35 Strange Relationships in Films
When making a list for sincere relationships, I came across another interesting film subject: films with relationships that are out of the ordinary. So I decided to make a 'spin-off' with this list of 35 films with strange relationships. The characters in these films want to have 'normal' relationships but they just can't for some reason. This struggle is usually pretty magnificent to watch.
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35 titles
- DirectorHal AshbyStarsRuth GordonBud CortVivian PicklesYoung, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsJean GabinJulien CaretteSimone SimonIn this classic adaptation of Emile Zola's novel, a tortured train engineer falls in love with a troubled married woman who has helped her husband commit a murder.
- DirectorMike NicholsStarsDustin HoffmanAnne BancroftKatharine RossA disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
- DirectorMichel GondryStarsJim CarreyKate WinsletTom WilkinsonWhen their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories forever.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsMarcel DalioNora GregorPaulette DubostA bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.
- DirectorTodd SolondzStarsJane AdamsJon LovitzPhilip Seymour HoffmanThe 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.
- DirectorWoody AllenStarsWoody AllenDiane KeatonTony RobertsAlvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.
- DirectorRobert AltmanStarsPaul DooleyMarta HeflinTitos VandisA repressed, middle-aged divorced U.S. Greek meets a young singer through a dating service and becomes smitten.
- DirectorAlvin RakoffStarsPeter SellersSinéad CusackJeremy BullochA businessman blackmails his attractive young secretary into spending a weekend with him. Though he's a creep throughout, he gradually emerges as a sympathetic character.
- DirectorClaude SautetStarsYves MontandRomy SchneiderSami FreyCesar is in love with Rosalie. But Rosalie isn't making it easy for him, especially when her old flame enters the picture.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsIsabelle AdjaniBruce RobinsonSylvia MarriottThe story of Adèle Hugo's unrequited love for a lieutenant.
- DirectorSergio MartinoStarsEdwige FenechAnita StrindbergLuigi PistilliA series of murders are committed near the estate of a degenerate author and his mistreated wife.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAnna KarinaJean-Claude BrialyJean-Paul BelmondoAn exotic dancer is desperate to become a mother and accepts her reluctant boyfriend's suggestion that she be impregnated by his best friend.
- DirectorGeorge CukorErnst LubitschStarsMaurice ChevalierJeanette MacDonaldGenevieve TobinAn unhappily married couple try to come between a happy one.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsBrigitte BardotJack PalanceMichel PiccoliA French writer's marriage deteriorates while working on Fritz Lang's version of "The Odyssey", as his wife accuses him of using her to court favor with the film's brash American producer.
- DirectorBertrand BlierStarsPatrick DewaereAriel BesseMaurice RonetAfter her mother dies, fourteen-year-old Marion falls in love with her stepfather, Remy.
- DirectorBertrand BlierStarsGérard DepardieuCarole LaurePatrick DewaereA worried husband finds a lover for his depressed wife, but she falls in love with a bullied thirteen-year-old math prodigy and wants to have the boy's baby.
- DirectorCraig GillespieStarsRyan GoslingEmily MortimerPaul SchneiderA delusional young man strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.
- DirectorSpike JonzeStarsJoaquin PhoenixAmy AdamsScarlett JohanssonIn a near future, a lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.
- DirectorJean EustacheStarsBernadette LafontJean-Pierre LéaudFrançoise LebrunThe chauvinist Alexandre balances relationships with several women in the post-1968 intellectual scene of Paris.
- DirectorEttore ScolaStarsValeria D'ObiciBernard GiraudeauJean-Louis TrintignantIn the 1860s, Giorgio (Giraudeau), a young Italian soldier, is sent to a remote post, far away from his lover, Clara (Antonelli). He is lodged in the house of the colonel (Girotti). He becames friends with the colonel and the local doctor (Trintignant). Among the inhabitants of the house there is a strange young woman: Fosca (d'Obici) who is both unattractive and mad. However, she has a passion that Giorgio will have to cope with.
- DirectorClaude GorettaStarsMarlène JobertGérard DepardieuDominique LabourierA manufacturer of furniture sees his business go down and decides to rob banks to pay his staff. Het gets romantically involved with one of his victims.
- DirectorRichard LesterStarsJulie ChristieGeorge C. ScottRichard ChamberlainAn unhappily married socialite finds solace in the company of a recently divorced doctor.
- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerRouben MamoulianStarsJennifer JonesDavid FarrarCyril CusackA beautiful, superstitious, animal-loving Gypsy is hotly desired by a fox-hunting squire even after she marries a clergyman.
- DirectorSteven ShainbergStarsJames SpaderMaggie GyllenhaalJeremy DaviesA young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.
- DirectorMike FiggisStarsNicolas CageElisabeth ShueJulian SandsBen Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
- DirectorRobert ZemeckisStarsTom HanksRobin WrightGary SiniseThe history of the United States from the 1950s to the '70s unfolds from the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, who yearns to be reunited with his childhood sweetheart.
- DirectorDamiano DamianiStarsBette DavisHorst BuchholzCatherine SpaakThe son of a dead Italian nobleman and a wealthy American woman forgets the disappointment of finding he has no talent for being a painter by succumbing to the sexual advances of an amoral model who believes in indiscriminate love affairs.
- DirectorPenny MarshallStarsTom HanksElizabeth PerkinsRobert LoggiaAfter wishing to be made big, a teenage boy wakes the next morning to find himself mysteriously in the body of an adult.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsMichel SimonJanie MarèseGeorges FlamantMaurice Legrand, a meek cashier married to a nagging wife, has a secret passion: he's a Sunday painter. He falls in love with Lulu, a young woman dominated by Dédé, the pimp who she works for. Dédé pushes Lulu into a relationship with him.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsJean-Pierre LéaudKika MarkhamStacey TendeterAt the beginning of the 20th century, middle-class young Frenchman Claude Roc meets young Englishwoman Ann Brown in Paris. They become friends and she invites him to spend holidays at the house where she lives with her mother and her sister Muriel, for whom she intends Claude. During these holidays, Claude, Ann, and Muriel become very close and he gradually falls in love with Muriel. But both families lay down a one-year-long separation with no contact before agreeing to the marriage. So Claude goes back to Paris and has many love affairs before sending Muriel a break-off letter.
- DirectorPierre Granier-DeferreStarsRomy SchneiderPhilippe NoiretVictor LanouxMargot Santorini is an aristocratic woman in 1936 in Greece, who amuses herself pursuing a shallow loveless affair with a nobleman, but unexpectedly falls in love with a political activist.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsPedro ArmendárizKaty JuradoRosita ArenasA tough young man, who helps to kick poor people out of their houses, falls in love with a girl. She lives with her father in the building about to be demolished.
- DirectorBarbet SchroederStarsGérard DepardieuBulle OgierAndré RouyerA common thief (Depardieu) breaks into the house of a professional dominatrix (Ogier), and begins to help her "train" her clients. Though this world is alien to his experience, he finds himself falling in love with her. Eventually he discovers that she does this in order to support her son, and he attempts to help her out of this life, which she is not sure she really wants to leave.
- DirectorDaniel DuvalStarsMiou-MiouMaria SchneiderNiels ArestrupMarie is a young girl from a working class family, who falls in love with Gérard. Not long after beginning their relationship, Gérard shows his sadistic, twisted tendencies and begins to abuse her physically and psychologically.