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Roze Filmdagen 2018 Best 15 Gay Movies

By: Author Karl Krause

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Roze Filmdagen 2018 Best 15 Gay Movies
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The 15 Best Gay Movies 2018 selected for the 11 days LGBTQ+ Film Festival Roze Filmdagen in the Dutch capital Amsterdam. Together with Werner Borkes, festival director of the so-called Pink Movie Days, we chose 15 feature films about heartwarming coming-out stories, exciting gay thrillers, beautiful long-term relationship retrospect, and visually stunning gay love and life stories, that make us eager to watch all films of this year’s Roze Filmdagen. Additional to that, the 21st edition of the Dutch LGBTQ+ film festival is full of premiere gay movies. Dutch premiere highlights are for example “A Moment in the Reeds” from Finland and the “Cakemaker” from Germany and Israel. Coming from India, “Evening Shadows” will have its European premiere on March 10th, 2018. A feature gay movie we are really looking forward to is this year’s closing movie, which celebrates its world premiere, the Argentinian movie “Mi Mejor Amigo”.

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Best Gay Movies 2018 by Couple of Men

With125 movies from 40 different countries in 11 days, visitors and gay and LGBTQ+ movie lovers have a lot to see. Our short overview of the 15 best gay movies 2018 including trailers gives you a good starting point and red line throughout the Roze Filmdagen festival program featuring films from Europe, North and South America, the Middle East as well as Asia. Get your tickets and start planning your festival week 2018 with our couple of men Gay Movie List. And don’t forget to put highlights of the Best Lesbian Movies 2018 and Best Queer Movies 2018 on your checklist. Enjoy the pink movie festival in Amsterdam, and we hope to meet you before and after the screenings for a drink. Have fun watching the 15 Best Gay Movies 2018 selected by the Roze Filmdagen Amsterdam 2018!

>> NEW: 10 Best Gay Movies 2019 <<

#1 Evening Shadows | India

Our list of the Best Gay Movies 2018 starts with a European premiere.”Evening Shadows” is an Indian feature about smothering family ties and a solidary mother. This beautiful and important film from India sets near the Supreme Court’s reversal of the judgment of the anti‐sodomy law Sec 377 which endangered thousands of young LGBTQ+ persons in India. In a milieu of traditions and social morality, young gay Kartik, who lives in a small town in Southern India secretly together with his lover, comes out to his mother Vasudha. She has no one to turn to dispel her fears and doubts, to understand her loving son’s truth. Her biggest challenge is to deal with her dogmatic husband and the conservative society around her. Despite all challenges, love will prevail.

Hindi, with English subtitles

#2 A Moment in the Reeds | Finland

Gay Movie number two on our “Best Gay Movies 2018” list is a movie about a young Finn and a Syrian asylum seeker who experience a magical summer. After “Scar Tissue” with our Daan from last year, “A Moment in the Reeds” is bringing the refugee topic to Amsterdam’s LGBTQ+ film festival. But first things first. Having moved to Paris for the university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house, so it can be sold. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help with the work, and when Leevi’s father has to return to town on business, the two young men establish a connection and spend a few days discovering one another during the Finnish midsummer.

Finnish and English, with English subtitles

#3 B&B | England

Our third gay movie is a blood-curdling exciting thriller. When a married gay couple goes to a remote B&B in Wales, it is mostly to celebrate their legal victory over the homophobic owner. But when a mysterious other guest turns up and shows interest in the owner’s closeted son, what should have been a few days of gloating soon turns into a murderous nightmare in this highly entertaining crime thriller.

English, no subtitles

#4 Screwed | Finland

Gay Movie “Screwed” is beautiful summer love story in Finland, full of a dry sense of humor. Two teenage boys have to navigate some crazy relatives and sprawling feelings during an eventful summer. This Finnish festival favorite delights with witty dialogue inspired performances and a wonderfully dry sense of humor.

Finnish, with English subtitles

#5 The Cakemaker | Israel/ Germany

Loss, desire, and kneading of dough – who doesn’t love a good cake from time to time?!Tomas, a young German baker has a passionate affair with Oren, an Israeli man. However, their life together consists of brief episodes, as Oren also has a wife and kid back home. When disaster strikes and Oren is killed, a grief-stricken Tomas travels to Israel to track them down. A superbly acted tale of love and loss, treated with fine sensitivity.

German and Hebrew, with Dutch subtitles

All you need to know about the Roze Filmdagen:

#6 Tom of Finland | Finland

The next gay movie on our list will premier in the Netherlands during the “Pink Film Days 2018”. From shunned to celebrated, this is the story of cult-artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, and the events that influenced his iconic homoerotic drawings. After the trauma of serving in World War II, Touko finds no peace at home as he has to go to increasingly greater lengths to hide his affection for men, even from his family. Touko gains confidence from the positive reactions he receives after sharing his explicit drawings of muscular men in clear uninhibited situations. When an American publisher sees them and invites Touko over to the West Coast his life really takes a turn. A moving portrayal of the man behind the legendary images…

Finnish, German and English, with Dutch subtitles

#7 The Marriage | Kosovo/ Albania

Gay Marriage and Balkan do not seem to fit together, at least not on a first sight. The wonderful drama from Kosovo, about secret old loves “The Marriage” will teach you better. The wedding is only two weeks away. Anita and Bekim are adding the final touches to their big day. Despite expecting news from Anita’s parents, declared missing since the 1999 Kosovar War, the couple seems to manage somehow with the preparations. But when Nol, Bekim’s secret ex gay-lover, returns unexpectedly from abroad, the situation becomes complicated. Especially since Bekim realizes the latter is still in love with him.

