Heartwarming Movies
Movies can make us cry, feel, and think. We have always gone to the movies to be scared, informed, and thrilled. However, now it seems like you can get the same result from television and streaming. Whereas it used to be sitcom-based with the rare dramatic limited series, what we think of as “television” is changing. Since every channel now has its streaming service, the traditionally tame networks are releasing more dramatic, edgier, and long-form content. You have the scary limited series like Hill House. Paramount has the dramatic hit Yellowstone. Big-screen superheroes are being released on Disney plus. The kind of stuff you used to subscribe to HBO for is now on Paramount or NBC. And the streaming service documentaries are king.
The future of cinema can seem problematic. (Insert one of Scorsese’s sound bites about Marvel killing cinema)
Yet the one genre, the one power film seems to hold is perhaps also the simplest.
The heart is warmer. A feel-good movie. Pure goodness. Call it escapism, but I think there is something about the pure goodness of some films that have not been recreated by streaming or television. These are my top five heartwarming films.
Sing Street. John Carney’s least recognized but—in my opinion—best film. Once and Begin Again may have superior original soundtracks. But this one wins for plot and rewatch ability. The new kid at a strict catholic school forms a band with no experience to impress a mysterious girl. The music is an ode to the 80s. The young cast has great chemistry if the limited range in some scenes.
Chef. Jon Favreau’s delightful and delicious comedy. A five-star chef follows his heart, leaves his job, and buys a food truck to cook what he wants. It is a slow start; otherwise, it would probably be higher on the list. I could watch a three-hour version of a father, son, and friend driving across the country and cooking for crowds. Don’t watch on an empty stomach.
Billy Elliot. Fish out of water. Coming of age. High School Musical done right. A boy from a tough, Northern England coal-mining town discovers a love for ballet. Soft-spoken in his approach Jamie Bell demonstrated an early ability for nuance. He makes Billy believable. He is not loud or defiant against his hard life surroundings. Billy is misunderstood, quiet, and unsure, which makes the underdog story all the more relatable and heartwarming. Billy Elliot is an odd, slow burn of a dream story.
Amélie. A quiet coffee shop waitress becomes a guardian angel for the people of her town, taking small and secret steps to better their lives or to right their wrongs. Quirky. Delightful. In every aspect and definition. From the color scheme to the soundtrack. From the flighty dreamer protagonist to the lack of an antagonist. From oddball plot to the animated ensemble. Amélie is everything you want in a heartwarming movie.
Paddington 1 & 2. The marmalade-loving, clumsy, and relentlessly kind bear comes to London to spread joy. These films are amazing. Seriously, there is no reason they should be this good. Paddington should have been a poor excuse to cash in on childhood nostalgia for those who grew up reading the books. It should be poorly animated with pointless physical humor and fart jokes like the rest of the kid’s movies these days. But there is not one wrong step in these joyful, shameless sappy, and smile-inducing films. The cast is spectacular, led by the highly-overrated Ben Whishaw. I don’t know if I have ever watched a movie and just known that the cast had so much fun making a movie. They are just playing, especially Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant who play the “villains” or Brendan Gleeson who plays Knuckles. The films are not just for kids. They are for everyone. Is the sequel better than the first? Probably but who cares. Did the second deserve the highest Rotten Tomatoes score it once held, topping even Citizen Kane, before one or two hopeless, lifeless, chasm-for-a-soul critics purposefully knocked it down? YES. Watch one, watch both, and then restart every time you need a pick-me-up.
