Movies that make you think. Movies that make you think about life (Top 10)

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

It has been almost 120 years since the Lumière brothers surprised the Parisian public with their first short film. Over the years, cinema has become not only entertainment, but also a teacher, friend, psychologist for many generations of people in love with it. The most talented masters of the genre have made themselves known in this art form, creating films that make you think and, perhaps, change something in life.

Does genre matter?

Whether we watch drama or comedy, science fiction or "horror", we have a chance to catch the author's message if the movie is made sensibly and tastefully. And it is not necessary for a film to be a representative of the so-called intellectual cinema. Is it possible, for example, to refuse the wonderful Soviet comedy "The Diamond Hand" the right to enter the category under the code name "films that make you think about life"? And is not the fantastic horror film "Alien" a parable that even the most perfectan alien creature, if it is deprived of a soul, loses to a person, and how great is the responsibility of scientists to all of humanity?

Everyone has their own TOP 10

There are a great many films that make you think, and every film fan will willingly make his "golden ten". We will offer our own version and try to convince the reader that each of the presented tapes is capable of inducing serious reflection. So what are these 10 movies that make you think?

Mirror for a Hero

The film was shot in 1987 by director Vladimir Khotinenko. Based on the story of Svyatoslav Rybas with the same title. The tape tells about the eternal conflict of times and generations and, like all films that make you think about it, gives its own version of its resolution. According to the plot, philologist Sergei Pshenichny arrives at his father's house in one of the towns of Donbass. The son lets his father familiarize himself with his dissertation on psycholinguistics and receives a remark that the topic is relevant only for specialists and is useless for a wide range of people. In return, the father offers his son his book on the interaction of man with nature. Sergei is not interested in either the book or his father's memories of the time of building a bright future. The son accuses the father of the fact that the enthusiasm and labor exploits turned out to be useless to anyone. There is a quarrel. After that, Sergei and the engineer Andrei Nemchinov, whom he accidentally met, strangely find themselves in 1949, they meet their young parents and fellow villagers there and experience one andthe same repeating day until time sends them back to 1987. Sergey learns something about his father that he never knew: he was arrested for trying to close an emergency mine in order to save people from death, he considered the ideals of humanity above the desire to achieve success in production at any cost. Each of the heroes has to make sure that the past cannot be changed, but it can be understood and accepted. Only then can life move on and people can live in harmony with themselves and history.

Big

The 1988 American comedy film directed by Penny Marshall tells the simple story of a thirteen-year-old boy in an amusement park wishing an automatic magician a wish to become big. In the morning he found that he had suddenly become a thirty-year-old man. Joshua (that's the name of the main character) has to leave home and look for a job. He finds a job at a toy company. Thanks to his teenage spontaneity and hobbies, Joshua becomes a leading employee. He begins an affair with a girl from the Board of Directors, but the soul of the child calls him back, and he again finds the machine and asks him to return everything as it was. Like other films that make you think about your identity in society, this tape uses a fantastic plot to emphasize how the full conventions of adult life lack the simplicity, freshness, sincerity in the perception of the world that is characteristic of children.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The drama by Milos Forman, created in 1975 based on the play of the same name by Ken Kesey, presents a clash of a lone hero with the system. This is one of the popular themes that distinguish the best films that make you think about the meaning and value of human life. The action takes place in a psychiatric hospital, where the criminal McMurphy was placed to examine his sanity. Instead of hiding within the walls of the clinic and avoiding prison, the hero, outraged by the inhuman methods of influencing patients, arranges a riot. The ending of the picture is ambiguous. On the one hand, the hero suffers an individual defeat: after the lobotomy that McMurphy was subjected to, he becomes an indifferent "vegetable". On the other hand, the days of McMurphy's rebellious antics have become islands of freedom for the mentally ill, and one of the patients, nicknamed the Leader, gains the strength and courage to escape from the clinic. Before escaping, he strangles the crippled McMurphy with a pillow with the words "Let's go."

Twelve

In the TOP films that make you think, Nikita Mikhalkov's tape "12", released in 2007, fits well. This is a remake of the American film of 1957 called "Twelve Angry Men", transferred to Russian soil. A group of jurors are sent to pronounce a verdict in the case of the murder of his foster father by an 18-year-old Chechen. At first, the guilt seems obvious, and they are not in the mood to think long about the decision: everyone is in a hurry to their pressing business and are ready to immediately issue a guilty verdict. But oneone of the jurors suddenly votes against the prosecution and tries to convince the others of this. The meeting drags on, people get nervous, perplexed, and then gradually begin to investigate the facts. They discover many absurdities and inconsistencies in the indictment, and some of the personal circumstances of the life of the jury are somewhat similar to the situations in which the defendant found himself. At the end of the picture, the assessors unanimously vote that the young man is not guilty. Reflecting on compassion, the ability to put oneself in the place of another person, scorning national and any other conventions, the authors managed to sing a hymn to mercy and the highest human values. The superb cast added a special charm to the picture.

