Film
Call Me by Your Name
A sun-drenched, aching first-love story set over one Italian summer, told mostly through glances, silences and the particular agony of wanting someone you're too young to name it to. It's slow, sensory, and unembarrassed about desire — for people, poetry, peaches, everything. Best watched by anyone who remembers a summer that rearranged them.
If you liked this
Moonlight2016
Another coming-of-age story told in fragments of touch and light rather than dialogue, following a boy across years as he learns who he's allowed to love. Just as tender, just as patient.
But Its structure is more fractured and its world far harsher — less villa, more housing project.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire2019
A slow-burning romance built almost entirely on looking — who's allowed to look at whom, and what it costs. Gorgeous, painterly, and devastating in a very similar register.
But Even more restrained; if you wanted CMBYN's warmth, this is colder and more formal.

God's Own Country2017
Swap Italian sun for Yorkshire mud and you get the same story, essentially: two young men, one summer job, feelings neither expected. Rougher, quieter, just as moving.
But Bleaker landscape, thicker accents, none of the sensuous ease — this one earns its tenderness the hard way.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Death in Venice1971no page yet
CMBYN's whole visual and emotional grammar — obsessive beauty, Italian light, classical music doing the talking — descends directly from this film; watching it is seeing the ancestor.
Visconti's original template: an older man undone by desire for someone he can't have, filmed on Italian water with Mahler swelling underneath every glance. This is where the aesthetic came from.
But Glacially slow, almost wordless, and its central attraction is far more one-sided and disturbing.
More like this (8)
Brokeback Mountain2005
The film CMBYN is in conversation with — a love affair that can't fit inside the life built around it. Landscape as longing, silence as heartbreak.
But Spans decades rather than one summer, and the ending lands much harder and sadder.

A Room with a View1986
Merchant Ivory did the sun-baked Italian villa, repressed desire and coming-of-age thing first, with wit instead of ache. Same setting, lighter touch.
But Straight romance, comic where CMBYN is elegiac — a very different emotional temperature.

Weekend2011
Compresses a whole relationship's worth of intimacy into a few days between near-strangers. Talky, intimate, unshowy — it trusts conversation the way CMBYN trusts glances.
But Council-flat Britain instead of Tuscan sun; far less cinematography to swoon over.

The Talented Mr. Ripley1999
Same Italian coastline, same simmering homoerotic tension between beautiful young men in linen, but curdled into obsession and menace instead of tenderness.
But It's a thriller with a body count — the desire here turns dangerous, not sweet.

Blue Is the Warmest Color2013no page yet
An all-consuming first love told with the same unguarded physical intimacy and emotional rawness. Long, immersive, unafraid of how much young love hurts.
But Much longer and more explicit; some found its camera's gaze more voyeuristic than tender.
Aftersun2022no page yet
A different kind of summer, a different kind of love — but the same golden, elliptical way of filming a season you only understand years later.
But Father-daughter, not romantic; if you wanted more of Elio and Oliver specifically, this is quieter and sadder in a different direction.
It's a Sin2021
Same era, same first-flush queer desire — but this shows you what the wider world was doing to people like Elio and Oliver at exactly that moment.
A joyous, devastating miniseries about young queer men falling in love and building chosen family in early-80s London, right as the AIDS crisis begins. Elio and Oliver's generation, seen from the other side of the decade.
But It's five episodes of real historical grief — funny and vital at first, but it will wreck you by the end.

Fire Island2022no page yet
Takes the same ingredients — beautiful young men, a finite summer, class anxiety, unspoken longing — and plays them for comedy instead of tragedy, proving the engine works in either key.
A gay rom-com riff on Pride and Prejudice among friends on a summer holiday — funny, horny, sharp about class and desirability, but underneath it, the same yearning for a summer that means something.
But Broad comedy and camp where CMBYN is hushed and aching — expect jokes, not silences.
People
Cast

Armie HammerOliver
Michael StuhlbargMr. Perlman
Amira CasarAnnella
Esther GarrelMarzia
Victoire du BoisChiara
Vanda CaprioloMafalda- Antonio RimoldiAnchise
- Elena BucciBambi
Marco SgrossoNico
André AcimanMounir
Peter SpearsIsaac
Directing
- Manuela D'OvidioAssistant Director
- Paolo SponzilliAssistant Director
- Luca GuadagninoDirector
- Dominique DelanyFirst Assistant Director
- Rachel GriffithsScript Supervisor
- Riccardo ZurlaSecond Assistant Director
- Ferdinando Cito FilomarinoSecond Unit Director
Writing
- André AcimanNovel
- James IvoryScreenplay
Production
- Abdi NazemianAssociate Producer
- Allan NeuwirthAssociate Producer
- Kim SurowiczAssociate Producer
- Susanne FilkinsAssociate Producer
- Stella SavinoCasting
- Derek SimondsExecutive Producer
- Francesco Melzi d'ErilExecutive Producer
- Lourenço Sant'AnnaExecutive Producer
- Margarethe BaillouExecutive Producer
- Naima AbedExecutive Producer
- Nicholas KaiserExecutive Producer
- Sophie MasExecutive Producer
- Tom DolbyExecutive Producer
- Stella SavinoLine Producer
- Federica De VitaPayroll Accountant
- Emilie GeorgesProducer
- Howard RosenmanProducer
- James IvoryProducer
- Luca GuadagninoProducer
- Marco MorabitoProducer
- Peter SpearsProducer
- Rodrigo TeixeiraProducer
- Emma GalliProducer's Assistant
- Fatim CamaraProduction Accountant
- Massimo AversanoProduction Accountant
- Manuela CavalloProduction Consultant
- Christian GiulianiProduction Coordinator
- Guido GotzPublicist
- Giangi GiordanoResearcher
- Lucia GuidanoUnit Manager
- Andrea AlunniUnit Production Manager
Recommended by
In the Mood for Love, Boyhood, Young Royals, Beautiful Thing, My Brilliant Friend, Maurice, Whisper of the Heart, Moonlight, God's Own Country, Weekend, Carol, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Normal People, Brokeback Mountain, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Boy Erased, A Single Man, Y Tu Mamá También, Bad Buddy, You+Me - Against the World, Love, Simon, Disobedience, Luca, The Souvenir, The Dreamers, Conversations with Friends