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Movies like Desperate Living

Key Features:
Cult classic, Black comedy, Satire, Social commentary, Eccentric characters, Murder, Absurdity, Camp, Over-the-top violence, LGBTQ+ themes, Rebellion, Misunderstood protagonist, Nudity-moderate
Tone:
humorous, cynical, satirical, stylized
Target Audience:
Fans of cult films, Viewers who appreciate dark humor, Those interested in social satire, Audiences seeking unconventional narratives
Emotional Arc:
Disgust → Amusement

Desperate Living

1977-05-27
Desperate Living Poster - Find Similar Movies

After killing her husband, Peggy Gravel and her murderous maid Grizelda wind up in the crazy town of Mortville, where Queen Carlotta presides over a sleazy collection of misfits.

Genres
Comedy, Crime
Cast
Mink Stole, Jean Hill, Susan Lowe, Liz Renay, Edith Massey, Mary Vivian Pearce, Brook Yeaton, Karen Gerwig, Jay Allan, Al Strapelli
Crew
John Waters, John Waters
Rating
6.4(112 votes)
Desperate LivingDesperate Living
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Polyester
Polyester(1981)
7

Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart -- until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow. Originally screened with "Odorama" scratch and sniff cards so the audience could (at their own risk) smell along with the film.



Serial Mom
6.7

Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.



Cecil B. Demented
6.36

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.



Pink Flamingos
6.153

Notorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against Connie & Raymond Marble, a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as "The Filthiest Person Alive".



The Comedy of Terrors

An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.



Eating Raoul
6.433

A prudish married couple feel put upon by the swingers living in their apartment building. One night, by accident, they discover a way to both rid themselves of the “perverts” down the hall and simultaneously realize their dream of opening a restaurant.



Curdled
Curdled(1996)
5.8

A death-obsessed cleaning woman uncovers a clue identifying a Florida bartender for a series of socialite murders.



Female Trouble
6.9

Dawn Davenport progresses from a teenage nightmare hell-bent on getting cha-cha heels for Christmas to a fame monster whose egomaniacal impulses land her in the electric chair.



Invisible Life
7.8

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1950. In the conservative home of the Gusmão family, Eurídice and Guida are two inseparable sisters who support each other. While Guida can share with her younger sister the details of her romantic adventures, Eurídice finds in her older sister the encouragement she needs to pursue her dream of becoming a professional pianist.



South Park the Streaming Wars Part 2

A drought has brought the town of South Park to the brink of disaster.



Better Living Through Chemistry

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.



3 Women
3 Women(1977)
7.098

Two co-workers, one a vain woman and the other an awkward teenager, share an increasingly bizarre relationship after becoming roommates.



The Dead Don't Die
5.4

In the sleepy town of Centerville, the lives of a number of interconnected characters are disrupted by the undead.



Drop Dead Fred
5.8

An unhappy housewife gets a lift from the return of her imaginary childhood friend, Drop Dead Fred.



Living in Oblivion
7.2

Low-budget independent filmmaker Nick Reve tries to keep everything together as his production is plagued with an insecure actress, a megalomaniac star, a pretentious beret-wearing director of photography, and lousy catering.



Drowning by Numbers
7.016

Three generations of women who seek to murder their husbands share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings.



Pecker
Pecker(1998)
6.073

A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.



You, the Living
7.071

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.



A Dirty Shame
5.3

Sylvia Stickles runs a convenience store with her husband and mother-in-law. One day, Sylvia is hit on the head and transforms from an uptight prude to a sex-crazed lunatic. As she goes on a rampage through town, Sylvia attracts the attention of Ray Ray, a sexual healer and tow truck driver in search of the world's greatest orgasm. Their sexual revolution, however, causes a class war in their tiny Baltimore community.



Duplex
Duplex(2003)
6.1

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!



Schizopolis
6.1

A man works for the unpleasant guru of a Scientology-like movement.



Quasi
Quasi(2023)
5.145

A hapless hunchback who only yearns for love, finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the King of France when each orders the hunchback to kill the other.



Thirst
Thirst(1979)
6.1

The descendant of Elizabeth Bathory is abducted by a cult of self-proclaimed supermen who achieve this state of superiority by drinking from the "blood cows" kept at the "dairy farm", and they try to get her to join them.



Drained
Drained(2006)
7.1

A pawn shop proprietor buys used goods from desperate locals – as much to play perverse power games as for his own livelihood, but when the perfect rump and a backed-up toilet enter his life, he loses all control.



Incredible But True
6.039

Alain and Marie moved to the suburb house of their dreams. But the real estate agent warned them: what is in the basement may well change their lives forever.



