MadoMovies like Mado
- Key Features:
- Financial ruin, Suicide, Moral dilemma, Business ethics, Desperation, Unexpected alliance, Redemption, Betrayal, Corporate world, Existential crisis, Character study, Nudity-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Character-driven stories, Independent cinema, Viewers interested in moral complexities
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Determination
Mado

A middle-aged businessman faces bankruptcy after his partner's suicide and a rival's unscrupulous offer to buy his company. Determined to avoid the trap, he finds an unexpected solution through a prostitute.
Mado
Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.

Enrico is a corporate man whose job is to manipulate inexperienced scions into selling their flailing companies. His latest assignment proves more difficult than anticipated—since his target are two young siblings whose parents just died in a car accident.

Franco Lucci is an entrepreneur on the verge of bankruptcy. The salvation of his company hangs on a large public contract that he could obtain thanks to the intervention of a minister who has become a friend and whom he has invited to dinner. Together with Michele, his partner and brother-in-law, Franco has organized the perfect evening: in addition to paying him a large bribe, the two arrange for him to find a girl willing to sleep with him in exchange for a recommendation. All under the eyes of Rita, Franco's wife, who tries to indulge her husband in his last desperate attempt to obtain the million-dollar contract. Because of the girl, the evening takes an unexpected turn.

Three friends navigate mid-life crises: a blocked writer, a disillusioned doctor, and a charming man facing bankruptcy and divorce. As their struggles strain friendships, a younger man captures the attention of one friend's wife, complicating their lives further.

A middle-aged businessman meets a band of rowdy youths and is smitten by one, named Francesca.

A businessman's professional struggles begin to conflict with his personal life over the course of two days.

35-year-old Alice has a husband and a son. Her life seems a beautiful dream, but it soon turns out to be a nightmare. Her husband dies in a car accident and her lawyer tells her that she is on her uppers. The only way she has to earn money in a short time is by resorting to the oldest job in history.

Emilie is a bright young workaholic manager in Human Resources, working for a huge French agro-food company. But, one day, one of the employees commits suicide at the company in front of her. While an investigation is underway, stuck between her traumatized colleagues and under pressure of a powerful hierarchy, she will have to get by on her own.

In a social context deteriorated by a countrywide economic crisis, the life of several people will be turned upside down after they meet Cécile, a character who symbolizes desire.

A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.

A detective decides to go undercover and set up a group of robbers, but he may be getting too caught up in the task at hand.

Marino Pacileo has a soft spot for gambling. When he discovers that Lila's father, the young Chinese girl that he is in love with cannot pay a debt, the gambler steals money from the jail he is in to help the love of his life.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

John Gage offers a down-on-his-luck yuppie husband $1 million for the opportunity to spend the night with the man's wife.

Michel Berthier, a senior executive at a mattress manufacturing company, has just been fired. As he does not dare to tell the truth to Juliette, his partner, he goes into debt to maintain the family’s standard of living, showering them with gifts. But soon he can no longer lie, and he decides to leave the house. After losing his money, his car, and his shoes, he meets Toubib, Mimosa, and Crayon, three “homeless” people who wash themselves in the restrooms at the Gare de l’Est. They take him under their wing and lead him to break into his former company in order to get sleeping bags and beds.

Marguerite loses her wallet, and it's found by Georges, a seemingly happy head of family. As he looks through the wallet and examines the photos of Marguerite, he finds he's fascinated with her and her life, and soon his curiosity about her becomes an obsession.

The drama is centered on four friends and business partners who in one evening are forced to find a way to save their company and themselves. The impossible decision they face is agreeing on who will be the one to sacrifice their freedom to save the others from personal and financial demise. It is a race against time that will put their friendship and sanity to the test. Who will take the fall?

An executive manager, his wife and his family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Philippe Lemesle and his wife are separating, their love irretrievably damaged by pressures of work. A successful executive in industrial conglomerate, Philippe no longer knows how to respond to the contradictory demands of his bosses. Yesterday they wanted a manager, today an enforcer. Now he must decide what his life really means.

A criminal, a bank clerk and a police officer find their destinies entwined when a loan shark gets assaulted after having withdrawn $10 million from the bank in the midst of the world financial crisis.

Ruthless businessman Luciano reconnects with his estranged family from a previous marriage, only to use their youngest son, awkward and starry-eyed Baldo, as the fall guy for his failing endeavor.

Umberto Maria Durloni is a successful lawyer and a socialite who likes parties and a lavish life. He's got it all, except any ethical qualms.Only a step away from the top, his perfect world crumbles, showing him the brutal do downside to his life.

A car magnate watches his personal and professional life hit the skids because of his business and romantic indiscretions.

A thriller that revolves around the key people at an investment bank over a 24-hour period during the early stages of the financial crisis.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

Ernesto lives in depression and decides to hire a hit-man to end his own life. However, his plan takes an unexpected turn when he meets Rita, whose love gives him a new reason to live.

In the shadowy outskirts of Paris, a desperate door-to-door salesman crosses paths with a mysterious young woman trapped in a grim world. As his obsession deepens, his grip on reality begins to slip—and the line between escape and destruction starts to blur.

