11 Movies Starring Olympia Dukakis

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Loretta Castorini, a Brooklyn bookkeeper in her late 30s whose husband died several years earlier in a bus accident, decides it's time to get married again. So she accepts the proposal of a nice, middle-aged fellow named Johnny Cammareri. Loretta is convinced her first marriage was cursed because she and her husband had gotten married at City Hall; this time, she's determined to do things right, even as she admits to her mother, Rose, that she's not really in love with Johnny. (To which Rose replies: "Good. When you love them, they drive you crazy, 'cause they know they can." Rose speaks from rueful experience; she suspects, with good reason, that her husband, Cosmo, is cheating on her.) Loretta is convinced that marrying Johnny is the safe and sure thing to do - until she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, who tends the ovens in a neighborhood bakery. Loretta discovers that in startling contrast to the pleasant, mild-mannered Johnny, Ronny is moody and passionate; what follow are complications worthy of a comic opera.

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A busy, "always-on-the-run" executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. In the process, he teaches his father to be more independent which causes problems with the man's wife. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.

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Mollie is a single mum who's on the lookout for a reliable and normal boyfriend. Her son Mikey, (unbeknownst to her) seems to have a better idea of which of the men she dates would make a good father figure! If only she could understand him...

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Mollie and James are together and raising a family, which now consists of an older Mikey and his baby sister, Julie. Tension between the siblings arises, and as well with Mollie and James when Mollie's brother Stuart moves in. Mikey is also learning how to use the toilet for the first time.

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This comedy with much Jewish humor is about the widows Doris, Ester and Lucille, who's husbands died one after another in just a few years. The 3 friends in their 50s react quite differently on the deaths. But they make it a habit to meet every year at the graves of their husbands and talk about perspectives in their lives.

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Glenn Holland is a musician and composer who takes a teaching job to pay the rent while, in his 'spare time', he can strive to achieve his true goal - compose one memorable piece of music to leave his mark on the world. As Holland discovers 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans' and as the years unfold the joy of sharing his contagious passion for music with his students becomes his new definition of success.

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Few know the story of how polio came to America in 1916 and grew into the frightening epidemics of the 1940's and 50's when the diseases crippled tens of thousands of children every summer.

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Ben's dad Sam shows up one night with a note from Ben's mother (Sam's wife of 46 years), that she has left. While Ben's wife and his three sisters try to find her, Ben takes Sam on a day trip to see a farmhouse that's for sale. The day trip turns into a road trip while dad and son explore their past, their relationship, and why Sam's wife might have left him. The road trip includes fishing, drinking, playing pool, sleeping under the stars, and frank discussion. Anger simmers close at hand, as do love and hope. Where Sam's wife is - and why she left - leads to the movie's resolution.

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Grant and Fiona Anderson have been married for forty-four years. Their marriage has been a generally happy and loving one although not perfect due to some indiscretions when Grant was working as a college professor. Fiona has just been admitted to Meadowlake, a long term care facility near their country home in southwestern Ontario, because her recent lapses of memory have been diagnosed as a probable case of Alzheimer's disease. She and Grant made this decision together, although a still lucid Fiona seems to have made peace with the decision and her diagnosis more so than Grant. With respect to the facility, what Grant has the most difficulty with are what he sees as the sadness associated with the facility's second floor - where the more advanced cases are housed - but most specifically the facility's policy of no visitors within the first thirty days of admission to allow the patient to adjust more easily to their new life there. Based on what he sees when he is finally able to visit Fiona, Grant ultimately makes a request of Marian Barque, the wife of one of the other patients, a semi-comatose Aubrey Barque, with whom Fiona has struck a friendship and who is now at home permanently with Marian. The request is to see to both Fiona and his own happiness in this unfortunate situation.

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A lesbian couple escape from their nursing home and head up to Canada to get married. Along the way, they pick up a young, male hitchhiker.

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In this quirky comedy, after getting fired from his last job, Larry, played by Jason Schwartzman, along with his trusty sidekick french bulldog Arrow (Schwartzman's real-life pet), goes through life as a misanthropic outcast looking for work and a purpose in life.