Every month, our contributors submit lists of ten films fitting certain topics. Each month, we feature an alphabetical list of films along with commentary explaining our selections. There will also be an itemized list at the end of each of our individual selections.
For our final list of 2016, we have decided to celebrate the holiday season with a list of our favorite films that warm our hearts and lift our spirits. Peter, Tripp, Thomas, and I have put together our individual lists of the 10 films that most speak to us when we need cheer, holiday or otherwise.
A look at our lists finds minimal overlap. Five films are common between our lists: Babe, Beauty and the Beast, It’s a Wonderful Life, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and Random Harvest. For directors, Frank Capra is the only director featured twice showing up with It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
After the break, dig into our introductions and our subsequent blurbs on each film.
The Introductions
Wesley Lovell: This list was a challenge. Not because there aren’t a lot of movies that could qualify, but because I’m not sure how to apply the theme to them. My ultimate goal was to pick films that were either comforting or compassionate. Films that left you feeling happy and passionate in the end. I have musicals, animated films, and other modestly uplifting films on the list because when you need your heart warmed, it’s a positive or hopeful ending that you most want.
Peter J. Patrick: I had forgotten we were doing ten films that warm our hearts this month when I put together my top ten list of films to watch over and over last month. This list could be called top ten films to watch over and over, part two, as indeed this is a list of films that I could and do watch over and over. The common denominator among this group is that all these films have an “ah” moment, that moment that beings a smile to the lips, a tear to the eye, a lump in the throat, or a combination of two of these, or even all three at the same time. The oldest film on the list is from 1938 and the newest is from 1991. All ten are by different directors.
Tripp Burton: This was another hard list to concoct if only because there seems to be so many different ways to warm your heart. I tried to give a wide berth of them: touching films, funny films, exuberant films, films that give me joy, hope, or peace. Above all, the films that I find most heartwarming seem to be the ones that make the impossible look possible and that relish in the possibilities of what we can be and do.
Thomas LaTourrette: I always knew that there would be a few animated films in this category, as this is what a lot of them are trying to do. I hadn’t realized that I would end up with two Australian, one French, and one Japanese film as well. It may perhaps not be surprising that four of them have strong female leads or that several deal with young people trying to find their way in the world, but they are all films that I think of fondly for that bit of inspiration they give.
Amelie (2001)
(dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This French farce had the amazing Audrey Tautou in the lead as the effervescent Amelie who tried to change the lives of those around her for the better. She ignores her own loneliness while helping others, but in the end finds love and a chance for happiness of her own. It is a charmer and well worth seeing if you missed it the first time around.
Auntie Mame (1958)
(dir. Morton DaCosta) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – There aren’t that many films with a genuinely upbeat and uplifting message at their hearts like that in Auntie Mame. Based on a novel by Patrick Dennis, the book became a runaway hit, spawning a play, a film, and a stage musical, all of which earned acclaim. Rosalind Russell makes this darling film pop, playing the eccentric aunt who helps a young boy grow up in the most worldly and broad way possible. Its themes of inclusion, living life to the fullest, and never letting the world get you down are still powerful messages 60 years later. It’s a film that will never fail to make you smile.
Babe (1995)
(dir. Chris Noonan) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – The story of a talking pig might seem like a strange subject for a live-action film, but Babe brings magic and wonder to the big screen. The best film of its year, Babe is a beautiful story about perseverance and breaking molds. The young titular porcine stalwart warms your heart, as does his master played by James Cromwell. The film has a positive and uplifting finale that still tugs at your heart every time you watch it.
Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – The story of a pig who wants to be a sheepdog sounds impressively sophomoric, but this Australian film touched the heart and garnered several Oscar nominations along the way, including one for the stalwart James Cromwell as the human lead. The other animals are not so thrilled by having a pig try to be a herder, but an elder sheep teaches him to be polite so that the rest of the sheep will obey. In the end, Babe wins a herding competition and Farmer Hoggett gives him the best praise of “That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.”
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
(dir. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – After the success of The Little Mermaid, Disney’s animation division churned out a string of unparalleled successes, the crowning achievement of which is this adaptation of the classic French fairy tale. Voiced marvelously by an array of talented actors, Beauty and the Beast may be a tale as old as time, but it’s a generous, lovely, beautiful film that can lift your spirits even from the midst of darkness.
Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – The first fully animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar 25 years ago is my own favorite animated feature and the only one on this list. It’s also the only musical on the list. The traditional fairy tale, first published in 1740, has thrilled generations of children and had been filmed many times before, most notably by Jean Cocteau in 1946. It’s also been done several times since and will soon be seen in theaters again in a live-action version of this film, also from Disney. Perhaps that version will become my favorite. Who knows? In the mean-time we have this to watch over and over. The big “ah” moment? The transformation, of course.
The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
(dir. Leo McCarey) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – McCarey’s Oscar-winning 1944 film Going My Way was a feel-good film buoyed by the Oscar-winning performances of Bing Crosby as easygoing Father O’Malley and Barry Fitzgerald as his more serious superior, Father FitzGibbon. This sequel goes one better, pairing Crosby’s Father O’Malley with Ingrid Bergman’s school principal, Sister Benedict, in a film with more in-depth storytelling in which the two are often at odds with each other over the treatment of the school’s most difficult students. The big “ah” moment? When Father Bing breaks the rules by telling Sister Ingrid why she must leave her beloved school.
Brooklyn (2015)
(dir. John Crowley) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A young Irish girl ventures to America in 1952 and learns how to cope with a new country and customs. Along the way she learns a new vocation, finds love, and ultimately finds herself. It is just a lovely film and is anchored by the spectacular Saorise Ronan who easily could have won an Oscar for this star-making role.
A Christmas Carol (1951)
(dir. Brian Desmond-Hurst) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Most of Charles Dickens’ works and the films that have been made from them have “ah” moments – Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations all have them. We don’t see them coming in those works, but not only do we see it coming in A Christmas Carol, we live for it. It’s the same in all of the films about Scrooge (the original British title of this film), but somehow it seems all that much merrier in this superior version when Alastair Sim awakens from his slumber to give us the “ah” moment on Christmas morning.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
(dir. Steven Spielberg) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – This is the film that made me appreciate Spielberg. I thought all of his earlier films, including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, were wildly overrated. I also thought I’d never see a better film about aliens visiting our planet than Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still. Then along came this masterful kids’ movie in which Henry Thomas’ troubled boy finds his soul-mate in the lost alien he dubs “E.T.” and all bets were off. The film has many thrilling “ah” moments, but none more so than the awe-inspiring “aw shucks” moment of “E.T. phone home.”
Commentary By Tripp Burton – E.T. the character is heart-warming in the most literal sense: his heart actually glows throughout the film. The movie, though, is just as heartwarming. The relationship between Elliot and E.T. is so real and authentic and you can’t help but find a hope for humanity in the bravery of the group of kids who grow to trust and protect their alien buddy. Alien films often exist to condemn humanity for our faults; Spielberg’s aliens illuminate the goodness that it embedded in each of us.
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
(dir. Woody Allen) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This Woody Allen film did not do well at the box office, but it was an absolute charmer. Ordinary people, played by an extraordinary cast, burst into song. The movie follows the lives and love lives of an extended upper crust family in New York, Venice and Paris. The settings are gorgeous and it made me feel that this is how life should be, with music everywhere and dancing in the streets.
Fanny (1961)
(dir. Joshua Logan) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Marcel Pagnol’s trilogy of Marius, Fanny, and Cesar, about a waterfront French girl (Fanny) left pregnant by a sailor (Marius) who marries his father Cesar’s contemporary (Panisse), was first filmed in France in the early 1930s. In 1954, all three were combined into the musical Fanny. Logan, who directed the stage musical, decided to film it as a straight drama with Harold Rome’s brilliant score used in background, much of the song lyrics now spoken as part of the dialogue. The big “ah” moment? When Fanny’s son Cesario meets the mysterious Marius, not knowing he’s his father.
Finding Nemo (2003)
(dir. Andrew Stanton) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A young fish gets lost in the ocean and the film varies between his adventures and those of his father trying to find him. It could have been a sappy film, but Pixar did a great job of interspersing humor and gorgeous ocean vistas with just enough fear and dread to keep one’s interest. The ending is never really in doubt, but it is a fun ride getting there.
