Harold and MaudeMovies like Harold and Maude
- Key Features:
- Dark humor, Existentialism, Unconventional romance, Coming-of-age, Suicide, Older woman, Teenage rebellion, Nonconformity, Outsiders, Quirky, Cult classic, Anti-establishment, Mortality
- Tone:
- humorous, deadpan, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Cult film aficionados, Dark comedy lovers, Existential themes
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Acceptance
Harold and Maude

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.
Harold and Maude
Wendell Lawson has only six months to live. Not wanting to endure his last few months of life waiting for the end, he decides to take matters into his own hands and enlists the help of a delusional mental patient to help him commit suicide.

Harold Fry is an unremarkable man who has made mistakes with all the important things: being a husband, a father and a friend. And now, well into his 60s, he is content to fade quietly into the background of life. Until, one day – Harold learns his old friend Queenie is dying. Harold leaves home, walking to his post office to send her a letter. And out of the blue, Harold decides to keep walking, all the way to her hospice, 450 miles away.

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.

Depressed and jaded after being dumped by her married boyfriend, aging beauty Minnie Moore wonders if she'll ever find love. After shaggy-haired parking lot attendant Seymour Moskowitz comes to her defense from an angry and rebuffed blind date, he falls hopelessly in love with her despite their myriad differences. Minnie reluctantly agrees to a date with Moskowitz, and, slowly but surely, an unlikely romance blossoms between the two.

Handsome but backward gardener Tim Melville has a new woman in his life. She is Mary, his widowed employer, a woman who had given up on love until she had found Tim. At first they are friends. But soon they become lovers, as Mary, drawn to Tim's innocence and magnetism, begins to teach him all about life - and love.

Madeline is married to Ernest, who was once her arch-rival Helen's fiancé. After recovering from a mental breakdown, Helen vows to kill Madeline and steal back Ernest. Unfortunately for everyone, the introduction of a magic potion causes things to be a great deal more complicated than a mere murder plot.

TV reporter Rob Salinger longs for a baby. But his career-minded wife, Micki, is too busy for motherhood. A romantic fling with a seductive cellist, Maude, leads to her pregnancy. Rob receives another shock when Micki announces that she's also expecting! In love with both women, he marries Maude and starts leading a double life full of complicated and riotous situations.

Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.

A Hollywood songwriter goes through a mid-life crisis and becomes infatuated with a sexy blonde newlywed.

A self-help seminar inspires a sixty-something woman to romantically pursue her younger co-worker.

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.

Lake is in a straight relationship with Desiree but finds himself becoming attracted to men at the pool. When he cannot control his desires any longer, he starts working at an adult home and begins a relationship with a much, much older man.

Two old friends reconnect at their friend's funeral, and decide to exact revenge on the widower who wronged all three of them decades earlier.

Mama Cora, who is almost eighty years old, has three sons and a daughter. She lives with one of them, who has serious financial problems. The family meets one day to celebrate an anniversary meal, and that is when the problem arises: which of them will take care of her?

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

An illiterate cook at a company cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman. As they get to know one another, she discovers his inability to read. When he is fired, she takes on trying to teach him to read in her kitchen each night.

After returning to Los Angeles from a group therapy session, documentary filmmaker Bob Sanders and his wife, Carol, find themselves becoming vigilante couples counselors, offering unsolicited advice to their best friends, Ted and Alice Henderson. Not wanting to be rude, the Hendersons play along, but some latent sexual tension among the four soon comes bubbling to the surface, and long-buried desires don't stay buried for long.

A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.

Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.

Cal Weaver is living the American dream. He has a good job, a beautiful house, great children and a beautiful wife, named Emily. Cal's seemingly perfect life unravels, however, when he learns that Emily has been unfaithful and wants a divorce. Over 40 and suddenly single, Cal is adrift in the fickle world of dating. Enter, Jacob Palmer, a self-styled player who takes Cal under his wing and teaches him how to be a hit with the ladies.

Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.

An elderly gentleman goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the midst of a hellish nightmare.

A black comedy that follows three generations of a family, who come together for the funeral of the patriarch - unveiling a litany of family secrets and covert relationships.

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

A newly dead New England couple seeks help from a deranged demon exorcist to scare an affluent New York family out of their home.

High school student Lane Meyer sinks into suicidal depression when his girlfriend dumps him for jock Roy Stalin, the high school ski racing champion. Meanwhile, he has to deal with his eccentric family, a tenacious paperboy and an obnoxious neighbor whose mother is hosting a beautiful French exchange student named Monique.

For decades, next-door neighbors and former friends John and Max have feuded, trading insults and wicked pranks. When an attractive widow moves in nearby, their bad blood erupts into a high-stakes rivalry full of naughty jokes and adolescent hijinks.

