The Normal HeartMovies like The Normal Heart
- Key Features:
- AIDS epidemic, Political drama, Activism, Social commentary, Historical drama, LGBTQ+, Medical drama, Discrimination, Social stigma, Loss, Grief, Resilience, New York City, Late 1990s, Based on a book
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, earnest
- Target Audience:
- LGBTQ+ community, Social justice advocates, History buffs, Drama enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Despair
The Normal Heart

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.
The Normal Heart
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Jacques is the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determinedly drinking and smoking himself to death when he meets Lucas, a homeless young man who has already given up on life. Determined to keep his legacy alive, Jacques deems Lucas is a fitting heir and takes him under his wing.

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

In a vibrant tapestry of love and longing, nine interconnected souls navigate romance and heartbreak in L.A., where passions collide and truths unfold, revealing that the heart's desires often lead us where we least expect.

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.

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.

When 30-ish rich kid Lenny has to take care of 15-year-old David, who’s suffering from heart disease, it’s the beginning of a wild adventure. Lenny fearlessly breaks all the rules to fulfill his young friend’s every wish.

When New York is caught in the grip of a sadistic serial killer who preys on patrons of the city's underground bars, young rookie Steve Burns infiltrates the S&M subculture to try and lure him out of the shadows.

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.

Kicked out by his parents, a gay teenager leaves small-town Indiana for New York's Greenwich Village, where growing discrimination against the gay community leads to riots on June 28, 1969.

When illness strikes two people who are polar opposites, life and death bring them together in surprising ways.

Caroline, a young waitress who seems to have bad taste in men, is on her way home one night when thugs attempt to rape her. Adam, the mysterious busboy who works at the same diner, helps fight off the assailants, and she begins a relationship with him -- but not all their fellow Minnesotans are happy for them. Meanwhile, the couple face their own difficulties when Caroline finds about Adam's past, including his unique health condition.

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

At once an intimate chronicle of a romance and a sprawling portrait of life in early 1990s France following the intertwining journeys of Jacques, a worldly Parisian writer, and Arthur, a curious, carefree and much-younger university student who is just beginning to live. Brought together by chance, the two men find themselves navigating a casual fling that gradually deepens into a tender, transformative bond.

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.

Pure fantasia, a race to save the world from a fatal heart attack, juxtaposed against a love rivalry between two brothers - a mortician and an actor playing Christ - for the heart of a scientist studying the earth's core.

Caleb, a South Florida teen, loves his camera, his weed and his grandmother. On the eve of his high school graduation, everything changes when he's exposed to HIV. While he waits three months for his results, Caleb finds love in the most unlikely of places.

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.

When an unidentified disease starts to upend her life, a socialite must unravel the mystery behind it — before her whole sense of self falls apart.

Outside, the first sun rays break the dawn. Sixteen years old Catarina can't fall asleep. Inconsequently, in the big city adults are moved by desire... Catarina found she is HIV positive. She wants to drag everyone else along.

A day in the life of a group of teens as they travel around New York City skating, drinking, smoking and deflowering virgins.

The intersecting lives of teens on a surfing trip, a woman with a weak heart and two teams of doctors and medical experts.

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.

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.

The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.

After a heart transplant, Manuel feels a personality shift and explores his donor's life, leading him to meet the widowed Vale and her community.

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

In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex is assaulted by something no one could believe—a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance.

The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.

Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.

A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.

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.

Tod Lubitch is born with a deficient immune system. As such, he must spend the rest of his life in a completely sterile environment. His room is completely hermetically sealed against bacteria and virus, his food is specially prepared, and his only human contact comes in the form of gloved hands. The movie follows his life into a teenager.

Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.

Medicine, money and morality clash when a hospital's Heart Transplant Selection Committee has only minutes to decide which of three patients on the transplant list will receive a heart that has suddenly become available.

In the 1980s, after a businessman is murdered at his home, an experienced police inspector and his rookie partner must delve into the gay scene of the city to catch the killer.

A man with an unknown disease travels to an island with his girlfriend where his relatives once lived, hoping to find a cure to his illness. Although his relatives were all thought to be dead, he finds them living underground.

Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.

As an epidemic of a lethal airborne virus - that kills within days - rapidly grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself.

Based on the true story of double killings occurring in Rochester, NY during the 80’s and the troubled police officer determined to solve them, with or without the help of her department

A young paramedic is paired with a seasoned partner on the night shift in New York revealing a city in crisis. Discovering the chaos firsthand, he is tested with the ethical ambiguity that can be the difference between life and death.

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.

Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.

Clara and Felice struggle to raise their three children in 1970s Rome. The eldest, Andrew, is transgender and yearns for another life where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Clara instinctively strives to protect her son by escaping into their imaginations to defuse family tensions.

A widowed mother and her son change when a mysterious stranger enters their lives.

Two brothers, ambitious dot-com entrepreneurs, attempt to keep their company afloat as the stock market begins to collapse in August 2001, one month prior to the 9/11 attacks.

An undocumented immigrant finds a human heart in one of the toilets of the west London hotel where he works with other undocumented immigrants.

A man's recently transplanted heart leads him on a frantic search to find the donor's killer before a similar fate befalls him.

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

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.

In the summer of 1979, gay porn producer Anne sets out to film her most ambitious film yet, but her actors are picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

Local rebellious teenager Clotaire falls for his schoolmate Jackie, but gang violence leads him to a darker destructive path. After years apart, the star-crossed lovers discover that every path they've taken leads them back together.