Girl Walk // All Day (2011)
(dir. Jacob Krupnick) Commentary By Tripp Burton – Girl Walk // All Day, Anne Marsen’s dance extravaganza, is a go-to for me whenever I am feeling down. The premise is simple: Marsen dances through New York to Girl Talk’s album “All Day.” That is the film. It was released in twelve pieces, one for each track on the album, and is available for free online. There is a threadbare attempt at a story to hold things together, but that is inconsequential. If my heart needs to be lifted, any track, in any order, will do that. The exuberance of Marsen’s dancing, the reactions of the random strangers she wafts by, the ingenuity of how the choreography incorporates the everyday objects it passes, the joyful rhythms of Girl Talk. It all adds up to a piece of art that is truly and utterly happy.
Home from the Hill (1960)
(dir. Vincente Minnelli) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – This electrifying domestic drama is played out against the sprawling expanse of 1950s Texas as womanizing Robert Mitchum fights with wife Eleanor Parker over the future of their now 18-year-old son, played by George Hamilton as Hamilton comes of age learning that his father’s foreman, George Peppard, is also his illegitimate son. Former Disney starlet Luanna Patten plays the girl who is impregnated by Hamilton, then married by Peppard when Hamilton runs off. Tragedy strikes when Patten’s father shoots and kills Mitchum, thinking he’s the father of her baby. The big “ah” moment? Parker and Peppard at the cemetery.
In America (2002)
(dir. Jim Sheridan) Commentary By Tripp Burton – There is a lot of In America that makes it very difficult to watch. Jim Sheridan and his daughters, who co-wrote the script with him, put our main characters through a lot of strife and let them make some painful decisions. By the end, though, it has also reaffirmed the power of family and love. The immigrant family at the center of the film has fought hard and have seen some sort of light at the end of their very dark tunnel. It is the American Dream personified on film.
Inside Out (2015)
(dir. Pete Docter) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Pixar has turned out some of the most memorable cinematic experiences of the last two decades and while Inside Out arrived as the company was on a downward trend, it is a genuinely uplifting family drama that transcends age in the way only Pixar can. Discovering how sadness can taint the most happy memories only reveals how joy can embellish our saddest. The film is breathtakingly inventive and you can’t help but feel lighthearted watching it.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
(dir. Frank Capra) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – A film about a man wanting to commit suicide because he doesn’t feel he matters might not seem like a film fit for a list like this, nor does it sound like something families enjoy during the Christmas holiday season. Yet, the film shows us just how much we can impact the lives of those around us. No matter how we see ourselves in the face of adversity, there is always someone else who sees us as a pillar of hope. That understanding of how others potentially see us can be a most gratifying realization.
Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Capra’s post-war masterpiece was a modest success when first released. It didn’t become a phenomenon until by a fluke its copyright was not renewed in 1973 and local TV programmers could show it for free, which they did incessantly every holiday season for years. It’s a very dark film that begins with an attempted suicide when George Bailey (James Stewart) is at his lowest point. He’s saved by apprentice angel Clarence (Henry Travers) who shows him and, by reflection, us that his life and ours has meaning. It’s filled with “ah” moments, but saves the best for last as George’s family and friends unite for a rousing “Auld Lang Syne”.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
(dir. Robert Hamer) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – This delightful comedy features Alec Guinness in a variety of roles flexing his comic muscles. This murder comedy is as lighthearted and humorous as it comes, when death’s involved. Watching Guinness masterfully play the entire lineage of a single family is pure bliss. The film, while not as well remembered today as it should be, is no less heartening than the myriad comedies that came before and have come after it. Yet, memories of its breadth and brilliance make it the kind of movie you want to curl up with when you’re at your lowest.
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Miracle on 34th St (1947)
(dir. George Seaton) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – The second Christmas-themed film on my list, Miracle on 34th St treats the Santa Claus myth as if it were real. As we age, we relinquish belief in childish things. Santa Claus stands in for everything that brought mirth to our childhoods that we have since abandoned for the requirements of being adult. It posits that by returning to that which we once found joy in and rejecting the idea that you can no longer enjoy youthful pursuits as you age is nothing more than a disservice to our emotional well-being.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
(dir. Frank Capa) Commentary By Tripp Burton – At a time when a lot of Americans are questioning the way that our democracy works and who it is benefiting, it might behoove all of us to rewatch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Frank Capra’s idealistic look at a corrupt Washington, D.C. reaffirms the power of just one person in American government. Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Smith takes up a cause and fights until he collapses, and if the resulting change of heart from the Senate cronies is a little far-fetched, that is what we need in a heartwarming film sometimes. The belief that the impossible is actually possible, and the power can truly lie in one average person.
