Get ready to be pulled into a dark, romantic ride. Pillion, helmed by debut director Harry Lighton, stars Alexander Skarsgård as Ray, a leather-clad biker with dangerous magnetism, and Harry Melling as Colin, a shy suburban man whose life is upended when Ray offers him a role as his submissive.
Also starring in the movie are Jake Shears (in his acting debut), and supporting performances from Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge, among others. This is a kinky queer romance with teeth.
Pillion first roared into the world at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, screening in the Un Certain Regard section, where it won the Best Screenplay prize. After Cannes, it also appeared at Telluride Film Festival followed by New York Film Festival. The film is expected to open theatrically in the U.S. in February 2026.
Here is the official synopsis: A timid man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.
Pillion “stars Harry Melling as a young gay man and Alexander Skarsgård as a biker gang leader who start a BDSM relationship.” Adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’s novel Box Hill, Colin is drawn into Ray’s world, becoming his submissive – cooking, cleaning, following orders, navigating the power dynamics of dominance and consent as his identity and love are tested.
On bringing Pillion to life, Lighton reflected, “There were lots of discussions about how to achieve the kind of sex that I wanted to put on screen in a way that didn’t feel like empty provocation.”
He continued, “My position was always that, in a film about transgressive sex, to shy away from representing that sex seemed to me like casting a judgement on it, and I always wanted to leave the judgement in the audience’s hands.”
Watch the first teaser trailer for Pillion above.
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