In danger of losing his business, Anthony Roca, an ordinary man, develops a scam that will become the heist of the century. Overtaken by the crime, he will have to deal with betrayal, murder and settling.

Jean-Pierre, a wealthy businessman, is lonely. He still desires his wife but she only seems interested in shopping and the beauty salon. Tired of lunching alone every day, one day he decides to invite his chauffeur to join him, and a relationship quickly develops as the two find they have much in common. Are they just cash machines for their wives? Don't they deserve some love in return? Jean-Pierre confiscates his wife's credit card, but things don't turn out exactly the way he'd hoped...

A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.

A wealthy millionaire decided to commit suicide but meets a homeless with whom he experiences a lot of funny adventures until finally makes order in his life.

Drowning in debt as he's about to get married, a bright but meek salesman receives a mysterious phone call informing him that he's on a hidden-camera game show where he must execute 13 tasks to receive a multi-million dollar cash prize.

Paul Martin is the subservient brown-nosing youngster who needs quick advancement up the hierarchy to pay for the modern lifestyle he is buying on credit. Seeing that marrying his immediate superior's daughter will not get him the results he wants, he begins plotting the demise of the head of the company. The company itself specializes in holiday travel and unscrupulously brutalizes its customers for maximum profit, spending more thought on publicity gimmicks than customer service...

To help her financially struggling mother, a teenage girl turns to escorting and meets a wealthy man who makes a proposal she can't refuse.

A teenager stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman, and the night takes a surreal turn.

Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman doggedly investigates CEO Michel Humeau, who is accused of participating in massive corporate malfeasance. As her investigation leads her into the upper echelons of government, Jeanne becomes intoxicated by the power she is amassing.

With the ambition to start a boutique overseas but without the means to do so, Nathalie finds herself in a desperate situation, where she would do anything to acquire what she needs. Along with her boyfriend, Eric, and his friend Bruno, she concocts a plan where she seduces clueless men and accompanies them to their places, then allows Eric and Bruno to break in. But the three soon encounter trouble after one of their schemes ends in murder.

In an attempt to help his friend Marcos with his impotence, Jaime sets up him up with another friend Josita. But the sex date fails, and so he comes in to help. What first appears to be just another sexual experience for all three evolves to a full romantic relationship.

Antoine Méliot is around 40 years old and has everything he needs to be happy: a beautiful wife, two adorable children, friends he can count on, a pretty house in the Yvelines and money. But one day he decides to ruin everything in one weekend.

After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.

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

A dockworker seeking revenge on the killer of his sister finds himself the object of desire for two women.

A troubled hedge fund magnate, desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire, makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help.

Nina is a young, carefree actress who arrives in Paris searching for her big break. There, she finds drama both on- and offstage as she becomes involved with three men: a mild-mannered real-estate agent who offers her stability, a bad-boy actor who lives dangerously on the edge, and an intense theater director who casts her in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” As opening night approaches, the emotional extremes of Nina’s love life fuel her art.

Paris, France, 2001. Octave Parango, a young advertiser working at the Ross & Witchcraft advertising agency, lives a suicidal existence, ruled by cynicism, irresponsibility and debauchery. The obstacles he will encounter in developing a campaign for a new yogurt brand will force him to face the meaning of his work and the way he manages his relationship with those who orbit around his egotistic lifestyle.

When his young wife commits suicide with no explanation, an introspective pawnbroker looks back on their life together.

A couple is desperately looking to conceive a child and moves to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.

Nineteen-year-old Laura is stressed by her first year at college when money worries distract her from her studies and so, desperate for cash, she answers an online advertisement for intimate companionship that leads her down a dangerous path.

When a brothel closes because of new laws, four of the prostitutes decide to go into business running a restaurant. They discover they cannot escape their past.

Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.

Lorenzo works for a rent-a-friend company. One day, his services are required for suicidial businessman Alberto.

Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.

Seemingly mild-mannered businessman Edmond Burke visits a fortuneteller and hears a remark that spurs him to leave his wife abruptly and seek what is missing from his life. Encounters with strangers and unsavory people weaken the barriers encompassing his long-suppressed rage, until Edmond explodes in violence.

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.

Paul, a young idealist trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, takes a job interviewing people for a marketing research firm. He moves in with aspiring pop singer Madeleine. Paul, however, is disillusioned by the growing commercialism in society, while Madeleine just wants to be successful. The story is told in a series of 15 unrelated vignettes.

A director struggles with a difficult sex scene between a young actor and actress who can't stand one another. Aided by her loyal assistant, she is hell-bent on getting the scene right without compromise.

Guillaume Canet is told by a young co-star that he's no longer Rock'n' Roll and can't sell films anymore. He then tries to prove her wrong and gets help from his girlfriend, Marion Cotillard.

A meek middle-aged man takes on every conceivable temporary job in order to feel useful and keep his dignity—until something shakes his inexhaustible optimism.

A rich industrialist is brutally kidnapped. While he physically and mentally degenerates in imprisonment, the kidnappers, police and the board of the company of which he is director negotiate about the ransom of 50 million euro.

