Our Definitive List of Uplifting Movies
Oh, do we need diversion! Being sheltered in place will do that. Movies are just one of many possibilities. But which movies to watch? Glad you asked.
The editorial board of The Monday Minute (or two) offers the following films to take your mind off of all that’s going on outside. You’ll find (almost) no movies about politics, war, disease, invasions, disasters, death, and, importantly, snakes (Indiana Jones and Wayne’s World aside). Nothing that causes fear, angst or tension. All that uplift, warm the heart and fill the soul.
That said, if tension and/or fear is what you seek, see the last category. Whatever floats your boat. Or, in this case, helps you escape. But first, here are films that should make you smile or, just possibly, bring you joy.
Wild Rides
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
James Bond (only those with Sean Connery or Daniel Craig)
Mission Impossible (any)
North by Northwest
Rocky
Spiderman (any)
When Only the Truth Will Do
20 Feet from Stardom (the lives of backup singers)
Apollo 11
Hoop Dreams
March of the Penguins
Standing in the Shadows of Motown
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (A wonderful love letter to Mr. Rogers.)
Get Lost in a Good Story
A Few Good Men
A Man Called Ove
About a Boy
Almost Famous
American Hustle
Back to the Future (I and III only, because the Cubs cannot win the World Series. What, they did?)
Begin Again
BlacKkKlansman
Boyhood
Brooklyn
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Call Me By Your Name
Driving Miss Daisy
Everything Is Illuminated
Good Will Hunting
Green Book
Hidden Figures
Juno
Lady Bird
Lars and the Real Girl
Lawrence of Arabia (in our Top 5 of All Time)
Lion In Winter
Lost in Translation
Moonlight
Officer and a Gentleman
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Out of Africa
Out of the Past
Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley version)
Searching for Bobby Fischer
Selma
Sideways
Silver Linings Playbook
Shawshank Redemption
Slumdog Millionaire
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Breakfast Club
The Color of Money
The Graduate
The Hustler
The Karate Kid (The original, right Mr. Miyagi?)
The King’s Speech
The Maltese Falcon
The Sting
This Is Where I Leave You
Whiplash
Laugh Hard
A Fish Called Wanda
A Night at the Opera
Airplane!
Annie Hall
Best in Show
Blazing Saddles
Bridesmaids
Duck Soup (The Marx Brothers at their very best.)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Ghostbusters
Groundhog Day
Home Alone
Life of Brian
Meet the Parents
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Murder By Death
My Cousin Vinny (if only for Marissa Tomei)
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Office Space
Rat Race (The visit to the Barbie museum is priceless.)
Some Like It Hot
Stepbrothers
Stripes
The 40-year-old Virgin
The Death of Stalin
The First Wives Club
The Producers (the original, non-musical version)
This is Spinal Tap
That Thing You Do
Waiting for Guffman
Wayne’s World (the first)
Young Frankenstein
Stories Told With Music and Dance
A Hard Day’s Night (These guys could be big!)
All That Jazz (Roy Schieder can do much more than hunt a great white shark.)
Bohemian Rhapsody
Camelot
Chicago (brilliant film editing)
Fiddler on the Roof
Hairspray
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (interesting topic, great music)
Into the Woods
La La Land
My Fair Lady
Rocketman
Royal Wedding (Astaire and a hat rack. Sublime.)
School of Rock
Singing in the Rain
South Pacific (for you, Mom)
The King and I (“Shall we dance?”)
The Blues Brothers
West Side Story (Shakespeare, Bernstein, Sondheim and Robbins. No wonder it still works.)
It’s Not English, But Don’t Be Afraid
400 Blows
Amélie
Cinema Paradiso
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Day for Night
Life Is Beautiful
Roma
Rashômon
The Bicycle Thief
Y Tu Mamá También
Let Your Imagination Roam
Avatar
Black Panther (Begins and ends in Oakland!)
Harry Potter (any, or so I’m told)
Lord of the Rings (included to avoid being harangued mercilessly by its legions of fans)
Wonderful Love Stories
As Good as It Gets
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Casablanca (The greatest love story of them all?)
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Jerry Maguire
Love Actually (“You learned English.” “Just in cases.”)
My Cousin Rachel
Notting Hill
Shakespeare In Love (“The show must…” “Go on!”)
Sleepless in Seattle
The African Queen
The American President (“Turns out, I have a rose garden.”)
The Big Sick
The Princess Bride (“As…you…wish!”)
The Shape of Water (your basic human-reptile love story)
When Harry Met Sally
While You Were Sleeping
You’ve Got Mail (another Sleepless in Seattle?)
Crank Up the Volume!
Monterey Pop (Otis, Janice, Jimi and more)
The Last Waltz (The Band’s last concert, Scorsese directs)
Woodstock (Richie Havens was told to stall for time — in front of 400,000. And we think our jobs are hard.)
No, I Just Work in Outer Space
2001: A Space Odyssey (2001 was 19 years ago!)
Apollo 13 (Spoiler alert: they live!)
Arrival
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
First Man
Galaxy Quest
Gravity
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek IV (“There be whales, Captain!”)
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek (the first with Chris Pine & Zachary Quinto)
Star Wars (any, or so say their fans)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original)
The Martian (He does science the s**t out of it.)
Games People Play
A League of Their Own
Bull Durham
Caddyshack
Field of Dreams (“Hey, Dad. Wanna have a catch?”)
Friday Night Lights (the movie)
Hoosiers
Million Dollar Arm
Moneyball
Remember the Titans
Rudy
Secretariat
Seabiscuit
The Blind Side
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The Legend of Bagger Vance
The Sand Lot
Tin Cup (“That was a 12 for the ages!”)
No doubt some of you are saying, “Who needs a happy ending? I need tension! Angst! Give me relentless terror!” Who are we to ignore your plea? Just for you, The Monday Minute (or two) offers a category all your own:
Give Me Tension, Give Me Pain!
1917 (technically brilliant)
Alien
Aliens (possibly the best sequel ever)
Apocalypse Now
Black Swan
Carrie
Children of Men
Citizen Kane (another in our Top 5 of All Time)
Die Hard (any)
Ex Machina
Forrest Gump
Full Metal Jacket
Gallipoli
Get Out
Good Morning, Vietnam
Gosford Park
Inglorious Basterds
Inside Man
It
Jaws
Jurassic Park (the first one)
Lethal Weapon (any)
Mad Max (your pick)
Night of the Living Dead
No Country for Old Men
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Platoon
Poltergeist
Pulp Fiction
Rear Window
Rebecca
Rosemary’s Baby
Run Lola Run
Saving Private Ryan
Saw
Schindler’s List
Taken (the first one)
The Birds
The Blair Witch Project
The Day of the Jackal (The original, not the remake with Bruce Willis, please.)
The Deer Hunter
The Dirty Dozen
The Exorcist
The Fly (the remake with Jeff Goldblum)
The Great Escape
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original and the sequel set in San Francisco)
The Longest Day
The Omen
The Road
The Shining
The Silence of the Lambs
The Sixth Sense
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Terminator
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Thing
The Usual Suspects
True Lies
War of the Worlds (1953 original and Spielberg’s remake with Tom Cruise)
Winter’s Bone
Whichever movies you choose, consider watching them with a far-flung friend or family while texting or using your phone. It will be like watching together, almost. Have popcorn, make it a date night (or afternoon or morning). You’re ‘working’ from home, after all.
In the meantime, stay healthy, stay safe, avoid physical proximity, and continue to wash your hands. And if you can, call your parents. This is our new job. Let’s do it brilliantly.