Jonah Lee) and bonds with New Yorker writer EB White (Patrick Kennedy. He regales them with a tres gay interpretation of the ending of “Casablanca,” all the while imbibing in his drink of choice, whiskey. Hart soon begins to swoon about a beautiful young gal he’s smitten with, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a writer and the daughter of one of the Oklahoma! producers. The creatives start arriving and Hart tells Rodgers (a dapper Andrew Scott) and anyone in hearing range, “This is one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen, and it’ll be playing twenty years from now!” You can smell the insincerity! Hawke gets credit for boldly diving into a role he’s in no way physically right for. It is a performance that will divide critics and audiences. Hart was struggled with depression and alcoholism. Here he has his charms but comes off as desperate and annoying too much of the time. in a wonderfully ironic bit of casting, Scott is dapper and spot on as Richard Rodgers. The famous composer was a known homophobe (according to Stephen Sondheim, among other sources) so it’s fitting he’s played by a proud out gay actor. 

Sony Pictures Classics will release “Blue Moon” in NY and LA on October 17, 2025, expanding nationwide on October 24, 2025.

A Private Life

Out thesp Jodie Foster is one of America’s treasured actors working at the top of her game. And now she’s challenged herself by taking on her first French speaking part in Rebecca Zlotowski’s intriguing new film, “A Private Life.” Foster plays an American psychiatrist, living in Paris, who involves herself in an investigation after she is informed that one of her female patients, Paula (Virginie Efira), committed suicide, something she finds difficult to believe. With help of her ex-husband, Gabriel (Daneil Auteuil), she sets off on a quest to prove that Paula was actually murdered. The plot gets even messier when she suspects Paula’s daughter and husband may be guilty of the alleged crime. And there is a subplot involving Lilian visiting a hypnotist (Sophie Guillemin) and discovering she may have a WW2-era past-life where she and Paula were lovers! There’s quite a bit going on in “A Private Life” and the director blends a number of genres (thriller, mystery, romance, dark comedy) quite nicely. But it’s Foster’s fabulous fully-committed  performance that makes the film soar. Félicitations Jodie!

A Sony Pictures Classics release

Peter Hujar’s Day

Gay photographer Peter Hujar died in 1987, one of too many artists this world lost to AIDS. He received little recognition for his work when he was alive but is now considered a major portrait photographer of his time. Hujar was part of the NYC ‘70s-‘80s circle of artists and intellectuals like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol and in 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz was planning a doc on her artist friends. She recorded a conversation with Hujar for the project (which was never completed). The tape has never been found but a transcript exists, and Ira Sachs (Passages) uses it to create a curious, evocative filmic experiment with “Peter Hujar’s Day.”  The film focuses on Hujar (Ben Whishaw) telling his friend, Linda (Rebecca Hall), the interesting and mundane details of his previous day when he photographed the poet Allen Ginsberg.  Whishaw fully commits to Hujar and is fantastic—the real reason to see the movie. “Peter Hujar’s Day” is a work that should come with footnotes and a glossary. It did make me curious about the man’s work—always a good thing. And it has queer, cultural archival significance. 

The film opens November 7, via Janus Films, at Film at Lincoln Center, accompanied by a selection of Hujar’s portraits on display in the Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater.

I Only Rest in the Storm

Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Pinho’s packs a lot into his 3-hour, 36-minute super-queer work, “I Only Rest in the Storm.” He smartly, cast the magnetic and sexy Sérgio Coragem as his idealistic protagonist, an environmental engineer tasked with researching whether the construction of a new road, by a wealthy European company, is environmentally sound. Oh, and to find out what the locals think. During his downtime, he engages in some steamy sexual encounters with a few men, including one involving a hot threesome with a female. The epic film tackles a slew of themes and gives us quite a few erotic scenes—a couple close to hard core. But it’s a bit of an arduous journey—worth it for yummy Coragem. 

The NYFF63 runs through October 13, 2025.

For tickets and more info, visit: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/