I Used to Be FunnyMovies like I Used to Be Funny
- Key Features:
- PTSD, Stand-up comedy, Missing person, Moral dilemma, Trauma, Grief, Coming-of-age, Search and rescue, Personal growth, Responsibility, Mental health
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Drama lovers, Mental health awareness, Character-driven stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Uncertainty → Resolution
I Used to Be Funny

Sam is a young stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, who is weighing whether or not to join the search for Brooke, a missing girl she used to nanny.
I Used to Be Funny
A burgeoning stand-up comedian struggles with the stress of a stalled career, a stale relationship, and the wild spurts of severe sleepwalking he is desperate to ignore.

On a trip to her hometown, workaholic Ally reminisces with her first love, Sean, and starts to question everything about the person she's become. Things only get more confusing when she meets Sean's fiancé, Cassidy, who reminds her of the person she used to be.

Following the lackluster launch of her debut novel, 35-year-old writer Kate Conklin receives an invitation from her former professor and old crush to speak at her alma mater. With her book tour canceled and her ego deflated, Kate decides to take the trip, wondering if it might give her the morale boost she sorely needs. Instead, she falls into a comical regression—from misadventures with eccentric twenty-year-olds, to feelings of jealousy toward her former professor’s new favorite student. Striking the balance between bittersweet and hilarious, Kate takes a journey through her past to reevaluate her future.

Nina Geld's passion and talent have made her a rising star in the comedy scene, but she's an emotional mess offstage. When a new professional opportunity coincides with a romantic one, she is forced to confront her own deeply troubled past.

A former boy band star unexpectedly gets a second shot at success when he forms a bond with a gifted young drummer.

Merit, a U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD, is repeatedly tortured by visions of her deceased friend and company buddy Zoe. After her Afghanistan service in 2016, she attends group therapy until Dale, her grandfather and former Lieutenant Colonel, is recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Merit steps up to his aide, and discovers more about herself and her family, while also gaining the courage to put her metaphorical demons to rest.

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 head injury causes a woman to develop an extraordinary amount of confidence and believe she's drop dead gorgeous.

After a sexist joke goes viral, Cédric loses his job and embarks on a therapeutic journey to free himself from sexism and misogyny. He and his girlfriend hire a mysterious and liberated babysitter to help shake things up.

Sophia, a new high school student, tries to make friends with Barbara, who tells her that “she kills giants,” protecting this way her hometown and its inhabitants, who do not understand her strange behavior.

A clinically depressed teenager gets a new start after he checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward.

Agnes feels stuck. Unlike her best friend, Lydie, who’s moved to New York and is now expecting a baby, Agnes still lives in the New England house they once shared as graduate students, now working as a professor at her alma mater. A ‘bad thing’ happened to Agnes a few years ago and, since then, despite her best efforts, life hasn’t gotten back on track.

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

Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt takes a year off before college to find herself, all the while chronicling her adventures in an anonymous blog into which she pours her innermost secrets. Eventually, Katie's fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge.

A creative and driven teenager is desperate to escape his hometown and the haunting memories of his turbulent childhood.

When a car crash leaves Frannie immobilized, she is brushed off by everyone she can count on. With nowhere else to turn and desperate for help, she turns to an unlikely source, her ex Devon.

A once-celebrated kid detective, now 31, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.

Lucy and Jane have been best friends for most of their lives and think they know everything there is to know about each other. But when Jane announces she's moving to London, Lucy reveals a long-held secret. As Jane tries to help Lucy, their friendship is thrown into chaos.

Hawaiian-shirt enthusiast Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias finds the laughs in racist gift baskets, Prius-driving cops and all-female taco trucks.

When a depressed woman is burglarized, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves alongside her obnoxious neighbor. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals.

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

Patton Oswalt, despite a personal tragedy, produces his best standup yet. Focusing on the tribulations of the Trump era and life after the loss of a loved one, Oswalt continues his journey to contribute joy to the world.

