Best movies like Desperate Characters
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Desperate Characters Starring Shirley MacLaine, Kenneth Mars, Sada Thompson, Jack Somack, and more. If you liked Desperate Characters then you may also like: The Four Seasons, Nine Lives, An Unmarried Woman, Why Did I Get Married?, One Night Stand and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a middle-aged, middle class, childless Brooklyn Heights couple trapped in a loveless marriage. He is an attorney, she a translator of books. Their existence is affected not only by their disintegrating relationship but by the threats of urban crime and vandalism that surround them everywhere they turn, leaving them feeling paranoid, scared, and desperately helpless.
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Nine Lives
Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.
An Unmarried Woman
A wealthy woman from Manhattan's Upper East Side struggles to deal with her new identity and her sexuality after her husband of 16 years leaves her for a younger woman.
Why Did I Get Married?
The film is about the difficulty of maintaining a solid relationship in modern times. Eight married college friends plus one other non-friend (all of whom have achieved middle to upper class economic status) go to Colorado for their annual week-long reunion, but the mood shifts when one couple's infidelity comes to light. Secrets are revealed and each couple begins to question their own marriage
One Night Stand
In Los Angeles, Max Carlyle makes a good living directing commercials and has a happy home life with his wife, Mimi, and two children. When Carlyle travels to New York City to visit his friend Charlie, who has been diagnosed with AIDS, he has repeat run-ins with a beautiful woman, Karen, and eventually sleeps with her. Though he goes home the next day and doesn't return until a year later, Carlyle's infidelity still lingers.
The Other Man
The story of a husband who suspects his wife of adultery, and sets out to track down the other man in her life.
Other Voices
Phil and Anna are a young, married couple, who begin to suspect one other of an affair. When a shady private investigator gets involved in their relationship, things begin to spin out of control, in this turn-of-the-millennium thriller.
Judy Berlin
Judy Berlin is an aspiring actress whose idealism is at odds with her small suburban community, where a solar eclipse induces town inhabitants (a lonely housewife, a frustrated schoolteacher, and a struggling filmmaker) to search for solace and understanding in themselves and one another.
Just Between Friends
Holly and Sandy strike up an instant friendship; they don't know however that they have more in common than they'd like. When tragedy strikes, their relationship is tested.
The Kreutzer Sonata
A man becomes obsessively jealous of his pianist wife and her violinist companion.
Century Hotel
David Weaver makes his feature debut with this omnibus film in which each tale is told during different points during the 20th century, but in the same hotel room -- room 720. The film opens during the swinging '20s when a beautiful young woman, married against her will to a brutish thug of a man, endures a tension-fraught honeymoon. During the Depression segment, a mail-order bride from China meets her husband for the first time. Following the end of WWII, a soldier returns home to meet his girlfriend and his best friend. During the paranoia of the 1950s, a professor searches for his wife. During the 1980s, a lawyer has too much sex and debt, and during the dawn of the millennium, a woman comes to a newly refurbished room 720 to meet her Internet lover. Such acclaimed Canadian actors as Tom McCamus, Sandrine Holt, and Colm Feore star in this film, which was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival.
Men Don't Leave
After her husband John dies unexpectedly, Beth Macauley is unprepared for life without him. She is unemployed with no job skills and $60,000 in debt from on-going renovations to their house located in suburban Bingham. She doesn't know what to do but sell what material possessions she has, such as the family pick-up truck and the house, and move into an apartment in the city, namely Baltimore. Beth just wants to survive by finding a job she doesn't dislike, and keep her family together while trying to maintain her sanity and sense of self-worth
Moonlight and Valentino
A young widow still grieving over the death of her husband finds herself being comforted by a local housepainter.
Darling Companion
The story of a woman who loves her dog more than her husband. And then her husband loses the dog.
A Doll's House
Nora Helmer lives a quiet life with her husband, Torvald, in a small Norwegian town. While he works diligently at a bank, she looks after their children. But Torvald doesn't know that several years ago, when he was very ill and she was desperate for money, Nora forged a loan document and has been secretly working to pay the money back ever since. The arrival of her friend Kristine prompts Nora to re-evaluate her life and confront Torvald.
Adopt a Sailor
Adopt A Sailor is about Patricia and Richard, a successful and hip couple from New York City who inadvertently "adopt a sailor" during Fleet Week in New York City and the young man form Turkey Scratch, Arkansas who changes their lives forever.
The Painted Veil
A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.
Diary of a Mad Housewife
Tina Balser is a bored New York housewife-mother married to Jonathan, a pompous, social-climbing lawyer who ridicules her in front of their children, criticizing everything she does or wears. She begins an affair with George Prager, a dashing, successful, and blatantly sadistic writer.
Immediate Family
Linda and Michael, married for ten years, desperately want a baby and turn to an adoption agency which introduces them to Lucy, a teenage girl expecting her first baby. The three agree that Linda and Michael will adopt Lucy's baby and that Lucy will sign away custody. Things don't go quite to plan however..
In the Gloaming
Danny, dying of AIDS, returns home for his last months. Always close to his mother, they share moments of openness that tend to shut out Danny's father and his sister.
The Pumpkin Eater
Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.
Second Coming
A married, middle-class London couple are shocked when they seem to have been blessed — or cursed — with an immaculate conception.
September
After a suicide attempt, Lane has moved into her country house to recuperate. Her best friend, Stephanie, has come to join her for the summer. Lane's mother, Diane, has recently arrived with her husband Lloyd, Lane's stepfather. Lane is close to two neighbors: Peter, and Howard. Howard is in love with Lane, Lane is in love with Peter, and Peter is in love with Stephanie.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche Dubois goes to visit her pregnant sister and husband Stanley in New Orleans. Stanley doesn't like her, and starts pushing her for information on some property he know was left to the sisters. He discovers she has mortgaged the place and spent all the money, and wants to find out all he can about her. Even more friction develops between the two while they are in the apartment together...
