The neon of a roadside club, the hiss of air brakes, a highway that runs north through the dark for ever. David Pablos’ On the Road (En el camino) takes place in the bleakest corners of Mexico’s long-haul trucking world, where men buy and sell themselves in service-station toilets and violence is never more than a lay-by away. And somehow, in that grim place, it finds one of the year’s most tender love stories.
The film won the top prize in the Horizons strand at Venice in 2025, along with the Queer Lion, and is now in selected US cinemas through Strand Releasing. Be warned: it is extremely explicit, and its violence is hard to watch. But it is also something rarer, a genre thriller with a real, aching heart.
It takes its lovers down into hell, just so they can look up and see a little light.
Movie at a Glance
- US release: In selected US cinemas from Wednesday 28 October 2026, opening in New York
- UK release: Peccadillo Pictures has UK and Ireland rights; it has had selected UK screenings, with a full release date to be confirmed
- Distributor: Strand Releasing (US)
- Director and writer: David Pablos
- Starring: Víctor Prieto and Osvaldo Sánchez
- Producers include: Inna Payán, Luis Salinas and Diego Luna
- Runtime: 93 minutes
- Certificate: Not rated (US); contains explicit sex and strong violence
- Language: Spanish with English subtitles
- Genre: Romantic drama and crime thriller
Viewer Match
- Best for: Fans of bold queer cinema, Brokeback Mountain, and gritty road movies with real danger in them.
- Maybe skip if: Graphic sex, full-frontal nudity or brutal violence are not for you.
- Mood and pace: Raw, sweaty and propulsive, with moments of startling tenderness.
- Cinema or streaming? Cinema, if you can find it. The widescreen highway images look superb on a big screen.
- Spoiler level: Spoiler-free. We describe only the opening set-up.
Two Men, One Cab
Víctor Prieto plays Veneno, a reckless young drifter who sleeps with truck drivers for cash or cocaine and sells some of the latter on the side. When a job goes badly wrong and he urgently needs a ride, he talks his way into the cab of Muñeco, played by Osvaldo Sánchez, a hard-bitten trucker in his forties who barely speaks and keeps himself awake on the road with drink and pills.
What follows is a long journey through northern Mexico, and the cab becomes the film’s most important room. Pablos lets the two men circle each other there: Veneno flirts openly, Muñeco insists he is not interested, and neither quite believes the other. It is funny, prickly and charged, and it gives the film a human core long before the plot catches up.
A Thriller With Real Teeth
And the plot does catch up. Men from Veneno’s past are looking for him, and brief, stylised flashbacks hint at why. Before long the pair are on the run from killers and police alike, and Pablos stages the danger with genuine menace: a rest stop full of broken-down lorries, a fight that turns lethal in seconds, a sense that nowhere on this road is safe.
The violence is graphic, and so is the sex. Pablos and cinematographer Ximena Amann shoot both in harsh, neon-washed images that make the bars, toilets and lay-bys feel almost unbearably real. Nothing is softened or prettified, and some viewers will find the film punishing. But it is never gratuitous for its own sake. The explicitness is part of the point: this is a world that treats bodies as cheap, and the film refuses to look away from that.
Two Superb Newcomers
Both leads are excellent and astonishingly brave. Prieto gives Veneno a wild, wounded energy, all bravado on the outside and loneliness underneath. Sánchez is his opposite, a man so tightly shut that every flicker of feeling looks like an earthquake. Watching his defences slowly come down is the film’s great pleasure, and the actors’ chemistry carries the story through its darkest stretches.
The best scene is also the simplest: hiding out in an abandoned building, the two men slow-dance to the Colombian ballad “Los caminos de la vida”. In a film full of sweat, blood and shouting, it is a moment of complete stillness, and it is genuinely moving.
Where It Stumbles
The genre machinery is less original than the love story. The flashbacks explaining Veneno’s past arrive late and feel functional, and the pursuit follows familiar lines. The final stretch is brutal, and its turn towards the sentimental will not work for everyone. But Pablos keeps the pace tight, and at 93 minutes the film never outstays its welcome.
For more new films on the big screen this autumn, see our latest Weekly Cinema Pack, and if you would rather stay in tonight, try What to Watch Tonight.
Spoiler-Free Verdict
On the Road is a raw, explicit and often brutal queer thriller that turns into a deeply felt romance. Its genre plotting is familiar, but its two leads are superb, and its tenderness takes you by surprise.
- Performances: 9/10
- Direction: 8.5/10
- Screenplay: 7/10
- Score: 7.5/10
- Cinematography: 8.5/10
- Entertainment Value: 8/10
- Overall score: 8/10
Star rating: 4/5
Verdict badge: Worth Seeing
One-line verdict: Hard as asphalt, soft at the centre: one of the year’s boldest love stories.
Watch the Official Trailer
Climb into Muñeco’s cab with the official US trailer.
Did the love story or the thriller stay with you longer? Share your spoiler-free reaction to On the Road.