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

Lila, grows up in the high-rises of the Marolles in Brussels. Along with her sister and her friends, she dreams of becoming a dancer and revolutionising the world of hip-hop. While her friends stay in Brussels, Lila leaves everything - comfort, family - behind to go to Paris, where she is certain her persistence will pay off. Except that life in Paris quickly takes an unexpected turn. The woman who dreamed of being a choreographer ends up as a lap dancer in a rap video, and that’s only the beginning of her disillusionment. After a chance meeting with a drama teacher, she bears her heart and soul on stage and begins doing stand-up. This time, her unusual dedication leads her to find her calling. However, she still has to fight one final battle: convincing her father that she has made the right choice.

On the set of a playwright's new project, a love triangle forms between his wife, her ex-lover, and the call girl-turned-actress cast in the production.

Ambitious overachiever Hanna just needs one more kid before her life is perfect. Instead, her baby daddy unexpectedly dumps her. Suddenly, she finds herself without a place to live, job or family. With every fiber of her being set for victory, Hanna refuses to give up and decides to win him back. But to get there means having to win something much more important, love and desire for herself and who she is.

A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.

A teenage girl gets diagnosed with a reproductive condition that upends her plans to have sex and propels her into exploring unusual methods to have a sex life, challenging her relationships with everyone in her life, but most importantly, herself.

Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?

When Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.

With her personal and professional life in shambles, Elise ends up having to take a job as a counselor at her old summer camp. There, she reunites with two estranged friends who attended camp and never left. When the future of the camp is put in jeopardy, the three friends must band together to save it, changing the course of their lives forever.

When Jonas was 14 he met the charismatic but mysterious Nathan. In addition to guiding him in grappling with his sexuality, Jonas soon confronts something dark and even dangerous about his new friend. Now an attractive, sexually assured adult, memories from this time still haunt Jonas.

Liza scores an invite to one last wild party before the world ends. But making it there won't be easy, as her car has been stolen, and the clock is ticking on her plan to tie up loose ends with friends and family. Accompanied by her younger self, Liza embarks on a hilarious journey across Los Angeles, running into an eclectic cast of characters.

Daphne is a young woman negotiating the tricky business of modern life. Caught in the daily rush of her restaurant job and a nightlife kaleidoscope of new faces, she is witty, funny, the life of the party. Too busy to realise that deep down she is not happy. When she saves the life of a shopkeeper stabbed in a failed robbery, the impenetrable armour she wears to protect herself begins to crack, and Daphne is forced to confront the inevitability of a much-needed change in her life.

After losing a family member to a violent crime, a shattered rideshare driver picks up a passenger that forces him to confront his grief.

This comedic retrospective mixes archival footage and scripted sketches as it revisits all the dread — and occasional delight — that 2021 had to offer.

A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.

After years of putting her career ahead of love, stand-up comic Andrea Singer has stumbled upon the perfect guy. On paper, he checks all the boxes, but is he everything he appears to be?

Aurore has separated, just lost her job, and learns that she is going to be a grandmother.

While being interrogated by a police psychiatrist, the near-catatonic Tabitha tries to explain why she and two of her childhood friends are being hunted by a serial killer. The truth that's dying to come out weaves together three tragic secrets from their past. Two of the girls' boyfriends become unwitting targets in their deadly game.

A charismatic, crazy hothead transforms a family's life when she becomes the nanny of five girls.

After discovering she can see everyone's imaginary friends, a girl embarks on a magical adventure to reconnect forgotten imaginary friends with their kids.

Touching on bulimia, death and cat sodomy, this French actress and comedian is keen to push the envelope in a one-woman show with understated flair.

A court-appointed legal guardian defrauds her older clients and traps them under her care. But her latest mark comes with some unexpected baggage.

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

Socially inept 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence Kweller gets a job at a video store, where he forms a complicated friendship with his older female manager.

The thing that waits under your bed, hides in the closet, stalks your dreams… is waiting for you. At least Emma Wright knew that at the age of 7 when she was wrongly accused of murdering her sister. Emma knew it was the Stickman. After years of isolation she finally has her demons under control and is released.

Francesco, a young man who wants to be a comedian, insults his girlfriend to make his public laugh; she will break up with and so he will think of a crazy plan to win her back.

An architect heads to the altar with her fiancé, unsure of her marriage and their future. She relives her disastrous wedding day, put together by her fiance’s overbearing mother, over and over until, with the help of his brother, she begins to face her biggest fears and discover what she really wants in herself and in her life.

What happened to the children who lived through the Pandemic? Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny survived but will never be the same Post Covid.

