The Top 100 Inspirational Movies: 80 - 61

80 - The Incredibles

Brad Bird’s animated film about a family of superheroes has all the classic tropes: fantastic powers, villains bent on world domination, wild gadgets, and miraculous rescues. Those elements make the film exciting and enjoyable, but what makes the film inspirational are the strong family values. The Parrs, despite their extraordinary abilities, act and feel like a real family. The parents fight, the kids struggle with school, and family life is not easy. They even make selfish decisions that hurt those around them.

But in the end, they work through their differences and come together. Even if you don’t have super strength or elastic limbs, it’s still a film that both parents and children can learn from.

~ Evan Derrick

78 - A Man For All Seasons

A Man For All Seasons is based on the life of Sir Thomas More who was the 16th- century Lord Chancellor of England. When King Henry VIII (yes, the one with all the wives) asked him to send a letter to the Pope asking for an annulment, More refused and resigned his post. When Henry later asked More to recognize him as head of the Church of England, he refused that as well. That final refusal cost him his head.

The film is a deeply moving look at conscience and integrity and the lengths one man will go to do what he believes is right. After he is condemned, More gives a stirring speech in front of the court that is a powerful indictment of corruption and power.

Robert Whittington, a contemporary of Mores, wrote this about him in 1520. The title of the film is pulled from this quote:

More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.

~ Evan Derrick

77 - Breaking Away

Lifelong buddies Dave, Mike, Cyril and Moocher have no idea what they will do now that they’ve graduated from high school. Growing up in the college town of Bloomington, Indiana, they don’t fit in at Indiana University – where locals are derisively called "cutters” from the years that a limestone quarry was the town’s largest employer.

But things have changed. The quarry is now a swimming hole. And Dave yearns for more. Although he has no job and doesn't know what to do with his life, he is a champion bicycle racer – at least in his own mind.

Astride his bike, singing classical Rossini with a convincing Italian accent, he pretends to be a foreign exchange student and dates a pretty sorority girl. You’ll chuckle as his ever-supportive buddies – a very young Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern and the ever-pimpled Jackie Earle Haley – with Dave, played by Dennis Christopher, enter the university’s annual bicycle relay race, the Little Indy 500.

“Breaking away” describes the often-desperate solo move a bike racer makes at the last moment to win. For most of any race, riders bunch together to minimize wind resistance. But to win, a rider must just get a jump on the group at just the right moment and, with superhuman effort, beat the odds by going it alone.

This film does just that – and will inspire you to dare to break away, too.

~ Rob Kerby

76 - Trip to Bountiful

Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as the elderly Carrie Watts, who is drifting into the twilight of her senior years, trapped in 1950s Houston with a controlling daughter-in-law and a hen-pecked son.

Her fondest wish – just one more time before she dies – is to return home to Bountiful, her rural hometown. Her son, Ludie, says he is too concerned for her fragile health to allow her to travel alone. He would take her, but his petty, status-conscious daughter-in-law, Jessie Mae, insists they don't have money to squander on such foolishness.

A miserable girl, Jessie Mae can’t stand it when Carrie sings quietly the church hymns from her childhood. Each month, Carry attempts to slip away upon the arrival of her meager Social Security check. Finally, she outwits her son and bossy daughter-in-law, setting out to catch a train, only to find none go to Bountiful anymore.

She boards a bus and on the journey befriends a girl traveling alone, played by Rebecca DeMornay, and reminisces about her younger years. The bus only goes near Bountiful, but the local sheriff, touched by her desperate yearning, drives her out to the town. Carry is reduced to tears by what she finds – as a frantic Ludie skids into the driveway and another beautiful hymn resounds in our very satisfied hearts.

~ Rob Kerby

75 - Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers is an unlikely animated film from Japan about three homeless people who find a baby in the garbage on Christmas Eve. An alcoholic, a transsexual, and a runaway girl, they form the most unlikely trio to take care of a newborn. The film takes place in a single night as they search for the baby’s real parents and try to understand why they gave her up in the first place.

