Movies like His Secret Life (2001)
The best movies like His Secret Life (2001) are Longtime Companion (1989), A Home at the End of the World (2004) and Trust (2021). If His Secret Life hooked you with its drama and romance, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGladiator (2000)8.2/10 from 21,858 votes
- NewestMy Fault: London (2025)Released 2025
- In ItalianNuovo Olimpo (2023)Also in Italian
Longtime 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Home at the End of the World (2004)
Three friends form a bond over the year, Johnathan is gay, Clare is straight and Bobby is neither, instead he loves the people he loves. As their lives go on there is tension and tears which culminate in a strong yet fragile friendship between the three.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrust (2021)
Set in the glamour of the New York and Paris art scenes, gallery owner Brooke Gatwick and her newscaster husband Owen Shore, face temptation, jealousy, twists and mystery when two seductive newcomers enter their lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Policeman (2022)
In the late 1990s, the arrival of elderly invalid Patrick into Marion and Tom’s home triggers the exploration of seismic events from 40 years previous: the passionate relationship between Tom and Patrick at a time when homosexuality was illegal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRent: Filmed Live on Broadway (2008)
Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Absolute CinemaMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaurice (1987)
After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeach Rats (2017)
On the outskirts of Brooklyn, Frankie, an aimless teenager, suffocates under the oppressive glare cast by his family and a toxic group of delinquent friends. Struggling with his own identity, Frankie begins to scour hookup sites for older men.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJungle Fever (1991)
A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference would make an already taboo relationship even worse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNuovo Olimpo (2023)
In 1970s Rome, a casual encounter between Enea and Pietro at a movie theater turns into an unforgettable romance — until destiny pulls them apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Falls: Testament of Love (2013)
Picking up five years after the doomed romance between Mormon missionaries RJ and Chris, though their lives have taken radically different paths, the death of a mutual friend unexpectedly reunites the two men at a time when both are attempting to establish their adult lives. As old feelings of love and regret are rekindled, RJ and Chris must once again confront their seemingly impossible love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Fault: London (2025)
18-year-old Noah moves from America to London, with her mother who's recently fallen in love with William, a wealthy British businessman. Noah meets William’s son, bad-boy Nick, and soon discovers there is an attraction between them neither can avoid. As Noah spends the summer adjusting to her new life, her devastating past will catch up with her while falling in love for the first time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Normal Heart (2014)
The story of the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s, taking an unflinching look at the nation's sexual politics as gay activists and their allies in the medical community fight to expose the truth about the burgeoning epidemic to a city and nation in denial.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Ledge (2011)
A thriller in which a battle of philosophies between a fundamentalist Christian and an atheist who shares an apartment with a gay friend escalates into a lethal battle of wills.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Englishman in New York (2009)
Biographical drama based on the last 20 years of Crisp's life. The literary figure and gay iconoclast emigrated to New York in 1981 and lived there until his death. The film observes Crisp in both his public and private lives, from his seemingly cavalier response to the outbreak of AIDS to his tender relationship with his friend Patrick Angus and his own response to growing old.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlue (1993)
Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this1985 (2018)
Having been gone for three years, closeted advertising executive Adrian returns to his Texas hometown and struggles to reveal his dire circumstances to his conservative family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAddicted (2014)
A gallerist risks her family and flourishing career when she enters into an affair with a talented painter and slowly loses control of her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisXenia (2014)
Strangers in their own birthplace, 16-year-old Danny and 18-year-old Odysseus cross the entire country in search of their Greek father, after their Albanian mother passes away.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrokeback Mountain (2005)
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWings of Desire (1987)
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Theory of Everything (2014)
Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGladiator (2000)
After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of Rome's most capable generals who Marcus preferred. Eventually, Maximus is forced to become a gladiator and battle to the death against other men for the amusement of paying audiences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisNatural Born Killers (1994)
Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLucky Number Slevin (2006)
Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTo Be or Not to Be (1942)
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWalk on Water (2004)
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like His Secret Life and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like His Secret Life?
The closest matches to His Secret Life are Longtime Companion (1989), A Home at the End of the World (2004) and Trust (2021). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after His Secret Life?
Start with Longtime Companion (1989), the closest match to His Secret Life.
What is the highest-rated movie like His Secret Life?
Gladiator (2000), rated 8.2/10 by 21,858 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like His Secret Life?
My Fault: London (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Italian movies like His Secret Life?
Yes: Nuovo Olimpo (2023).
How are movies similar to His Secret Life chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside His Secret Life, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.