Breakups. Therapy. Bangs. Taylor's gone through some stuff since her quarter-life crisis, and she spins her mental health journey into insightful comedy.

Odette is a 8-yr-old girl who loves to dance and draw. Once she has become an adult, Odette realizes she was abused, and immerses herself body and soul in her career as a dancer while trying to deal with her past.

Lilah Krytsick is a mother and housewife who's always believed she could be a stand-up comedian. Steven Gold is an experienced stand-up seemingly on the cusp of success. When the two meet, they form an unlikely friendship, and Steven tries to help the untried Lilah develop her stage act. Despite the objections of her family and some very wobbly beginnings, Lilah improves, and soon she finds herself competing with Steven for a coveted television spot.

Isaac has seen better days. His acting career is tanking, his blind girlfriend of 10 years plans to leave him, and his own family singles him out as a constant disappointment. Even as he takes a chance on new romance, he struggles to define his place in a world that has seemingly turned against him.

After moving to a retirement home, restless talent manager Al reconnects with long-ago client Buddy and coaxes him back out on the comedy circuit.

When Maggie gets an emotional support dog to help quell some of her anxiety, she finds him to be even more effective than she imagined... because unbeknownst to her, he kills anyone who adds stress to her life.

Carolina has a perfect life: she lives in a luxurious house, works in a fashion magazine and is married to a successful publicist. One day everything goes to waste: she discovers that she is sterile, the same day that her husband leaves her for her best friend, who, in addition, is pregnant with him. After the impact of this news, Carolina has a crisis, drinks too much, trips and falls from the second floor of her house, a fact that is interpreted as a suicide attempt.Carolina is interned against her will, in the exclusive psychiatric center Eden. In that place she will meet a group of "madmen" who will help her heal and glimpse that her previous life was not so perfect. He also discovers that perhaps the craziest are those outside the psychiatric hospital.

A year in the life of Alice Klieg, a woman with Borderline personality disorder who wins the Mega Millions lottery, quits her meds and buys her own talk show.

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.

Kate Stone is career-focused with a brash attitude that keeps relationships at an arm's length. When her estranged brother calls asking her to baby-sit her tween niece Maddie, Kate reluctantly agrees to help. But baby-sitting overnight unexpectedly turns into a week, and Kate's life spins into chaos. As Maddie reveals stories of being bullied and of wanting to run away and be a Juggalo, the two form a unique bond.

Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.

When her family moves from New York City to New Jersey, an 11-year-old girl navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.

A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

Tommaso goes incredible lengths to win back the love of his former girlfriend Cecilia, but sometimes things change in the most unexpected way.

An impulsive musician struggling with schizophrenia falls for a mysterious woman who may be all in his head. When she suddenly vanishes, he takes off on a cross- country journey across Australia to find her, forcing his long-suffering brother to try to rescue him.

As a couple goes on a trip to find their way back to each other, a sideshow artist and his shady entourage emerge from the woods, terrorizing them, luring them deeper into a maelstrom of psychological terror and humiliating slapstick.

Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30 and has just moved back to her rural home-town, and into a shed in her mother’s backyard. She spends her time working a menial job at a local boating center and hides in the depths of her imagination, making movies with her thumbs. Irritated by her childish behavior, Anna's mother insists that she move out of her shed and on with her life. When a troubled young boy starts hanging around, the two form an unlikely bond. Through their strange yet mutually beneficial friendship, Anna slowly begins to confront her perpetual state of arrested development.

Wren's Halloween plans go awry when she's made to babysit her brother, who disappears into a sea of trick-or-treaters. Accompanied by her best friend and two nerdy classmates, Wren needs to find her brother before her mom finds out.

Two romantic burnouts, Jane and Will, are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend’s wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing.

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.

A man with a mysterious past flees the country to escape his own personal hell... only to arrive somewhere much worse. In an effort to survive this new horror, he turns to his personified conscience.

A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.

A former mental patient's repressed anger reaches the boiling point, leading him to embark on a mission of revenge against the thugs who once subjected him to severe physical and mental trauma.

A sudden loss disrupts Carol’s orderly life, propelling her into the dating world for the first time in 20 years. Finally living in the present tense, she finds herself swept up in not one, but two unexpected relationships that challenge her assumptions about what it means to grow old.

