When selecting this library of films akin to “Blue Is The Warmest Colour,” I looked beyond just other lesbian dramas. Rather, I looked for films with the artistic DNA and emotional resonance that would match Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 masterwork so powerfully.
My selection criteria focused on four key elements that define “Blue Is The Warmest Colour”:
- Visual Poetry – Films with meticulous cinematography where each frame could stand alone as art, similar to how “Blue” used light, color, and composition to externalize emotion.
- Emotional Authenticity – Stories that explore the full spectrum of human feelings with unflinching honesty, particularly in their portrayal of desire, connection, and heartbreak.
- Artistic Sensibility – Cinema that prioritizes artistic expression over commercial appeal, embracing the slower pace and contemplative style that characterized “Blue.”
- Complex Relationships – Narratives centered on nuanced interpersonal dynamics rather than simple love stories, examining how identity, society, and personal growth shape our connections.
Whether investigating lesbian relationships like the original film or extending to other LGBTQ+ and straight stories, each recommendation keeps the core of what made “Blue Is The Warmest Colour” such a significant viewing experience.
Highlight
Lesbian Movies Like Blue Is The Warmest Colour
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Release Year: 2019
Country: France
Where to Watch: MUBI, Hulu, Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: This French classic reflects Blue’s great artistic sensitivity and female focus. Before ending in passionate relationships, both films examine forbidden desire through lingering looks and physical tension. Blue looks at modern social obstacles, whereas Portrait places its forbidden love against limitations of the eighteenth century. Both include amazing photography and well formed female characters whose emotional travels seem real rather than voyeuristic.
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Water Lilies
Release Year: 2007
Country: France
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, Criterion Channel
Why It’s Like Blue: Under the direction of Céline Sciamma—same director as Portrait—this coming-of-age picture investigates teenage sexual awakening much as Blue does. Both catch that special period of young exploration and have swimming as a sensual backdrop. Though with a more subdued visual technique that enhances the moments of connection even more, Water Lilies’ depiction of desire, jealously and infatuation in young females reflects Blue’s raw emotional terrain.
My Summer of Love
Release Year: 2004
Country: UK
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: Like Blue, this movie catches two young women from various social levels engaged in a passionate summer affair. Both films masterfully capture the seductive blend of first love with sexual exploration. Blue’s metropolitan French environment is replaced by the British countryside scene, but the same themes of class disparity, identity exploration, and the fleeting intensity of young desire remain essential, all beautifully lit.
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Disobedience
Release Year: 2017
Country: UK/Ireland
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: Blue investigates secular French society whereas Disobedience looks at lesbian desire inside an Orthodox Jewish group. Between their stars, both films have a strong erotic tension that explores how social limitations impact relationships. Both films look at the cost paid for real living when society expects conformity, and the personal scenes in both are essential for character development rather than exploitative.
High Art
Release Year: 1998
Country: USA
Where to Watch: HBO Max, Criterion Channel, Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: Examining how artistic expression mixes with sexuality, this indie film looks at the interaction between a magazine editor and a photographer. Like Blue, High Art doesn’t hold back when examining difficult power relations in relationships and has people negotiating their identities through emotional connection. Both films frame debates on authenticity, desire, and the potentially destructive nature of close relationships using their creative environments.
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Colette
Release Year: 2018
Country: UK/USA
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, Vudu
Why It’s Like Blue: Drawing on the life of the French novelist Colette, she chronicles the artistic and sexual blossoming of a Belle Époque Paris young woman. Though more historical than Blue, both films follow a young woman’s path to self-discovery via sexuality, art, and love. To realise their real selves, both heroes have to get beyond conventional relationships and social limitations. Despite their varied eras, the sensual visual style and examination of feminine desire bind these films together.
Clouds of Sils Maria
Release Year: 2014
Country: France/Germany/Switzerland
Where to Watch: Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: Although this Olivier Assayas movie has more subdued lesbian themes, it reflects Blue’s focus in artistic expression and complicated female relationships. Both films tackle the conflict between personal need and professional responsibilities using remarkable performances. Though seen through a more subdued lens, Juliette Binoche’s ageing actress’s conflicting relationship with Kristen Stewart’s assistant generates the same type of simmering tension that made Blue so appealing.
Gay Movies Like Blue Is The Warmest Colour
Call Me by Your Name
Release Year: 2017
Country: Italy/France
Where to Watch: Netflix, Starz, Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: This sun-drenched Italian romance has the same emotional intensity and sensual environment Blue does. Both films portray young heroes going through transforming first love and set languid summers. The sensory details—food, music, touch—that director Luca Guadagnino pays close attention to produce a comparable immersive experience to Blue’s personal cinematography. Both films let the viewers experience every feeling intensely and are not shy to linger in times of longing and sadness.
