What We Can Learn from Great Movies of 2009

10 Lessons from the Best Picture Oscar Nominees

Last year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences increased its Best Picture nominees from five to 10. The idea was to give the ever straight-laced Oscar a little kick in the rear and inject some cinematic diversity into the awards. "Those carefully crafted indie flicks are great and all," the Academy seemed to say, "but wouldn't it be nice to honor something that folks have actually seen?"

The 2010 crop of Academy Award Best Picture nominees is one of the most eclectic in recent memory. Massive blockbusters stand next to tiny boutique films, comedies snicker alongside tear-jerking dramas, and the films themselves feature everyone from glib corporate terminators and illiterate teens to blue aliens and birds named Kevin.

But for all their diversity, these films still share something: Each carries a powerful message or two about being a better person. So raise the curtain, dig into the popcorn, and see what Oscar has to teach us this year.

'The Blind Side': Appreciate the Real Meaning of Family

"The Blind Side" is a classic Cinderella story—albeit one where Cinderella is a 300-plus-pound lineman and the fairy godmother wears designer sunglasses. Granted, Michael Oher, who serves as the film's not-so-Disney-fied damsel, has no evil stepmother to deal with, no jealous step-siblings. In fact, he doesn't have much of anything at all—just an extra shirt in a paper bag and a nickname he doesn't like.

Right on cue, in sweeps Leigh Anne Tuohy—a Memphis firecracker with bleached blond hair and finger-wagging snap. Before you can say "Ol' Miss," Tuohy ushers Oher off the streets and sets him up in the Tuohy mansion, giving him a truck, a family, and a future. They give Oher (who, in real life, now plays in the NFL) a chance, and showed him what it means to be loved.

But perhaps Leigh Anne and the Tuohys, for all their generosity, aren't this film's primary heroes. Michael, through his gentleness, consideration, and quiet dignity, evolves from charity project to family member—teaching the Tuohys what "family" really means. When one of Leigh Anne's friends tells her that she's changing Michael's life, Leigh Anne says, "No, he's changing mine." And in the end, we know it's true.

Photo: Ralph Nelson/Warner Bros.

'District 9': Try Walking in Someone Else's Shoes

They came without warning, without explanation. They parked their spacecraft over Johannesburg and then… just sat there, until someone finally brought them down and stuffed them into a squalid refugee camp. Before long, tensions escalate. The visitors, left leaderless and kept powerless, degenerate into a massive welfare state, dependent on government support. People, growing ever more fearful and angry of these visitors, just want the "prawns" to disappear—one way or another.

It's amazing how easy it is to dehumanize someone when they're not human.

Wikus Van De Merwe stands at the center of this popcorn parable. Wikus, tasked with shuttling the visitors to a new, "improved" refugee camp, begins the film as a glibly racist bureaucrat—but comes to change his views as he slowly turns into a prawn himself. Through him, we learn that there's no better way to develop empathy for someone else than walking in his shoes—even if those shoes fit best on insectile-like hooves.

Photo: TriStar Pictures

'Avatar': Be Stewards of the Earth - and Other Planets

If it wasn't for the poisonous atmosphere, a visit to Pandora would make almost everyone's galactic bucket list: lush forests, floating mountains, interesting people…really, the only thing it's missing is a nice, spacious five-star resort with a private beach and a 10-foot-tall valet.

Then again, maybe a Hyatt Pandora would soil the beautiful planet just as much as humankind's ruthless mining of unobtainium. James Cameron's environmental fable suggests that there are places we shouldn't exploit, places we can't improve.

"Avatar," along with its record-breaking box-office take, has earned its share of criticism: Some believe it's anti-American. Others resent that the native Na'vi still required a Caucasian American to "save" them. But perhaps most of the millions of people who've plunked down a collective $2 billion to see the film came away with Cameron's central message: that the world—theirs and ours—is a wonderful place, and it should be treated with respect, reverence, and the utmost care.

Photo: 20th Century Fox

'An Education': Act Your Age

Age, it seems, is an ever-running paradox: When we're young, we want to be older. When we're old, we want to be younger. And most of us never know what it feels like to be just right.

When 16-year-old Jenny Miller looks at David, she sees more than just a charming admirer. She sees sophistication, experience—everything she wants for herself. When the 30-something David looks at Jenny, he sees another pretty, innocent girl whom he can seduce and use. The relationship, given inexplicable blessing by Jenny's parents, was bound to end badly, and indeed it does. David turns out to be a con man and cad (and a married one at that), and Jenny winds up back with her parents, asking them why they didn't stop her.

In the end, Jenny learns a great deal from her "education"—most critically, that she would have been better off without it. She learns there's nothing wrong with acting her age; if only David had learned the same thing.

Photo by Kerry Brown/Sony Pictures Classics

'The Hurt Locker': Know What It Takes to Be a Hero

"It is well that war is so terrible," Confederate General Robert E. Lee once said, "lest we grow too fond of it."

We can't say whether Sgt. 1st Class William James is fond of war, but we do know he's awfully good at it. James, a bomb-defusing specialist in wartime Iraq, does his work with the cool swagger of a B-movie gunslinger, the recklessness of a lunatic. He takes the sorts of risks that inspire soldiers one minute, exasperate them the next. He is John Wayne in a bomb suit, Clint Eastwood with a death wish. And, as we watch him risk his life and the lives of his men, we're called to ask ourselves a difficult question: To excel in the insanity of war, do you have to be a little crazy yourself?