An Irish undertaker profits when outlaws take over a peaceful town, but his own family come under threat as the death toll increases dramatically.

Sasha is a young vampire with a serious problem: she's too sensitive to kill. When her exasperated parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha's life is in jeopardy. Luckily, she meets Paul, a lonely teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers. But their friendly agreement soon becomes a nocturnal quest to fulfill Paul's last wishes before day breaks.

Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.

When perpetually single, aging music industry exec Harry Sanborn, and his latest trophy girlfriend, Marin, arrive at her mother's beach house in the Hamptons, they find that her mother, playwright Erica Barry, also plans to stay for the weekend. Erica is scandalized by the relationship and Harry's sexist ways. But when Harry has a heart attack while there, and the doctor prescribes bedrest, his only option is to stay at the Barry home. Left in the care of Erica and his doctor, a love triangle starts to take shape.

After she discovers that her boyfriend has betrayed her, Hilary O'Neil is looking for a new start and a new job. She begins to work as a private nurse for a young man suffering from blood cancer. Slowly, they fall in love, but they always know their love cannot last because he is destined to die.

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.

Famous and wealthy funnyman George Simmons doesn't give much thought to how he treats people until a doctor delivers stunning health news, forcing George to reevaluate his priorities with a little help from aspiring stand-up comic Ira.

A terminally ill man falls in love with a woman who has a secret that threatens their time spent together.

Cathy Timberlake is en route to a job interview when a car transporting businessman Philip Shayne covers her in mud. He sends his assistant, Roger, to apologize, but upon meeting Cathy, Roger knows that she would be a suitable match for his boss. Despite their mutual attraction, Cathy and Philip want different things. Philip wants a fling, while Cathy wants a marriage. As they travel to exotic locales, their differing motivations are put to the test.

After running out of funds, Henry Graham, a carefree playboy, plots to marry and murder wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell.

Ed Hemsler spends his life preparing for a disaster that may never come. Ronnie Meisner spends her life shopping for things she may never use. In a small town somewhere in America, these two people will try to find love while trying not to get lost in each other’s stuff.

With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.

A recently retired man embarks on a journey to his estranged daughter's wedding, only to discover more about himself and life than he ever expected.

Two college roommates venture out to identify a fellow student, who is most likely to commit suicide as it will help them pass the semester.

David, a struggling comedy writer fresh off from breaking up with his boyfriend, moves from New York City to Sacramento to help his sick mother. Living with his conservative father and much-younger sisters for the first time in ten years, he feels like a stranger in his childhood home. As his mother’s health declines, David frantically tries to extract meaning from this horrible experience and convince everyone (including himself) that he's "doing okay.”

During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.

Fran likes to think about dying. It brings sensation to her quiet life. When she makes the new guy at work laugh, it leads to more: a date, a slice of pie, a conversation, a spark. The only thing standing in their way is Fran herself.

A guy's life is turned around by an email, which includes the names of everyone he's had sex with and ever will have sex with. His situation gets worse when he encounters a femme fatale (Ryder) who targets men guilty of sex crime.

A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.

Arthur is a 30-year-old child who will inherit $750 million if he complies with his family's demands and marries the woman of their choosing.

Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.

Follows the journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off-the-map desert town. He finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self-exploration.

A world-weary college professor is given a life-changing diagnosis and decides to throw all pretense and conventions to the wind and live his life as boldly and freely as possible with a biting sense of humor, a reckless streak and a touch of madness.

Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.

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.

At one of his many visits to his doctor, hypochondriac George Kimball mistakes a dying man's diagnosis for his own and believes he only has about two more weeks to live. Wanting to take care of his wife Judy, he doesn't tell her and tries to find her a new husband. When he finally does tell her, she quickly finds out he's not dying at all (while he doesn't) and she believes it's just a lame excuse to hide an affair, so she decides to leave him.

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.

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!

Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.

A four-time widow discusses her four marriages, in which all of her husbands became incredibly rich and died prematurely because of their drive to be rich.

Two outsiders, both shaped by the circumstances that have brought them together, forge a deep and lasting love.

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.

Two minor characters from the play "Hamlet" stumble around unaware of their scripted lives and unable to deviate from them.

Before horror enthusiast Max can break things off with his girlfriend Evelyn she dies in a bus accident. In time, Max meets another woman only to have Evelyn resurface as a zombie ready to resume their relationship.

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.

Jack is a solitary man with a mysterious past. His strange habits will soon become stranger when his past catches up with him.

