36 Inspirational Movies That Will Challenge You to Become a Better Person
Movies can sometimes have a profound impact on our lives. There are even some movies that fill us with hope and make us feel happy every time we watch them. We have compiled a list of movies that will make you a better person when you watch them. Enjoy!
36. The Tree of Life
IMDb: 6,8/10
Summary: Centering on a Midwestern family in the 1950s, the film follows Jack, the eldest son of the family, from the loss of his childhood innocence to his bitter transition into adulthood.
Director: Terrence Malick
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn
35. West Side Story
IMDb: 7,2/10
Summary: The movie is about the forbidden love between two teenagers and the rivalry between two street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose
34. About Schmidt
IMDb: 7,2/10
Summary: Schmidt was a man who lived well in his old order. But after the loss of his wife, disaster struck one after another.
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis
33. A Passage to India
MDb: 7,3/10
Summary: Adela Quested is a young and headstrong Englishwoman. She travels to India with her fiancé's mother, Mrs. Moore. Dr. Aziz, whom she meets and befriends, invites Adela to join him on a visit to the mystical Marabar caves. When Adela emerges from a cave with scars, she claims that Aziz attacked her.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, Judy Davis
32. Cloud Atlas
IMDb: 7,4/10
Summary: Adam Ewing makes the rough sea voyage from the archipelago in New Zealand to his home in California. Robert Frobisher, a penniless but talented composer living in Belgium in the 1930s, has Adam Ewing's diary in his possession.
Director: Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Lilly Wachowski
Cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent
31. Alice Still
IMDb:7.5/10
Summary: Alice Howland is a renowned professor of linguistics at Columbia University. One day Alice is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Alice's life will never be the same after this diagnosis.
Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Cast: Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth
30. Sideways
MDb: 7,5/10
Summary: Miles Raymond is an English teacher whose biggest dream is to become a writer.
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen
29. An Angel at My Table
IMDb: 7,5/10
Summary: The movie follows the growing-up and adult years of a mentally ill New Zealand writer.
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Kerry Fox, Alexia Keogh, Karen Fergusson
28. Babel
IMDb: 7,5/10
Summary: In the movie, people from different continents are hopelessly connected by a gunshot.
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal
27. The Florida Project
IMDb:7.6/10
Summary: 6-year-old Moone and her friends have created a world of their own, completely removed from the challenging world of adults. With school on vacation, this group only cares about traveling and having fun, but that's not the case for the adults.
Director: Sean Baker
Cast: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe
26. Sorry We Missed You
IMDb: 7,6/10
Summary: Sorry We Couldn't Missed You is the story of a family trying to cope with the financial crisis.
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone
25. Detachment
IMDb:7,7/10
Summary: Henry Barthes is a highly skilled teacher who can relate well to his students, but he puts this ability on the back burner and becomes a substitute teacher. As a substitute teacher until a permanent teacher arrives at the school, Henry is never able to stay in any school long enough to make an emotional connection with the students or his coworkers.
Director: Tony Kaye
Cast: Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden, James Caan
24. Gattaca
IMDb: 7,8/10
Summary: Astronaut candidate Vincent is able to get a job as a cleaner in an important company. However, thanks to a scheme he devises along the way, he lands a high position. A private detective assigned to solve a murder at the company uncovers Vincent's secret.
Director: Andrew Niccol
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law
23. The House Is Black
IMDb: 7,8/10
Summary: The film tells the story of a community of lepers living in the north of Iran, rejected by society.
Director: Forugh Farrokhzad
Cast: Forugh Farrokhzad, Ebrahim Golestan, Hossein Mansouri
22. Glory
IMDb: 7,8/10
Summary: Robert G. Shaw is a commander assigned to lead a regiment of black people in the United States Army during the American Civil War. This war, which is also a war against discrimination against blacks and slavery, is a very difficult test for the entire regiment.
Director: Edward Zwick
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, Denzel Washington
21. The Breakfast Club
IMDb: 7,8/10
Summary: In the movie, a nerd , an athletic sportsman, a freak 'freak anarchist', an intellectual and a 'blonde' are on their way to the partnership they will discover between them.
Director: John Hughes
Cast: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Paul Gleason
20. Crash
IMDb: 7,8/10
Summary: Ordinary people living unaware of each other in the daily monotony of Los Angeles meet each other within 36 hours.
Director: Paul Haggis
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon
19. Life of Pi
IMDb: 7,9/10
Summary: A freighter from India to Canada sinks with every living thing on board. A lifeboat is left alone in the middle of the vast and wild Pacific Ocean.
Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain
18. Opening Night
IMDb: 7,9/10
Summary: Myrtle Gordon is a famous and successful actress. One day one of her admirers, a young woman, asks to meet her after one of her plays. Myrtle does not refuse this passionate admirer's offer and is devastated to learn that the woman has been murdered just before the meeting.
