Longtime CompanionMovies like Longtime Companion
- Key Features:
- AIDS epidemic, Friendship, Loss, Love, Courage, Social commentary, LGBTQ+, Historical context, Mortality, Grief, New York City
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- LGBTQ+ audiences, Drama enthusiasts, Social issue film viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Carefree → Fear → Grief → Resilience']
Longtime Companion

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.
Longtime Companion
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.

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.

Paris, 1984. A group of friends contend with the first outbreak of the AIDS epidemic.

Michael and Robert, two gay men living in Brooklyn, spend their last day together before Robert leaves for Africa on work assignment. Michael still has feelings for his friend Nick, who has AIDS.

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.

Journalist Michael Ausiello embarks on a rollercoaster ride of emotions when Kit Cowan, his partner of 14 years, is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Two competing 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.

Erik, a loner, finds a friend in Dexter, an eleven-year-old boy with AIDS. They vow to find a cure for AIDS together and save Dexter's life in an eventful summer.

After breaking up with her girlfriend, a nightclub singer, Jane, answers a personal ad from Robin, a real estate agent with AIDS, seeking a cross-country travel partner. On their journey from New York City to Los Angeles, the two stop by Pittsburgh to pick up Jane's friend Holly, who is trying to escape an abusive relationship. With three distinct personalities, the women must overcome their differences to help one another.

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.

Two HIV-positive young men — a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler — tear off on a cross-country crime spree.

It seems that Bob Jones has everything a man could want, namely a fulfilling job and a beautiful, pregnant wife, Gail. But Bob's life is turned upside-down when he is diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live -- not even enough time to see his first child's birth. To cleanse himself of demons in his remaining days, Bob makes a video diary, hoping to pass along some wisdom to his future child. Along the way, he discovers a lot about himself.

A group of queer best friends gather in the Fire Island Pines for their annual week of love and laughter. However, desires, dramas, drink and drugs push their bonds to the limits.

A 29-year-old lawyer and her lesbian best friend experience a dramatic shift in their longtime bond after one enters a serious relationship.

A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.

An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Documentary filmmaker Erik and closeted lawyer Paul meet through a casual encounter, but they find a deeper connection and become a couple. Individually and together, they are risk takers — compulsive, and fueled by drugs and sex. In an almost decade-long relationship defined by highs, lows, and dysfunctional patterns, Erik struggles to negotiate his own boundaries and dignity and to be true to himself.

Amid shifting times, two women kept their decades-long love a secret. But coming out later in life comes with its own set of challenges.

San Francisco, 1985. Two opposites attract at a modern dance company. Together, their courage and resilience are tested as they navigate a world full of risks and promise, against the backdrop of a disease no one seems to know anything about.

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.

Lifelong best friends, Sam and Jess, are each other’s everything. But when Jess meets a handsome out-of-stater, Landon, Sam begins to fear she’s being cast aside. To make matters worse, a massive corporation - who happens to be Landon’s employer - is threatening the small-town way of life they know and love in Vermont. In order to save her sisterhood and protect the town, Sam will pull out all the stops to keep both Jess’s relationship and the ominous company from developing any further.

The story of a New York pro baseball team and two of its players. Henry Wiggen is the star pitcher and Bruce Pearson is the normal, everyday catcher who is far from the star player on the team and friend to all of his teammates. During the off-season, Bruce learns that he is terminally ill, and Henry, his only true friend, is determined to be the one person there for him during his last season with the club. Throughout the course of the season, Henry and his teammates attempt to deal with Bruce's impending illness, all the while attempting to make his last year a memorable one.

A deadly virus has spread across the globe. Contagion is everywhere, no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. Four friends race through the back roads of the American West on their way to a secluded utopian beach in the Gulf of Mexico where they could peacefully wait out the pandemic. Their plans take a grim turn when their car breaks down on an isolated road starting a chain of events that will seal their fates.

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter invites his friends from college: married couple Roger and Mary, the lonely Maggie, fashionable Sarah, and writer Andrew, who brings his American TV star wife, Carol. Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian, also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

A close-knit group of gay friends share the emotional roller coster of life, relationships, the death of friends, new beginnings, jealousy, fatherhood and professional success. At various stages of life's disarray, these young men share humorous and tragic relationships and always have each other to rely on.

