The Fundamentals of CaringMovies like The Fundamentals of Caring
- Key Features:
- Caregiver, Disability, Road trip, Unlikely friendship, Coming-of-age, Personal growth, Tragedy, Hope, Emotional healing, Found family
- Tone:
- humorous, earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Fans of indie dramas, Viewers who enjoy character-driven stories, Those seeking uplifting films, Audiences interested in themes of friendship and healing
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Connection → Hope
The Fundamentals of Caring

Having suffered a tragedy, Ben becomes a caregiver to earn money. His first client, Trevor, is a hilarious 18-year-old with muscular dystrophy. One paralyzed emotionally, one paralyzed physically, Ben and Trevor hit the road on a trip into the western states. The folks they collect along the way will help them test their skills for surviving outside their calculated existence. Together, they come to understand the importance of hope and the necessity of true friendship.
The Fundamentals of Caring
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.

A young man with Tourette's Syndrome embarks on a road trip with his recently-deceased mother's ashes.

Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who's trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.

A drama centered on a classical pianist who has been diagnosed with ALS and the brash college student who becomes her caregiver.

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 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.

Three friends in wheelchairs welcome a new patient at a children's hospital. Growing up together. All emotions pass the revue. Friendship and hope survive all.

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.

After learning that his terminally ill wife has six months to live, a man welcomes the support of his best friend who moves into their home to help out.

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.

A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.

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 Carlos is tasked to care for Paola, both characters must work out their differences to make their time together more pleasant. As time goes on, they are faced with lessons about trust, mutual respect, and perhaps love.

Unable to face his new reality in a wheelchair, Ángel develops a deadly obsession with the woman who left him and unleashes a sinister revenge plot.

After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.

Ana meets Rafa in a chance encounter and they embark on a road trip to try and save him from bankruptcy, or worse.

A stunning cancer diagnosis spurs Abbie to seek a future girlfriend for fiancé and childhood sweetheart Sam, who's clueless when it comes to dating.

Journalist Michael Ausiello embarks on a rollercoaster ride of emotions when Kit Cowan, his partner of 14 years, is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

A widow with three children hires a handyman to fix her house during a major storm. When not doing home repairs, he shares his philosophy of believing in the power of the universe to deliver what we want.

Diagnosed with a terminal illness, a single mother encounters a suave bachelor as she grapples with the future of her headstrong six-year-old.

A pregnant New York social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.

Felipe a wealthy businessman who has been quadriplegic, due to an accident, is looking for a therapeutic assistant. There are several highly qualified, but he decides to take the assistant of his gardener, Tito who has decided to resign.

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

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.

Sam and Tusker, partners of 20 years, are traveling across England in their old RV visiting friends, family and places from their past. Since Tusker was diagnosed with early-onset dementia two years ago, their time together is the most important thing they have. As the trip progresses, however, their ideas for the future clash, secrets come out, and their love for each other is tested as never before. Ultimately, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s illness.

Alex and Noémie would like to have a child. But their plans are turned upside down when Alex's mother, Suzanne, has contracted "semantic dementia", a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects her behavior.

After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.

Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.

David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Dedicated to his profession, he develops strong relationships with the people he cares for. But outside of work, it's a different story altogether.

An unlikely friendship between two neighbors becomes an unexpectedly emotional journey when the younger man is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.

Hugo Pool is a quirky tale of a Los Angeles pool cleaner who falls in love with a young man dying of Lou Gerhig's Disease.

Before eleven years old Tilda's parents can put her beloved grandfather in an old people's home due to his progressing Alzheimer disease, she takes him on one last adventure that subliminally threatens to tear her family apart.

A romantic comedy that brings together three disparate characters who are learning to face a challenging and often confusing world as they struggle together against a common demon—sex addiction.

Belgium, of all places. What's Belgium got besides chocolates and fries? No matter, this year it was Hannes' and Kiki's turn to choose the destination of their annual bike tour with their closest friends. They all looks forward to the adventure, after all they know that what counts the most is the time they spend together. It's only after the tour has begun that Hannes tells his friends that he's suffering from an incurable disease. The trip is to be his last. At first, the group is shocked and helpless, but after they hit the road again, they embark on a wild and one-of-a-kind adventure. Through Hannes, they realize how precious life is. Equipped with a list of things that still remain to do, and aware that nothing will be the same after this trip, they celebrate life as they never did before.

At an elder-care facility, a geriatric con artist tries to prevent his new friend with early Alzheimer's symptoms from being transferred to the 'lost causes' floor.

