You don’t have the mood to watch “the best movies occasionally. There is nothing wrong with Citizen Kane, but it certainly isn’t the movie you want to see when you are in the dumps if you feel like garbage. Here are some of the best amazing movies that will raise your spirits.
1. School Of Rock
The Film is led by Jack Black at his most charismatic crazy, the film follows a music-obsessive boy named Dewey who nabs a substitute teaching job from his good-looking two-shoe best friend in the interest of making a fast buck. In an originally selfish attempt to oppose his ex-band members, Dewey asks the students to join a new band of his own. The film is formulaic at its heart – Dewey is eventually charmed by girls, and the newly formed musical community goes on to blow the roof of a concert hall in a local band fight – but few family comedies are as charming, sharply written, or literally musically flawless as the odd, beguiling melange of the School of Rock. Stuffed with catchy original songs and earnest through and through the Rock School is one of the best non-official musicals of its day and a great cinematic salve to soothe your wounds.
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
As Steven Spielberg set out to make the Lost Ark Raiders, the costly fiasco of 1941 came to an end. The idea of producer George Lucas was to create an old-fashioned adventure, and in that spirit, Spielberg decided to fire Raiders easily and gravel, as opposed to laborious and overthinking. The outcome is one of the biggest blockbusters ever made, starring one of the most emblematic heroes ever to grace the screen, and one of the finest theme songs ever written. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the very definition of a strong blockbuster when Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones is constantly out of his element but never struggles to wear a grin on his face. Charming as all get-out, entertaining in all the right spaces, there’s a reason why Raiders of the Lost Ark is a stone-cold classic.
3. When Harry Met Sally
When Harry Met Sally is the perfect example of how important a good dialogue can be to a script, particularly as it relates to the mixture of comedy and romance. It’s the interactions of Harry and Sally that make this film resonate so well with the viewer. Their contrasting opinions on marriage, sex, and relationships make the entire film entertain and cause the film to be about more than two people who inevitably fall for each other. When Harry Met Sally discusses the laughter and often, anger that comes with marriage, and the disparities in opinion between men and women, he often relates the tale of two people who are destined to be at each other’s side.
4. Okja
In the first five minutes, Okja takes more artistic chances than most movies take over their entire span, and doesn’t let it down from there. What seems to be a stumbling point for some reviewers and viewers, particularly Western ones, is the seemingly inconsistent style, from feeling to excitement to giddy action to whimsy to horror, to whatever Jake Gyllenhaal does. But this is part and parcel of what makes Bong Joon-ho movies, well, Bong Joon-ho movies: they’re complicated and dynamic, but they’re not exactly subtle or constrained. They’ve got attention to detail, so they’re not delicate in their treatment. They’ve got different intentions, and they’re putting those intentions together to jam. They are innovative works that build energy by part-counterpart alternations, and Okja is perhaps the best example of the crazy pendulum swing of Bong’s rhythmic sound. Okja is not a film on veganism, either, but it’s a film that questions if we can find honesty and above all, how we can find integrity.
5. Hugo
With Hugo, director Martin Scorsese has produced a sparkling, wonderful experience, an unmistakable artistic masterpiece. In his adaptation of Brian Selznick’s novel The Creation of Hugo Cabret, Scorsese blends his many interests and concerns: for theatre, for film, for fathers and father-figures. He recounts the story of a child (Hugo Cabret, played by Asa Butterfield) in search of a way to fulfill his father’s work. By the end of the film, Hugo makes a compelling argument that the art of film is as Méliès calls it—the invention of dreams. (And on the other hand, there is a point to be made that in our contemporary era, fantasies are still the invention of cinema.) But as an ode to the history of film, this film is a triumph. In reality, it increases artistic achievement, which is what the moving images were initially for. In an attempt to point that out, Martin Scorsese made a 3D film.
6. Set It Up
If you’re hunting for a charming romantic comedy, but don’t want to replay anything from the previous decade for the umpteenth time, you can probably look at Claire Scanlon’s charming Set It Up. The story follows two beleaguered assistants (Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell) who wanted to set up their employers (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs, respectively) only to get some precious spare time away from their stressful work. But for all their schema, they’re beginning to fall for each other. You can see the rom-com beats coming from a mile away, but they’re handled so beautifully and so quickly that you won’t notice. Plus, the film is captivated by the fantastic performances of the dazzling Deutch and Powell, who should be the streaming generation of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
7. Solo: A Star Wars Story
A rolling mix-em-up of a heist flick, war film, western and Indiana Jones-style adventure (in this case: Temple of Doom), Solo handsomely runs our titular hero (depicted credibly enough by Alden Ehrenreich) through one episode of fan service after another, setting up major action set pieces to make sure that everything you know about Han Solo from Episodes 4-6 finds its origins here. Han gives himself his last name, encounters Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), is gifted with a blaster that he will later use to kill Greedo in cold blood, meets Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), receives the Millennium Falcon from Lando, making the Kessel Run less (give or take) than 12 parsecs, crosses the paths of chaotic resistance first and eventually heads out to encounter Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine, all inside. It’s pretty graceless—even borderline nonsensical—if you think it’s too rough as if the screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Jonathan’s son were bloodless.
