Deconstructing HarryMovies like Deconstructing Harry
- Key Features:
- Writers block, Self-destructive behavior, Dysfunctional relationships, Creative process, Existential crisis, Dark comedy, Satire, Intellectual, Meta-narrative, Character study, Nudity-moderate, Sexual content, Drug use
- Tone:
- humorous, cynical, satirical, witty
- Target Audience:
- Fans of Woody Allen, Viewers interested in intellectual comedies, Those who appreciate dark humor, People who enjoy films about writers and the creative process
- Emotional Arc:
- Confusion → Self-reflection → Acceptance
Deconstructing Harry

Writer Harry Block draws inspiration from people he knows, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.
Deconstructing Harry
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

The career and personal life of writer Lee are at a standstill, so he divorces his bashful wife, Robin, and dives into a new job as an entertainment journalist. His assignments take him to the swankiest corners of Manhattan, but as he jumps from one lavish party to another and engages in numerous empty romances, he starts to doubt the worth of his work. Meanwhile, top TV producer Tony falls for Robin and introduces her to the world of celebrity.

An intense portrait of the iconic filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian and musician Woody Allen: his life, family and friends; his writing and directing habits, and his relationship with performers.

Woody Allen stars as Val Waxman, a two-time Oscar winner turned washed-up, neurotic director in desperate need of a comeback. When it comes, Waxman finds himself backed into a corner: Work for his ex-wife Ellie or forfeit his last shot. Is Val blinded by love when he opts for the reconnect? Is love blind when it comes to Ellie's staunch support? Literally and figuratively, the proof is the picture.

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.

With his career on the skids, a Hollywood screenwriter enlists the aid of a modern-day muse, who proves to test his patience.

Jerry Falk, an aspiring writer in New York, falls in love at first sight with a free-spirited young woman named Amanda. He has heard the phrase that life is like "anything else," but soon he finds that life with the unpredictable Amanda isn't like anything else at all.

A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.

When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.

A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.

Middle-aged and divorced, Wilson finds himself lonely, smug, and obsessed with his past.

An egocentric bum transforms the lives of a shy New Jersey garbageman and his sister.

A dramatic comedy about a self-induced attention-deficit disordered, learning disabled, Tourette's syndrome suffering, balance impaired, ex-alcoholic young man from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the gold-digging girl who inspires him to try to get it together.

As a writer named Mike struggles to shepherd his semi-autobiographical sitcom into development, his vision is slowly eroded by a domineering network executive named Lenny who favors trashy reality programming. The irony, of course, is that every crass suggestion Lenny makes improves the show's response from test audiences and brings the show a step closer to getting on the air.

Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.

A bitter ad executive, who has reached his breaking point, finds himself in a mental institution, where his career actually begins to thrive with the help of the hospital's patients.

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.

Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.

Delphine is the author of an autobiographical novel that has become a bestseller. Exhausted by the promotional tour, just when she feels out of place, paralyzed by the idea of having to start writing again, she meets Elle, a young, attractive, intelligent, intuitive woman who seems to understand her better than anyone.

When a young couple buys their dream home, they have no idea what the sweet little old lady upstairs is going to put them through!

Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for a handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of her well-established rut.

While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.

An insurance salesman begins to suspect that his whole life is actually some sort of reality TV show.

While attending a retrospect of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.

A neurotic film critic obsessed with the movie Casablanca attempts to get over his wife leaving him by dating again with the help of a married couple and his illusory idol, Humphrey Bogart.

Hudson Milbank is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who suddenly and strangely finds himself without any emotional feelings. He tries doctor after doctor and shrink after shrink, but nothing works. The Golf Channel, lesbian exercise classes and a dizzying variety of pills get him through the day, but don't quite solve his problem. His writing partner tries everything to get him back to normal, but it's not until Hudson meets Sara that he finds a real motivation to get better and to actually start feeling again. From the writer of Deuce Bigalow, comes NUMB, a romantic comedy following an unusual man looking for strange love.

A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.