Two for the Seesaw
Jerry Ryan wanders aimlessly around New York after giving up his Nebraskan law practice. His wife asks for a divorce. He meets Gittel, a struggling dancer from Greenwich Village and they try to sort out their lives. An extended conversation piece with a static camera, but reflects the moral climate of the time.
Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams
Rita, a middle aged New York City homemaker, finds herself in an emotional crisis which forces her to re-examine her life, as well as her relationships with her mother, her eye doctor husband, her alienated daughter and estranged son.
The Happy Ending
The triumphs and failures of middle age as seen through the eyes of runaway American housewife Mary Wilson, a woman who believes that ultimate reality exists above and beyond the routine procedures of conscious, uninspired, everyday life. She feels cheated by an older generation that taught her to settle for nothing less than storybook finales, people who are disillusioned and restless and don't know why, people for whom life holds no easy answers.
Eat a Bowl of Tea
An American-Chinese man brings over his wife from China to America, but the challenges of making a living and adjusting to a new life, plus the attentions of a gambler threaten their marriage.
Mind the Gap
Five seemingly unrelated people decide to take huge risks in their personal lives in an effort to find happiness.
If a Man Answers
Rich socialite Chantal marries photographer Eugene and everything seems blissful until her envious friend attempts to break them up. In desperation, she turns to her mother, but the advice she receives may do more harm than good.
The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
A stockbroker is stuck in a dreary job and a marriage that's become a dull routine. To cope with the boredom and frustration, he resorts to voyeurism and extramarital love affairs.
The Law of Enclosures
Story of the same couple, first in their teenage years and then in their twilight years, paradoxically set in the same time during the backdrop of the Gulf War in the Middle East.
The C-Word
The C Word is an adaptation of Lisa Lynch's inspiring and candid book, based on her blog, about her battle with cancer.
Candles on Bay Street
DeeDee returns to her hometown with her 11 year old son, Trooper, 13 years after she ran off with her boyfriend. Her childhood best friend, Sam, is now married and he and his wife, Lydia, are the town's veterinarians. Lydia is a little wary about DeeDee after Sam tells her that they were best friends growing up and DeeDee was his first crush. But DeeDee and Trooper find their way into many hearts of the townspeople with their sweet helpfulness and friendships. DeeDee sets up a candle making business in town square and invites many of the ladies of the town to weekly candle making parties, and through these parties she and Lydia become good friends. One evening after dinner with Lydia and Sam, DeeDee tells Sam she's very sick and she doesn't have much longer to live and she needs his help to find a good family in town to adopt Trooper. Sam later tells Lydia everything and they decide to adopt Trooper themselves if/when something happens to DeeDee.
Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger is a love triangle involving the brilliant-but-disaffected young Jimmy Porter, his upper-middle-class, impassive wife Alison Porter, and her aristocratic best friend Helena Charles). Cliff , an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace.
Sister, Sister
Heated confrontations and revelations result when a divorcee returns with her young son to the home of her two sisters.
A Cooler Climate
Iris is broke after her divorce and takes a job working as a housekeeper for a wealthy woman named Paula. When Paula and her husband separate, an unlikely friendship blossoms between the women.
The Event
An intense relationship drama that takes the form of a mystery, The Event centers around a series of unexplained deaths that occur among the gay community in New York's fashionable Chelsea district. Nick, a district attorney investigating the most recent case, a suspicious apparent suicide, and her interviews with friends and family of the deceased trigger extensive and intricately interwoven flashbacks that reveal surprising facts about the man's life and death.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York
Sheila Levine - an innovative, bright, but painfully introverted individual - arrives in New York City to take an apartment with a partygoing roommate. There, she experiences love and heartache in equal measure.
Last of the Red Hot Lovers
A middle aged restaurateur begins to feel the desire to roam and realizes that one day each week, his mother's apartment will be empty all afternoon. He makes several attempts at seduction, only to learn that it is much more complicated and difficult than he could have imagined.
Brooklyn Lobster
Giorgio's Lobster Farm has been a tradition in Brooklyn for over 65 years. Manned by an eccentric crew and serving the best seafood in the state
Love Finds A Home
In this sequel, Lillian has been adopted and it's several years later. Annie, married and pregnant, visits her fellow doctor friend, Dr. Owen. Dr Owen desperately wants a baby, but seems unable to become pregnant. Lillian finds a love interest, an assistant to her adoptive dad, the latter has become quite overprotective.
Exhibition
An intimate examination of a contemporary artist couple, whose living and working patterns are threatened by the imminent sale of their home.
Late Bloomers
Late Bloomers stars Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt as a married couple pulled apart by the threat of old age. Each reacts in a different way: Hurt’s distinguished architect chases after his glory days, while Rossellini’s housewife installs handrails about the house.
Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a middle-aged, middle class, childless Brooklyn Heights couple trapped in a loveless marriage. He is an attorney, she a translator of books. Their existence is affected not only by their disintegrating relationship but by the threats of urban crime and vandalism that surround them everywhere they turn, leaving them feeling paranoid, scared, and desperately helpless.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Desperate Characters Starring Shirley MacLaine, Kenneth Mars, Sada Thompson, Jack Somack, and more. If you liked Desperate Characters then you may also like: The Four Seasons, Nine Lives, An Unmarried Woman, Why Did I Get Married?, One Night Stand and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
The Four Seasons
Three middle-aged wealthy couples take vacations together in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Along the way we are treated to mid-life, marital, parental and other crises.