Bill Parrish has it all - success, wealth and power. Days before his 65th birthday, he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger, Joe Black, who soon reveals himself as Death. In exchange for extra time, Bill agrees to serve as Joe's earthly guide. But will he regret his choice when Joe unexpectedly falls in love with Bill's beautiful daughter Susan?

Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.

Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old secret. When one of Edward Wanderley's twin sons dies in a bizarre accident, the group begins to see a pattern of frightening events developing.

Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly begins dating his good-looking young publisher.

An aging woman and her nurse develop a friendship that inspires her to unearth unacknowledged longing and thus help her make peace with her past.

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

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

Gilberto, 50enne, si fa coinvolgere in una cosiddetta speed-date, una gara in cui i protagonisti devono trovare un partner in 3 minuti. Arrestato, deve confessare tutto in presenza della moglie che lo sbatte fuori di casa. Rifugiatosi da amici scopre che il suo migliore amico è amante della moglie e comincia a tentare di avviare nuove relazioni che falliscono tutte.

A comedy film that looks into the loosely connected lives of people with strange sexual fantasies.

Billy, once the coolest kid in high school, comes back to his hometown 15 years later to find he’s no longer cool and the girl he still has feelings for now dates the former class outcast. Billy becomes obsessed with proving the outcast is a murderer.

David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with Gillian during walks with her "ghost" on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present in the real world....

When Spence and Hogan graduate from college, life is bleak. They have to work for heinous divorce lawyers that torture them with gruesome jobs. Spence has a girlfriend from hell, and Hogan just wants to start his life. As luck would have it, these two young men are presented with an opportunity, and develop a club of young men devoted to older women, whom they call “Cougars.”

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.

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

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.

After 29-year-old Adaline recovers from a nearly lethal accident, she inexplicably stops growing older. As the years stretch on and on, Adaline keeps her secret to herself until she meets a man who changes her life.

After a whirlwind courtship, retired movie star Eve Wilde prepares to marry her fourth husband, the renowned English writer Harold Alcott. Sparks soon begin to fly when Eve's first ex and other guests arrive at her estate for a weekend get-together.

Solange is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul, makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane, proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.

After her much older husband forces a move to a suburban retirement community, Pippa Lee engages in a period of reflection and finds herself heading toward a quiet nervous breakdown.

A modern-day witch uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, with deadly consequences.

A reporter Lanie Kerrigan interviews a psychic homeless man for a fluff piece about a football game's score. Instead he tells her that her life has no meaning and is going to end in just a few days, which sparks her to action, trying to change the pattern of her life...

As an asteroid nears Earth, a man finds himself alone after his wife leaves in a panic. He decides to take a road trip to reunite with his high school sweetheart. Accompanying him is a neighbor who inadvertently puts a wrench in his plan.

Seymour works in a skid row florist shop and is in love with his beautiful co-worker, Audrey. He creates a new plant that not only talks but cannot survive without human flesh and blood.

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.

An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.

Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them confront a seemingly futile search for what they've lost -- love, excitement, passion -- this classic American independent film explores themes of aging and alienation.

A retired businesswoman – who tries to control everything around her – decides to write her own obituary. A young journalist takes up the task of finding out the truth, and the result is a life-altering friendship.

A WWII military pilot makes a valiant effort to be certified insane in order to be excused from flying missions. But there's a catch.

After his daughter persuades him to move into a new apartment, aged widower Fred strikes up a friendship with his eccentric 74-year-old neighbour Elsa, who convinces him it's never too late to keep enjoying life. Although he seemed resigned to a miserable bedridden existence, Fred embraces Elsa's youthful enthusiasm as she introduces him to the path of life and entertains him with outlandish stories about her past life. But when he discovers Elsa's terminally ill, Fred decides to accompany her on the trip of her dreams to the eternal city of Rome to help her fulfil a lifelong ambition.

Pete and Debbie are both about to turn 40, their kids hate each other, both of their businesses are failing, they're on the verge of losing their house, and their relationship is threatening to fall apart.

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!

Five old friends decide to move in together as an alternative to living in a retirement home. Joining them is an ethnology student whose thesis is on the aging population.

The romance between two teenage girls quickly manifests as terrifying, violent and inexplicable.

Three childhood friends - Elise, Sonia and Cecile - leave for a summer in the South of France to help clear Cecile’s holiday house before it is put up for sale. There, they soon become the prime targets of three horny young men, for whom these single forty-year-old women are much more attractive than girls their age.

Holly loves Rob and tries to help him through his grief – even if it means contending with his dead girlfriend Nina, who comes back, bloody and broken, every time they make love

A drunken playboy stands to lose a wealthy inheritance when he falls for a woman that his family doesn't like.
