Film

The Sessions

Name: The Sessions
Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy
Released: 2012
Cast: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Annika Marks

Drama

A tender, funny film about Mark, a journalist paralyzed by polio living in an iron lung, who hires a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. It's deeply human and unsentimental—never pitying its protagonist, always delighting in his wit and desire. For anyone who believes intimacy stories matter regardless of the body involved.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like warm, frank comedy about hard-won intimacy, where a funny, sharp-tongued man's wit carries serious ideas about dignity and the body.

Skip it if the frankness about sex and disability is unembarrassed and sometimes blunt, so if nudity and explicit talk make you squirm, the film will test your patience.

What it asks of you: Ninety-five minutes of close, talky scenes played lightly, with frank nudity and room for quiet discomfort; it rewards patience over momentum.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Fundamentals of Caring2016

Paul Rudd cares for a quadriplegic teenager on a road trip. Warm without being saccharine, funny without punching down, and genuinely interested in how two people with very different lives might actually connect.

But If you need constant plot momentum, it meanders. The whole point is slowing down to notice things.

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown1989

Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown, an Irish painter with cerebral palsy who learned to paint with his only controllable limb. Bristling with personality, fury, and artistic ambition—never a victim's story.

But It's grittier and angrier than The Sessions; the warmth is harder-won. Some heavy family dynamics and drinking.

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown poster

Rust and Bone2012

Marion Cotillard as a killer whale trainer who loses both legs; Jacques Audiard directing with real sensuality and mess. It refuses to make disability noble or romance redemptive—just explores what two damaged people might offer each other.

But It's grittier and more sexually explicit. The ending divides people sharply on whether it earns its hopefulness.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Sessions

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

DuckTales: The Movie - Treasure of the Lost Lamp1990

Both insist that their protagonists' bodies, circumstances, and desires make them no less fully human than anyone else. Both let joy and humour coexist with seriousness.

A heist adventure with three 10-year-olds as leads, genuine stakes, elegant plotting, and Magica de Spell as one of animation's best villains. The Sessions is about desire and agency; this is about children as full humans with real problems that matter.

But It's a Disney afternoon cartoon movie—many will assume it's beneath them. It isn't, but the barrier of assumption is real.

DuckTales: The Movie - Treasure of the Lost Lamp poster

Untamed Heart1993

Christian Slater and Marisa Tomei in a love story where one partner has serious physical vulnerability. Quietly romantic without ever becoming maudlin, and genuinely interested in how intimacy works around real constraints.

But It's a 90s indie romance, which means some dated textures. Not everyone's in the mood for earnest sweetness.

Still Alice2014

Julianne Moore as a linguistics professor facing early-onset Alzheimer's. Extraordinary performance about losing yourself while staying yourself. Handles intimacy and desire with unsentimental grace.

But It's a dementia film, and watching intelligence fracture is genuinely painful. Requires emotional stamina.

The Intouchables2011

A quadriplegic millionaire and his ex-con caregiver form an unlikely friendship in this French film. Funny, life-affirming, genuinely touching—proof that disabled people's stories don't need to be tragedies to matter.

But The dynamic can feel a touch 'inspiration porn' if you're sensitive to that. Very polished, very feel-good.

Transparent2014

Five seasons of a family imploding and rebuilding around a parent's transition. Messy, sexually frank, interested in how bodies and desire and identity tangle together across generations. Stunning writing.

But It's relentlessly heavy and often ugly. Characters make terrible choices. Long commitment; not every episode sings.

Me Before You2016

Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin in a romance between a caregiver and her quadriplegic employer. Visually lush, emotionally direct, genuinely interested in what two people might mean to each other.

But The ending is divisive—some find it moving, others resent where it goes with disability and agency. Also pitched toward romantic fantasy.

Freeheld2015

Ryan Reynolds and Julianne Moore as a cop and her partner fighting for pension rights after a cancer diagnosis. Heart in the right place, interested in how intimacy persists through illness and bureaucratic cruelty.

But It's earnest to a fault, sometimes clumsy with its messaging. Doesn't quite earn its emotional stakes.

The Farewell2019

Both trust their audience to hold complexity: love and frustration, tenderness and need, without resolving into false harmony. Both centre voices usually kept at the margin.

Lulu Wang on family, cultural collision, and a woman carving out autonomy within love and obligation. Shot like a rom-com but pitched as intimate drama. Funny, painful, unsentimental about how we care for each other across distance and difference.

But It's in Mandarin and English with subtitles. The emotional logic requires sitting with uncomfortable ambiguity about what kindness even means.