During a long, hot summer in seventies London, young neighbors Holly and Marina make a childhood pact to be friends forever. For Marina, troubled, fiercely independent, determined to try everything, Holly stays the only constant in a life of divorcing parents, experimental drugs and fashionable self-destruction. But for Holly, a friendship that has never been equal gradually starts to feel like a trap.

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.

Herman has a weakness for strip clubs. Donny has a thing for condiments and Tiffany is a newly celibate martial artist. These are Andy's new friends after he unsuspectingly follows his dream girl into a sexual addiction recovery group. At first this seems like the best possible news! However, Andy's professional and personal life begins to unravel as he deepens his ties to this lovable, but damaged group.

While caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, a teenager strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.

A terminally ill man falls in love with a woman who has a secret that threatens their time spent together.

Restless and unhappy, two couples get caught up in infidelity and deception. Barry is a sullen businessman married to Mary, a writer who is unsatisfied with their relationship. Mary begins an affair with Jerry, a smug theater professor and husband of her friend, Terri, who is also a writer. Adding to the adulterous mix are Cary, a callous doctor, and Cheri, an art-gallery assistant.

Frank, a retired Irish seaman, and Walter, a retired Cuban barber, are two lonely old men trapped in the emptiness of their own lives. When they meet in a park Frank is able to start a conversation after several attempts. They begin to spend time together and become friends. But because of their different characters they often quarrel with each other and finally seperate after Frank misbehaves to Walter's friend Elaine.

In Los Angeles, Max Carlyle makes a good living directing commercials and has a happy home life with his wife, Mimi, and two children. When Carlyle travels to New York City to visit his friend Charlie, who has been diagnosed with AIDS, he has repeat run-ins with a beautiful woman, Karen, and eventually sleeps with her. Though he goes home the next day and doesn't return until a year later, Carlyle's infidelity still lingers.

When Tyler Davidson brings his college buddy Chase home for the summer holidays a secret is revealed that threatens to tear his perfect family apart.

They are the best friends of the world. Five friends who shared everything: may 68, hippies years, the rock and their love for Bernadette. This Bernadette has left them to become a rock-star, and is back 15 years later for a weekend. Jean-Marie Poire describes with this movie the portrait of a generation with lots of humor served by excelent actors.

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave the country together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

Sam and Tusker, partners of 20 years, are traveling across England in their old RV visiting friends, family and places from their past. Since Tusker was diagnosed with early-onset dementia two years ago, their time together is the most important thing they have. As the trip progresses, however, their ideas for the future clash, secrets come out, and their love for each other is tested as never before. Ultimately, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s illness.

A New York writer on sex and love is finally getting married to her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.

Myles and Brody are best friends with two very different ways of finding love. Displeased with their current love lives, they make a pact to be together if neither finds love in ten year’s time. Now two months shy of their deadline, both friends set off to do whatever it takes to avoid ending up as each other’s last resort.

Tomás, who lives in Canada, travels to Madrid, Spain, to visit his old friend Julián. Both of them, accompanied by Truman, Julián's faithful dog, will share many surprising and emotional little moments, triggered by the hard situation Julián is going through, for just a few days.

A romantic comedy that brings together three disparate characters who are learning to face a challenging and often confusing world as they struggle together against a common demon—sex addiction.

An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.

Aging pals Billy, Paddy, Archie, and Sam have been best friends since childhood. When Billy finally proposes to his much-younger girlfriend, all four friends go to Las Vegas to celebrate the end of Billy's longtime bachelorhood and relive their glory days. However, the four quickly realize that the intervening decades have changed Sin City and tested their friendship in ways they had not imagined.

Five long-term pals confront ageing and mortality as they enjoy their last weeks together before taking different paths.

A photographer and her best friend are roommates. She is stuck with small-change shooting jobs and dreams of success. When her roommate decides to get married and leave, she feels hurt and has to learn how to deal with living alone.

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.

Laura and Simon have been best friends since college. Over the years, they've realized their bond is more than platonic. Can they—and should they—risk everything to explore a love that has existed all along?