Albanian, with English subtitles

#8 The Strange Ones | United States of America

“The Stranger Ones” with Alex Pettyfer is an intriguing and obscure thriller. Right from the start, it is clear that these are not two brothers on a camping trip, as they claim. Slowly the web of dark secrets and past trauma unravels, although looks frequently deceive and the power dynamics shift often. This perfectly calibrated thriller starring Alex Pettyfer and James Freedson-Jackson excites as much for its style as its plot twists.

English, no subtitles

#9 After Louie | United States of America

Feature film number nine is an unconventional romance starring Alan Cumming and Zachary Booth. Sam, an artist, and activist from ACT UP who lived through the early years of HIV/AIDS, is still struggling with survivor’s guilt. Cemented into an oppressive past, he is bewildered by a younger generation of carefree gay men with their uninhibited use of social media, dating, and seeming political indifference. An unexpected intimacy with a much younger man challenges Sam’s understanding of contemporary gay life. Through this unconventional romance, he is forced to deal with the trauma that so informs his past, their present, and an unknown future.

English, no subtitles

#10 Who will save the Roses? | Italy

This moving and warm debut film is a special, touching love story between two old men who are portrayed by fantastic veteran actors. One of them is sick and stays in bed all day, the other is a gambler who takes care of him, visit him every day presenting a rose, and has a complicated relationship with his daughter. When the economic situation of the two men gets worse, the only way to get out of debt is a last great poker game, but it will not be easy to go back to the past. Love is all about bluffing and gambling for your partner, isn’t it?

Italian, with English subtitles

All you need to know about the Roze Filmdagen:

#11 Driver | Thailand

A stylish and erotic gay thriller with twists and turns that’ll keep you guessing until the end. Kade discovers her rich husband Tae has disappeared after a business trip to Korea. Kade resorts to a police friend, to help her find hints about her husband’s whereabouts. But it is Mac, her husbands’ driver, who leads her to a secret house that Tae owns. Hoping to find her husband she discovers a clue to a painful secret that will make her realize she cannot trust anyone.

Thai, with English subtitles

Click here for more about Driver >

#12 Il Padre D’Italia | Italy

We are reaching number 11 on our Best Gay Movies 2018 list. And still, we have to ask: What is considered natural and what is not? A woman who doesn’t want children or a gay man who dreams of becoming a father? This delicate and intimate film, in which two opposing characters go on a geographical and emotional journey from North to South in Italy, invites us to break free of the rules and see unexpected possibilities. In the end, faith will bring them together, will it not?

Italian, with English subtitles

#13 My Life With James Dean | France

Moving. Demanding. Unclassifiable. Rare. These are the words given to the gay film that Géraud is invited to present in a sleepy seaside town. But they also describe this irresistibly funny and sometimes absurdist comedy, as he is drawn into the lives of the handsome young projectionist obsessed with him, the snotty hotel desk girl hoping to become an actress and the slightly neurotic theater owner embroiled in a heated lesbian affair of her own. Simply a charming, unique, and eccentric comedy and a great fit in our best gay movies 2018 top list.

French, with English subtitles

My Life With James Dean | Best Gay Movies 2018 Roze Filmdagen Amsterdam LGBTQ Film Festival
My Life With James Dean | Best Gay Movies 2018 of the LGBTQ Film Festival Roze Filmdagen in Amsterdam

#14 Paths | Germany

How long is forever? A few years or just a breaking of the waves at the rugged Baltic coast in East Germany? Andreas and Martin living together in a small town in the central German state Thuringia share all the ups and downs of life while their son is maturing. But what if they finally have time together? A beautiful and cautious approach to the traces of a long relationship between two gay men and their common time: all the years between the first kiss and now… Although the movie is from 2016 already, definitely a tip for the Best Gay Movies 2018 Roze Filmdagen!

German, with English subtitles

#15 Mi Mejor Amigo | Argentina – World Premiere

The closing film of the 21st Roze Filmdagen will be the World Premiere of the Argentinian gay movie “Mi Mejor Amigo”. Lorenzo, a quiet teenager lives in a small town in beautiful Patagonia. His father decides to host Caíto, the son of a friend from Buenos Aires. Caíto has obviously a different family background and seems to be a tough kid. Lorenzo finds Caíto very intriguing in many ways as they start spending a lot of time together. While their friendship is evolving towards deeper feelings, Caíto reveals a secret. Definitely, one of the highlights of our Best Gay Movies 2018 Hit List!

Spanish, with English subtitles

Our 15 Best Gay Movies 2018 selected for Roze Filmdagen Amsterdam

Although there are many more movies to check out during the LGBT festival, our selections of the 15 gay movies can give you a good overview of different genres and nationalities presenting their short movies, documentaries, and feature films. Anyway, the opening night will be on the 8th of March 2018 screening movies until the 18th of March 2018, 11 days in total. For the whole program of the Roze Filmdagen 2018, have a look at the website of the festival and stay up-to-date on their social media. We hope you enjoyed our selection of the Best Gay Movies 2018 of the Pink Film Days in Amsterdam.  See you next year again for the 22nd edition of the Roze Filmdagen Amsterdam 2019!

Do you wanna know and see more of us gay couple travel bloggers? Stay tuned on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook! See you around in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and on one of our next gay pride trips around the world!

Karl & Daan.

Keane J.

Thursday 26th of August 2021

i was quite frustrated at LABEL me because it was sooo goooood for me but only last for an hour. like, i want more of them!

Della Cabrero

Wednesday 19th of December 2018

I like this blog so much, saved to my bookmarks.

Thursday 8th of March 2018

Shropshire Rainbow Film Festival

Villa Rainbow - St Martin, Caribbean

Tuesday 6th of March 2018

Thank you for sharing! :)

Tuesday 6th of March 2018

Also in Cinemas right now: The Wound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kHWwc9NxtA