What’s beautiful about the film is how three broken people who have made terrible life decisions end up becoming the most valiant protectors of the little baby girl. Their lives have always been about putting themselves first, but they discover an unexpected humanity within themselves when they set aside their own interests for the needs of another.

~ Evan Derrick

74 - Stand and Deliver

Jaime Escalante works as a math teacher in East Los Angeles in 1982. His students are gang members who have lost interest in school and seem unreachable. The new teacher at Garfield High School is not deterred from making these students successful. He is threatened and hated, but this rebellion fuels Escalante’s unconventional teaching methods. Escalante works to prepare them for the Advanced Placement exam in calculus. His students did well on the test, which led many to believe they cheated. Escalante viewed this as racist and fought for his students to have their test scores reinstated and instilled a sense achievement beyond the classroom.

~ Corine Gatti

73 - Lillies of the Field

Sidney Poitier plays Homer Smith in this classic adapted from the 1962 novel Lilies of the Field. Smith is a drifter and meets his destiny after stopping to attain water for his car in a small Arizona town. He encounters nuns working feverishly and unsuccessfully on a fence and offers to help with the hopes of receiving money in exchange. Smith, who once dreamed of becoming an architect, stays overnight, assuming he would get paid. He was asked again by Mother Maria to do more repairs—this time the roof. Smith is roped into staying overnight with hopes of collecting his money. The nuns realize that Smith was sent by God to help build the church and press him to stay. Smith is a Baptist and isn’t amused about going or building a Catholic chapel. By living with the nuns he learns the back-story of Mother Maria’s adventure of climbing the Berlin wall to freedom. Smith’s heart melts. He knew that despite donations of lumber and supplies, the nuns could not clear the land or erect the beams for the chapel, and decides to remain and build the church, where he inevitably fulfils his own dreams and the vision of the nuns.

~ Corine Gatti

71 - Simon Birch

“God has a plan for everyone,” Birch says. Simon Birch is proof that despite what the world deems as a disability, God can still do a great work. This young “miracle child” as he was called by doctors, believes he has a great purpose, despite being born with Morquio Syndrome (stunted growth). He plays baseball, swims and participates in many activities that the other children are involved in. Simon’s lack of affection from his parents will not deter him or his adventures with his best friend 12-year-old Joe Wenteworth. The youth is not afraid to speak up in class or in mass and tell everyone that God has a plan for his life and he’s God’s instrument. He is ridiculed for this by the reverend and his Sunday school teacher. With negative words spoken over his life, Simon remains steadfast in God’s calling.

~ Corine Gatti

70 - My Neighbor Totoro

Hayao Miyazaki creates some of the best movies for children in the world. My Neighbor Totoro is about a father and his two daughters who move to the country while their mother is in the hospital dealing with a life-threatening illness. The film deals with serious issues, but it also captures the innocence and wide-eyed wonder of childhood like no other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s difficult to explain the film’s appeal unless you can watch it with children, who are magically transfixed by the soot creatures, the cat bus, and, of course, the Totoros. It’s a simple, beautiful film, and one that should be enjoyed by kids of all ages.

~ Evan Derrick

69 - Defending Your Life

When you die, you don’t go to heaven or to hell. You go to a place called Judgment City, where you quickly discover that you only use 3-5% of your brain (enlightened people use 20 to 60% of their brains). You’re assigned a defense attorney and your case goes before the Judgment court, where they review your life. If you can prove that you conquered your fears while on earth, you can move on to the next phase. If not, you’re reincarnated on earth for a second chance.

At least, that’s how it goes in Defending Your Life, which stars Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep. Brooks plays Daniel, an advertising executive who dies in a car crash and wakes up in Judgment City. He quickly falls for Julia (Meryl Streep), who has obviously had a much kinder, courageous life than he has. Her trial goes well, his goes poorly, and they’re separated as he heads back to earth to try again and she moves on to the next phase.

