This film is part of Rentals
Love Is Strange
Ira Sachs’s refined Manhattan-set drama sees Alfred Molina’s Ben and John Lithgow’s George in the latter days of a tender, loving 39-year relationship.
Drama 2014 95 mins
Director: Ira Sachs
Overview
Ira Sachs (Keep the Lights On) delivers a tender, faultlessly observed drama about the latter days of a life-long love. The film opens with the joyous wedding of George and Ben (Alfred Molina and John Lithgow) who have been together for 39 years, but when Ben loses his job the couple are forced to leave their Manhattan abode and stay in different apartments while they hunt for a new place of their own.
Both leads give nuanced, award-deserving performances, as does Marisa Tomei as their niece. George and Ben may inhabit a familiar Manhattan of West Side shoebox apartments, galleries and classical concerts, but it’s refreshingly peopled with all walks of life. This is a love story for grown-ups and also Sachs’ ode to the beauty of NYC.
Contains strong languageRelated
Drama
Room at the Top
Drama 1958 117 mins Director: Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton directs this romantic, love-triangle drama featuring Simone Signoret in an Oscar-winning performance.
Mary Queen of Scots
Period drama 2018 124 mins Director: Josie Rourke
Saoirse Ronan is Mary Stuart, facing off against Margot Robbie's Elizabeth I in this striking, feminist take on 16th-century history.
Beautiful Boy
Drama 2018 121 mins Director: Felix Van Groeningen
Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet give blistering performances as a father and son in this gripping story of a family dealing with addiction over many years.
Where Hands Touch
Drama 2017 122 mins Director: Amma Asante
Amma Asante (Belle, A United Kingdom) presents this rites-of-passage story of a bi-racial teen struggling for survival in Nazi Germany.
Girl
Drama 2018 106 mins Director: Lukas Dhont
Lukas Dhont's breathtaking debut feature encompasses the heartache, courage, and punishing training of a ballerina transitioning in her teenage years.
Donbass
Drama 2018 121 mins Director: Sergei Loznitsa
This disturbing new black comedy from Sergei Loznitsa (In the Fog) examines the civil conflict in Ukraine through the prism of the absurd.
BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival Presents
Hidden Away
Drama 2014 92 mins Director: Mikel Rueda
A chance encounter between a Moroccan boy and a Spanish teen alters the course of their lives.
Blush
Drama 2015 85 mins Director: Michal Vinik
An assured and authentic lesbian coming-of-age drama, boasting a mesmerising and heartfelt lead performance.
Like You Mean It
Drama 2016 90 mins Director: Philipp Karner
Writer-director Philipp Garner also stars in this refreshing gay drama, a portrait of a couple trying to make it work in the film world of Los Angeles.
Real Boy
2016 72 mins Director: Shaleece Haas
A 19-year-old trans man navigates family, friendships, and the challenges of young adulthood.
Tom of Finland
Biopic 2017 116 mins Director: Dome Karukoski
The story of a gay icon is brought to life in Dome Karukoski’s handsome biopic of Touko Laaksonen, the artist whose homoerotic drawings gave visual expression to a growing gay culture.
The Pass
Drama 2015 86 mins Director: Ben A. Williams
Russell Tovey stars as a Premier League footballer who shares a fumbled pass (of the sexual kind) with a teammate (Arinzé Kene), changing everything - both on and off the pitch.
Featuring Alfred Molina
Meantime
Drama 1983 107 mins Director: Mike Leigh
Tim Roth, Phil Daniels and Gary Oldman star in Mike Leigh’s TV film about an East End family try to stay afloat during a recession.
Letter to Brezhnev
Comedy 1985 94 mins Director: Chris Bernard
A defining Merseyside film, in which two Liverpool lasses hook up with a pair of Russian sailors only to wonder if they might be better off behind the Iron Curtain.
Directed by Ira Sachs
Little Men
Drama 2016 85 mins Director: Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs’ poignant drama about how money affects relationships follows an artistic family’s attempts to attune to a new Brooklyn neighbourhood.
Keep the Lights on
Drama 2012 102 mins Director: Ira Sachs
A filmmaker escapes the pain of a break-up through casual sex and meets a closeted lawyer in this deeply personal work from Ira Sachs.
New
My Death Is a Mockery
Crime 1952 69 mins Director: Tony Young
Hop aboard for a choppy Channel crossing with this bleak, bullet-spattered sea-smuggling crime drama.
Room at the Top
Drama 1958 117 mins Director: Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton directs this romantic, love-triangle drama featuring Simone Signoret in an Oscar-winning performance.
Mary Queen of Scots
Period drama 2018 124 mins Director: Josie Rourke
Saoirse Ronan is Mary Stuart, facing off against Margot Robbie's Elizabeth I in this striking, feminist take on 16th-century history.
Beautiful Boy
Drama 2018 121 mins Director: Felix Van Groeningen
Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet give blistering performances as a father and son in this gripping story of a family dealing with addiction over many years.
Colette
Biopic 2017 112 mins Director: Wash Westmoreland
This witty, Belle Époque-era biopic stars Keira Knightley and Dominic West as literary couple Colette and Willy, whose relationship rewrote social and gender rules.
The Raft
Documentary 2018 98 mins Director: Marcus Lindeen
Imagine Big Brother at sea, but with no evictions. Director Marcus Lindeen innovatively uncovers the human stories behind a 1970s social experiment, salaciously dubbed ‘The Sex Raft’.