My Brilliant Career (1979)
(dir. Gillian Armstrong) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – Judy Davis became known to the wider world when this Australian film debuted in 1979. She played a headstrong young woman who wanted a better life than just working on a farm. She is wooed by two men, including the young Sam Neill, but rejects them as she would prefer to become a writer. At the end of the movie, she is sending her novel off to the publisher, and one does not know if she ever married either of her suitors. But it does not really matter as she has achieved the success she wanted in life and Davis imbues her with such vitality that you root for her to succeed.
October Sky (1999)
(dir. Joe Johnston) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – A young coal miner’s son hopes for a more interesting life. With support from a caring science teacher, he develops an interest in model rocketry. His father is not pleased about this and life continually tries to thwart his ambitions, but he eventually prevails and wins a school science fair and then gets to take part in a national one. It’s a sweet film, made more so by the fact that it is based on the young life of a man who eventually became a NASA engineer.
Of Human Hearts (1938)
(dir. Clarence Brown) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – This is the film that is justly famous for Beulah Bondi’s magnificent portrayal of the self-sacrificing widowed mother who writes to President Lincoln when she doesn’t hear from her ungrateful lout of a son (James Stewart), now a doctor for three years during the Civil War. She lived a pauper’s life to put him through medical school. The last contact was when he asked her to sell the family horse to pay for his uniform, which she did. Lincoln, played by John Carradine, intervenes and sends him home to visit his mother in the middle of the war. The big “ah” moment? The return of the prodigal son, and the horse, of course.
Oliver! (1968)
(dir. Carol Reed) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Oliver Twist might seem like an odd story to find itself adapted into a musical, but Charles Dickens’ immortal story received new life when Lionel Bart adapted the story into the musical Oliver!. While this isn’t the most uplifting or happy-go-lucky musicals many have come to expect from that era, it’s still a rousing, entertaining musical extravaganza. Mixed within the bleakness of the story are glimmers of hope and empowerment.
Random Harvest (1942)
(dir. Mervyn LeRoy) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Greer Garson won the 1942 Oscar for Best Actress for Mrs. Miniver, but might just as easily have won for this film in which she gets to kick up her heels singing and dancing on screen for the only time in her lengthy career. Here she falls in love with and marries recovering amnesiac Ronald Colman. All is bliss until, while traveling, he gets another bump on his head and remembers his earlier life, forgetting all about Greer. What’s a girl to do other than track him down and become part of his life without revealing their earlier relationship? Just when all seems lost, a white picket fence triggers the ultimate “ah” moment.
Commentary By Tripp Burton – It is impossible to talk about what makes Random Harvest heartwarming without talking about all the twists and turns the film takes. So, SPOILER ALERT for a film over 70 years old (but far underseen, in my humble opinion). What is heartwarming is the idea that love is so strong that we will sacrifice our own happiness for the happiness of those we love. What is heartwarming is the idea that true love will break through in the end. What is heartwarming is the idea that the world has a way of realigning to what is supposed to be if we only give it long enough.
The Red Balloon (1956)
(dir. Albert Lamorisse) Commentary By Tripp Burton – There is something so simple about The Red Balloon that watching it makes me giddy. It is a boy and his balloon, but somehow they triumph over every obstacle with a pure goodness and little else. By the end, when all the balloons band together and carry the boy over Paris (the most heartwarmingly beautiful city imaginable) you can’t help but feel better about the world. Above all, though, The Red Balloon is also a marvelous feat of cinematic magic. It warms my heart just to think about everything they pulled off, and how the film does what the best cinema does: make the impossible seem routinely possible.
Separate Tables (1958)
(dir. Delbert Mann) Commentary By Peter J. Patrick – Who would have thought that the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election could have been predicted by a 1958 British drawing room drama about a seaside hotel out of season? Yet, it’s the same story when boorish David Niven is arrested for groping a woman at a local movie theater. Grand dame Gladys Cooper, whose mousy daughter Deborah Kerr is his only friend, heads a group demanding his eviction, but the majority who never liked him anyway, doesn’t give a damn that he turns out to be a dirty old man as well. The big “ah” moment? That’s delivered by Cooper’s companion, the luminous Cathleen Nesbitt, at the breakfast table.
