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“Bros,” co-written by and starring Billy Eichner , has been touted as the first mainstream Hollywood studio-backed rom-com to feature gay men as the leads. Directed by Nicholas Stoller and produced by Judd Apatow , the film consciously evokes tropes from the hey-day of studio-backed romantic comedies, including nods to more than one Meg Ryan classic and a compelling lead performance from Eichner. However, its perpetual commentary on the mainstreaming of queerness remains at odds with its very desire to tell its story within the Hollywood system. 

Eichner plays Bobby Leiber, a born and bred New Yorker who hosts a queer history podcast called 11th Brick (because as a cis white gay man that’s probably the brick he’d have thrown at Stonewall) and is the director of the first national LGBTQ history museum, on the brink of finally opening its doors. At 40, Bobby has spent most of his life alone and has convinced himself he’s better off this way. “We’re horny and we’re selfish and we’re stupid. I don’t trust these people,” he tells a group of friends when explaining why he prefers hookups to anything long term. 

This being a self-aware rom-com, Bobby’s life and plans change when he meets Aaron ( Luke Macfarlane ) at a club. Before we know it the two have decided to be emotionally unavailable together. What follows is a by-the-books romantic comedy filled with dates and sex and fights and meeting the family, all with a queer twist. The soundtrack filled with jazzy Nat King Cole songs helps evoke a Nora Ephron-style New York Autumn.

Running B-side to Bobby and Aaron’s love story are the preparations to open the museum. Here we see Bobby’s (and presumably Eichner’s) passion for queer history and community. The museum board is made of a variety of queer people, including a butch lesbian, a belligerent bisexual, a Black trans woman, and a nonbinary person. Unfortunately, each character comes across as a cliché, which is likely by design as the whole film uses queer identity as a springboard for jokes. Many of the jokes do land, because if anything queer people know how to laugh at ourselves. However, what Eichner and co-writer Stoller seem to have forgotten is that a rom-com like “When Harry Met Sally” is so iconic not just because of Harry and Sally's authenticity, but that all of its characters feel like real people. 

While most of the characters are underdeveloped, Eichner’s razor-sharp wit and caustic humor shines through in the dialogue and situational comedy as he skewers many aspects of gay dating culture, from Grindr hookups to obsessive gym usage to group sex. The script is not peppered with queer history and countless name-drops of queer icons like Cher, Barbra Streisand , and Mariah Carey .  

Eichner also takes jabs at the modern commodification of queer culture within the entertainment industry, from the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” reboot to the universal love of “Schitt’s Creek” to Hallmark’s inclusion of queer rom-coms (going so far as creating fake titles like "Christmas with Either" and "A Holly Poly Christmas") once they realized a profit could be made. Although Eichner rejects this very sanitization of queerness, the self-aware rom-com beats in “Bros” find it treading the same waters. 

Late in the film, Bobby tells the museum board, “We fight like crazy, and we always have, but you’re my people.” This is the guiding light of “Bros”: to show the gays as messy, to show the queer community as more than a monolith, to have them be as loud and proud and take up as much space being their authentic selves as possible.

And it really is great to see a mainstream Hollywood film of this magnitude with this kind of representation from throughout the LGBTQ community. However, it defeats its own message of bringing queer history and queer life out of the margins when it centers the love story between two cis, conventionally attractive white gay men. Eichner is the first to point out his privilege; early on his character wins an award at an LGBTQ gala for Best Cis White Gay Man of the Year. But being self-aware isn’t as impactful as de-centering the cis white gay man as the lead, especially when every other queer character in the film still remains on the margins of the story. 

“Bros” is clearly a labor of love for Eichner, and as a belligerent bisexual (petulant pansexual?) myself, I laughed a great deal at the comedy. As a commitment-phobe who found romance late in life, I was moved by the core relationship. And as a country girl, I felt like the running Garth Brooks joke was tailored specifically for me. But there's also something at odds with Eichner’s mission to bring queerness, gay sex, and gay dating in all its texture to mainstream Hollywood studio-backed cinema, while in the same breath sanitizing queerness to be palatable to straight culture. 

For a movie so focused on the importance of mainstreaming queer history, it seems to care very little for the queer films that came before it. Bobby and Aaron discuss how often straight male actors win praise for playing gay cowboys, but beyond digs at both “ Brokeback Mountain ” and “ The Power of the Dog ” (directed by and starring straight people), the only other queer film mentioned is Luca Guadagnino's “Call Me By Your Name” in a throwaway joke about how it's the one queer movie to which all straight people compare other queer films. By only highlighting those few movies—ignoring queer cinematic pioneers in the process—“Bros” is as culpable of keeping queer history (in this case cinematic history) in the shadows as has happened to the other facets that Bobby’s LBGTQ museum is supposedly shining a light on. The point of the museum is to show history through a queer prism, yet the film itself doesn’t seem to view cinema in the same way. Worse yet, "Bros" thinks of itself as the most important pioneer solely because it's doing so on a mainstream level.

This review was filed from the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10. "Bros" opens on September 30th.  

Marya E. Gates

Marya E. Gates is a freelance film and culture writer based in Los Angeles and Chicago. She studied Comparative Literature at U.C. Berkeley, and also has an overpriced and underused MFA in Film Production. Other bylines include Moviefone, The Playlist, Crooked Marquee, Nerdist, and Vulture. 

