Harold and Maude

Name: Harold and Maude
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: December 20, 1971
Duration: 91 min
Rating: 62
Cast: Bud Cort, Charles Tyner, Cyril Cusack, Ellen Geer, Eric Christmas

1971

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 28 Ratings

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8.4

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8.4	User Score Universal acclaim based on 28 Ratings

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Harold And Maude

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Movie Details & Credits

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 20, 1971 | GP

Starring: Bud Cort, Charles Tyner, Cyril Cusack, Ellen Geer, Eric Christmas, G. Wood, Judy Engles, Ruth Gordon, Shari Summers, Vivian Pickles

Summary: Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.

Director: Hal Ashby

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: GP

Runtime: 91 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Michael Wilmington

The movie is a paean to outsiders and reckless love. Read full review

The Telegraph Rupert Christiansen

Mawkishness is kept at bay by the lightness of touch in Ashby's direction and Gordon and Cort's wonderful performances. Only the most miserable cynic could resist its unique charm and ultimate hopefulness. Read full review

The Guardian Jane Graham

It's to director Hal Ashby's credit that he succeeds in maintaining an unsettling tone of pre-Lynchian absurdism throughout, while also pulling the viewer into a touching love story between perhaps the most unlikely couple in cinema history. Read full review

Pauline Kael

The message is not very different from that of Hello, Dolly! or Mame, but Harold's flaccid asexuality (he's like a sickly infant, a limp, earthbound Peter Pan) and Maude's advanced stage of pixiness give that message a special freaky quality. And the film has been made with considerable wit and skill.

Staff (Not Credited)

Ashby forever treads the thin line between whimsy and absurdity and tough sentimentality and black comedy. It is most successful when it keeps to the tone of an insane fairystory set up at the beginning of the movie. Read full review

Craig Williams

There’s a dark streak of comic absurdity running throughout Harold and Maude that serves a dual purpose; it gives the film its unique, heightened tone, but it also conversely grounds the more whimsical element by hinting at a greater darkness beyond the events portrayed within. Read full review

Vincent Canby

As performers, they both are so aggressive, so creepy and off‐putting, that Harold and Maude are obviously made for each other, a point the movie itself refuses to recognize with a twist ending that betrays, I think, its life‐affirming pre tensions. Read full review

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User Reviews

Missj2u

Feb 4, 2023

My favorite movie. It gives the viewer a new way to look at life. Love the acting, especially Vivian Pickles. The sound track and visuals are beautiful.