Making Love (1982)

Making Love feels special because it treats its subject with a calm, grown-up seriousness that mainstream Hollywood rarely dared in 1982, letting empathy—not sensationalism—lead the way. Set against the sunlit normalcy of Los Angeles, it follows a marriage shaken by long-buried desire, and the film’s power comes from how honestly it sits with confusion, tenderness, and the cost of telling the truth. It’s courageous without grandstanding, sympathetic without turning anyone into a villain, and quietly impactful in the way it invites you to look at people’s private lives with more compassion. If you’re allergic to early-’80s melodrama or prefer romance with easy answers, it may feel earnest and dated—but if you want a sincere, historically important drama that still has a human pulse, it’s worth your time.

Making Love is clearly trying to be a compassionate, mainstream bridge-builder: a serious studio drama about a married man confronting his attraction to men and the fallout for everyone involved. The problem is it often plays like a glossy soap opera, with tidy beats, cautious choices, and dialogue that can feel stiff and very of-its-time, which makes the emotional complexity it’s reaching for land a bit softly. If you want a sharper, more adventurous, or psychologically deeper exploration of sexuality and marriage, this will likely feel timid and predictable. That said, if you’re curious about a historically significant early Hollywood attempt to treat gay relationships with relative earnestness and restraint, it’s watchable—just don’t expect it to feel modern or particularly daring.