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Film credits.

Bros (2022)

Rated R for strong sexual content, language throughout and some drug use.

115 minutes

Billy Eichner as Bobby Leiber

Luke Macfarlane as Aaron

Monica Raymund as Tina

Guy Branum as Henry

Guillermo Díaz

• Nicholas Stoller
• Billy Eichner

Cinematographer

• Brandon Trost
• Daniel Gabbe
• Marc Shaiman

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‘Bros’ Review: Billy Eichner’s Self-Deprecating Gay Rom-Com Lets Everyone In on the Joke

For years, Hollywood has been working up to an R-rated, Judd Apatow-produced studio comedy like 'Bros.' Snaps to countless queer indies for making that possible.

By Peter Debruge

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The difference in what we’ll call “ Billy Eichner ’s Hollywood Screen Kiss” is that it centers a gay character, instead of just using him as sassy comic support. Beyond that, a cute, cranky, super-articulate and incredibly self-absorbed comedian has gone and made a movie in which a thinly veiled version of himself wrestles with whether or not he wants to be in a relationship. If that sounds like every Woody Allen movie ever, or a bunch of Billy Crystal movies, or even the last few Judd Apatow productions, you wouldn’t be wrong — except that here, some of the dialogue scenes are set during four-way orgies, because otherwise the movie would be rated PG-13 and you might as well be watching “Love, Simon.”

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In “Bros,” Bobby goes to the club one night and sees a chiseled guy with a gym body on the dance floor. He strikes up an awkward conversation with this seemingly out-of-his-league hunk, Aaron (Luke Macfarlane). “I hear you’re boring,” he begins, as if trying out Neil Strauss’ “The Game” on another dude. When that backfires, Bobby goes in for a kiss. He finds it refreshing that Aaron isn’t on the apps, but isn’t bothered that the same night, he’s hooking up with other people. This is the territory where “Bros” breaks new ground, since the “rules” of gay rom-coms have yet to be codified: like whether having someone’s undivided attention is a turn-off or a good thing, and what each character needs to feel appreciated and adored. Certainly, there aren’t many straight love stories where a meet-cute is followed by one of the parties going off to shag someone else.

There, surrounded by a sea of shirtless men, the two bond over their mutual belief that “gay guys are so stupid,” which feels like a bit from Eichner’s “Difficult People” series. But what does such a judgment mean to Bobby and Aaron, who aren’t shown reading books or discussing politics — unless you count talking about the gay experience, which is pretty much all Bobby does. He has provocative opinions (“love is love” was just a marketing gimmick, he argues, a kind of bait-and-switch to earn straight support) worth exploring and paradoxical taste in movies (Eichner ridicules how the Hallmark Channel has embraced LGBT relationships, but doesn’t see the ways his own script exploits the same clichés). Bobby’s gig as a podcast host conveniently serves as a comedy-adjacent career choice, allowing the character to wisecrack at will, while his museum job becomes a place to audition fresh material about lesbians, bisexuals and trans people, who also find a place at the table.

“Bros” is confident enough being about queer characters that it doesn’t have to make them all likable. In fact, Eichner may not win you over at all. Aaron obviously likes him, despite spending most of their dates ogling other guys (the film makes some strong points about body dysmorphia in the image-conscious community, but never convinces that Bobby is turned on by Aaron’s big brain). But double standards abound: Whenever Bobby invites Aaron to something, he winds up prioritizing work, as in a fundraising trip to Provincetown that brings cameos from Harvey Fierstein and Bowen Yang. It seems like a big step when the holidays roll around and Aaron proposes introducing Bobby to his parents — but then he backtracks by saying, “Maybe you could be a little less yourself for like three hours,” to which Bobby is understandably offended.

There are plenty of audiences out there who’ve been waiting their entire lives for Hollywood to greenlight a mainstream gay movie (and sure, we’ll pretend that all the queer-friendly content on HBO and Netflix doesn’t count, that “The Birdcage” and “In & Out” never happened, that John Waters is too cult and “Moonlight” too marginal). But it won’t be lost on them that when the industry decided it was ready for a film like “Bros” to exist, the leads wound up being two conventionally handsome cis white men. Yes, there’s a whole spectrum of experience still going unexplored, and yet, as Bobby and Aaron try to make their relationship work, “Bros” does a decent job of showing how incredibly different and complex these two characters can be. “Straight people love seeing us miserable,” Bobby observes at one point, and though Eichner gives the gays a happy ending and lots of laughs along the way, damned if he doesn’t seem miserable for most of the movie.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 9, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 115 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release and presentation of an Apatow Company production. Producers: Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller, Josh Church. Executive producers: Billy Eichner, Karl Frankenfield. Co-producers: Ciara Pavia, Guy Branum, H.H. Cooper.
• Crew: Director: Nicholas Stoller. Screenplay: Billy Eichner, Nicholas Stoller. Camera: Brandon Trost. Editor: Daniel Gabbe. Music: Marc Shaiman.
• With: Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane, Guy Branum, Miss Lawrence, TS Madison, Dot-Marie Jones, Jim Rash, Eve Lindley, Monica Raymund, Guillermo Díaz, Jai Rodriguez, Amanda Bearse, Debra Messing, Harvey Fierstein, Bowen Yang.