Drowning Mona
5.442

The recently deceased Mona Dearly was many things: an abusive wife, a domineering mother, a loud-mouthed neighbor and a violent malcontent. So when her car and corpse are discovered in the Hudson River, police Chief Wyatt Rash immediately suspects murder rather than an accident. But, since the whole community of Verplanck, N.Y., shares a deep hatred for this unceasingly spiteful woman, Rash finds his murder investigation overwhelmed with potential suspects.



Small Apartments
5.842

When a clumsy deadbeat accidentally kills his landlord, he must do everything in his power to hide the body, only to find that the distractions of lust, the death of his beloved brother, and a crew of misfit characters force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him.



Dogville
Dogville(2003)
7.759

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.



Breaking News in Yuba County

An overlooked pencil-pusher catches her husband in bed with another woman, the shock of which causes him to die of a heart attack. So she buries his body and takes advantage of the growing celebrity status that comes from having a missing husband. But she quickly finds herself in over her head, dodging cops and criminals, all while trying to keep the truth from her sister, a local news anchor who’s desperate for a story.



Pepi, Luci, Bom
6.3

After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.



The Kentucky Fried Movie

A series of loosely connected skits that spoof news programs, commercials, porno films, kung-fu films, disaster films, blaxploitation films, spy films, mafia films, and the fear that somebody is watching you on the other side of the TV.



The Brand New Testament

God lives in Brussels. On Earth though, God is a coward, morally pathetic and odious to his family. His daughter, Ea, is bored at home and can't stand being locked up in a small apartment in ordinary Brussels, until the day she decides to revolt against her dad...



Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Believe it or not, even Smalltown USA still has people who are unfulfilled and unrelieved in the midst of plenty. Levonna and Lamar could have the perfect relationship, were it not for Lamar's obsession with rear entry.



Chicago
Chicago(2002)
7.125

Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.



Omicidio all'italiana
6.293

To save his crumbling and rapidly-depopulating rural town, its mayor fakes a gruesome murder to attract media attention. His plan initially succeeds, but soon the situation will spiral out of control.



Weirdsville
5.9

Dexter and Royce, two stoners in the small town of Weedsville, attempt to cover up the overdose of Royce's girlfriend Matilda. What leads from an old drive-in being perfect place to ditch her turns into the accidental discovery of a Satanic cult, who brings Mattie back from the dead after their ritual is botched. Along with the two's dealer Omar on their tail, how will these buddies and their slightly-off lady-on-board deal with the dangers of drug debt and demon-worshipping magic?



The Return of the Living Dead

When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.



Choke
Choke(2008)
6.1

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.



Multiple Maniacs
6.3

The Cavalcade of Perversion, a traveling freak show, acts as a front for Divine, who is out for blood after discovering her lover's affair.



State and Main
6.3

A movie crew invades a small town whose residents are all too ready to give up their values for showbiz glitz.



Fletch Lives
6

Fletch is a fish out of water in small-town Louisiana, where he's checking out a tumbledown mansion he's inherited. When a woman he flirts with turns up dead, he becomes a suspect and must find the killer and clear his name.



Ruthless People
6.6

Sam Stone hates his wife Barbara so much that he wants her dead. He's ecstatic when she's taken by a duo of kidnappers who want $500,000 ransom in exchange for her life. Fully intending to ignore every one of the kidnappers' demands in the hopes that they do him a favor and murder her for him, the two confused kidnappers have to figure out how they're going get their money, and what they're going to do with the overbearing Barbara.



May Fools
May Fools(1990)
6.8

During the events of May 1968 in France, different worldviews of conflicting relatives collide in their family estate.



Blubberella
3

An action comedy centered on Blubberella, an overweight half-vampire woman whose footsteps cause explosions and whose dual swords are used against anyone who makes fun of her. She must face an army of undead Nazi soldiers in her valiant struggle against bloodshed and tyranny.



What?
What?(1972)
5.448

A young American woman traveling through Italy finds herself in a strange Mediterranean villa where nothing seems quite right.



Desperately Seeking Susan

A bored New Jersey suburban housewife's fascination with a free-spirited woman she has read about in the personal columns leads to her being mistaken for the woman herself and into a chaotic adventure of amnesia and self-discovery.



She-Devil
She-Devil(1989)
6

A cunning and resourceful housewife vows revenge on her husband when he begins an affair with a wealthy romance novelist.



Damsels in Distress
5.475

A trio of beautiful girls set out to revolutionize life at a grungy American university: the dynamic leader Violet Wister, principled Rose and sexy Heather. They welcome transfer student Lily into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good hygiene and musical dance numbers.



Ghost World
7.081

Two quirky, cynical teenaged girls try to figure out what to do with their lives after high school graduation. After they play a prank on an eccentric, middle aged record collector, one of them befriends him, which causes a rift in the girls’ friendship.



