The film changed my life. I immediately stopped dating LGBTQI+ serial killers after viewing it.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 12, 2025

Stranger by the Lake is not only a provocative exploration of male desire, but also a profoundly human portrait of loneliness, love, contemplation, and threat... A true masterpiece of contemporary cinema. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 10/10 | Apr 10, 2025

A gorgeously shot, sexy little chiller about the lengths we will go to stay in a relationship, no matter how toxic we know it to be.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 2, 2023

An essential queer horror text that tackles cruising, sex and death, voyeurism, body image, gay microcosms, STIs, toxic relationship, homophobia, and gay friendships.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 27, 2023

Stranger by the Lake is an exploratory film where the execution is both weird and elegant. This seductive microcosm of gay culture can feel like a dream even when it is acting more like a nightmare.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2023

Alain Guiraudie’s hypnotic film captures the hazy heat of summer and the naughty thrill...

| Oct 27, 2022

A dark and engaging look at how far one can go for empty pleasure, for love, and the sometimes blurred line in between.

| Jun 14, 2022

Taut with tension, drama and sexuality, this is a film that has taken homosexuality at its most base, most explicit and at its darkest, but not lost its focus on telling a damn good story.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 2, 2021

With a naturalistic ambient soundtrack and a nuanced grasp on how cruel queer guys can be when they're on the make, this gripping erotic thriller will take you on a rough and psychologically troubling ride.

| Jun 10, 2020

A moody, poetic piece about the nature of desire unfolding in a hidden place in plain view.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2019

Stranger By the Lake hearkens back to an era of daring cinema too rarely seen today.

| Aug 29, 2019

A compellingly eerie tale of identity, self-loathing, death and sex in a world we rarely see portrayed in film.

| Aug 2, 2019

The pace may be a little too relaxed at times, and I'll admit the ending left me feeling a little cheated, but Guiraudie is in total control for the entire film.

| Original Score: 7.7/10 | Jun 26, 2019

Distributors seem not to realize that an explicit film about male cruising has the potential to attract an audience beyond just gay men: many women, straight and queer, are curious about the type of anonymous, repercussion-free sex shown in the film.

| Mar 14, 2019

Caressing and coaxing its way under your skin, Guiraudie's latest is an amorous, raw and chillingly seductive psychological thriller full of razor-sharp suspense and an abundance of stylish eroticism.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2019

In many ways, adhering as it does to semiotic storytelling and other visual tropes, this is a typical genre film. It's also daring and extremely good.

| Jan 30, 2019

... many of my qualms evaporated in the movie's brutally suspenseful final 10 minutes...

| Dec 14, 2018

Guiraudie's disciplined m.o. requires patience, and it leads to an ending that might frustrate viewers hoping for a more concrete narrative resolution to Franck's moral dilemma.

| Aug 22, 2018

This is a tale of danger and desires and extremely gay sportswear: possibly the Frenchest film I have ever seen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 22, 2018

the stuff of porn flicks and of classical Greek sculpture, and it is to Alain Guiraudie's credit that he evokes the spirit of both as well as a dandy, ahem, Hitchcockian thriller

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 26, 2016