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Bros Reviews

I’ve never experienced such whiplash during a movie

Full Review | Apr 24, 2024

It did not need to have a theatrical release…throw it on HBOMax

While the film does a fine job taking romantic comedy tropes and giving them the gay treatment, they remain tropes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 5, 2023

Bros is a genuine, authentic, insanely hilarious breath of fresh air. Clever satirical comedy rips out loud back-to-back laughs throughout the entire runtime without ever causing viewers to lose their ear-to-ear smile.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 25, 2023

A down right heartfelt, hilarious, & most importantly RAUNCHY! They truly don’t make films like this anymore & Bros breaks through as a must watch! Billy is perfect, Luke is a revelation, & Stoller is back with one of his best.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Bros stands alone as an honest and funny depiction of two cis gay men not sure of what they’re looking for. They just know they don’t want to do it alone. It is laugh-out-loud funny at a time when we desperately need to be laughing in a movie theater.

Bros is too obsessed with its own ideas of grandeur. Like the first-of-its-kind LGBTQ history museum Bobby is trying to open, Bros believes that it will single-handedly save queer cinema. However, queer cinema never needed saving in the first place.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

Eichner has made something that he can be proud of and hopefully it will open the door for more diverse queer voices to be heard.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 14, 2023

The funniest movie in a long time.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 6, 2023

A resounding reset of the rom-com, Bros injects a modern reality into a stagnant genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 6, 2023

Bros is one of the best romantic comedies of the decade, offering plenty of laughs and maybe even a few tears by the end of it

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Feb 2, 2023

Beneath its sometimes too-obvious meta examination of commercialized queer romance and comedy, Bros manages a sincere exploration of what it means to experience and depict queer love in its truly radical nature.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Jan 4, 2023

Bobby and Aaron both look surprised, as we always are by love. Bros is wonderfully funny, and quietly subversive. Take your parents.

Full Review | Dec 23, 2022

Bros warmly embraces the cosy conventions of a boy meets boy love story and tempers emotional gooeyness with the acerbic wit of lead actor Billy Eichner.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Dec 17, 2022

A thoughtful, tremendously funny treat and one of the best comedies of recent years, consider Bros worthy of a fist bump.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 16, 2022

Bros is a sweet, raunchy R comedy filled with a positive message and indelible performances especially by Eichner himself.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Dec 10, 2022

If the film lacks something, it's being more self-aware, not so much in reference to the clichés of the LGBTQ+ community (there are a few mentions of that), but more to the stereotypes of gender and romance in American cinema. Full review in Spanish.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 30, 2022

Riffing on romcom conventions while also shamelessly indulging in them, this is a breezy, enjoyable romp that does a good job of commenting on the differences between gay and straight dating culture.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 28, 2022

While there’s a sweet story buried in there, the film tries to tackle the entire LGBTQ+ experience and loses focus of its purpose.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 26, 2022

Love it or hate it, Bros makes a convincing case for more varied, more sex-positive romcoms in Hollywood.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 19, 2022

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Bros review: It's here, it's queer, it's a pretty great rom-com

Billy Eichner is a podcaster looking for love, and casually breaking big-screen history.

Sometimes in entertainment, things suddenly come in pairs — two Oscar-bait Truman Capote biopics arriving months apart , for example, or competing takes on Aretha Franklin . The instinct, understandably, is to link them; what is Hollywood after all if not a self-reflexive hall of mirrors? And so it's been duly noted that 2022 has become the year of the Big Gay Romantic Comedy — "big" in the sense that these films aim squarely for the mainstream, but also in that they are made under the banner of major studios. (Disney is the parent company behind the sunny Pride and Prejudice redux Fire Island , released to streaming this past June, and Universal is throwing its weight behind a full theatrical release for Bros , out this Friday on some 3,000 screens).

There's surely a smart grad-school thesis, or at least a decent term paper, about the convergence of those two films and what it means in the larger scheme of things. But after seeing Bros — directed by Nicholas Stoller ( Neighbors , Forgetting Sarah Marshall ) and starring comedian Billy Eichner , with whom he cowrote the script — it almost seems more relevant to view it through the lens of the Apatow Extended Universe ( Judd 's is the first name listed as a producer here, the same honorific he held for Trainwreck and Bridesmaids , and the poster isn't shy about calling that out). Make no mistake, Bros is a very gay movie, from its wry one-liners about poppers and Provincetown to its intimate if hardly explicit love scenes. But it's also one cast very much in the mold of the best kind of Apatow : whip-smart, soft at heart, full of bravura free-form character bits and cul-de-sacs.

It doesn't feel like a drastic stretch for Eichner here that he plays Bobby Lieber, a 40-year-old Manhattanite and "cis white male homosexual" who uses his rat-a-tat humor as both a weapon and a shield. Bobby has a successful podcast, The 11th Brick at Stonewall, and a job as head curator at the world's first dedicated LBGTQ+ history museum; he's also proudly single, preferring a streamlined life of platonic friendships and passing hookups (there's a great, perfectly encapsulated Grindr interlude). And then fate steps in, nipples out, in the form of an improbably hot estate lawyer named Aaron ( Brothers & Sisters ' Luke McFarlane) who sidles up to him one night at a club.