Flaming Creatures
4.5

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card.



The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue

When a series of murders hit the remote English countryside, a detective suspects a pair of travelers when it is actually the work of the undead, jarred back to life by an experimental ultra-sonic radiation machine used by the Ministry of Agriculture to kill insects.



Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.



Psycho Beach Party
5.7

Chicklet is a sixteen-year old tomboy who's desperate to be part of the in-crowd of Malibu beach surfers. She's the typical American girl - except for one little problem: her personality is split into more slices than a pepperoni pizza.



Flodder
Flodder(1986)
6.322

A low-class antisocial family ends up in a rich upper-class neighborhood and causes all sorts of trouble.



Disaster Movie
3.2

Over the course of one evening, an unsuspecting group of twenty-somethings find themselves bombarded by a series of natural disasters and catastrophic events.



Up!
Up!(1976)
5.6

Adolf Hitler is hiding out in California under the identity of Adolf Schwartz; however, he is soon murdered by a mysterious assailant. This coincides with the arrival of a mysterious woman in a nearby town. Whatever the case might be, nobody seems interested in investigating the crime, but there are many who are interested in her.



Basic Sanitation, the Movie

When they discover their town lacks funding for a sewage system, but does have a federal grant to make a movie, a group of villagers decide to make a sci-fi joint about a monster who lives in the building site of a septic tank.



Arizona
Arizona(2018)
5.46

Set in the midst of the 2009 housing crisis, the life of Cassie Fowler, a single mother and struggling realtor, goes off the rails when she witnesses a murder.



Body Melt
Body Melt(1994)
5.1

Residents of peaceful Pebbles Court, Homesville, are being used unknowingly as test experiments for a new 'Body Drug' that causes rapid body decomposition (melting skin etc.) and painful death.



The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz

A bizarre black comedy about a man whose overwhelming ambition in life is to be a renowned serial killer of women, and will stop at nothing to achieve it - but not everything goes according to plan...



Happiness
Happiness(1965)
7.412

A young husband and father, perfectly content with his life, falls in love with another woman.



She Does Not Drink, Smoke or Flirt But... She Talks

Housemaid Georgette loves to gossip and this causes major trouble to people around her.



Wanderlust
5.5

Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.



Sitcom
Sitcom(1998)
6.38

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.



Undertaking Betty
6.1

A politician's wife and the mortician who has secretly loved her for years plan to fake her death so they can run away together.



Snuff
Snuff(1976)
3

The followers of a charismatic cult leader set out to murder a pregnant actress.



S.F.W.
S.F.W.(1995)
5.977

An alienated and misanthropic teenager gains sudden and unwanted celebrity status after he's taken hostage by terrorists where his indifference to their threats to kill him makes news headlines.



The Living Dead Girl
5.847

A toxic spill revives a beautiful, dead heiress who, with the help of her childhood friend, must quench her insatiable thirst for blood.



Jane Austen's Mafia!

After growing up poor in Salmonella, Vincenzo Cortino installs himself as the preeminent, if bumbling, Mafia don of the New World. But now he must pass on power to one of his two sons: either level-headed veteran Anthony or vituperative loose cannon Joey.



Plump Fiction
3.74

Four stories intersect in this violent film parody. Exterminators dress as hit men and try to protect the wife of their boss, Montello. Meanwhile, the strippers at Montello's strip club, dressed as nuns, attempt to rob him. Tag-team wrestlers steal Montello's briefcase, thinking its contents are valuable. Finally, Bumpkin, running to deliver a script, loses a lot of the pages.



Tales of Ordinary Madness

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.



Cadaver
Cadaver(2020)
5.603

In the aftermath of a nuclear disaster, a starving family find hope in a charismatic hotel owner. Lured by the prospect of a free dinner, they discover that the evening's entertainment blurs the lines between performance and reality. Will they wind up the spectators or the spectacle?



Night of the Living Dead

A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.



The 'Burbs
6.77

When secretive new neighbors move in next door, suburbanite Ray Peterson and his friends let their paranoia get the best of them as they start to suspect the newcomers of evildoings and commence an investigation. But it's hardly how Ray, who much prefers drinking beer, reading his newspaper and watching a ball game on the tube expected to spend his vacation.



Connie and Carla
5.8

After accidentally witnessing a mafia hit in the Windy City, gal pals Connie and Carla skip town for L.A., where they go way undercover as singers working the city's dinner theater circuit ... disguised as drag queens. Now, it's not enough that they become big hits on the scene; things get extra-weird when Connie meets Jeff -- a guy she'd like to be a woman with.



