Stuti Gokhale
Directed by Sammi Cohen, ‘Crush’ is a heartwarming coming-of-age movie on Hulu. It follows Paige, a lesbian high schooler who has a long-time crush on her popular classmate Gabriela AKA Gabi. Despite being a poor athlete, the former joins the school track team to impress Gabi but finds herself unexpectedly falling for her twin sister AJ. However, trouble ensues when an anonymous graffiti artist arrives and jeopardizes both Paige’s love life and her dream of getting into art school.
With its comic narrative and endearing characters, ‘Crush’ explores the bittersweet experience of young love and friendships and gives a fresh perspective to the portrayal of LGTBTQ+ relationships in cinema. Now, if you are eager to watch more entertaining movies like this one, we’ve got just the recommendations you need! You can watch most of these movies similar to ‘Crush’ on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime.
7. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (2015)
‘Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List’ is a romantic comedy movie that depicts the thin line between friendship and love. Directed by Kristin Hanggi, it revolves around Naomi, who has always been secretly in love with her best friend Ely, despite knowing that he is gay. To avoid clashing with each other over potential love interests, they make a list of the men that are forbidden to them both. However, things get complicated when Naomi starts dating Bruce who, in turn, is interested in Ely.
Like Paige in ‘Crush,’ Naomi has a hard time getting over Ely, who is her childhood crush. To get his attention, she starts dating Bruce, just as Paige joins the track team. However, after a lot of impulsive decisions that both protagonists make, they eventually realize that they have fallen for other people, thus making them quite similar to each other. All they need is one big push from the ones they dreamt of ending up with to find the one they do deserve.
6. The Half of It (2020)
Directed by Alice Wu, ‘The Half of It‘ is a coming-of-age comedy-drama movie that follows Ellie, a reclusive teenager, who starts helping her popular classmate Paul to write romantic letters on his behalf to his crush Aster. While both girls befriend each other and fall in love, Paul too starts doubting his feelings for Aster and realizes that he likes Ellie instead. This leads to a complicated situation between the three, ending in them learning a lot about growing up.
Both Ellie and Paige are socially awkward and start finding their voice due to tasks that push them out of their comfort zones. Furthermore, they end up finding love in unusual places as well as friendship with the ones who have feelings for them. Not just that, they have supportive single parents, who guide them through their turmoil with their progressive approaches.
5. Love, Simon (2018)
Greg Berlanti’s directorial ‘Love, Simon‘ is a romantic comedy-drama movie that chronicles Simon, a gay high school student who struggles with disclosing his sexuality to his parents and friends. When he meets an anonymous gay schoolmate online, he instantly bonds with him over emails and starts falling in love. Just as Simon sets out to find his mysterious crush’s identity, his classmate Martin discovers their emails and starts blackmailing him. Trapped, he must straighten out everything before he ends up losing the faith of all his loved ones.
Both the movies center around a mysterious person that the protagonists are desperately looking for while being threatened by others for their own purposes. In addition, Simon and Paige end up getting caught in their lies, making them isolated from the people who care about them. Although, with time, they end up mending their mistakes and win over the ones they love in a grand way.
4. Dating Amber (2020)
‘Dating Amber’ speaks about the fear of social ostracization in the LGBTQ+ community humorously. Directed by David Freyne, the comedy-drama movie follows Eddie and Amber, two gay and lesbian teenagers in 90s Ireland, who decide to hide their sexuality by publicly dating each other. However, soon, their convenient pretense starts suffocating them when they start discovering their true identities and desires.
Amber wishes to break free from her regressive small town and start life afresh in Dublin, whereas Paige wishes to leave behind her familiar surroundings to study art. Though they have different dreams, they end up doing the same thing to fulfill them — stepping out of their comfort zones and doing what they never would have otherwise. On top of that, just as Paige helps AJ accept herself despite her parents’ restrictions, Amber does the same for Eddie when she helps him escape the lie he considers his reality.
3. The Thing About Harry (2020)
Helmed by Peter Paige, ‘The Thing About Harry‘ is a romantic comedy movie that revolves around Sam, a gay man who is forced to go on a road trip with his former high school bully Harry. When he discovers that the latter is pansexual, they start getting close to each other but end up facing an array of troubles and misunderstandings before realizing what they mean to each other.
Sam feels that Harry would be the last person he ends up with, similar to Paige, who initially assumes AJ to be a rather antisocial person who is not her type. Regardless of their prejudices, Sam and Paige end up loving people who are the opposite of their expectations, which proves that love does not follow any rules. Furthermore, they both make efforts to pursue other people before getting together with their soulmates.
2. Alex Strangelove (2018)
Directed by Craig Johnson, ‘Alex Strangelove’ is an entertaining romantic comedy movie. It centers around high schooler Alex, who is content with his girlfriend Claire till he meets Elliot, an openly gay teenager. Though his main goal is to lose his virginity to Claire, he gradually starts doubting his sexuality when he begins spending time with Elliot. A conflicted Alex must now choose who he really wants before he ends up hurting a loved one or worse, himself.
Alex and Paige share a commonality in the fact that they are determined to be with the ones they believe are their destined lovers. But things get complicated when each of them discovers a person who surprisingly challenges all their beliefs and makes them want to explore a world beyond their set ideologies. Also, they end up hurting the ones they were initially pursuing — that are Claire and Gabi — only to be helped by them to woo their partners.
1. Boy Meets Girl (2014)
‘Boy Meets Girl’ is a romantic comedy-drama movie about chasing one’s dreams and deriving courage from love. Directed by Eric Schaeffer, it follows Ricky, a transgender woman from a small town who wishes to go to New York and study fashion design. She spends most of her time working as a barista and hanging out with her best friend, Robby, but soon her perspective on life changes with the arrival of Francesca. As Ricky starts falling for her, she also gets the motivation to work on her goal and transform her life.
Paige and Ricky have mirroring aspirations of moving away from their hometowns and getting admission to their dream schools. But their lives and thinking change in a similar sense when they meet a person who doesn’t fit in any of the boxes they construe a lover to be. Regardless, they end up finding far more common than they imagined and discover the vigor to pursue their passions.
Read More: Is Crush Based on a True Story?