Aaron is pretty much all the things Bobby is not — sexually confident, CrossFit ripped, happily hetero-basic in his tastes. (Loves: Garth Brooks, The Hangover , his mom; dislikes: divas, defensive sarcasm, wearing shirts). For them both, it's flirty antagonism at first sight, and dragging them each out of their respective comfort zones provides much of the narrative heft and pull in the screenplay, along with several inspired standalone set pieces. (The actors who drop by for those, including Bowen Yang , Debra Messing , Kristin Chenoweth , and Harvey Fierstein , make the most of their brief cameos, leaving glittering trails of famous-person stardust and bitchery in their wake).

Like most rom-com protagonists, Bobby is a little bit of a mess: boldly soapboxing about self-acceptance and gay history one minute, and sabotaging himself into oblivion the next. And Aaron is an idealized hot-beef dreamboat, a square-jawed pinup with hidden depths. (There's a reason he thrived in so many Hallmark movies .) But the jokes about Schitts Creek and Maroon 5 are sublime, and there's a tenderness and vulnerability that the story also earns, bit by bit, between the high-camp roundelays of museum meetings and spontaneous trips to P-town. "Love is love is love" is a facile phrase that beatific straight people, smug in their allyship, keep pushing on Bobby, and he hates it. Maybe he's right: Bros wears its queerness proudly, without stooping to cater overmuch to whatever elusive demographics might qualify it as a "crossover" success. But good comedy doesn't hang on pronouns or preferences; lik e this sweet, sharp movie, all it has to be is itself. Grade: B+

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‘Bros’ Review: Billy Eichner’s Rom-Com Is One of the Best in Years

Written by Eichner and Nicholas Stoller, 'Bros' is one of the sexiest and funniest films of 2022.

Editor's Note: This review was originally part of our TIFF coverage. In Bros , the history of rom-coms permeates this story of two men who struggle with commitment issues falling for each other. Bobby Lieber ( Billy Eichner ) talks with a guy on Grindr about how the app is kind of like You’ve Got Mail (while the guy on the other end demands ass pics). There are several references throughout to When Harry Met Sally… and there’s even a party to celebrate the launch of a new app called Zellweger, which is for guys who just want to meet up, talk about celebrities, then fall asleep. Bros— from director Nicholas Stoller ( The Five-Year Engagement , Forgetting Sarah Marshall ) and co-written by Stoller and Eichner—is steeped in the history of rom-coms, and for good reason, as Bros immediately becomes a part of that legacy. Not only is Bros the first romantic comedy to feature a primarily LGBTQ+ cast put out by a major studio, it also immediately joins the ranks of the great rom-coms, a hilarious, sexy, and undeniably charming rom-com from beginning to end.

Eichner stars as Bobby, a podcast host who is also working on getting the first LGBTQ+ History Museum up and running. At 40, Bobby has yet to have a meaningful relationship, seemingly fine with random Grindr meetups and his close-knit group of friends for emotional support. At a club, Bobby meets Aaron ( Luke Macfarlane ), a jock who hates his lawyer job, loves Garth Brooks , and keeps disappearing whenever Bobby tries to make a move on him. The connection between the mismatched couple is immediate, yet their disinterest in commitment makes it difficult for them to get close to each other. As these two get to know each other and start to form something close to a relationship, they start to see the pros and cons of getting together.

RELATED: 'Bros' Cast and Character Guide: Who's Who in the LGBTQ+ Rom Com

While Bros has sort of been marketed as an almost satire of rom-coms, Bros is decidedly a fairly straightforward rom-com, but as Bobby says early on, gay romance isn’t the same as straight romance. Love is love is love is actually bullshit, and Bros does a great job of showing how queer relationships can be fundamentally different from the heteronormative relationships we see in the movies. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan never had to deal with throuples, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant never wrestled in bed and did poppers before having sex. Well, at least that we know of. But even though these types of relationships are unique in their own ways, Eichner and Stoller highlight just how beautiful and romantic this type of relationship that is too rarely seen in films can be.

Bros also seems to know its own importance as the first gay rom-com from a major studio and uses that as a way to slyly explore the history of LGBTQ+ in its own way via the museum. Stoller and Eichner drop in all sorts of details about the important moments and figure in queer history, but in a way that always manages to be entertaining or narratively important. Near the end of the film, Bobby states that even though queer people have been around since the beginning of time, it feels like they’re only now beginning to tell their own stories. With Bros , Eichner and everyone involved seems to understand just how major this film is, a necessary story that is finally being told.

But most importantly, Bros is one of the most hysterical comedies of the year, thanks to the fantastic writing and this tremendous cast. This film is packed with scene stealers, from Guy Branum as Bobby’s friend Henry, several excellent cameos (including one that fans of Billy on the Street will love) to the rest of the LGBTQ+ board that includes Jim Rash , Dot-Marie Jones , Eve Lindley , Ts Madison , and Miss Lawrence . No one is wasted here, and it’s fitting that with its packed cast, Bros sort of feels right in line with the other ensemble-heavy comedies produced by Judd Apatow .

