Movies Like Mapplethorpe (2019)

Mapplethorpe is a 2019 drama, history film from Ondi Timoner with a MovieMagicScore of 6.3/10. Here are 20 similar films, ranked by real viewer ratings — starting with Variações: Guardian Angel and Tom of Finland.

Drama History

Variações: Guardian Angel

2019

Film biography dwelling on the hectic artistic life of António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop rock singer from the 80s, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984.

6.9

MagicScore

Tom of Finland

2017

Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.

6.6

MagicScore

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon

1998

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.

6.0

MagicScore

Dallas Buyers Club

2013

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.

7.9

MagicScore

Bohemian Rhapsody

2018

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.

8.0

MagicScore

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

2022

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

7.2

MagicScore

The Trials of Oscar Wilde

1960

England, 1890s. The brutal and embittered Marquis of Queensberry, who believes that his youngest son, Bosie, has an inappropriate relationship with the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, maintains an ongoing feud with the latter in order to ruin his reputation and cause his fall from grace.

6.3

MagicScore

Pain and Glory

2019

Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.

7.4

MagicScore

Little Ashes

2008

About the young life and loves of artist Salvador Dalí, filmmaker Luis Buñuel and writer Federico García Lorca.

5.9

MagicScore

#10

Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender

2012

Archive footage of interviews, concerts and personal material bring to light the solo performance work of Mercury, the lead singer of Queen.

7.3

MagicScore

#11

Little Richard: I Am Everything

2023

The story of the black, gay origins of rock n' roll. It explodes the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard's complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon's life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions.

6.4

MagicScore

#12

Buddies

1985

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.

8.2

MagicScore

#13

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway

2008

Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.

7.9

MagicScore

#14

Philadelphia

1993

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.

7.7

MagicScore

#15

The Normal Heart

2014

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.

7.7

MagicScore

#16

Holding the Man

2015

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.

7.7

MagicScore

#17

Three Months

2022

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.

7.0

MagicScore

#18

Rent

2005

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.

6.9

MagicScore

#19

Parting Glances

1986

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.

6.8

MagicScore

#20

How to Survive a Plague

2012

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.

6.8

MagicScore

Frequently asked

What are the best movies like Mapplethorpe?

The top films similar to Mapplethorpe by MovieMagicScore are Variações: Guardian Angel (6.9), Tom of Finland (6.6), Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (6.0). Each shares drama/history themes and is ranked by real viewer ratings, not critics or studios.

Is Mapplethorpe worth watching?

Mapplethorpe holds a MovieMagicScore of 6.3/10 from 34 viewer ratings.

What kind of movie is Mapplethorpe?

Mapplethorpe (2019) is a drama, history film directed by Ondi Timoner, starring Matt Smith, Marianne Rendón, John Benjamin Hickey.

Where can I find more recommendations like Mapplethorpe?

Browse the full ranked list above, or explore more drama recommendations on MovieMagicScore, where every list is ordered by genuine viewer ratings.

Keep exploring

Movies like Variações: Guardian Angel Movies like Tom of Finland Movies like Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon Movies like Dallas Buyers Club Movies like Bohemian Rhapsody Movies like All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

About movies like Mapplethorpe

This ranked list pairs Mapplethorpe (2019), a drama and history film from Ondi Timoner, with similar titles by genre, theme and cast overlap (fans of Matt Smith take note). Unlike critic-driven sites, every position here is ordered by MovieMagicScore — a rating built only from real viewers, with no studio marketing or paid placement. Scores update as more people rate, so the list stays current.

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