A mentally disabled man gets help from a sociopath when he tries to reunite with his dying father, who years earlier disowned him.

An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.

Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.

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.

Like some other kids, 12-year-old Trevor McKinney believed in the goodness of human nature. Like many other kids, he was determined to change the world for the better. Unlike most other kids, he succeeded.

Muriel is beautiful, free-spirited and bed-ridden since a horrific accident. Leo is a drunk middle-aged ex-boxer. Desperate for work and unqualified, he interviews for Muriel, who hires him to cook and care for her against her better judgment. Initially out of his depth, Leo slowly wins Muriel's trust. As Muriel teaches him to read, he forces her to confront the joys beyond her window.

Traveling in search of a cure for a rare skin disease, a man finds freedom and love along the way.

Seventeen-year-old Stella spends most of her time in the hospital as a cystic fibrosis patient. Her life is full of routines, boundaries and self-control — all of which get put to the test when she meets Will, an impossibly charming teen who has the same illness. There's an instant flirtation, though restrictions dictate that they must maintain a safe distance between them. As their connection intensifies, so does the temptation to throw the rules out the window and embrace that attraction.

Erik, a loner, finds a friend in Dexter, an eleven-year-old boy with AIDS. They vow to find a cure for AIDS together and save Dexter's life in an eventful summer.

Calvin Campbell is a former professional baseball player sent to an early retirement due to his panic attacks at the plate. Even though he had all the talent for the big leagues, he struggles with the curveballs life has thrown him. Today, he mindlessly sleepwalks through his days and the challenge of raising his teenager daughter. His life is in a slow downward spiral when it is suddenly awakened and invigorated by the most unlikely person – Produce, a young-man with Down syndrome who works at the local grocery store.

Eight months after the death of his wife, Frank Goode looks forward to a reunion with his four adult children. When all of them cancel their visits at the last minute, Frank, against the advice of his doctor, sets out on a road trip to reconnect with his offspring. As he visits each one in turn, Frank finds that his children's lives are not quite as picture-perfect as they've made them out to be.

A cheerful parking attendant considers it his job to do more than validate parking. He wants to validate the customers themselves, delivering compliments about their appearances and the inner qualities behind them. Everyone who comes up to him with a ticket walks away validated as a worthwhile human being. Soon, the parking attendant becomes so popular that people line up for validation...

Sarah seems to have found her calling working in a Liverpool care home where she has a special talent for connecting with the residents. Then, in March 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic hits.

While caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, a teenager strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.

Stand-up comedian Max Bernal lives with his father Stan while struggling to co-parent his autistic son Ezra with his ex-wife. When forced to confront difficult decisions about their son's future, Max and Ezra embark on a cross-country road trip that has a transcendent impact on both their lives.

The story revolves around three soldiers — Colee, T.K. and Cheaver — who return from the Iraq War after suffering injuries and learn that life has moved on without them. They end up on an unexpected road trip across the U.S.

A terminally ill man and his teenage daughter embark on a road trip from California to New Orleans for his 20th college reunion. While there, he secretly hopes she can reunite with the mother who left them long ago.

Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewer's door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

When 30-ish rich kid Lenny has to take care of 15-year-old David, who’s suffering from heart disease, it’s the beginning of a wild adventure. Lenny fearlessly breaks all the rules to fulfill his young friend’s every wish.

James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.

In a suburban fantasy world, two teenage elf brothers embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there.

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

A runaway couple go on an unforgettable journey from Boston to Key West, recapturing their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.

The true story of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams, who in the 1970s found that humor is the best medicine, and was willing to do just anything to make his patients laugh—even if it meant risking his own career.

Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.

A teenage con artist tricks a desperate mother into hiring her as a live-in companion for her autistic daughter.

Abby is a sought after massage therapist and a free spirit, while her brother Paul thrives on routine, running a failing dental practice with his assistant and daughter Jenny. Suddenly, Abby develops an aversion to bodily contact, which not only makes her unable to do her job, but also severely affects her relationship with her boyfriend. As Abby navigates her way through an identity crisis, her brother's dental practice receives new life when clients seek out his “healing touch.”

After a violent car crash, Marilyn must take care of her man, who suffers from severe head trauma.

For twenty years, Bruno and Malik have lived in a different world—the world of autistic children and teens. In charge of two separate nonprofit organizations (The Hatch & The Shelter), they train young people from underprivileged areas to be caregivers for extreme cases that have been refused by all other institutions. It’s an exceptional partnership, outside of traditional settings, for some quite extraordinary characters.