Yet the real powerhouse of Bros is the relationship between Bobby and Aaron, and both Eichner and Macfarlane are perfect romantic leads to this story. Eichner gets to show that he deserves to be a star of the highest order, as he shows his vulnerability, his brashness, his romantic side, the sad reality of growing up gay, and, hell, he even gets to sing too. Apatow has often produced films that feel like a launching point for a comedian that deserved more attention, like Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Pete Davidson in The King of Staten Island , but Bros might be the best example of this, showing everything Eichner has to offer. Similarly, as the “straight man” to Bobby, Macfarlane is equally charming, a bit more closed off and uncertain about what he wants, but always delightful and a character we always root for—even when he’s questioning if he wants a relationship with our lead. But together, Bobby and Aaron are one of the best rom-com couples in quite some time. Bros is packed with broad humor at times, but the film is at its best when it follows Bobby and Aaron getting to know each other, walking down a New York City street and talking together. The electric chemistry between these two is all Bros really needs.

Bros manages to both present how queer relationships are wholly different from straight relationships, but also how when it comes to rom-coms, love actually is love is love. Even though Bros is playing in a fairly well-trod formula, it still manages to feel new thanks to the refreshing angle that is shown here. Eichner and Stoller have written a film that plays to both of their strengths as storytellers, all while making one of the funniest and most romantic films of 2022. If this is just the beginning of queer people being able to tell their own stories, here’s hoping we get more that are as great as Bros .

Bros is now in theaters.

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‘bros’ review: billy eichner in a gay rom-com that’s good enough to make you wish it were better.

Eichner and Luke Macfarlane play reluctant lovers in the latest comedy from Nicholas Stoller ('Neighbors'), premiering in Toronto.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

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Eichner (who, let’s get it out of the way, proves totally equipped to be a feature’s co-leading man) plays Bobby, a podcaster with a passion for gay history. Early on he gets his dream job, as the first director of a new museum of LGBTQ+ culture. His board meetings (the closest the film gets to satire, though they really aren’t that) are a mild nightmare of identity-politics squabbling, with everyone worried that their part of this story won’t get the emphasis it deserves.

Aaron’s outlook on romance mirrors Bobby’s. But after a few “this isn’t a date” encounters, including one that winds up as an awkward foursome, the two have a fight that turns hot and eventually leads to actual tenderness. The second or third song that could’ve been in When Harry Met Sally plays quietly in the background, and you know a non-ironic montage involving Central Park and Christmas trees isn’t far off. (It doesn’t stop at needle-drops: Bros composer Marc Shaiman arranged music for When Harry Met Sally as well.)

Banter between the two men stays very funny in the first half, with Bobby taking potshots at Aaron’s meathead tastes in music, movies and men. But of course, Aaron’s attraction to gym rats makes the tall but unbulky Bobby insecure. And he acts out, ruining his first day with Aaron’s visiting parents by turning their tourist visit into a nonstop lecture on gay history.

Eager to explain the chip on his shoulder that’s about to wreck this relationship, the screenplay now does a lot more telling than showing. One long, emotional monologue near the beach in Provincetown (right after an amusing Bowen Yang cameo) gets the job done, showing that Eichner can act and airing a lifetime’s worth of Bobby’s resentment over being told he was too “flamboyant” to succeed. But a speechy tendency crops up several other places as well, sounding especially off-key given that the writers have already proven they can get many of these points across while still being funny.

But the suits needn’t have worried. Bros is so steeped in mainstream pop culture, with its run-to-him epiphanies and utterly implausible public declarations of love, that it was never going to alienate anybody but homophobes. Bobby is right to complain that “love is love” is a bogus PR slogan for gay acceptance; it’s something nobody who’s been in love more than once should say with a straight (sorry) face. But when it comes to rom-coms, a love story is a love story. They’re nearly all the same, nearly all phony, even when their phoniness is saying something true or when they have enough charm that you spend your life trying to believe them.

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Summary Two gay men maybe, possibly, probably, stumble towards love. Maybe. They're both very busy.

Directed By : Nicholas Stoller

Written By : Billy Eichner, Nicholas Stoller

Where to Watch

Billy Eichner

Luke Macfarlane

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Dot-Marie Jones

Eve Lindley

Monica Raymund

Guillermo Diaz

Jai Rodriguez

Amanda Bearse

Debra Messing

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Bros review – ribald and riotous gay romcom

Sparks fly between two New Yorkers who weren’t looking for love. Until things start to get a bit sappy…

B obby (Billy Eichner), a would-be museum curator and a blogger whose acidulated witticisms have brought him a degree of fame within New York’s LGBTQ+ community, is not interested in romance. Neither is Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a miserable testate lawyer by day, shirtless queer-club eye candy by night. And certainly neither would countenance anything as soul-crushingly cosy and heteronormative as commitment. And yet, following an abortive first encounter, there’s a spark between them.

