The 1971 film featuring a young man who falls in love with a 79-year-old woman is Harold and Maude.
Directed by Hal Ashby and written by Colin Higgins, the film follows Harold Chasen, a wealthy young man fascinated by death who attends strangers’ funerals and stages elaborate fake suicides. He meets Maude, a free-spirited older woman, at a funeral and gradually develops a romantic relationship with her.
The film uses dark comedy to contrast Harold’s morbid fixation with Maude’s insistence on living fully. Its soundtrack, featuring songs by Cat Stevens, became closely associated with the movie’s themes of freedom, renewal, and nonconformity. Ruth Gordon played Maude, while Bud Cort portrayed Harold.
Harold and Maude was not an immediate commercial success. Its audience grew over time, and it eventually became a cult favorite. It is sometimes mistaken for Love Story because both are early-1970s romances, but Love Story does not feature the unusual Harold-and-Maude age relationship or the same darkly comic tone.