Moving
Moving(1988)
5.52

Arlo accepts what seems to him to be a dream promotion to Idaho. He soon discovers, however, that moving has its own share of problems.



The Addams Family
7.067

When a man claiming to be long-lost Uncle Fester reappears after 25 years lost, the family plans a celebration to wake the dead. But the kids barely have time to warm up the electric chair before Morticia begins to suspect Fester is fraud when he can't recall any of the details of Fester's life.



Lowlife
Lowlife(2017)
6.1

The sordid lives of an addict, an ex-con, and a luchador collide when an organ harvesting caper goes very, very wrong.



Storytelling
6.5

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



Judy & Punch
6.1

In the anarchic town of Seaside, nowhere near the sea, puppeteers Judy and Punch are trying to resurrect their marionette show. The show is a hit due to Judy's superior puppeteering but Punch's driving ambition and penchant for whisky lead to an inevitable tragedy that Judy must avenge.



Drop Dead Gorgeous
6.4

In a small Minnesota town, the annual beauty pageant is being covered by a TV crew. Former winner Gladys Leeman wants to make sure her daughter follows in her footsteps; explosions, falling lights, and trailer fires prove that. As the Leemans are the richest family in town, the police are pretty relaxed about it all. Despite everything, main rival (but sweet) Amber Atkins won't give up without a fight.



Greener Grass
6.141

Suburban soccer moms find themselves constantly competing against each other in their personal lives as their kids settle their differences on the field.



Addams Family Values
6.968

Siblings Wednesday and Pugsley Addams will stop at nothing to get rid of Pubert, the new baby boy adored by parents Gomez and Morticia. Things go from bad to worse when the new "black widow" nanny, Debbie Jellinsky, launches her plan to add Fester to her collection of dead husbands.



Terror Firmer
6

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



Student Bodies
5.2

This zany send-up of teen slasher flicks features a maniacal psycho known as the Breather, who stalks –and murders– promiscuous students at a suburban high school. The fanatical killer's unusual weapons include paper clips, blackboard erasers and eggplants.



Just Buried
5.885

A young man inherits a nearly bankrupt funeral home from his estranged father. He falls in love with the alluring young mortician, only to find out she's offing people to keep the place in business!



Buffet Froid
7.057

Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.



Wrong Cops
6.1

A group of bad cops look to dispose of a body that one of them accidentally shot.



Wiener-Dog
5.6

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



Mortuary
Mortuary(2005)
4.4

A family moves to a small California town where they plan on starting a new life running a long-abandoned funeral home. The locals fear the place, suspected to be on haunted ground.



Women's Prison Massacre

Emanuelle is framed by a corrupt D.A. while investigating a drug smuggling operation and has to tough it out under lock and key, dealing with a strict warden and abusive guards.



Norbit
Norbit(2007)
5.7

A mild-mannered guy who is engaged to a monstrous woman meets the woman of his dreams, and schemes to find a way to be with her.



STRAW
STRAW(2025)
7.812

What will be her last straw? A devastatingly bad day pushes a hardworking single mother to the breaking point — and into a shocking act of desperation.



All About Evil
5.9

A mousy librarian inherits her father's beloved but failing old movie house. In order to save the family business, she discovers her inner serial killer — and a legion of rabid gore fans — when she starts turning out a series of grisly shorts. What her fans don't realize yet is that the murders in the movies are all too real…



Life of Crime
5.74

Two common criminals get more than they bargained for after kidnapping the wife of a corrupt real-estate developer who shows no interest in paying the $1 million dollar ransom for her safe return.



Eaten Alive
5.441

A psychotic redneck owns a dilapidated hotel in rural East Texas, where he murders those who upset him or his business, and then feeds their remains to his pet crocodile in the swamp beside his hotel.



Repossessed
5.2

It's been some time since Father Jebedaiah Mayii exorcised the Devil from little Nancy Aglet, who is now grown up with a husband and two children of her own. But the prince of darkness wants to go a second round and has returned to repossess her! With Father Mayii unwilling to help, Father Luke Brophy tries his best to help Nancy, even when TV's Ernest Weller plans to air the exorcism live on TV.



Supervixens
5.7

Clint must flee after his wife is killed by a psychopathic cop, who tries to pin the murder on him.



Silent Hill
6.604

Rose, a desperate mother takes her adopted daughter, Sharon, to the town of Silent Hill in an attempt to cure her of her ailment. After a violent car crash, Sharon disappears and Rose begins a desperate search to get her back. She descends into the center of the twisted reality of a town's terrible secret. Pursued by grotesquely deformed creatures and townspeople stuck in permanent purgatory, Rose begins to uncover the truth behind the apocalyptic disaster that burned the town 30 years earlier.

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