Not satisfied with the result of a murder investigation in Warsaw's gay community, an officer in 1980s communist Poland resolves to uncover the truth.

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.

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.

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

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.

Gary Hart, former Senator of Colorado, becomes the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987. Hart's intelligence, charisma and idealism makes him popular with young voters, leaving him with a seemingly clear path to the White House. All that comes crashing down when allegations of an extramarital affair surface in the media, forcing the candidate to address a scandal that threatens to derail his campaign and personal life.

A strange disease kills off some of the richest and most influential people on the planet. First it was the billionaires, then the multi-millionaires and so on progressively... Then it threatens to strike anyone with any sort of fortune. With the whole world panicking, people try to flood the market with assets the world no longer wants.

14-year-old Elias increasingly feels like an outsider in his village. When he meets his new neighbour of the same age, Alexander, Elias is confronted with his burgeoning sexuality.

Garage owner Angelo and big-time film producer Alberto find themselves occupying neighbouring beds in a Rome hospital after suffering heart attacks. Alberto is a gregarious joker - and chain smoker - who has a strong effect on the impressionable Angelo. However, as one of the men's condition deteriorates, the other becomes more deeply involved in his personal life.

After the PTA of a conservative high school in Indiana bans same-sex couples from attending the annual prom, a gang of flamboyant Broadway stars try to boost their image by showing up to support two lesbian students.

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.

Irene, a workaholic, is forced to re-evaluate her priorities after the suicide of her two best friends.

Dr. Lisa Leland is a brilliant surgeon with absolutely no bedside manner. She is leaving her practice at UCLA Hospital to move to the Hamptons where she will join her boyfriend as a concierge doctor, treating the rich and famous. As she drives cross-country to her new life she hits a tractor in Normal, North Carolina and her BMW is wrecked. Dr. Leland is found guilty of speeding and ordered to do community service as a doctor in Normal, population 332. In a town with no wi-fi, no lattes and no credit cards, Lisa Leland begins to find herself and discovers what a meaningful life is all about.

Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Major champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.

When reporter Jean Craddock interviews Bad Blake—an alcoholic, seen-better-days country music legend—they connect, and the hard-living crooner sees a possible saving grace in a life with Jean and her young son.

A New York couple's relationship is tested after the loss of their child. This film is the wide-released combination of the original two :him and :her volumes that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

On the eve of a major performance, singer Vivienne receives life-altering news that causes her to reevaluate her priorities. Crisscrossing the busy streets of New York City, she tries to balance her upcoming tour, family, and friends. Through interaction with her overbearing mother, Jeanne, her long-time manager, Ben, and her ex-husband, Nick, Vivienne strives to make peace with the decisions and sacrifices she's made along the way.

In the future, medical technology has advanced to the point where people can buy artificial organs to extend their lives. But if they default on payments, an organization known as the Union sends agents to repossess the organs. Remy is one of the best agents in the business, but when he becomes the recipient of an artificial heart, he finds himself in the same dire straits as his many victims.

Théo and Hugo meet in a club and form an immediate bond. Once the desire and elation of this first moment has passed, the two young men, now sober, wander through the empty streets of nocturnal Paris, having to confront the love they sense blossoming between them.

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

An ultraconservative police officer suffers a debilitating stroke and is assigned to a rehabilitative program that includes singing lessons - with the drag queen next door.

A young man in 1981 South Africa must complete his brutal and racist two years of compulsory military service while desperately maintaining the secrecy of his homosexuality.

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.

A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider, whom takes the youth under his wing.

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.

A down-and-out Brooklyn detective is hired to track down a singer on an odyssey that will take him through the desperate streets of Harlem, the smoke-filled jazz clubs of New Orleans, and the swamps of Louisiana and its seedy underworld of voodoo.

Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she's left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside, and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. Eventually, some eccentric but kindly strangers 'adopt' Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.

After accidentally witnessing a mafia hit in the Windy City, gal pals Connie and Carla skip town for L.A., where they go way undercover as singers working the city's dinner theater circuit ... disguised as drag queens. Now, it's not enough that they become big hits on the scene; things get extra-weird when Connie meets Jeff -- a guy she'd like to be a woman with.

After a virus of epic proportions overwhelms the planet—with more infected than uninfected—humanity is losing its grip on survival and its only hope is finding a cure and keeping the infected contained. Lauren, a doctor, arrives in Los Angeles with her crack team to lead the hunt for uncontaminated civilian survivors, but nothing can prepare them for the blood-soaked mayhem they witness as they head into the Californian streets where everything is considered a trap.

We follow the two Texas doctors who invented the modern breast implant and its surgical procedure. However, when success and money come their way, they split up and follow different paths. One becomes the surgeon of the everyday woman while the other's career freefalls and has to settle with strippers and actresses. The film covers their history and their inventions, from the sixties until today.

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 pregnant New York social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.

Two untalented singers are mistaken for a pair of major league safe crackers in Providence, Rhode Island. The two are pressed into service by the local hoodlums and quickly find themselves in conflict with their professional colleagues. Romantic interest is added by the daughter of the underworld leader who won't date the men she knows are gangsters.

The Zodiac murders cause the lives of Paul Avery, David Toschi and Robert Graysmith to intersect.

An unlikely friendship kindles between a struggling stand-up comedian from L.A. — forced to move back home to Eastern Long Island with his tail between his legs — and a tragically flawed, but charming and charismatic, alcoholic dermatologist. Discovering to be kindred spirits, each helps the other find healing, in addition to the confidence to face the "failures" in their lives.