8. Clueless
Clueless stars Alicia Silverstone as Cherilyn “Cher” Horowtiz, a contemporary teenage sitcom deeply rooted in Jane Austen’s 1815 book, a well-meaning but ruined girl who always tries to mess up the lives of the people around her with catastrophic consequences. Clueless also appeared for good reviews and a respectable panoply with Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy (in the role of career-maker), and Paul Sturdy, but eventually found a stronger pursuit of the home video where she developed a community in the wake of one of the few teen comedies of the 1990s that adequately mirrored the relations between the young people of the period. A film that made Alicia Silverstone a film star (only for a brief time) because of her sharp wit and charming cast, Clueless has created more than other films from the 1990s.
9. Dead Poets Society
While all the best high school movies stick to the genre of comedy, the Dead Poets Society makes this list the only true drama, but also a good snapshot of high school life. We only wish we had a teacher as motivational as John Keating’s Robin Williams, but, alas, we can’t just go to a fancy boarding school like the Welton Academy. Although this film may be far from typical in high school, students often collapse into common types of personality as seen in many of the best high school movies. The Dead Poets Society gave us a party of high school students to which many would apply. It was a difficult feat for each of them, particularly in the construction of a private school setting. Although the story takes a dark turn, it was a high school movie with a broader message, teaching us to follow your dreams and feel inspired. Unfortunately, like most high school movies, young characters don’t come to their own until the last few scenes of the film.
10. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
If you’re looking for a nice, soft, YA romance to brighten up your day, you’re not going to do any better with Netflix than with All the Boys I Loved Before. Based on Jenny Han’s book, the plot follows Lara Jean (Lana Condor), a girl whose worst nightmares are realized when she sends out five letters she wrote to her secret crushes without her knowledge. When she approaches her old crusher Peter (Noah Centineo), she worries that it could get in the way of her new crush Josh (Israel Broussard), so Lara Jean and Peter try to fake a friendship so that they can get along with who they both want to be with. Naturally, to claim together begin to build true emotions between the two. The film is a delight from the beginning to the end, helping you to relive a time when who “liked” you were the most important thing in the world but without the pain of high school.
11. The Breadwinner
Nora Twomey has taken a different path from her Cartoon Saloon cohort, Tomm Moore, abandoning the mythologically rich coast of Ireland to the mountains of Afghanistan, reflecting on the region’s own mythology against the backdrop of Taliban rule. The film is based on Deborah Ellis’ 2000 novel of the same name, the story of a young girl named Parvana who disguises herself as a boy to take care of her family after her father has been captured by the Taliban. Being a woman in public is a bad thing for your wellbeing in Kabul. It’s like teaching women. Parvana (Saara Chaudry) knows the desperate conditions of her father’s arrests on her kin and realizes the risk of hiding in plain sight to feed them. Need is greater than the risk. So on the advice of her friend, Shauzia (Soma Bhatia), who is in the same role as Parvana, she takes the pseudonym of learning how to play-act as a man in a man-curated environment. In the meantime, Parvan’s acceptance of family responsibility is narrated at the same time as a story she tells her baby brother about a young boy who is vowing to recover the stolen seeds of his village from the Elephant King and his demonic minions in the Hindu Kush mountain range. If there is a bond between The Breadwinner and Moore’s films, besides love for the fables, it’s artistic: like The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea. The Breadwinner is simply stunning, a cell-shaded stunner that combines the most conventional style of animation with an interspersed animation. The effect combines the flowing intangibility of the former with the physical nature of the latter, layering the visual scheme of the film with color and texture.
12. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
This film can be considered to be the best film Sony ever made, released in 2018, showcasing tales of various spiders from a different world. It’s done in such a manner that fans feel like they’re reading a comic book on the big screen, certain scenes are made at 12 frames per second to make it clumsy, and more of a 2d comic book style. He has received the Academy Award at the case in 2019. Its distinctive style of animation, and not the easy narrative, makes it a must for animation students and fans. Although the film’s protagonist is Miles Morales, a mixed-race high school student living in New York City who is getting a bit of a spider and acquiring control, the film transforms the universe into a “multi-verse” as separate Spider-People from other worlds invade the life of Miles. Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man Noir all have varying histories and motives, but all of them rise above hardship to become the hero their planet required. The crux of the film is the friendship between Miles, who is not yet able to lead, and the alternative world of Peter Parker, who is going through a mid-life crisis and reluctantly mentors the young new Spidey. It’s a romantic, funny, and loving relationship, and the film is filled with themes of loyalty, heroism, and family that make it a tremendously positive viewing experience for young people.