This sharply written comedy attempts to take the multiplicity of LGBTQ+ identities and the many shapes and forms of queer relationships and retool them to fit into a mainstream romcom template. And for the most part, it works rather well – a ribald and riotous onslaught of bracing humour which belies a sweetly soft centre. But it’s when that softness turns into sappiness in the third act that the problems start. Eichner is on fine form with the scabrous spikiness of the first half of the picture, but neither he nor the film itself seems fully comfortable with the final descent into sentimentality.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Lots of sex, language in hilarious gay romcom.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Movie is essentially about learning to trust other

Characters are far from perfect and don't always m

This is the first mainstream gay romantic comedy r

Character throws huge tantrum ("roid rage"), screa

Characters have multiple sexual partners. Two char

Very strong language, with tons of uses of "f--k,"

Characters take "poppers" and inject testosterone/

Parents need to know that Bros is a romantic comedy starring Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane as two men who prefer their freedom but find themselves romantically drawn to each other. It's the first gay romcom to get a wide theatrical release by a major studio, and virtually every person in the movie (and…

Positive Messages

Movie is essentially about learning to trust others by communicating -- and thus risking the possibility of getting hurt. Also has messages about how strong the LGBTQ+ community is when it unites across its differences.

Positive Role Models

Characters are far from perfect and don't always model admirable behavior, but in the overall arc, both main characters work hard to achieve their dreams. Their relationship showcases believable struggles with personal achievement and the sometimes oppressive male beauty standards in their dating world. People of all types show up for each other, care about each other's lives.

Diverse Representations

This is the first mainstream gay romantic comedy released widely by a major studio, and virtually every person in the movie (and many behind the scenes as well) identifies as LGBTQ+. The two main characters are White cisgender men, but supporting characters span sexual and gender identities and are racially diverse, including Black and Latino actors like Ts Madison and Monica Raymund, plus a cameo by Bowen Yang.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Character throws huge tantrum ("roid rage"), screaming and throwing things. Characters play-fight, shoving and slapping each other (which turns into sexual foreplay). Character tries to shave bottom, cuts self, some blood shown. Brief fight behind bar.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Characters have multiple sexual partners. Two characters perform oral sex on a third while a fourth watches; they're all naked, but no sensitive body parts are shown. Foursome on bed, shirtless, kissing, heavy breathing. Sex, with kissing and thrusting. A character ejaculates on his partner's legs below the frame, suggested by movement and sounds. Three characters enter a romantic/sexual relationship known as a "throuple." Characters kiss, remove shirts. Kissing bicep, sucking on fingers, feet, etc. Character tries to take photo of own bottom; partial naked bottom shown. Shirtless men. Characters lie in bed together, post-sex. Lots of very strong sex-related dialogue. Grindr app shown/mentioned.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Very strong language, with tons of uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "a--hole," "goddamn," "ass," "son of a bitch," "bitch," "boner," "d--k," "penis," "anal," "f--gy," "hell," "oh my God," "horny," "stupid."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters take "poppers" and inject testosterone/steroids. Group of people drinking wine in restaurant. Characters drink beer while on vacation.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Bros is a romantic comedy starring Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane as two men who prefer their freedom but find themselves romantically drawn to each other. It's the first gay romcom to get a wide theatrical release by a major studio, and virtually every person in the movie (and many behind the scenes as well) identifies as LGBTQ+. It has lots of sexual content, including characters with multiple partners, kissing, oral sex, heavy breathing, thrusting, strong sex-related dialogue, etc. There's quite a bit of flesh on display, too, but no graphic nudity. Language is very strong, with multiple uses of "f--k," "s--t," "goddamn," "bitch," and more. Characters take "poppers" and inject themselves with steroids and testosterone, and there's social drinking. Characters have a slapping play-fight that leads to sex, there's a brief fight behind a bar, and a character throws a "roid rage" tantrum, shouting and throwing things. Underlying the mature content is a message about learning to trust others by communicating. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (5)
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Based on 5 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In BROS, Bobby ( Billy Eichner ) hosts a gay-themed podcast and is struggling to open an LGBTQ+ museum. He believes that he's better off not being in a relationship and prefers the occasional hookup. At a club, he meets handsome Aaron ( Luke Macfarlane ), an unhappy lawyer who dreams of opening a chocolate shop. There's a clear attraction, but Aaron -- who prefers having sex with more than one partner -- is as reluctant as Bobby to let anything get too deep. But as they start spending time together, they discover, to their horror, that they're very good for each other. But when Bobby meets Aaron's parents at Christmastime and an old crush of Aaron's comes out as gay, the men have a huge argument. Can they find it in their hearts to give each other a second chance?

Is It Any Good?

Built on the creaky old bones of the romcom genre, this progressive landmark of a film fleshes itself out with a self-aware, slap-happy sense of humor. Here's hoping that the fresh, lovable result has wide appeal. Recognized as the first gay romantic comedy ever widely released in theaters by a major studio, Bros comes from the minds of writer and actor Eichner, writer-director Nicholas Stoller , and producer Judd Apatow . Their combined expertise results in a movie that's funny and honest. Many jokes will particularly resonate with LGBTQ+ audiences, but even more are universal, and many of those land with belly laughs, especially the scenes that parody Hallmark Christmas movies and co-star Bowen Yang 's bonkers moments.

