Five movies to binge if you loved ‘Heartstopper Forever’
Finishing Heartstopper Forever doesn’t feel like a series ending; it feels like getting turfed out of a world you had built a loving home in. For years, it gave us an adolescence that was soft without being silly, of course.
Sure, there were heartbreaks, but they didn’t make us miserable. Ugh, all that is gone now, and all that is left is a pregnant pause.
And it was never just Nick and Charlie, lovely as they are. The show understood how awkward it is to figure yourself out. Wanting people to know the real you without making a show of yourself while doing it.
So what do you do after a story makes being vulnerable feel brave instead of embarrassing? Go straight back to Netflix, obviously. These five films take different routes through love and identity while finding your people, but they all get the same thing that Heartstopper Forever did: when someone truly sees you, it can change your whole life for the better.
Five movies to binge if you loved Heartstopper Forever
Fanfic (Marta Karwowska, 2023)
The best place to start after Heartstopper Forever is Fanfic, a Polish coming-of-age drama based on Natalia Osińska’s novel. It follows Tosiek, a teenager who is fed up with everyone deciding who he is before he has even had the chance to work it out himself. Then Leon turns up at school, and as the two of them get closer, Tosiek realises that he is a transgender boy. You are made up for him, obviously, but nothing is ever that simple, is it? Before long, there is grief at home, and Tosiek is trying to hold himself together while everyone else acts like his identity is their business.
That is where the Heartstopper connection comes in, because Fanfic understands that identifying who you are isn’t a sudden event. Sometimes it takes you a while to realise after somebody finally sees you properly. Leon gives Tosiek the space to say things he has been carrying around for ages, the same way Nick and Charlie help each other find a bit of courage. Mind you, it’s not as warm as Heartstopper Forever, but then no two stories can be the same, can they?
Flat Girls (Jirassaya Wongsutin, 2025)
Following that, you have Flat Girls, which moves from personal identity into the equally messy business of class and first love. Jane and Ann have grown up together in a Bangkok police housing complex, but their futures take them in completely different directions. Jane is getting ready to leave, while Ann is still dealing with money worries and the weight of her dad’s death. You can feel the distance growing between them before either of them wants to admit it.
If you loved the way Heartstopper Forever handled the question of whether love can survive when two lives stop moving side by side, Flat Girls will be a good next watch. Nick and Charlie have university hanging over them, while Jane and Ann have had this class divide sitting underneath their friendship for years. Flat Girls is much more melancholy, but it still understands that horrible feeling of clinging to your past while a painful future awaits.
As You Are (Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, 2016)
If Flat Girls is about people being pulled apart by circumstance, As You Are is about what happens when shame makes honesty feel dangerous. Set in the 1990s, it follows Jack, Mark and Sarah, three isolated teenagers who build their own little refuge away from unstable homes. Jack and Mark get closer, then intimate, but neither of them has the words or the confidence to say what is going on. They are feeling everything and saying next to nothing. Oh, you’d see the damage coming from a mile off.
The story is told through a police investigation, so it is darker than Heartstopper Forever. Even so, both stories help you realise that young love can go wrong when fear takes over. Nick and Charlie eventually learn how to talk without everything going south, but Jack and Mark are stuck in a world where being vulnerable can come back and bite them. That gives you the same feeling as Heartstopper but makes you angrier at the same time. It is basically asking what happens when acceptance is nowhere to be found, and the answer is grim.
The Invisible Thread (Marco Simon Puccioni, 2022)
After all that emotional damage, it’s nice to have an easy watch, and The Invisible Thread gives you something of that sort, though do not get too comfy because it still loves a family crisis. Leone is making a school documentary about his two dads when Paolo’s and Simone’s marriage starts falling apart. Then when an affair comes out, questions about Leone’s biological parentage kick off. Yes, talk about the timing! Before you know it, the whole family is in a legal mess on top of everything else.
Where Heartstopper Forever is about young people building a relationship, this Italian film looks at what is left when a long-term queer partnership changes its shape. Its main idea is quite close to Heartstopper, though: family is about who looks after you and who keeps showing up, not just blood or convention. Leone also has to deal with people judging him through his parents, which is bang on with the franchise’s interest in identity being decided from the outside.
Single All the Way (Michael Mayer, 2021)
To finish on something lighter, Single All the Way swaps teenage uncertainty for a warm, adult rom-com. Peter asks his best friend and roommate Nick to pretend they are together during a Christmas visit home, mainly so his family will stop giving him grief about being single. Fair enough, you would think. Then Peter’s mum set him up with James, and suddenly Nick has to face the fact that he has been sitting on feelings for his friend the whole time. You can see where it is going from miles off, can’t you?
The film shares Heartstopper Forever’s belief that queer romance does not need to be tragic to matter. Peter’s family are not rejecting him; if anything, they are far too invested in pushing him and Nick together. That acceptance makes the whole thing feel so warm, while the friends-to-lovers setup keeps it charming even when the ending is obvious. After saying goodbye to Heartstopper Forever, this is exactly the sort of low-stakes comfort watch you need.