Pillion First Look with Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling

A24 has shared a first look at writer-director Harry Lighton’s Pillion, a leather-clad romantic comedy starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling. In the film opening in theaters in February 2026, a timid man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.

From writer-director Harry Lighton, making his feature debut, comes a romantic, funny, thoroughly unconventional love story, following two men who express desire in ways rarely depicted on the big screen.

Based on the novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, Pillion stars Harry Melling (The Queen’s Gambit, Harry Potter) as Colin, a timid traffic warden from the suburbs, and Alexander Skarsgård (Murderbot, Succession) as Ray, the enigmatic, Adonis-like leader of a gay motorcycle gang.

When hyper-dominant Ray takes on the inexperienced Colin as his submissive, the improbable duo becomes partners in a complex arrangement that forces both parties to test the boundaries of what may or may not be real love.

“Pillion means the passenger seat on a motorbike,” says Lighton, whose short film Wren Boys premiered at Sundance and was nominated for the BAFTA. “Amongst bikers, it’s used as a term for the person that sits on that seat. Amongst gay bikers, if you’re a pillion, there’s a submissive charge to it.”

To outsiders, including Colin’s loving parents, Pete and Peggy (Lesley Sharp, Douglas Hodge), Colin and Ray’s bond can be viewed at best as unfamiliar, at worst as exploitative or abusive — but inside the relationship, strange, beautiful, and surprising things unfold, pushing both men outside their comfort zones.

“Pillion is about people questioning the values they’ve inherited,” says Lighton. “People wrestle with relationship models and dynamics all the time, whether sexual or platonic. I wanted to show the capacity for contradictions in atypical relationships — for brutality and tenderness to co-exist.”

To sum up Pillion in three words: lube, sweat, and leather,” says Skarsgård with a grin. “I hope people will connect with Colin and his journey, and come to understand the nuance and complexity of his bond with Ray.”