10 of the most-anticipated LGBTQ+ films still to come in 2025, including kinky BDSM movie Pillion
Pillion, The History of Sound and Honey Don’t! are still to come in 2025. (Element Pictures/Focus Features/Working Title Films)
Pillion, The History of Sound and Honey Don’t! are still to come in 2025. (Element Pictures/Focus Features/Working Title Films)
We may already be more than halfway through 2025, but the good news is there are still some great LGBTQ+ films to come before the end of the year.
From queer thrillers to period gay drama, there’s something for pretty much everyone.
Here are 10 we’re most looking forward to seeing.
Sorry, Baby
Eva Victor’s directorial debut is a dark comedy-drama with heart. It follows Agnes, played by Victor, over several years as they contend with being sexually assaulted by their college professor.
The film also explores Agnes’ gender identity.
Agnes, like Victor, identifies as non-binary and uses she/they pronouns. Meanwhile, best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) comes out as a lesbian. Sorry, Baby presents a sensitive depiction of trauma, queerness and finding laughter in melancholy.
Sorry, Baby is due in UK cinemas on 22 August.
On Swift Horses
On Swift Horses is a steamy adaptation of Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel. The film is directed by Daniel Minahan, best-known for his work on Game of Thrones and Fellow Travelers, with the screenplay by Lizzie writer Bryce Kass.
Married couple Lee, played by The Bear’s Will Poulter, and Muriel (Cold Feet and Twisters star Daisy Edgar-Jones) are ready to start a new era in their lives. However, when Lee’s younger brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) turns up, their plans and relationship change drastically.
Julius starts a secret relationship with co-worker Henry (Babylon‘s Diego Calva) while Muriel has her own illicit affair with neighbour Sandra (Sasha Calle, who played Supergirl in The Flash).
On Swift Horses is due to open in UK cinemas on 5 September.
Honey Don’t!
A neo-noir lesbian detective comedy? Count us in!
Honey Don’t! follows small-town lesbian private investigator Honey, played by Drive-Away Dolls star Margaret Qualley, who traces a woman’s death to a religious cult.
Chris Evans plays the cult’s leader, who comes under the scrutiny of not only Honey but also police officer MG Falcone (The White Lotus actress Aubrey Plaza).
Also in the cast are Billy Eichner, Abbott Elementary star Charlie Day and Tony-Award-nominee Gabby Beans.
The screenplay is co-written by Tricia Cooke, who identifies as a lesbian and who has talked about her “non-traditional” marriage to the film’s director, Oscar-winner Ethan Coen.
Honey Don’t is due in UK cinemas on 5 September.
Twinless
Teen Wolf favourite Dylan O’Brien stars in this queer black comedy, opposite James Sweeney, who also wrote, directed and produced the film.
O’Brien plays Roman, a young man mourning the death of his twin brother. To help deal with the loss, he begins attending a support group for twinless twins, where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Dennis (Sweeney).
Roman sees a lot of his late brother in his new friend: cultured, travelled and gay, and the pair quickly become joined at the hip as they both crave a similar co-dependency.
The film won the audience award for US drama at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered.
Twinless is due in UK cinemas on 5 September.
The History of Sound
The History of Sound is one of the most highly anticipated LGBTQ+ films of the year.
Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor star in the WWI gay romance, directed by Oliver Hermanus (Mary & George) and based on a short story by Ben Shattuck.
The film follows the relationship between two young soldiers who meet in the trenches in 1916 and travel together to rural New England in the summer of 1919, where they record folk songs.
The History of Sound is set for a UK release on 12 September.
The Queen of My Dreams
Writer-director Fawzia Mirza adapts her own theatrical stage play Me, My Mom & Sharmila, which in turn was based on her 2012 short film, for this feature-length comedy-drama. The film follows Azra, played by Amrit Kaur, from The Sex Lives of College Girls, a Pakistani-Canadian woman living a double life.
She has a strained relationship with her parents, particularly her strict mother, after coming out as a lesbian.
The Queen of My Dreams dives into the conflict between desire and appeasement as Azra pursues a relationship with a woman and studies a subject she loves while her parents’ expectations loom large. However, when her father dies, she must return to Pakistan for the funeral and confront the family.
The Queen of My Dreams is due in UK cinemas on 13 September.
Plainclothes
Russell Tovey, soon to be seen in Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, stars in this 90s-set gay cop thriller.
Directed by Carmen Emmi, Plainclothes follows undercover police officer Lucas, played by Tom Blyth – seen recently in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – who is given the job of entrapping and apprehending gay men for public indecency in Syracuse, New York.
However, he gets more than he bargained for as the job exposes part of him he’d been repressing and he finds himself falling for one of his targets, Andrew (Tovey).
The film is set to balance thriller with eroticism: both stars have praised the filmmaking environment for allowing them to explore sex scenes in an organic but safe manner.
Plainclothes is due to open in the UK cinemas on 3 October.
After the Hunt
After Challengers and Queer, director Luca Guadagnino is back again with this thriller featuring Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts alongside Andrew Garfield, who made a return as Spider-Man in No Way Home in 2021, and Ayo Edebiri, who was such a hit in The Bear.
The film revolves around college professor Alma Olsson (Roberts) whose personal and professional life is thrown into turmoil when a star pupil accuses a colleague of misconduct.
Simultaneously, ghosts from Olsson’s past threaten to come to light.
After the Hunt is due in UK cinemas on 22 October.
Blue Moon
Five-time Oscar-nominee Richard Linklater’s latest outing is the biographical musical Blue Moon.
The film focuses on American lyricist Lorenz Hart, played by four-time Oscar-nominee Ethan Hawke, one half of Broadway titans Rodgers and Hart.
It charts the musician’s navigation of his own sexuality and shame, with which he wrestled throughout his life. The supporting cast includes Margaret Qualley and Ripley and Fleabag star Andrew Scott, who won the Silver Bear for best supporting performance at the Berlin Film Festival for his role as Richard Rodgers.
Blue Moon is due in UK cinemas on 24 October.
Pillion
Harry Lighton’s directorial debut, adapted from the 2020 novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, is set to be a kinky exploration of BDSM.
Pillion chronicles the meeting of young gay man Colin (Harry Potter star Harry Melling) and leather-clad bike gang leader Ray (Succession and Lee‘s Alexander Skarsgård). The film invests in their dom/sub relationship, where the divide between kink and control becomes increasingly blurred.
Although the film has been tagged as graphic, reviewers have noted it isn’t hardcore in its depiction of gay sex – despite reports of Skarsgård’s full-frontal nudity. It’s also been described, as a “filthy romance with heart”.
Pillion is due for release in the UK on 2 November.
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