Longtime Companion chronicles the lives of a group of gay men during the 1980s. The focus of the film is AIDS, unknown to the men with then the film opens in 1981, but by the end of the story in 1989, it has become the central defining event in the lives of the survivors.

Shot in almost documentary style the story is told matter-of-factly. But the reality of the lives of the men in the story is not matter-of-fact; they are dying and dying in the prime of their lives.