Movies like The Normal Heart (2014)
The best movies like The Normal Heart (2014) are The Boys in the Band (2020), Pride (2014) and House of Boys (2009). If The Normal Heart hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDallas Buyers Club (2013)7.9/10 from 9,382 votes
- NewestFairyland (2025)Released 2025
The Boys in the Band (2020)
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.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPride (2014)
In 1984, a group of LGBT activists decide to raise money to support the National Union of Mineworkers during their lengthy strike. There is only one problem: the Union seems embarrassed to receive their support.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHouse of Boys (2009)
It is 1984. Frank is a determined English teenager who runs away from high school to find an alternative gay lifestyle in Amsterdam. He finds a home and a job at the "House of Boys", a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame who has an eye for what his punters crave. Frank works his way up from barman to on-stage dancer and falls in love with some of his housemates, Jake. The first intimations of what is described as 'the gay cancer', casts a long shadow over Frank's tight-knit group of friends. Yet despite the troubles that cloud the hopes and dreams of young Frank, his perseverance, along with support from a willing doctor, will carry him through.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLove! Valour! Compassion! (1997)
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 and sometimes strengthened.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPhiladelphia (1993)
Two lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops, their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLongtime Companion (1989)
During the summer of 1981, a group of friends in New York are completely unprepared for the onslaught of AIDS. What starts as a rumor about a mysterious "gay cancer" soon turns into a major crisis as, one by one, some of the friends begin to fall ill, leaving the others to panic about who will be next. As death takes its toll, the lives of these friends are forever redefined by an unconditional display of love, hope and courage.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Boys in the Band (1970)
Harold is celebrating a birthday, and his friend Michael has drafted some other friends to help commemorate the event. As the evening progresses, an unexpected guest shows up, the alcohol flows, the knives come out, and dormant and unspoken emotions are unleashed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMinyan (2020)
In a rapidly changing New York of the 1980s, a Russian Jewish teenager wrestles with his identity, faith, and sexuality, all of which seem irreconcilable until he befriends two closeted men in his grandfather's senior housing complex.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
Arnold Beckoff is looking for love and acceptance, but as a gay man working as a female impersonator in 1970s New York City, neither come easily. After a series of heartaches, Arnold believes he has found the love of his life in Alan, and the couple make plans to adopt. But when tragedy strikes, Arnold's life is shaken to its very core, leading to a confrontation with his overbearing mother, who has never approved of her son's lifestyle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBent (1997)
Max is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Eventually Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewish because in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Trip (2002)
When 19-year-old gay-rights activist Tommy and 24-year-old Alan first meet in 1973, they find themselves on the opposite sides of the political coin...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJeffrey (1995)
Jeffrey, a gay man living in New York City with an overwhelming fear of contracting AIDS, concludes that being celibate is the only option to protect himself. As fate would have it, shortly after his declaration of a sex-free existence, he meets the handsome Steve Howard, his dream man -- except for his HIV-positive status. Facing this dilemma, Jeffrey turns to his best friend and an outrageous priest for guidance.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt's My Party (1996)
Nick, a gay, HIV-positive architect, begins to display severe symptoms of AIDS and makes preparations to kill himself before he is unable to function normally. He arranges a party to reconnect and say goodbye to his closest friends and his confused parents. But when his ex-partner, Brandon, a television director who left Nick when he was diagnosed with HIV, shows up, what was supposed to be a celebratory event becomes much more difficult for everyone.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLiz in September (2014)
A shocking secret, ex-lovers and the arrival of an outsider shake things up for Liz as she celebrates her birthday at a lesbian-owned resort.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFairyland (2025)
A father-daughter relationship evolves through an era of bohemian decadence in 1970s San Francisco to the sober and heartbreaking era of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
BPM (Beats per Minute) (2017)
Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLaurence Anyways (2012)
The story of an impossible love between a woman named Fred and a transgender woman named Laurence who reveals her inner desire to become her true self.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDallas Buyers Club (2013)
Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking, women-loving, homophobic man who in 1986 was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAnd the Band Played On (1993)
The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAny Day Now (2012)
In the late 1970s, when a mentally handicapped teenager is abandoned, a gay couple takes him in and becomes the family he's never had. But once the unconventional living arrangement is discovered by authorities, the men must fight the legal system to adopt the child.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBuddies (1985)
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 diagnosis, the two men, each with notably different world views, soon discover common bonds, as David's inner activist awakens and Robert's need for emotional release is fulfilled.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAn Early Frost (1985)
Successful lawyer Michael Pierson is gay, but he has always hidden this part of his life from his mother, Katherine, father, Nick, and grandmother Beatrice. But when Michael discovers he has AIDS and is dying of complications from the disease, he must open up to his parents and the rest of his family. Though fearful of their reactions, he introduces them to his longtime lover, Peter, and looks to them for support.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Get Real (1998)
Sensitive rural town model student Steven Carter hides his gay feelings, except with his neighbor and best friend Linda. Suddenly his desperate search for partners leads to a blind date with golden boy John Dixon, bound for an Oxbridge career.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeautiful Thing (1996)
During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Am Michael (2015)
The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisBoy Erased (2018)
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 family, friends, and faith.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Birdcage (1996)
A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen partner agree to put up a false heterosexual front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancée's conservative parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Danish Girl (2015)
When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMilk (2008)
The true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man ever elected to public office. In San Francisco in the late 1970s, Harvey Milk becomes an activist for gay rights and inspires others to join him in his fight for equal rights that should be available to all Americans.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUncle Frank (2020)
In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Normal Heart?
The closest matches to The Normal Heart are The Boys in the Band (2020), Pride (2014) and House of Boys (2009). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Normal Heart?
People who watched The Normal Heart most often go on to The Boys in the Band (2020), Pride (2014) and House of Boys (2009).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Normal Heart?
Dallas Buyers Club (2013), rated 7.9/10 by 9,382 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Normal Heart?
Fairyland (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Normal Heart?
Yes: The Boys in the Band (2020), Pride (2014) and House of Boys (2009).
How are movies similar to The Normal Heart chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Normal Heart, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.