Maurice
Release Year: 1987
Country: UK
Where to Watch: HBO Max, Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: Maurice nevertheless shares Blue’s analysis of forbidden love across social levels, albeit in Edwardian England rather than contemporary France. Both films track their heroes across years of emotional development as they negotiate their sexuality in repressive environments. While both films finally question whether real love is worth social ostracism, the meticulous storytelling, period accuracy, and performances with an eye towards subtle emotional changes reflect Blue’s artistic technique.
Weekend
Release Year: 2011
Country: UK
Where to Watch: Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: Given its honest, authentic examination of a brief but intense romance, this personal British drama merits inclusion. Like Blue, Weekend explores the inner life of its protagonists by means of open sexuality and protracted dialogue. Though Weekend’s romance spans days rather than years, both films use a documentary-like approach at times to create an authenticity that makes the emotional connection between characters feel instantaneous and real.
Boys Don’t Cry
Release Year: 1999
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Hulu, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: Though nominally about a transgender guy rather than a gay romance, this striking picture shares Blue’s relentless study of want in a hostile setting. Both films look at how society tries to control non-conforming relationships and have heroes battling with identity while falling profoundly in love. Though Boys Don’t Cry veers more tragically, the raw performances and close camera work produce the same emotional intensity that makes Blue so poignant.
Straight Movies With Similar Style/Themes
Blue Valentine
Release Year: 2010
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: This close-up view of the start and finish of a relationship reflects Blue’s uncompromising attention at both emotional devastation and physical intimacy. Director Derek Cianfrance used the same kind of genuine conversation and close-ups that made Blue feel so real. Both films brave to reveal their characters at their most vulnerable and flawed, and they both traverse non-linearly through time to juxtaposition the high beginnings of love with its heartbreaking breakup.
Love (Gaspar Noé)
Release Year: 2015
Country: France/Belgium
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: Explicit sexual drama by Gaspar Noé reflects Blue’s openness to show bodily intimacy in brutal accuracy. Sex sequences in both films serve as windows into the emotional states of their protagonists rather as only titling devices. Though Love emphasises a heterosexual relationship, its non-linear structure, French setting, and focus on young enthusiasm and final sadness create similar thematic area to Blue, though via Noé’s more provocative and stylised perspective.
Revolutionary Road
Release Year: 2008
Country: USA/UK
Where to Watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: Set in American suburbia in the 1950s, this adaption of Richard Yates’ book reflects Blue’s fascination in how relationships may both free and imprison us. Both films show couples whose first love gives way to animosity when personal needs collide with social standards. Though in rather different settings, both films explore how gender roles define and limit desire. The performers in both films expose the underlying emotions simmering underneath polite surfaces.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Release Year: 2004
Country: USA
Where to Watch: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime
Why It’s Like Blue: This movie has Blue’s emotional intensity and examination of memory’s part in love, even if its structure is more fanciful. Both films depict the inner emotions of the characters using visual images and involve relationships that significantly alter their heroes. Both films’ non-linear narrative weaves a mosaic of events that culminate in a whole picture of a relationship, with its complexity, joy, and sadness shown.
The Lovers on the Bridge
Release Year: 1991
Country: France
Where to Watch: Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: Leos Carax’s stunningly spectacular picture of two homeless people falling in love on the Pont Neuf in Paris reflects Blue’s expressionistic technique in capturing desire. While examining marginal existences and all-consuming love, both films employ their French locations to produce sensual images. Though Carax uses a more obviously stylised technique than Blue’s naturalism, the physical intimacy in both films serves the narrative of characters seeking connection despite personal and social hurdles.
A Summer’s Tale
Release Year: 1996
Country: France
Where to Watch: Hulu, Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: Eric Rohmer’s soft summer romance reflects Blue’s personal scale and concentration on young relationships. Both videos highlight how surroundings impact emotional experiences and examine the freedom and intensity that accompany transient relationships using their summer settings. A Summer’s Tale shines similarly in catching the little moments of connection and wasted opportunities that define young romances, even if it is far more chaste than Blue.
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Release Year: 1959
Country: France/Japan
Where to Watch: HBO Max, Amazon
Why It’s Like Blue: The classic French New Wave film Alain Resnais captures Blue’s fascination in how physical intimacy links to memory and identity. Both films start with long sequences of couples’ bodies entwined and use these meetings to start closer investigations of their emotional terrain. Though Hiroshima’s historical background lends it a larger political dimension absent in Blue, both pieces use non-linear structures to depict how past events impact contemporary desire.
Amour
Release Year: 2012
Country: France/Austria/Germany
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime, Vudu
Why It’s Like Blue: Though Blue’s young love seems far from Michael Haneke’s terrible picture of an elderly couple confronting the end of life, both films have an unflinching eye at the most personal elements of human relationships. Using lengthy views and little editing to generate almost documentary-like authenticity, both directors refuse to turn away from physical and emotional vulnerability. Though from different ends of life’s path, both films eventually examine what we owe to those we love.