The trouble with Harry is that he’s dead. In a quiet Vermont village, a corpse creates unexpected chaos as several townspeople each believe they may be to blame.

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.

A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.

After a suicide attempt, Lane has moved into her country house to recuperate. Her best friend, Stephanie, has come to join her for the summer. Lane's mother, Diane, has recently arrived with her husband Lloyd, Lane's stepfather. Lane is close to two neighbors: Peter, and Howard. Howard is in love with Lane, Lane is in love with Peter, and Peter is in love with Stephanie.

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.

Jane Goodale has everything going for her. She's a producer on a popular daytime talk show, and is in a hot romance with the show's dashing executive producer Ray. But when the relationship goes terribly awry, Jane begins an extensive study of the male animal, including her womanizing roommate Eddie. Jane puts her studies and romantic misadventure to use as a pseudonymous sex columnist -- and becomes a sensation.

Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.

A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.

A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

The story of a young, gay, black, con artist who, posing as the son of Sidney Poitier, cunningly maneuvers his way into the lives of a white, upper-class New York family.

A college freshman cures her disappointment and loneliness by allowing herself to be pulled into the wacky schemes of her future stepsister.

With a serial strangler on the loose, a bookkeeper wanders around town searching for the vigilante group intent on catching the killer.

Harry, a charming house thief, gets more than he bargains for during an attempted burglary when he stumbles upon Daisy and decides to save her from herself, sending both of them into a darkly comedic journey of self discovery and love.

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

A middle-aged couple suspects foul play when their neighbor's wife suddenly drops dead.

When talented young writer Elizabeth Wurtzel earns a scholarship to Harvard, she sees it as her chance to escape the pressures of her working-class background and concentrate on her true talent. But what starts out so promising leads to self-destructive behavior and paralyzing depression that reflects an entire generation's struggle to navigate the effects of divorce, drugs, sex, and high expectations.

A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

When a bestselling celebrity biographer is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

Filmmaker Alan Smithee finds himself the unwilling puppet of a potentially bad big budget action film, for which he proceeds to steal the reels, and leaves the cast and crew in a frenzy.

A hapless talent manager named Danny Rose, by helping a client, gets dragged into a love triangle involving the mob. His story is told in flashback, an anecdote shared amongst a group of comedians over lunch at New York's Carnegie Deli. Rose's one-man talent agency represents countless incompetent entertainers, including a one-legged tap dancer, and one slightly talented one: washed-up lounge singer Lou Canova, whose career is on the rebound.

A no-nonsense cop has a flair for fashion and a celebrity takes revenge on the paparazzi in a collection of comedic sketches.

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

A director and his crew attempt to make the transition from the small to the big screen.

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

Amy, a naive college graduate who believes she's destined to be a great poet, begrudgingly accepts a job at a sex shop while she pursues a mentorship with reclusive writer Rat Billings.

An American writer living in exile in London, Philip listens to women. His English mistress, who visits him regularly in the studio that serves as their refuge. A student he loved in another life. A former lover confined to a hospital in New York.

A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.

Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.

A writer of BAD detective novels is in full writers' block. He pretends to be the alibi of a beautiful woman who was arrested for murder at first thinking her innocent, but as she shows more and more interesting abilities (such as knife throwing) he begins to doubt his first assessment.

A group of actors and their casting agents try to find a direction in their lives whilst coming to terms with their personal problems and relationship conflicts.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

Sex always gets in the way of friendships between men and women. At least, that's what Harry Burns believes. So when Harry meets Sally Albright and a deep friendship blossoms between them, Harry's determined not to let his attraction to Sally destroy it. But when a night of weakness ends in a morning of panic, can the pair avoid succumbing to Harry's fears by remaining friends and admitting they just might be the perfect match for each other?

When a disc containing memoirs of a former CIA analyst falls into the hands of gym employees, Linda and Chad, they see a chance to make enough money for Linda to have life-changing cosmetic surgery. Predictably, events whirl out of control for the duo, and those in their orbit.