Director: John Cassavetes
Cast: Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara
17. Stand By Me
IMDb:8.1/10
Summary: The movie follows the adventurous journey of a group of children on the trail of a missing body.
Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: River Phoenix, Richard Dreyfuss, Corey Feldman
16. Into the Wild
IMDb: 8,1/10
Summary: Christopher graduates with honors from a prestigious university and is also a successful athlete. At a post-graduation party, he tells his family that this is not the life he wants, that something is missing and wrong. Donating all his possessions to charity and leaving everything he owns at home, the young man embarks on a long journey towards a different life.
Director: Sean Penn
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt
15. Dead Poets Society
IMDb: 8,1/10
Summary: Welton Academy is a serious, disciplined and academic school. The conservative attitude of the school administration makes the school a boring and depressing place for the students. The appointment of a new English teacher, John Keating, changes the school considerably.
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard
14. In Pursuit of Happyness
IMDb: 8/10
Summary: In 1981, Chris Gardner, who lives in San Francisco with his wife Linda and son Christopher, takes over the sale of bone scanner products, an expensive and quickly obsolete technology. He is abandoned by his wife Linda after he fails to succeed in the sale of these products.
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Cast: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton, Brian Howe, Dan Castellaneta
13. The Straight Story
IMDb: 8/10
Summary: Alvin Straight is a rather ordinary old man. He lives in a small town with his daughter. One day he receives a phone call and learns that his brother, whom he hasn't spoken to in ten years, has had a heart attack. So he takes his lawn mower and sets off on a journey of many kilometers.
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
12. The Phantom Carriage
IMDb: 8/10
Summary: A drunken man waiting in a cemetery for the car that will take him to the afterlife, recalls in flashbacks the important events of his life, the mistakes he made and the depression he experienced.
Director: Victor Sjöström
Cast: Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg
11. Andrey Rublyov
IMDb: 8,1/10
Summary: Andrei Rublev is both a monk and a painter of icons. In contrast to barbarism, violence and bloodshed, the miraculous beauty of nature and faith is Rublev's source of nourishment. But when he is forced to kill a man to save a peasant girl from rape, he questions life and his faith in God.
Director: Andreï Tarkovsky
Cast: Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Tamara Ogorodnikova, Ivan Bykov
10. Groundhog Day
IMDb: 8,1/10
Summary: The movie follows the adventures of a man who is forced to relive a day he hates over and over again.
Director: Harold Ramis
Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Stephen Tobolowsky
9. Swades: We, the People
IMDb: 8,2/10
Summary: Indian Mohan Bhargava is a young and brilliant scientist working as a project manager at NASA. Mohan realizes that he has not called his nanny, who has taken care of him for years, for a long time and feels a great remorse. Deciding to find his nanny Kaveri Amma, Mohan takes a leave of absence from his job and travels from America to India.
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Gayatri Joshi, Kishori Ballal
8. The Elephant Man
IMDb: 8,2/10
Summary: Dr. Treves is wandering the dirty streets when he stumbles upon a traveling circus. As the crowd in front of it shows, there is an abnormal show inside... And the hero of this abnormal show is John Merrick, who is disabled from birth.
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft
7. Ikiru
IMDb: 8,3/10
Summary: Kanji Watanabe is an ordinary man who has been working at the same job for years and has no expectations in life. He is surrounded by his son and stepdaughter. Kanji's wife has left this world. After a while, Kanji learns that he has cancer.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Takashi Shimura, Haruo Tanaka, Chiaki Minoru
6. Good Will Hunting
IMDb: 8,3/10
Summary: Will Hunting is a young boy working as a janitor at MIT with an IQ far above the general IQ. On one of his cleaning evenings, he comes across a math problem written on the blackboard of a classroom. Easily solving this almost impossible problem, Will quietly disappears.
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck
5. Interstellar
IMDb: 8,6/10
Summary: Smart and resourceful, Cooper makes a living by farming vast cornfields, with the goal of providing a secure life for his two children.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine
4. Life Is Beautiful
IMDb:8.6/10
Summary: Guido falls in love with Dora, a teacher, and marries her against all odds. After they get married and have a child, the couple is confronted with a war.
Director: Roberto Benigni
Cast: Roberto Benigni, Horst Buchholz, Marisa Paredes
3. Forrest Gump
IMDb: 8,8/10
Summary: Forrest Gump is a young man with a low I.Q. When he meets Jenny, he falls in love with her. Gump accidentally meets historical figures, including Elvis Presley, Kennedy and Nixon, and events unfold over a period from the 50s to the late 70s.
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise, Robin Wright
2. Schindler's List
IMDb: 9/10
Summary: A German businessman named Oskar Schindler builds a factory in Poland during World War II and saves the lives of 1100 Jews.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes
1. The Godfather
IMDb: 9,2/10
Summary: The movie tells the epic story of an Italian mafia family in America in the 40s and 50s.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
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