Pillion
A24 | Release Date: February 6, 2026 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
39
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comZachary LeeFeb 6, 2026
Pillion is a quietly devastating ode to the power of that self-discovery, a reminder that perhaps one of life’s greatest tragedies is that we can’t always remain in a relationship with the people we learn the most valuable lessons from. Read full review
100
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisFeb 5, 2026
With immense sensitivity, the screenwriter and director Harry Lighton, making his feature debut, stages sequences that deepen the characters and expand our understanding of their lives. Read full review
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyDec 5, 2025
What Lighton has achieved here is incredibly delicate, intuitive work, which never compromises on the story’s explicit nature or in the specificities of its subculture. Read full review
100
EmpireBeth Webb
An unconventional love story that finds pathos amid the PVC, this triumphant directorial debut bares so much more than flesh. Bruising and brilliant. Read full review
100
Time OutLeonie Cooper
Pillion starts as it means to go on; aligning its oddly innocent nature with extreme, hardcore imagery, and managing to give screwball humour an emotional gravitas. Read full review
95
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiFeb 6, 2026
Kinky as hell and also extremely romantic. That’s not a combo a lot of movies go for nowadays, let alone pull off this beautifully, and that makes Pillion something of a miracle. Read full review
91
The Film MavenKristen LopezFeb 6, 2026
Pillion remains one of the best movies of the year, one that is funny as it is relatable, romantic as it is trying. Melling and Skarsgård have a fabulous chemistry together. This is another one I can't wait to experience again. Read full review
91
IndieWireRyan LattanzioMay 20, 2025
It also never hurts to be anchored by two actors who are totally game and committed to that vision, and willing to go there, chains, gags, assless chaps and all. Read full review
91
The Film StageZhuo-Ning SuMay 20, 2025
Lighton has made a truly provocative anti-romance that’s funny, honest, strangely touching. It’s an exceptional balance act that makes Pillion the unlikeliest crowd-pleaser. Read full review
91
The Daily BeastEsther ZuckermanMay 20, 2025
Pillion is often very funny without ever kinkshaming, thanks to the wry script, Skarsgård’s deadpan, and Melling’s guilelessness. Read full review
90
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzFeb 9, 2026
The evolution of Colin and Ray’s relationship is traced with a steamy kind of sensitivity. Lighton, in his feature directorial debut, never treats the BDSM scene as an object of fetishistic curiosity, but rather a culture rich with yearning, compassion, jealousy – the entire gamut of romantic life. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonFeb 6, 2026
Lighton’s biker BDSM rom-com might sound niche, but free yourself to see it and you’ll discover it’s a universal romance. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 20, 2025
The beauty of Pillion is that those of us watching on the sidelines are not voyeurs, but rather witnesses to something powerfully complex and human. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 20, 2025
Pillion is less about the shock factor of some very graphic gay kink than the nuances of love, desire and mutual needs within a sub/dom relationship. Read full review
90
ColliderEmma Kiely
It doesn’t coast on its set-up, Skarsgård’s presence, or the taboos it approaches. It handles all these and then some, combining a compelling coming-of-age story, an endearing comedy, and a sex-positive odd romance into one of the best films of the year. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerFeb 12, 2026
Onscreen, Lighton explores the imbalance between the two and gently leads the audience with sympathy and empathy to a perfect resolution that asks both to face their own dysfunction. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonFeb 10, 2026
Pillion is the story of that one relationship that defines a person, the one that finally reveals to them what they want out of sex, love, and life. We can all relate to that. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyFeb 10, 2026
Both rudely funny and soppy in a terribly English way, Pillion is a rough-sex romance that will be relatable to anyone who has fallen hard for an emotionally distant lover. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeFeb 6, 2026
Pillion is a film about self-knowledge, and about asserting one’s needs and boundaries without shame. Read full review
83
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodMay 20, 2025
What this collection of bold artists has pulled off is a fascinating portrait of one man coming to terms with his own identity in a genuinely original way. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesFeb 10, 2026