A tale of the tender relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and the fourteen-year-old upperclassman who is the object of his desire, all set within the rigid atmosphere of a Jesuit-run school.

Dylan is done with relationships. Jamie decides to stop buying into the Hollywood clichés of true love. When the two become friends they decide to try something new and take advantage of their mutual attraction - but without any emotional attachment.

When Dr. Marcus Sommers realizes that he and his troubled, estranged brother David may be prone a fatal brain disease that runs in their family, he decides to make peace with his sibling, and invites him on a trip to the Rockies. There, the brothers bond over their shared enthusiasm for cycling and decide to enter a grueling bike race through the mountains. However, Marcus' health soon begins to fail, and David must compete without his brother at his side.

The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.

Tim and John fell in love while teenagers at their all-boys high school. John was captain of the football team, Tim an aspiring actor playing a minor part in Romeo and Juliet. Their romance endured for 15 years in the face of everything life threw at it – the separations, the discrimination, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses – until the only problem that love can't solve tried to destroy them.

Two young women and their friends spend spare time at an exclusive nightclub in 1980s New York.

David is a teenager whose parents are in a deteriorating marriage after their infant daughter dies. Clara is a chambermaid at a Jamaican resort who's hired to be a housekeeper. She and David develop a close bond, opening his eyes and heart to new experiences, and eventually leading to a disturbing secret in Clara's past.

After she discovers that her boyfriend has betrayed her, Hilary O'Neil is looking for a new start and a new job. She begins to work as a private nurse for a young man suffering from blood cancer. Slowly, they fall in love, but they always know their love cannot last because he is destined to die.

After learning that his terminally ill wife has six months to live, a man welcomes the support of his best friend who moves into their home to help out.

In 1980, Queens, New York, a young Jewish boy befriends a rebellious African-American classmate to the disapproval of his privileged family and begins to reckon with growing up in a world of inequality and prejudice.

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.

Camille, a naïve schoolgirl, meets an intriguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses, Camille discovers AIDS and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.

Best friends since they were kids, Rabbi Jacob Schram and Father Brian Finn are dynamic and popular young men living and working on New York's Upper West Side. When Anna Reilly, once their childhood friend and now grown into a beautiful corporate executive, suddenly returns to the city, she reenters Jake and Brian's lives and hearts with a vengeance. Sparks fly and an unusual and complicated love triangle ensues.

Lea and her husband Marc have known Francis and his wife Karine for a very long time. Over the years, each one of them has been assigned a specific role. The balance and dynamic of the group is blown up when Lea decides to write a novel, which turns into an immediate bestseller…

A retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own obituary. A young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, and the result is a life-altering friendship.

New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester both battle to secure Hester's pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

On Manhattan's gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.

When the beloved cellist of a world-renowned string quartet is diagnosed with a life threatening illness, the group's future suddenly hangs in the balance as suppressed emotions, competing egos and uncontrollable passions threaten to derail years of friendship and collaboration. As they are about to play their 25th anniversary concert — quite possibly their last — only their intimate bond and the power of music can preserve their legacy.

Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.

Three partisans bound by a strong friendship return home after the war, but the clash with everyday reality puts a strain on their bond.

Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.

A mild-mannered gay dentist and a womanizing bar owner rekindle their unlikely friendship when, upon meeting by chance after a decade apart, the latter turns out to be severely ill.

A story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time.

The story of an improbable friendship and a social comment on life in Bolivia in the eighties.

Tomas and Martin are a gay couple living in Paris whose marriage is thrown into crisis when Tomas impulsively begins a passionate affair with young schoolteacher Agathe. But when Martin begins an affair of his own, Tomas must confront life decisions he may be unprepared—or unwilling—to deal with.

David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Dedicated to his profession, he develops strong relationships with the people he cares for. But outside of work, it's a different story altogether.

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

A witty, perceptive and devastating look at the personal agendas and suppressed revelations swirling among a group of gay men in Manhattan. Harold is celebrating a birthday, and his friend Michael has drafted some other friends to help commemorate the event. As the evening progresses, the alcohol flows, the knives come out, and Michael's demand that the group participate in a devious telephone game, unleashing dormant and unspoken emotions.

