It stars Harris Dickinson in his feature film debut, with Madeline Weinstein and Kate Hodge in supporting roles.

It follows an aimless Brooklyn teenager who struggles to reconcile his competing sexual desires, leaving him hurtling towards irreparable consequences.

Frankie is an aimless 19-year-old Brooklynite who spends his days hanging out and getting high with his macho friends as an escape from his troubled home life.

At night, Frankie cruises Brooklyn Boys, a webcam site for gay men, but partially obscures his face with a hat.

Meanwhile, Frankie uses the chat site to arrange hookups, particularly with older men as they are less likely to run into his friends and give away his double life.

"[4] Hittman said the film was also inspired by real-life incidents, commenting, "I’ve had friends who have been attacked walking around certain areas of Brooklyn, and been totally knocked out.

The website's consensus reads: "Empathetic and powerfully acted, Beach Rats takes a clear-eyed yet dreamlike look at a young man's adolescent turmoil.

"[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[19] Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times remarked, "The film is so skilled at telling its story through visual detail and atmosphere that you can sense the gears shifting in the second half.

"[20] Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times stated, "The back-and-forths of the character's decisions feel real, and Mr. Dickinson's laconic blankness (you would never guess the actor was British) helps to give Frankie's existential crisis a charge.

"[21] Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and commented, "Although Hittman's often bold and occasionally uncomfortably honest movie takes us up to the threshold of that accounting, it doesn't have the nerve to cross it.

"[22] K. Austin Collins of The Ringer wrote the film strongly gives "the prevailing sense that masculinity is something learned—put-on and performed for the sake of fitting in with others."

Collins also noted, "Like Beach Rats overall, the ending is a reminder of what can happen when a director trusts us enough not to offer easy takeaways and psychological absolutes.

"[28] Some also pointed out the ending calls to mind real-life incidents of users on gay dating apps being targeted for violence.

[5] At the Sundance screening, Hittman was questioned by an audience member about whether she, a white heterosexual woman, should be allowed to tell gay stories.