Miguelito, Bayani, Rush, and Uno are a group of friends in Metro Manila who work as street hustlers and masseurs to survive. They search for clients and pickpocket to pay rent. Miguelito splits from the group to entertain a client, while the rest enter an erotic cinema.
Uno meets with a client who performs a three-way with a hustler who ran away from home named Zion. After the act, Bayani robs Zion in the bathroom, but Uno intervenes. Uno and Zion go to a mall to get bandages for Zion. While in the mall, Uno receives a distress call from Miguelito, and they rush out to find him. Zion finds him dying in a parking lot, who wishes to be returned to his hometown. Zion and Uno could not bring Miguelito to the hospital as Uno believes that he was drugged by his client.
Alongside Zion, Uno meets up with his friends and informs them of Miguelito's death and his dying wish. They agree to bring him to his hometown, although Bayani aggressively expresses his distrust of Zion. They take a taxicab and stop at a hotel to clean Miguelito's body and store it in a bag. Uno reflects with Zion on what could be his final resting place be, his want to stop sex work, and the fact that he does not own his body as a hustler, and narrates to Zion in the shower room a memory of his first interaction with Bayani
They board a bus at midnight for a rural town named Painawa. They are stopped for carrying an oversized bag, but they are allowed to get in after Zion mentions that he is the son of a military general. After they arrive at Painawa, Rush, Bay, and Uno leave Zion in the bus for the town plaza. Zion eventually finds Uno in a grass field. Uno admits that he left the group to search for Zion and expresses his love for him, and they make out. They find themselves lost in the field and walk into a drag bar; they are generously provided a ride to the plaza, where a festival is happening.
Uno and Zion meet Rush and Bayani waiting by a town chapel. They find out that the house address they plan to visit is vacant, and the only relative of Miguelito is his brother, who is now a pastor. They find Miguelito's brother and tell him of Miguelito's death, hoping that he will provide Miguelito with a funeral. However, Miguelito's brother forsakes and rejects him as he left for Manila, according to Miguelito's brother, to live a sinful life. The group becomes infuriated, and Bayani and Zion beat Miguelito's brother. They escape and find themselves in the festival venue, where a fireplace is situated for festival offerings. As the group realizes that Miguelito's body has nowhere else to go, they reluctantly bring the bag with Miguelito's body into the fire.
The film was based on the director's own youth experience in Manila and his search for identity.[3] In an interview, Vargas mentions that his "rigid household" was a reference for creating the film.[4] Vargas was interested in making a film about a queer boy who moved from the provinces to Manila, and a film based on how Manila shaped his gay identity.[5] He began writing the film in 2017, and thought of violence during the Duterte administration and the influence of Manila on his queer identity.[5] Vargas mentions that film is included in a line of Philippine queer film culture, such as films by Lino Brocka, Mel Chionglo, and Crisaldo Pablo.[5]
The production initially planned to cast street hustlers. However, they shifted to interviewing around 400 young people in Zoom to screen casting due to the pandemic.[5] Composers Aly and Moe Cabral incorporated Regine Velasquez' "Dadalhin" in the film. They also decided to include budots "[to cultivate] the feeling of being in Manila" and for the genre's being "local".[6] The film began shooting in Manila in the end of April 2025. Filming also occurred in Pangasinan.[3]
It was also premiered at Glasgow Film Festival on February February 28, 2025, BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival on March 26, 2025,[11] Macao International Queer Film Festival on June 8, 2025.[12] Its Philippine premiere was at the QCinema RainbowQC Pride Film Festival at Gateway Mall 2 on June 26, 2025. [13] Afterward, it was screened in Isetann Cinerama Recto on August 21. Massage chairs, karaoke machines, free sexual health services, live performances by macho dancers, and ukay-ukay stalls were set up in the screening venue.[4][5][14]Grindr profiles of the film's characters were posted to promote the film and the screening.[14] The film had a limited release nationwide on August 27.[15][16]
Stephanie Mayo of Daily Tribune gave the film a rating of 2 over 5 and she wrote; Some Nights I Feel Like Walking ultimately feels like an exercise in craft rather than a fully realized work. There’s potential here for something raw, moving, urgent, but the film’s self-conscious stylization diminishes whatever substance it might have had.[17]
Fred Hawson of News.ABS-CBN.com gave the film a rating of 6/10 and wrote; Some Nights felt like two films mashed up together. The sticky and steamy first part was about the decaying underbelly of a big city where desperate boys brazenly plied their skin trade, and something began to develop between two of them.[18]
The film uses "a multi-sensory approach" to deliver its message, Rolling Stone's Don Jaucian argues. Jaucian describes that its cinematography, such as its 20-minute[4] one-take sequence at the end, "puts the audience in its place", and its "atmospheric and electronic" music, and that its sound design captures "what it’s like to walk in Manila at night".[19]
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