Bros isn't shy about sex: It depicts -- with a lot of flesh yet without much graphic nudity -- situations with multiple partners and odd or awkward encounters, contrasting those with moments of actual trust and love. The romance sequences also feel spot-on, as characters attempt to balance opening up to another person with fears of getting hurt. Dating montages, cameos by various stars, the Big Argument, characters becoming better people to earn their partners back, and the final Grand Gesture will all feel familiar to those well-versed in romcoms -- sometimes too familiar for a movie that runs almost two hours -- but there's an energy that powers through them, maintaining viewers' goodwill. Overall, Bros feels like a solid combination of bold and safe, funny and touching. Perhaps it will join some of its heteronormative inspirations, like When Harry Met Sally , as a re-watchable favorite.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Bros ' depiction of sex . What values are imparted? What's the difference between hookups and sex between people in a relationship?

Does Bros ' recognition as the first gay romcom to get a wide theatrical release by a major studio create higher than usual expectations for the film? Does it meet those expectations?

How are drugs (poppers, steroids, testosterone) depicted here? Are substances glamorized? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

How authentically does the movie represent people in the LGBTQ+ community? Did you notice any stereotypes? Why is diverse representation in the media important?

Do you consider the characters role models ? Are some of the real-life people in the movie (Harvey Fierstein, Amanda Bearse, etc.) role models?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 30, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : November 22, 2022
• Cast : Billy Eichner , Luke Macfarlane , Bowen Yang
• Director : Nicholas Stoller
• Inclusion Information : Gay actors, Asian actors
• Studio : Universal
• Genre : Comedy
• Character Strengths : Communication
• Run time : 115 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong sexual content, language throughout and some drug use
• Last updated : March 29, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Bros review: A big gay romcom that’s a big old mess

Blighted by discourse – from detractors, supporters and its star himself – this tries too hard to be all things to all people, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Nicholas Stoller. Starring: Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane, Guy Branum, Ts Madison, Monica Raymund, Guillermo Diaz, Bowen Yang. 15, 116 minutes.

Bros comes bearing discourse wounds. After the much-hyped gay romcom bellyflopped its US release, its star and co-writer Billy Eichner raged against the dying buzz on Twitter. America’s “straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros ”, he declared, before urging anyone who isn’t a “homophobic weirdo” to check it out. Then came the think pieces: did Bros flop because of homophobia? Or because the romcom is dead? Or… because it’s a bad movie? Unfortunately, it’s the last one, since Bros is a big old mess.

A thrum of resentment simmers just under Bros ’ metropolitan shine. Playing a perpetually single New York podcaster named Bobby, Eichner (who also co-writes) spends much of his film barking opinions at anyone unlucky enough to be nearby. He sneers at everything from unconventional monogamy and men with abs to the supposed heteronormative evils of Schitt’s Creek . Everything is terrible: straight actors playing gay characters and the straight audiences who love them; gay men more interested in working out than exploring gay history; gay men whose voices sound “too straight”; gay men whose voices sound “too gay”. Bobby isn’t so much a character as a living newspaper op-ed by the most exhausting columnist in the world.

Bros ’ biggest problem is attempting to marry this kind of hectoring misanthropy with the conventions of an expensive romantic comedy. At a club, Bobby meets gym bro Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), who serves as a respite from an endless string of emotionless hook-ups and stilted Grindr chats. On screen, their romance lacks chemistry, heat or any of the sparkling back-and-forth that fuels romcoms – but they plough on regardless. Their dates unfold against an orangey, New York spring; they take summer sojourns to Cape Cod. It’s as if a mean, judgy cyborg and his himbo love interest have been dropped into a Nora Ephron movie.

In better hands, this could have been an interestingly cynical take on queer love on film – white gay misery rather than Meg Ryan cuteness. But that would clash with the kind of movie Bros wants to be. It wants the Woody Allen neuroses and the When Harry Met Sally wanders through Manhattan, despite scorning that very kind of movie at every turn. It also wants to be an inclusive project that reminds audiences of great queer strides in history, and features an almost entirely queer cast taken from across the racial and gender spectrum. But that grows increasingly insincere as the movie’s bi, lesbian, trans and non-binary supporting characters – and its queer people of colour entirely – are given absolutely nothing to do beyond embody shorthand caricatures. A scene at the film’s climax in which a non-binary person of colour is kicked off a stage so Eichner can sing a seemingly endless love song to his white, masc boyfriend is almost too apt a metaphor.

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By attempting to be everything to everyone, Bros sets itself up to fail. You can feel that it carries the burden of being one of the first of its kind, just as Eichner’s Twitter implosion in the wake of the film’s release felt tinged with hurt and grief – a panic that its financial failure could have repercussions for gay cinema far beyond Eichner himself. But all that weight – much of it, admittedly, self-inflicted – is visible on screen. Bros lumbers when it should glide, lectures when it should joke. Wherever you fall on the Kinsey scale, you’ll probably find it a miserable experience.

‘Bros’ is in cinemas from 28 October

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Where to watch

2022 Directed by Nicholas Stoller

A romantic comedy that gives you all the feels.

Two men with commitment problems attempt a relationship.

