Harold And Maude (1971)

Age has less to do with how long you've lived than with how fully you're willing to live. Hal Ashby's cult classic "Harold and Maude," written by Colin Higgins, stars Bud Cort as Harold, a deadpan, death-obsessed young man from a wealthy family who stages elaborate fake suicides to rattle his mother (Vivian Pickles). Harold drives a hearse, and his mother responds by signing him up for a computer dating service, buying him a sports car and asking his uncle, a one-armed army officer, to persuade him to enlist. At one of the strangers' funerals he likes to attend, he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), a spirited, free-thinking woman about to turn 80 who has a habit of "borrowing" cars and liberating trees from city sidewalks. Their friendship blossoms into an unconventional romance as Maude teaches Harold to embrace life, sing, dance and play the banjo. A fleeting glimpse of a number tattooed on Maude's arm hints at the darkness she has survived. A box-office failure on its release, the film found a devoted audience over the years and is now regarded as a classic of 1970s cinema. Set to songs by Cat Stevens, it's proof that it's never too late - or too early - to start living.