The two lead actors, both superb, strike a delicate imbalance. Read full review
80
The Travers TakePeter TraversFeb 6, 2026
In this queer BDSM romdomcom with a core of sweetness, Alexander Sarsgård and Harry Melling bring passion and compassion to a taboo subject rare in mainstream cinema. It’s about time. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 6, 2026
Pillion is tender in a sneaky way: without judgment, it reckons with the things humans want, in bed or outside of it, and are sometimes afraid to ask for. It’s also in tune with the reality that we’re not born knowing everything about ourselves—and where’s the fun in that, anyway? Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 6, 2026
Anyone who’s ever wondered what a rom-com collab between Nora Ephron and Tom of Finland might look like now has a definitive answer to that question. Read full review
80
The Daily BeastNick SchagerFeb 5, 2026
A steamy, sad, and amusing snapshot of desire and identity. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyDec 12, 2025
Without a doubt, it gives us the oddest couple of the year in Alexander Skarsgård’s Ray and Harry Melling’s Colin. For that, and many other reasons, this fresh, funny and poignant pairing is one to be cherished. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 20, 2025
Laced with a wry sense of humor, Pillion manages to be both understated and explicit in the way Lighton presents practically everything that happens in Colin and Ray’s unconventional relationship. Read full review
80
The TimesEd PottonMay 20, 2025
It’s knotty stuff for a first film but Lighton finds a delicate balance between disturbing, funny, sweet and sad. Read full review
80
Screen DailyNikki BaughanMay 20, 2025
Open-minded audiences will soon realise that Pillion is not out to provocate, but to authentically and sensitively explore a side of gay culture little seen in mainstream film. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreMay 20, 2025
A film that is, chain collars and ass-eating aside, surprisingly mild at its core — or, at least, it ends up positioning dominance and submission in counterpoint to emotional intimacy in a way that echoes E.L. James more than you might expect. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 20, 2025
It is a real love story, and the movie amusingly and touchingly takes us through the final stages and out the other side. Read full review
80
Little White LiesHannah Strong
The boldness, nuance and humour with which Lighton navigates BDSM dynamics as well as Colin and Ray’s personal and joint complexities results in a film that’s frequently touching and surprising, less of an adaptation and more of a reimagining that compliments the source material rather than replicates it. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald Clarke
At the heart of Pillion, a very English class of reasonableness brushes against an equally English interest in hierarchical kink. Nothing wrong with that sort of thing, but doesn’t it play terrible havoc with the knees. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesDominic BaezFeb 25, 2026
More coming-of-age than love story, “Pillion” finds joy in Colin’s journey of learning who he truly is. His road there is a little bumpy — like riding on the back of a motorcycle — and it may be a path less traveled, but it’s a worthwhile one all the same. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshFeb 6, 2026
The edgy and explicit Pillion might be set within the parameters of a relationship that many would consider “alternative,” but the heart of it is the same as any love story that becomes a lesson in self-love. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleFeb 5, 2026
It’s based on Adam Mars-Jones’ “Box Hill,” but Lighton’s film largely avoids the darker, abusive turns of the novel. Lighton is more keen to enjoy the unfolding dynamics of a relationship in the extreme, one that ultimately, like any other, is guided by needs and wants. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKeith Uhlich
If there’s humor to be found in some of the particulars, it’s never to judge or to poke fun, but to revel in the very real delights of consensual sexual roleplay. Read full review
70
The RevealScott TobiasFeb 13, 2026
It’s odd to see a romance that commences with rough trade in an alleyway end up feeling like a spiritual descendent of Bend It Like Beckham. Read full review
70
IONCINEMA.comNicholas Bell
Although Pillion ends on a hopeful note for Colin’s progress towards sexual self-actualization, the film’s resonance isn’t really about him at all. Rather, it’s a blazing reminder of the inherent power in going one’s own way, even when that way isn’t understandable or decipherable to anyone else. Read full review
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