The film offers no conclusions and preaches no sermons. It simply dares us to examine the paradoxes found in James's brand of soldier—and wonder whether it's possible to be a hero and villain in the very same moment.

'Inglourious Basterds': Appreciate Courage

Nazis. We hate those guys.

Most everyone does, really, and what's not to hate? Nazis in movies are bad to the bone: racist warmongers who have a fondness for death, torture, and shiny leather boots. They are cinematic shorthand for evil and, as Quentin Tarantino illustrates, they don't get any nicer if you rewrite history.

It takes quite a bit of courage to take on the Nazis at all—much less behind enemy lines, much less again if you're Jewish. But that's what Tarantino's "Basterds" do: They want to scare the Heimlich out of the Nazis, even at great risk to their own lives. Truth is, not many make it to the credits in one piece, but most die willingly, knowing their sacrifice meant something.

Granted, we can't condone the "Basterds'" methods—heavy as they are with baseball bats and scalpings and immolations and such. But can we appreciate their motives? I think we can.

Photo by Francois Duhamel/Weinstein Company

'Precious': Never Give Up on Yourself

They called her Precious. But no one believed it.

Since she was an infant, Claireece "Precious" Jones has been abused in horrific, scarcely imaginable ways. Her mother beats and ridicules her. Her father has impregnated her—twice. She's failing school and serially mocked by her classmates. Morbidly obese and wholly illiterate, Precious's only refuge is behind a wall of fantasy, built brick by desperate brick. Hers is a world without hope.

Why does she still have it, then? Why does she enroll in another school even when her mother pressures her to go on welfare? Why does she learn to read and write? Why does she decide to leave what little security she has and raise her two children—one with disabilities—on her own?

Some may point to Miss Blu Rain, Precious's beautiful, patient teacher, as the film's heroine. But while Rain may have been part of the catalyst for Precious's transformation, the work—and the decisions—were the girl's alone. Through her, we're given a powerful example of how someone can transcend the most nightmarish of circumstances.

Photo: Anne Marie Fox

'A Serious Man': Be Patient and Trust Your Faith

Why me?

We've asked such questions of our Creator from the time of Job, and no wonder: When we live in a universe of mathematical precision, when almost everything around us has purpose and place, why do our own lives seem so messed up?

It's questions like these that have made Larry Gopnik such "A Serious Man." Plague after inexplicable plague descends on the poor guy, and Larry just can't figure out why. And when he tries to ask some local rabbis what's up with all this awfulness, they either fill his ears with meaningless drivel or won't talk with him at all.

The Coen brothers often thwap audiences with cynicism and nihilism, and "A Serious Man" is as bleak as it comes. There's little sense of sense, here. But the story, based loosely on the book of Job, could have another takeaway, too. When Job dares question God about his own travails, God tells Job to—in so many words—cool his jets. "Don't question my ways," He seems to say. "You can't hope to understand them." And so Job, Larry, and the rest of us, must wait in both hope and faith, trusting that one day we'll understand.

Photo: Wilson Webb

'Up': Don't Live in the Past

It takes a lot for a man to just pick up and move to the wilds of Venezuela. It takes a whole lot more for a man to take his house with him.

Carl Fredrickson made a promise to his wife, Ellie, that one day they'd go to Paradise Falls together. Ellie died before they could make the trip, but a promise is a promise. And if Carl can't go with Ellie, at least he'll take all the stuff that reminds him of her. Which is, as it turns out, everything he owns.

Romantic? Yes. Admirable? Perhaps. Pointless? You betcha. Carl, fixated so firmly on the past, loses touch with the present. It seems as though the old man's just biding his time—taking one last Ellie-centric adventure before he can finally join her in death.

But Ellie's not quite ready for Carl to join her in the Great Beyond, and he discovers he could be so much more than just a mopey widower. He could be, for some folks, a father figure, a dog owner—even a hero. Sure, Carl may be old, but he's not dead, and he sure isn't alone. Turns out, Carl only thought his story was at an end. All he needed to do was turn the page.

Photo: Disney/Pixar

'Up in the Air': Value Your Relationships

Marriage? Kids? Friends? Phooey. For Ryan Bingham, such relational ties are just that—ties that shackle the human spirit and keep it from soaring. And Ryan's all about soaring. He's the ultimate frequent flier, just a few honey-roasted peanuts from reaching the 10 million mile club. "The slower we move the faster we die," he tells those attend his motivational seminars. "Make no mistake, moving is living."

But Ryan has made a mistake: He meets Alex, a woman who perfectly suits him. She's so cool, and so independent, that Ryan can't help but wonder whether it might be nifty to be—well, independent together.

Alas, it's not to be. Alex, turns out, wasn't quite so free of attachments as she claimed. Ryan hits his 10 million mile goal, but he finds that reaching the milestone has left him strangely unfulfilled. Maybe human attachments are, paradoxically, liberating somehow.

The realization perhaps came too late for Ryan: He, after all, has another plane to catch. But through him, we learn that life's about more than arbitrary career goals and executive airplane suites—no matter how tasty the martinis are.

Photo by Dale Robinette/DreamWorks Pictures