After murdering his daughter's drug-dealing boyfriend, a wealthy ad executive stumbles into a bar and strikes up an uneasy alliance with Joe Curran, a drunken bigot with a bloodlust who works at a local factory.

Armed only with a bow and an ensemble of animal skins, Martin sets off into the forest in a misguided attempt to overcome his midlife crisis. A chance meeting with a fugitive named Musa leads to a twisted trip through the fjords with police, drug runners, and Martin's family not far behind. As an unlikely friendship develops and wildly original set-pieces unfold, Martin's quest for manhood leads to deep and hilariously uncomfortable realizations about the presumed masculine ideal.

It's a story of 29-year-old top-manager Max who is really sure he is absolutely successful. All his life is around earning and spending money. But one day he meet a girl who is from another, real, world. And his own world starts to crash down.

A car dealer, well-to-do and with a beautiful wife, finds himself attracted to his rather plain new temporary secretary. Despite her own commitments she feels the same and the two soon embark on an affair. Though it would seem it has happened before his wife finds this particular entanglement of her husband's very difficult to accept.

To avoid jail, a tax-dodging businessman is sentenced to a year of community service in a homeless shelter.

Roman and Hanka have a loving marriage, but his impotence has led to her having an affair. The unbearable situation drives Roman to extreme measures both physically and mentally, testing their love and his own will to live.

Léo, a 22-year-old homeless sex worker searches for genuine love on the streets of Strasbourg.

Expert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the Indian-hating Major Cabot. Their elaborate plan is full of disguises, double-crosses, and chases, but Joe always seems to know what he's doing.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

This film originated as a play in Paris. The story focuses on the one-day adventures of Bertrand Barnier played with a genius of French cinema, Louis de Funes. In the same morning he learns that his daughter is pregnant, an employee stole a large amount of money from his company, his maid is about to resign in order to marry a wealthy neighbor and his body builder is interested in marrying his daughter. The seemingly complicated story-line is full of comedy or errors and some of the most hilarious mime scenes of the French cinema.

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.

Charles drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis, rejecting them all. Once he realises the depth of his disgust with the moral and physical decline of the society he lives in, he decides that suicide is the only option...

Vincent, a police officer, and his partner Manuel steal a large amount of cocaine from José Marciano, a ruthless crime lord who is quick to seek revenge, endangering Vincent's life, career and family.

A drunken, self-destructive woman called Betty wanders into a Parisian bar where she meets middle-aged alcoholic Laure. Laure decides to take care of Betty. Recovering in a hotel room, Betty begins to recount to Laure the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy and unfaithful marriage.

Two lovers are stuck in stale relationships due to lean finances. But when one is duped into thinking he's suddenly rich, he takes very drastic action.

Mimmo is a construction worker who only wants to live in peace, but has to work as a debt collector for his uncle. Everything changes when he meets Tanya, a beautiful, street-smart girl who shares his dream.

Sandra is a young woman who has only one weekend to convince her colleagues they must give up their bonuses in order for her to keep her job — not an easy task in this economy.

After breaking into a house he believes is empty, thief Olivier is caught by the owner, Ariane, who turns out to be a dominatrix. Improbably falling for her, Olivier returns periodically, and an impulsive romance blossoms despite Ariane's profession. Soon Olivier becomes more familiar with her work, even joining in on occasion. However, when he discovers that Ariane has a son, he attempts to "fix" her, hoping to give her a better life.

Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.

Irene, nicknamed 'Miele', has devote herself to people looking for help, and tries to alleviate their suffering even when they make extreme decisions. One day she has to cope with Grimaldi and his invisible malaise.

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.

A race against time between a man whose son requires urgent treatment and a stockbroker who suddenly lost his investors' money and ruined his own family.

Hector Valentin returns to France from Canada when he inherits a small sawmill. He has difficulties restarting the run-down operation which has inefficient workers and is hampered by the dirty tactics of its bigger...

In the second of Rohmer's moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer's attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.

Ruthless dominatrixes pursue a mild-mannered salesman who wants to get out of his unbreakable contract with a secret bondage club.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations.

In the middle of a performance of the play "Le Cocu", a bad boulevard comedy at a Parisian theatre, Yannick gets up and interrupts the show to take the evening back in hand.

Marseille. Heaps of flowers and funeral wreaths... "A man who no longer defends his colors is no longer a man."

Daniel and Stéphane, two salesmen working in the same store but who cannot stand each other, decide despite everything to team up to participate in television games so they can pay their debts.

A married man who killed the wife of his best friend during a tryst feels compelled to turn himself in.

Giulio suddenly finds himself having to change his life when his wife, after discovering his betrayal, asks for a separation and, suddenly, the reality around him is no longer the same. Forty years old and father of two children, Giulio is forced by circumstances to say goodbye to family and economic well-being and to study new solutions in order to stay afloat and not drown in a new poverty made of double rents and double bills to pay, solitary lunches in fourth-rate restaurants, children's wishes not to be ignored and creditors to hide from.