A lady has her prim and proper life turned upside down after discovering her husband's affair.

A drama centered on a go-go dancer with multiple personality disorder who struggles to remain her true self and begins working with a psychotherapist to uncover the mystery of the inner ghosts that haunt her.

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.

Collin must make it through his final three days of probation for a chance at a new beginning. He and his troublemaking childhood best friend, Miles, work as movers, and when Collin witnesses a police shooting, the two men’s friendship is tested as they grapple with identity and their changed realities in the rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood they grew up in.

A clairvoyant therapist confronts her own personal demons while trying to save a young girl who believes a malevolent entity is feeding on her.

Not long after moving into her own place, Maggie finds herself with two unsolicited roommates: her recently divorced mother, Lila, and her young brother. The timing is especially bad, considering Maggie has fallen hard for an attractive woman, Kim, only hours before they move in. What could be a nonissue becomes increasingly complicated -- since Maggie's family is unaware of her sexual orientation, and Maggie is not open to sharing that information.

A story of Naoufel, a young man who is in love with Gabrielle. In another part of town, a severed hand escapes from a dissection lab, determined to find its body again.

Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.

Aidan Bloom, a struggling actor, father and husband, is 35 years old and still trying to find a purpose for his life. He and his wife are barely getting by financially and Aidan passes his time by fantasizing about being the great futuristic Space-Knight he'd always dreamed he'd be as a little kid. When his ailing father can no longer afford to pay for private school for his two kids and the only available public school is on its last legs, Aidan reluctantly agrees to attempt to home-school them. Through teaching them about life his way, Aidan gradually discovers some of the parts of himself he couldn't find.

In between caring for her mother, a young woman works part time at a prison. The rookie guard gets a chance to prove her mettle when she's tasked with accompanying a hell-raising inmate on an emergency furlough to visit her dying mother. But things soon spiral out of control, sending the pair on a hilarious, surprising, and ultimately touching road trip.

After a stint in a psychiatric hospital, a young woman returns to the house where her father killed the entire cast of The Artist during his exorcism.

Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.

Stand-up comic Katherine Ryan reminisces about unusual relationships, aging, Taylor Swift, life in the hometown she hates and the time she enraged an entire nation.

A 37-year-old woman wakes up from a 22-year coma, and returns to the high school where she was once a popular cheerleader to finish her senior year and become prom queen.

A man in his mid 30's reevaluates his life and priorities after he met someone from his past.

A small town girl is caught between dead-end jobs. A high-profile, successful man becomes wheelchair bound following an accident. The man decides his life is not worth living until the girl is hired for six months to be his new caretaker. Worlds apart and trapped together by circumstance, the two get off to a rocky start. But the girl becomes determined to prove to the man that life is worth living and as they embark on a series of adventures together, each finds their world changing in ways neither of them could begin to imagine.

An aging comic icon, Jackie Burke, has seen better days. Despite his efforts to reinvent himself and his comic genius, the audience only wants to know him as the former television character he once played. Already a strain on his younger brother and his wife, Jackie is forced to serve out a sentence doing community service for accosting an audience member. While there, he meets Harmony, the daughter of a sleazy Florida real estate mogul, and the two find inspiration in one another, resulting in surprising consequences.

Marlo, a mother of three, including a newborn, is gifted a night nanny by her brother. Hesitant at first, she quickly forms a bond with the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challenging nanny named Tully.

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate Maddy introduces him to a mysterious TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

At the start of the pandemic, an indulgent and self-deluded livestreaming improv musician abandons L.A. for London, steals her ex-bandmate's car, and makes the fateful decision to give a ride to an elderly woman who is not what she seems.

A young woman returns home and must confront her ex-boyfriend when an unexpected tragedy occurs.

After a painful breakup, Ben develops insomnia. To kill time, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket, where his artistic imagination runs wild.

After his mother’s death, Zucchini is befriended by a kind police officer, Raymond, who accompanies him to his new foster home filled with other orphans his age. There, with the help of his newfound friends, Zucchini eventually learns to trust and love as he searches for a new family of his own.

During a power outage, two strangers tell scary stories. The more Fred and Fanny commit to their tales, the more the stories come to life in the dark of a Catskills cabin. The horrors of reality manifest when Fred confronts his ultimate fear: Fanny is the better storyteller.