When Jaime, a gay teenager, is sent to live in a community of Jehovah's Witnesses in small-town Quebec, she falls madly in love with a devout Witness girl. The two embark on an intense affair with consequences that will reshape the rest of their lives.

Left broke and homeless by his wealthy parents' divorce, a young man moves in with an old friend and finally meets the woman of his dreams -- only to discover she's already dating his friend.

Reluctant to let go of college life, a close-knit team of seven friends--irresponsible saxophone player Billy, young Republican Alec, his girlfriend Leslie, struggling journalist Kevin, drama queen Jules, lovesick waiter Kirby, and Wendy, a social worker with a heart of gold--realise the party is over. And as the burdens of maturity close in on the young dreamers, the complexities of adulthood and the daily struggle of growing up put their sacred friendship to the test. But everyone knows life is not a bed of roses. It won't be easy, but when all is said and done, what will it take for St. Elmo's clique to find its place in the real world?

Sam and Gray are such a well-matched pair that it is difficult to believe they are brother and sister rather than husband and wife. They both share a love of 1940s movies and dancing, and when they meet Charlie, they have something else in common: They both fall in love with her. Sam must deal with unexpected feelings of jealousy, while Gray struggles to come to terms with her sexual orientation.

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

Two popular teen boys, best friends since childhood, discover their lives, families, and girlfriends dramatically upended after an unexpected incident occurs on the night of a 17th birthday party.

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.

When a group of trespassing seniors swim in a pool containing alien cocoons, they find themselves energized with youthful vigor.

While walking home from her latest OB appointment, a very pregnant Esther Woodhouse is brutally attacked and disfigured by a hooded assailant. This horrible event seems to be a blessing in disguise when Esther finds consolation in a support group. Her life of sadness and solitude is opened up to friendship, understanding, and even acceptance. However, friendship and understanding can be very dangerous things when accepted by the wrong people.

Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.

For more than 15 years, two Marseille friends and criminals battle the law, rival gangs, prison authorities and even mined beaches in order to survive.

New York City writer Iris finds her comfortable, solitary life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor bequeaths her a Great Dane named Apollo. The huge dog immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with Apollo, she begins to come to terms with her past, and her own creative inner life.

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.

Two old friends reconnect at their friend's funeral, and decide to exact revenge on the widower who wronged all three of them decades earlier.

Longtime friends Ronny and Nick are partners in an auto-design firm. They are hard at work on a presentation for a dream project that would really launch their company. Then Ronny spots Nick's wife out with another man, and in the process of investigating the possible affair, he learns that Nick has a few secrets of his own. As the presentation nears, Ronny agonizes over what might happen if the truth gets out.

A story of friendship between a young convict who is forced to work in a retirement home and a group of crazy old people. Together they organize their escape.

A runaway couple go on an unforgettable journey from Boston to Key West, recapturing their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.

Kyle and Mike are best friends who share a close bond — until Mike sleeps with Kyle’s fiancée. A stormy but enduring relationship ensues between Kyle, with limitless patience, and Mike, who only lives his life by sowing discord in that of others, across many years of laughter, heartbreak, and rage.

A successful gay male escort describes in a series of confessions his tangled romantic relationships with his two roommates and an older, enigmatic male client.

Belgium, of all places. What's Belgium got besides chocolates and fries? No matter, this year it was Hannes' and Kiki's turn to choose the destination of their annual bike tour with their closest friends. They all looks forward to the adventure, after all they know that what counts the most is the time they spend together. It's only after the tour has begun that Hannes tells his friends that he's suffering from an incurable disease. The trip is to be his last. At first, the group is shocked and helpless, but after they hit the road again, they embark on a wild and one-of-a-kind adventure. Through Hannes, they realize how precious life is. Equipped with a list of things that still remain to do, and aware that nothing will be the same after this trip, they celebrate life as they never did before.

Stranded on an isolated desert road, two life-long friends fight for survival as their already strained relationship spirals into knife-wielding madness.

After 39 years together, Ben and George finally tie the knot, but George loses his job as a result, and the newlyweds must sell their New York apartment and live apart, relying on friends and family to make ends meet.