Other

On the list of thought-provoking movies is undoubtedly this exquisite thriller by Alejandro Amenábar, filmed in 2001. This is an impressive and subtle story about a caring mother and a devout woman, Grace Stewart, who settled with her two children in a provincial Victorian mansion. A woman waits for the return of her beloved husband from the front and carefully hides her children who are allergic to light from the sun's rays. The old servant left the house, and instead a strange trinity of servants appeared, with the appearance of which mysterious and frightening events begin to happen in the estate. Gradually, the house gets out of Grace's control, the children see ghosts, and she herself is overcome by strange visions everywhere. She cannot leave the estate due to the thick fog that shrouds the area, but she suddenly meets her husband at the gate,who communicates with her detachedly and does not finish something. In the morning he goes off into the mist without explaining anything properly. Grace is tormented by secrets, loneliness, fear of the servants, who, as it seems to her, are trying to harm her. The woman's horror is heightened when she discovers a card from the album of the dead in their room. On it, all three are photographed by the deceased. Closer to the denouement, the presence of ghosts intensifies. The final scenes shock both the main character and the audience. Before the astonished Grace, the truth is revealed: it is she who has been haunting the rooms of the castle for a long time, after she strangled her children and shot herself. The "others" that the woman was so afraid of are living people who settled here after the Stuarts.

Unable to live in a haunted house, that family leaves, Grace and the children watch from the window as people pack their things and get into the car, bright summers turn green around, while cool foggy autumn reigns in Grace's world. This film not only “tickles” the nerves and captivates with the plot, there is a deep thought in it that it is impossible to set obvious boundaries in order to lead those who are different for you beyond them. It is no coincidence that Grace never managed to keep the strict rule that the previous door must be closed before the next one is opened.

Shawshank Redemption

Frank Darabont's 1994 American cult drama based on a 1994 novel by Stephen King occupies a leading position in the lists of the best films of all time to this day. The story of how unjustly accused of killing his wifeand double life sentenced banker Andy Dufresne pulls off a daring and witty escape from the darkest maximum security prison. Then the thought involuntarily comes up about what films make you think about the price of freedom and the ability to find it, better than this one? The authors focused on the fact that intelligence, endurance, resourcefulness, freedom from dogmas allow a person to survive and emerge victorious from the most hopeless situations.

Stars on the ground

In world cinema there are useful films that make you think about understanding, patience and love for children. These include the film history of the Indian director Aamir Khan, created in 2007. The fantasies of eight-year-old Ishan only annoy adults, they do not understand why the boy is in the clouds and does not do well at school. The father, considering the child too pampered, sends him to a boarding school with strict discipline. Ishan suffers ridicule and humiliation there, withdraws into himself. Fortunately, a new art teacher, Ram Nikumbh, comes to the school, who managed to understand that the boy's features are not deviations, but a sign of a bright gift. Ram guesses that the boy has dyslexia, which he himself once suffered from. Carefully and patiently, the teacher helps to overcome the violation and reveal the rich abilities of the child. Ishan gradually overcomes difficulties and becomes the pride and glory of his school.

Love and doves

Tape by Vladimir Menshov, filmed in 1984 in the genrelyrical comedy, unpretentious and spectacular. These are often films that make you think about life. Villager Vasya Kuzyakin receives a ticket to a sanatorium and goes to the sea. A wife and three children remain at home. Under the southern velvet sky, Vasily falls under the spell of a lonely middle-aged woman, Raisa Zakharovna, who tells an unenlightened villager a lot of interesting things about city life, astrology, and much more. He decides to leave his family and move to Raisa in the city. However, he soon realizes that this is not his life at all, and, missing his own, returns home. Menshov did not need a fantastic alien plot to give the viewer an opportunity to reflect on what a person feels and how he acts when he is not in his own world, not in the life and atmosphere that he knows and is used to.

Short Circuit

The Russian film of 2009 in the form of five independent short stories shot by different directors and united by one idea is a film about love that makes you think and experience different facets of this feeling together with the characters. In the first story, a journalist is sent to interview the residents of a house near which a heating main is being laid. Without interest and inspiration, he begins to question people. He is much more interested in an indecent inscription on the wall, which reveals someone's love drama before the hero. Another short story tells about the dialogue between a Polish girl and a Russian guy who are trying to communicate through sensations. The third short film is about experiencesa deaf-mute shoemaker who, in absentia, fell in love with the owner of elegant shoes, which were brought to him for repair. The fourth story tells about the circus performer Kim, who ended up in a "psychiatric hospital" and fell in love with a doctor. The fifth short story tells about a barker dressed as a big shrimp and making an unusual move: he kisses all the people he meets, steadfastly enduring the kicks and blows that passers-by reward him with.

Dandies

The musical by Valery Todorovsky, created in 2008, tells about the youth movement in the USSR that emerged as a counterbalance to the formalized Soviet culture. It is also the answer to the question of what films make you think. The bright and pretentious manner of the dudes challenged not only the gray monotonous suits in department stores and on the streets of cities, it was a resistance to conformism and a manifestation of freedom of spirit. According to the plot, a Komsomol guy fell in love with a representative of a "culture alien to Soviet people." Love overturned the hero's boring lifestyle and opened the doors to a new world full of extraordinary impressions.

In conclusion

Cinema, despite skeptical remarks about its decline, remains to this day a powerful and expressive means of influencing the hearts and minds of people. New themes, ideas, talented directors and performers appear, giving reason to hope that we will see more original films that make us think about ourselves and about life.