Don Anselmo, a retired old man, decides to buy a motorized disabled stroller since all his pensioner friends own one. His family strongly refuses him to purchase the vehicle, so don Anselmo decides to take extreme measures to achieve his goal…

Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.

A wheelchair-bound singer and her best friend embark on a roadtrip to Memphis.

Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she's left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside, and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. Eventually, some eccentric but kindly strangers 'adopt' Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.

Three young men with disabilities embark on a road trip to a brothel in Montreal catering to people with special needs to lose their virginity and embrace their independence.

An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.

Just as Mike is on the heels of closing the biggest deal of his career, he's pulled away from his bachelor life in the big city to a farm in rural Ohio in order to help his recently orphaned nephews find a new home.

A washed-up '80s pop star gets a chance at a comeback when reigning pop diva Cora Corman invites him to write & record a duet with her, but there's a problem--Alex hasn't written a song in years; he's never written lyrics and he has to come up with a hit in a matter of days.

When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.

An army ranger and his dog embark on a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway to attend a friend's funeral.

Julien, 17, is wheelchair-bound due to cerebral palsy. Despite their love for him, his family is gradually falling apart under the strain of dealing with his disability. In a bid to bond with his father, Julien challenges him to participate with him in the Ironman race in Nice (French Riviera), a triathlon in which his father has previously competed.

At a crossroads after her divorce, a schoolteacher ventures toward a fresh start in life — and love — when she signs up for a grueling group hiking trip.

A traveling art saleswoman tries to shake off a flaky motel manager who falls for her and won't leave her alone.

The overambitious pianist Andi and the more laid back Benno have one thing in common: They will both die soon. So the two of them decide to have the most awesome day before its too late.

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

Se-ha who is a physically handicapped and Dong-gu who is a mentally handicapped are not their own brothers. But while living 20 years together, the two became indispensable to each other. One day, the mother of Dong-gu suddenly visits him and acts as his guardian.

An aging hairdresser escapes his nursing home to embark on an odyssey across his small town to style a dead woman's hair for her funeral, rediscovering his sparkle along the way.

This is the crazy bet of a mother ready to do anything to help her 12-year-old son, Louis, wake up from his coma. After Louis' accident, Thelma decides to do for him the "10 things to do before the end of the world" that he had written in his diary. By listening to these adventures, Louis will see how beautiful life is and that he must come back! By fulfilling a teenager's dreams at the age of forty, Thelma will experience an incredible journey that will take her farther than she ever imagined.

Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he's kicked out of yet another nursing home.

Retirees Karin, Gerhard and Philippa are not in the mood for Nordic walking and seniors' courses at the university. When Philippa, who is living life to the full as Leonie's godmother, helps the two to unexpected grandparenthood, they suddenly have two "lively" god-grandchildren to look after, a huge bouncy castle standing in the garden and Lego bricks stuck to their feet.

A Mysterious Alien Creature (MAC) escaping from nefarious NASA agents, is befriended by a young boy in a wheelchair. Together, they try to find MAC's family from whom he has been separated.

Loner Diane Ford is a truck driver with an 11-year-old son, Peter, whom she never sees, and that's fine with her. But, when Peter's father, Len, falls ill, he asks Diane to take care of their son for a while. Eventually, Diane reluctantly agrees, but she quickly realizes that caring for a child interferes with her independent lifestyle - and Peter isn't all that thrilled with the arrangement, either.

Hector is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. As he tells his girlfriend, Clara, he feels like a fraud: he hasn’t really tasted life, and yet he’s offering advice to patients who are just not getting any happier. So Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. And so begins a larger than life adventure with riotously funny results.

Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

Jessica knows exactly what her life is supposed to look like and where it takes her. But then she meets Danny. He has a complicated past and could confuse all their plans. Jessica has to decide.

The Care Bears team up with a troubled brother and sister who just moved to a new town to help a neglected young magician's apprentice whose evil spell book causes sinister things to happen.

A mother travels to Patagonia with her autistic son with the hope that a ranger and a pod of wild orcas can help him find an emotional connection.

Bailey and Darla embark upon a misguided and mutually deceitful form of therapy, one in which they must drive across the country, re-enacting Darla's colorful history as a sex addict. As their true motivations for the road trip come to light, the unlikely pair force one another to confront their issues, discovering that there might actually be more to love than just sex.

A love story between two savants with Asperger's syndrome, a kind of autism, whose conditions sabotage their budding relationship.

A massage therapist looking to overcome her addictions and reconnect with her son, whose father is an anthropologist in South America studying the Yanomani people, moves in with a wealthy ex-client in New Jersey.

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.