Barry Munday, a libido-driven wage slave who spends all his time either ogling, fantasizing about or trying to pick up women, wakes up in hospital after a freak attack only to find that his testicles have been removed.

Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.

An American journalism student in London scoops a big story, and begins an affair with an aristocrat as the incident unfurls.

During the course of an ordinary week in Hollywood, movie producer Ben must navigate his way through shark-infested waters as he struggles to complete his latest projects. A demanding studio boss demands extensive changes to a movie starring Sean Penn, while another chief won't greenlight a project unless star Bruce Willis shaves his beard. Meanwhile, Ben tries to reconcile with his wife and maintain a relationship with his young daughter.

Tom Segura scores laughs with uncomfortably candid stories about mothers, fathers, following your dreams — and other things you'd rather not think about.

A famous horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple.

A small circle of friends suffering from post-collegiate blues must confront the hard truth about life, love and the pursuit of gainful employment. As they struggle to map out survival guides for the future, the Gen-X quartet soon begins to realize that reality isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the establishment as too obscene for the public.

Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.

Countless wiseguy films are spoofed in this film that centers on the neuroses and angst of a powerful Mafia racketeer who suffers from panic attacks. When Paul Vitti needs help dealing with his role in the "family," unlucky shrink Dr. Ben Sobel is given just days to resolve Vitti's emotional crisis and turn him into a happy, well-adjusted gangster.

Widower Harry Keach is a construction worker who was raised to appreciate the importance of working for a living. He takes a dim view of his sensitive son Howard's lackadaisical lifestyle and has a strained relationship with his daughter Nina as he does not approve of her husband. When Harry is fired from his job, his life changes drastically as he is made to focus on the relationships around him.

A low-budget film crew working in New York City find themselves being preyed upon by a sexually conflicted serial killer.

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

A man who is being driven crazy by the noise in New York City decides to take vigilante action against it.

A nutty inventor, his frustrated wife, a philosopher cousin, his much younger fiancée, a randy doctor, and a free-thinking nurse spend a summer weekend in and around a stunning - and possibly magical - country house.

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

An Oscar-winning writer in a slump leaves Hollywood to teach screenwriting at a college on the East Coast, where he falls for a single mom taking classes there.

Hollywood producer Alexander Meyerheimer has hired drunken writer Richard Benson to write his latest movie. Benson has been in Paris supposedly working on the script for months, but instead has spent the time living it up. Benson now has just two days to the deadline and thus hires a temporary secretary, Gabrielle Simpson, to help him finish on time.

A screenwriter travels to an abandoned house to finish a script on time, but a series of strange events lead her to a psychological breakdown.

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.

After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

A small New Mexican village discovers a severed hand that is considered a miracle of God, when it actually belongs to a murdered spouse with a husband in search of it.

Rose Morgan, who still lives with her mother, is a professor of Romantic Literature who desperately longs for passion in her life. Gregory Larkin, a mathematics professor, has been burned by passionate relationships and longs for a sexless union based on friendship and respect.

A young lunatic director and his devoted cult of cinema terrorists kidnap a Hollywood movie goddess and force her to star in their radical underground movie.

A high-strung news producer finds herself in a love triangle between a talented but self-doubting reporter and a charming new anchor, who embodies the growing trivialization of news that she is determined to fight against.

Starting from childhood attempts at illustration, the protagonist pursues his true obsession to art school. But as he learns how the art world really works, he finds that he must adapt his vision to the reality that confronts him.

Three tales of love, ambition, and neurosis unfold in the city that never sleeps. In "Life Lessons" (Martin Scorsese), a tormented painter channels heartbreak into his art. In "Life Without Zoë" (Francis Ford Coppola), a precocious 12-year-old navigates privilege and loneliness in a Manhattan hotel. And in "Oedipus Wrecks" (Woody Allen), a man’s domineering mother literally becomes a looming presence over New York.

Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder mystery script, and unaware that his brain is on the verge of implosion, Felix is baffled when his characters start to appear in his life, and vice versa.



