With this muscular, heartfelt and sombre new picture set in 1980s New York, James Gray again resurrects the spirit of Elia Kazan in a blue-collar tragedy of fraternal loyalty and betrayal; a movie about men and their horror of appearing weak and failing to protect their families. Paper Tiger has that distinctive Gray colour palette: a perpetual late-afternoon autumn of subdued ochres, reds and browns.
The 2026 Cannes Film Festival is just around the corner, and with buzz building around the many features set to make their debut at the prestigious French soirée, we're finally- finally! -learning more about what should be one of the best & gayest movies at the fest. Premiering on May 20, The Man I Love is the latest from gay filmmaker Ira Sachs ( Passages, Love Is Strange). It's been described as a "musical fantasia" set in 1980s downtown NYC about an artist who "experiences a precious window between sickness and mortality-a time when beauty and love remain within reach."
Each morning, he made himself a to-do list and crossed out items as he completed them as straightforwardly as any middle manager. Shopping-list tasks like 'china markers' or 'order canvas' sit alongside reminders like 'paint sister's baby furniture.'
Nonstop gonzo mayhem is on show in this pulp shocker from 1980, beginning with an amazingly reckless, fender-mangling, passerby-endangering car chase which more or less takes up the first 20 minutes. It's a gritty New York sleazesploitation crime thriller with some gobsmackingly over-the-top punch-ups and shootouts; some of the attitudes to ethnicity and sexual politics can only be described as of their time. Those who prefer 21st-century standards of good taste had better look away now.