Shall We Dance? (1996)
(dir. Masayuki Suo) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – This little seen Japanese film started with a business man who unexpectedly stops in a ballroom dancing studio. At first it is that he sees a beautiful woman that he is intrigued by, but then he slowly discovers that dancing brings a meaning to his life that had been missing. Western ballroom dancing is looked down on in Japan, so he hides it from his wife and coworkers. Of course he is ultimately discovered, but it is a fascinating journey while he gets there and realizes how much it means to him.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
(dir. David O. Russell) Commentary By Tripp Burton – I know that this is a choice that will rile a lot of feathers (including some of my peers here), but my goodness do I love this film. Everything about it brings a smile to my face: from the charming performances to the ridiculous twists and turns to the final dance number that is perfectly awful. The film is saturated in love for its characters, flaws and all, and every time I watch it I am grateful for getting to spend time with these people.
Spellbound (2002)
(dir. Jeffrey Blitz) Commentary By Tripp Burton – Nothing warms my heart more than seeing children excel beyond what we expect them to. Spellbound, Jeffrey Blitz’s documentary about eight contestants in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee, shows our kids at their best. It is affirming to see them do something at a young age that as an adult seems beyond my wildest dreams of being able to accomplish. It is funny, inspiring, and touching to watch these kids put their all into one thing and excel at it at the highest level.
The Sound of Music (1965)
(dir. Robert Wise) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – Another musical that has withstood the test of time is the immortal classic The Sound of Music. With a beautiful score, lively filmmaking, and a star-making turn by Julie Andrews, Sound of Music is a wonderful film to sit down to when you’re feeling blue. When the dog bites. When the bee stings. When I’m feeling sad. I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel so bad. That song alone gives the film more uplift than any other musical of its era, and that’s not the only tune worth remembering.
Spirited Away (2001)
(dir. Hayao Miyazaki) Commentary By Wesley Lovell – For me, the films I turn to when I need a lift, are also the ones that have a layer of hope blended into them. Spirited Away never fails to enliven my spirits with its brilliant inventiveness. The story has an emotional heft that many animated films pay lip service to, and of all of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, this is one of the most enlightening and invigorating. While there are others of his films that may be more joyous, this one has the deepest heart and that gives you a warm, tingly feeling in yours.
The Straight Story (1999)
(dir. David Lynch) Commentary By Tripp Burton – A story so ridiculous it has to be true, or it would never be believed, David Lynch’s G-Rated Disney film is about an elderly man who rides his tractor over 200 miles to visit his dying brother. Since the tractor can only go 5 miles per hour, the slow-paced journey leads to a deliberately paced film. It also leads to one of the most humane and tender films to come out of Hollywood in the last few decades. The tenacity of the main character and the simplicity with which Lynch tells the story make this a film that reaffirms the power of determination.
Swing Time (1936)
(dir. George Stevens) Commentary By Tripp Burton – No one danced on film as gracefully as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Swing Time may contain their most elegant dance numbers. It contains some of their best music, including “The Way You Look Tonight” and “Never Gonna Dance,” and they fly off the screen. They tap dance, polka, waltz, and quickstep like we haven’t seen them before. But Astaire and Rogers were even more than their dancing. They were elegant presences on screen, funny and charming at every turn, and that presence is what warms my heart about them. They are the ideals of Hollywood personified.
Toy Story (1995)
(dir. John Lasseter) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – Even toys have their own petty jealousies, as shown in Toy Story. Cowboy Sheriff Woody is worried that he will be supplanted in affection by the new and showier Buzz Lightyear. The two battle but end up having to help each other and all turns out well in the world. It was followed by two sequels, soon to be three, and all of them touch the heart as well.
The Whole Wide World (1996)
(dir. Dan Ireland) Commentary By Thomas La Tourrette – I had never heard of Renee Zellweger before this film, though Jerry Maguire would come out later in the year, but she impresses in it. She plays a schoolteacher who meets the pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard, most known for the Conan the Barbarian series. They spark a friendship which will not survive, but it is enjoyable to watch this young woman realize what is important to her and go for it. The movie only played for a week at an art house theater in Denver, but seeing it is something that I will remember fondly.
Wesley’s List |
Peter’s List |
Tripp’s List |
Thomas’ List |
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