Film: Pillion [2025] – Alexander Skarsgård, Harry Melling

Pillion is a raucous tale of physical and emotional exploration. It is more of a self-discovery journey than a sexual one. A story of someone slowly learning to articulate what it is they want.

Starring Alexander Skarsgård & Harry Melling, Pillion is a movie about exploration, and while it’s not directly apparent, getting to discover what you really like and want/

Tender as the gentle brush of a flogger down the backside, writer-director Harry Lighton’s film is the sweetest, hottest master-servant romance we’re been served in decades… It’s not Broke Back Mountain, and certainly not Fifty Shades. Lighton radiantly walks a delicate tonal line with feeling and humor within a subculture.

Skarsgård plays Ray, an insecure leather dom with some clear traumas. Melling plays a BDSM newbie who only discovers kinks and this kind of relationships as a result of his sexual attraction to Ray. And as a newbie, he doesn’t know when to set boundaries.

Although the graphic kink dominates the first half of the film, it’s really an absorbing love story between two extremely different men in a power dynamic where rules are sometimes made up as you go along.

Taking a step back, and being more knowledgeable about this sub-culture than lots of people who’d see the movie, I really enjoyed it. I just wish it was more balanced between the 2 types of Power Exchange relationships it depicted.

All in all, Pillion is 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.

Should You Watch It?

Pillion is a good BDSM themed queer movie. My biggest issue? It spends most of its runtime depicting an unhealthy relationship and skims showing us a healthy one.

Where Can I Watch It?

Pillion is now playing in select theaters with a wider release in early 2026.