Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott’s gay romance All of Us Strangers finally gets UK release date

Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott’s tender gay love story, All of Us Strangers, has finally got a UK release date – and it’s set to bound into cinemas in early 2024.

Loosely based off Taichi Yamada’s award-winning 1987 novel Strangers, All of Us Strangers, is the latest project from Andrew Haigh, the out gay filmmaker behind beloved queer projects like 2011’s Weekend and HBO series Looking.

Now, two of the UK’s most popular leading men, the Oscar-nominated Paul Mescal (Normal People) and Fleabag‘s hot priest, Andrew Scott, are joining forces on the big screen for Haigh’s new “dark” queer fantasy romance.

What is the plot of All of Us Strangers?

When screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance meeting with his empty tower block neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal) that “punctuates the rhythm of his everyday life”, the two embark on a sweet love affair.

However, Adam still has past baggage he must deal with in order to fully embrace himself.

When he makes a pilgrimage to his childhood home, surprises await him there when he stumbles across the ghosts of his late parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), perfectly preserved as they were last seen 30 years prior.

Here, Adam learns to heal from the past and speak long buried truths.

When is All of Us Strangers released in the UK?

All of Us Strangers – which premiered at the 50th Telluride Film Festival in August – has already received near-unanimous praise from critics, landing a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It will arrive in US cinemas on 22 December, 2023 while its UK theatrical release comes over a month later, on 26 January, 2024.

Director Andrew Haigh says Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott were “fearless” when it came to sex scenes

First look images have hinted at immaculate chemistry between Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, stunning moments of cinematography and touching moments of family bonding over Christmas dinner.

Haigh spoke about the “fearless” performances from the actors in an interview with Vanity Fair in August.

“There was chemistry between the two of them literally the second I saw them together,” he explained. “Both of them were pretty fearless. There was no sense of them being afraid of approaching those scenes. They knew how important they were.”

“I’ve been more objective in how I’ve shot sex scenes in the past,” he continued. “Here, I really wanted to feel the subjective nature of having sex and what it feels like – the nervousness and the excitement and the physical sensation of being touched by someone else, and what that does to you”.

The film features a cathartic coming out journey for Adam with his parents and – if Haigh’s promises are anything to by – it will be authentically portrayed by gay actor Scott.

“I make no bones about the fact that this is a specific experience I’m telling, of a man in his late 40s who’s gay,” he concluded.

“I’m trying to tell something that I understand, that is my experience of the world, and that is authentic to me.”

All of Us Strangers opens in the US on 22 December, 2023. It arrives in UK cinemas on 26 January, 2024.