Film
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Emma Thompson plays a widow in her seventies reclaiming pleasure on her own terms, hiring a sex worker to explore desire she's never experienced. It's tender, funny, and quietly radical—a film about consent, curiosity, and the life-changing power of being seen. For anyone who believes desire doesn't expire and that intimacy takes many forms.
If you liked this
Calendar Girls2003
A group of older women shed their inhibitions to raise money for charity, discovering confidence and friendship along the way. Warm, funny, and genuinely moving about bodies, aging, and reclaiming agency.
But The emotional core gets buried under feel-good sentimentality; it never quite dares to be as bold as its premise suggests.

The Farewell2019
Awkwafina and Shawna Oh explore family secrets and generational rifts with intelligence and humour. Like Leo Grande, it's intimate, character-driven, and finds profound humanity in quiet moments.
But The pacing is deliberately slow and contemplative, which can feel static if you're expecting plot-driven drama.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always2020
A grief-stricken woman and a younger man form an unexpected connection. Tender and emotionally honest about desire, loneliness, and the ways we comfort each other across difference.
But It's obscure for a reason—understated to the point where some viewers will find it thin on narrative momentum.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Licorice Pizza2021
Both centre an intergenerational relationship and ask what desire and connection can look like outside conventional frames.
Paul Thomas Anderson's portrait of a young man and older woman circling each other across 1970s Los Angeles. Like Leo Grande, it's about desire across an unconventional divide, and how we're all searching for someone to see us.
But Anderson's meandering style and the age gap might make you impatient; some will find the power dynamics troubling.

More like this (8)
A Fish Called Wanda1988
Jamie Lee Curtis plays a woman who uses sex and intelligence as tools of power and liberation. Sharp, funny, and genuinely transgressive for its era about female desire and agency.
But The comedy doesn't always land, and what seemed transgressive in 1988 feels dated in places.

The Dinner Party2020
A widow invites a younger man for dinner, and the evening becomes an exploration of loneliness, attraction, and vulnerability. Spare, intimate, and unafraid of awkwardness and desire.
But Very little happens; if you need plot, this will frustrate you.

About a Boy2002
A cynical man and a lonely woman find connection across an unexpected divide. It's warm without being saccharine, funny without dismissing the real loneliness underneath.
But The film is so committed to being likeable that it sometimes sidesteps genuine darkness.

Hope Springs2012
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones reignite desire in a long marriage, attending couples' therapy. It takes older sexuality seriously and finds both humour and tenderness in rediscovery.
But The emotional breakthroughs feel neat and resolved; it avoids the messiness that makes Leo Grande so compelling.

Lost River2015
A woman supports her family through her beauty and sexuality on her own terms. Visually stunning and unafraid to explore desire, economics, and choice in a fractured America.
But It's oblique and symbolist; some will find it pretentious or narratively unclear.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!1988
Not serious for a moment, but genuinely funny about sex, attraction, and bodies without shame. Sometimes you want to laugh instead of think, and this delivers.
But It's broad physical comedy; if you don't find that funny, you'll find it exhausting.

Bodywork2022
Where Leo Grande imagines an encounter, Bodywork documents the real lives and expertise of people who do this work.
A documentary series following sex workers in New Zealand with unflinching honesty and humour. Funny, explicit, and utterly humanizing—it shows the real conversations, choices, and care that Leo Grande only hints at.
But It's a documentary about sex work, so it's genuinely explicit; it's not fiction, and that rawness unsettles some viewers.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017
Both explore what happens when a widow lets a younger person into her controlled domestic world, and what is owed afterwards.
Yorgos Lanthimos's film about a widow and her children under threat from a mysterious young man. Unsettling, controlled, searching for what we owe to strangers. Like Leo Grande, it's about power, debt, and seeing someone fully.
But It's a thriller made of dread and silence, with sudden violence. If you're watching for warmth, you'll get the opposite.

People
Cast
Emma ThompsonNancy Stokes
Daryl McCormackLeo Grande
Isabella LaughlandBecky Foster
Les MabalekaDelivery Person- Lennie BearePerson on Bike
- Carina LopesWaitress 1
- Charlotte WareWaitress 2
Directing
- Sophie HydeDirector
- Malinda KaurFirst Assistant Director
Writing
- Katy BrandScreenplay
Production
- Lucille TippleAssistant Accountant
- Sam CornishAssociate Producer
- Amy HubbardCasting Director
- Alison ThompsonExecutive Producer
- Julian GleekExecutive Producer
- Katy BrandExecutive Producer
- Mark GooderExecutive Producer
- Martin MetzExecutive Producer
- Nadia KhamlichiExecutive Producer
- Nessa McGillExecutive Producer
- Sophie HydeExecutive Producer
- Kelly DuffellLine Producer
- Adrian PolitowskiProducer
- Debbie GrayProducer
- Pamela HoltProduction Accountant
- Miren MarañónProduction Designer