That, of course, is not quite how the film ends, and the mad dash to “get the girl” is one of the best I’ve ever seen in a romantic film. Defending Your Life is a warm film with a sappy heart that actually makes you take stock of your life and how you’re spending your time on earth.

~ Evan Derrick

65 - What Dreams May Come

Dr. Christopher Nielsen and Annie Collins decided to work out their marriage after they lost their children in a car crash. But on the anniversary of the date they decided not to get a divorce, Chris is killed. Annie plummets into despair and has a breakdown. Chris wakes in heaven where he meets Albert, a friend from his residency to guide his way. Chris also lingers on earth and watches kill herself. He also learns that Annie will go to hell for taking her life and looks to rescue her soul. Albert said this was not possible and finds a tracker to find Annie. Albert was really Chris’s son Ian-- the tracker would be the real Albert pleading with him that Chris could be stuck in hell if he seeks her soul. This was a sacrifice that he was willing to make and did so. However, Annie and Chris would wake up together as kids in heaven after the sacrifice was made. They were also reunited with their children again.

~ Corine Gatti

64 - The Lives of Others

Set in East Germany five years before the fall of the Berlin wall, The Lives of Others stars Ulrich Mühe as Weisler, a cold, by-the-numbers wiretap expert for the stasi, the East German secret police. He is assigned to monitor Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Kock), a famous playwright who is suspected of crimes against the socialist state. As he begins to record the intimate conversations and whisperings of Dreyman and his actress girlfiend, Weisler enters a world for which he has no compass, a world his communist rhetoric has left him woefully unequipped to handle.

This sense of palpable fear permeates the entire society. Everyone is always looking over their back, watching what they say, wondering if their apartments have been tapped. It is Big Brother in the flesh, and the fact that the film is set in 1984 is certainly no coincidence. Weisler is the face of this omniscient entity and Ulrich Mühe plays him brilliantly. It is one of the most moving and effective performances that I have ever witnessed on film. As he sits in an upstairs attic, surrounded by audio equipment, eavesdropping intently to Dreyman’s rendition of Mozart on the piano, we are only shown what is happening to Weisler through his eyes. There is no dialogue, no grand facial gestures. Only the eyes. Weisler is experiencing something, he is hearing something that his drab world has never shown him before: beauty. And in his eyes you witness the most amazing transformation. It is a spiritual moment, a road-to-Damascus conversion, and I cried when I saw it.

Ultimately, Weisler is forced to make decisions he would never have even contemplated previously, and these decisions lead inexorably towards tragedy even as he attempts to stop it.

sThe climax of the film is both riveting and heartbreaking, and if The Lives of Others had chosen to stop there, it would still have been a ‘good’ film. So many foreign and independent movies choose that route, to end in tragedy rather than risk the melodrama of a ‘happy’ ending. It often makes them seem edgy, hip, and artistic, especially if they violently kill off all of their main characters. The Lives of Others could have easily joined that crowd of films, and if it had it would have been the cream of them, the best example of independent tragedy. But it chooses to rise far above such pettiness. The ending is not melodramatic, it is not sappy, it is nothing like what you could have possibly imagined. It is subtle and touching and beautiful and redemptive. It is the perfect ending and it takes The Lives of Others from simply being ‘good’ to being unequivocally ‘great.’

Simply put, The Lives of the Others is one of the finest films I have ever seen. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

~ Evan Derrick

63 - The Muppets

Walter was always searching for meaning, confidence and his purpose. One day he found that spark after watching the Muppets and remained their biggest fan even after they retired. His brother Gary and his girlfriend Mary were headed to LA and brought Walter along to visit the old set of the Muppets. During their tour, Walter finds out that Tex Richman plans to destroy the studio and drill for oil. Walter seeks out Kermit and the old gang to come together and hold a marathon to raise money to keep the studio. However, they fall short, but Tex ultimately decides to have the Muppets keep their land. Walter finds his purpose and independence with the resurrected Muppets.

~ Corine Gatti