Billy Eichner Luke Macfarlane Guy Branum Miss Lawrence Ts Madison Dot-Marie Jones Jim Rash Eve Lindley Monica Raymund Guillermo Díaz Jai Rodriguez Amanda Bearse Debra Messing Peter Y. Kim Justin Covington Symone Ryan Faucett Becca Blackwell D'Lo Bowen Yang Harvey Fierstein Brock Ciarlelli Kristin Chenoweth Matthew Wilkas Dahlia Rodriguez Derrick Delgado George Dvorsky Jamyl Dobson Ben Stiller Show All… Kenan Thompson Amy Schumer Seth Meyers Jillian Gottlieb Rick Crom Everett Quinton Anthony DeVito Alex Ringler Joanne Lamstein

Director Director

Nicholas Stoller

Producers Producers

Judd Apatow Josh Church Nicholas Stoller

Writers Writers

Billy Eichner Nicholas Stoller

Editor Editor

Daniel Gabbe

Cinematography Cinematography

Brandon Trost

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

H.H. Cooper Eddie Griffith

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Billy Eichner Karl Frankenfield

Production Design Production Design

Art direction art direction.

Christine Foley Rebecca McAusland Josh Smith

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Nicki Ritchie

Visual Effects Visual Effects

David Lebensfeld Jared Levin Philip McGuire Grant Miller

Stunts Stunts

Tina Mckissick Caroline Vexler Joanne Lamstein Jennifer Lamb Aaron Vexler Nicole Callender Christopher Bizub Thomas Canestraro Sean Michael Bradley James S. Gonzalez Anthony Mecca Daniel Post Michael Viola Luke Vexler

Composer Composer

Marc Shaiman

Sound Sound

Michael Babcock Bobby Mackston Lyndsey Schenk Brian Tarlecki Matt Temple

Costume Design Costume Design

Tom Broecker

Makeup Makeup

Barbara Lacy Donyale McRae Bri Trischitta Ande Yung

Universal Pictures Apatow Productions Stoller Global Solutions

Releases by Date

08 sep 2022, 11 sep 2022, 06 oct 2022, 30 sep 2022, 18 oct 2022, 19 oct 2022, 27 oct 2022, 28 oct 2022, 03 nov 2022, 04 nov 2022, 24 nov 2022, 25 nov 2022, 28 nov 2022, 19 feb 2023, 01 mar 2023, 30 mar 2023, 01 jul 2023, releases by country.

• Theatrical MA15+
• Theatrical 16
• Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
• Digital 16 VOD
• Theatrical 12
• Digital 16 TVOD
• Digital SkyShowtime

Netherlands

New zealand.

• Digital R16
• Theatrical 7
• Theatrical น18+
• Theatrical 15
• Premiere R San Francisco
• Theatrical R

115 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

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IMDB Had to Delete a Bunch of Fake Bros Reviews from Homophobes

By Abby Monteil

Nice try, losers! But attempting to ruin a gay movie’s reputation before it even arrives in theaters does not count as a hobby.

IMDb recently intervened after some pathetic homophobes decided to review bomb Billy Eichner’s upcoming gay romantic-comedy Bros before it even reached theaters. For the unfamiliar, “review bombing” refers to the shitty process of giving a piece of media negative reviews en masse in hopes of dissuading audiences from watching it.

Bros was one of online trolls’ most recent review bomb targets. Last Friday (September 23), the movie’s IMDb score dropped to 5.5/10, with one-star reviews dominating the 680-plus ratings — even though Bros currently has an enviable 95% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes and doesn’t hit U.S. theaters until September 30. As of Monday morning, all reviews have since been completely wiped from the movie’s IMDb page, including professional ones (since IMDb’s review system doesn’t separate critics’ and audience members’ reviews).

While reading fragile masculinity-laden troll comments can be good for a laugh once in a while, review bombing campaigns are dangerous because they tend to disproportionately target movies that center women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ characters. Just last November, Marvel’s Eternals , directed by Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, faced a barrage of negative reviews from trolls aimed at Phastos, the MCU’s first openly gay superhero. IMDb also reportedly removed a number of these reviews, which were largely published before the film’s actual release date. Other films that received the treatment include the Ghostbusters reboot starring a cast of all women, as well as Captain Marvel .

It’s nice to see an influential website like IMDb taking action against homophobic trolls, since review bomb-affected ratings can, in fact, dissuade moviegoers from supporting diverse stories.

Them has reached out to IMDB for comment and will update when we hear back. 

Bros is already making history as the gay rom-com to be released by a major movie studio, and based on its overwhelmingly warm reception from critics, it sounds like a pretty solid film in general. (Although not technically a “major studio release,” it's worth noting that Bros comes only a few months after Fire Island , which was written by and starring queer comedian Joel Kim Booster and was distributed by Searchlight Pictures.)

In a review for Vanity Fair , Richard Lawson writes, “Bros leans into the giddy little revolution of its own existence, inviting the audience into a good, gay time that hasn’t exactly happened, in this way, before.”

Meanwhile, IndieWire critic Ryan Lattanzio argued: “When we talk about wanting to be seen, a lot of us really mean that what we want is a gay version of our ‘90s rom-coms when the genre was at its best. Bros fits the bill.”

You can judge Bros ’ rom-com chops for yourself when the movie opens in theaters on Friday, September 30.

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By Lauren Rearick

By James Factora

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A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event. A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event. A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they've entered the center of a dark and sinister event.

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