Title Creator Datesort icon Era City Country Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) Theme
Real Adventure, The Author: Henry Kitchell Webster 1915 United States

Life is wonderful as long as you realize that life has to be earned the hard way.

Creating your self is the only way to live.

Of Human Bondage Maugham, W. Somerset: 1915 1900 - 1950 United Kingdom

Life is a fearful gray spread of actions and in-actions without genuine values. We are all deformed in mind or spirit and should accept convention as demanded by those around us.

Man's life is outside his control. Conventionality is the final ideal.

The Samovar Painter: Emil Carlsen 1920c. 1900s

The world is full of textural richness worth looking at.

The richness of light and the objects it caresses.  This is a paean to the richness of visual experience, but with the simplest of materials -- just a light source and two kinds of simple unadorned objects.

Are You Lonesome Tonight? Composer: Lou Handman 1926 1900s

Sensuality and bitterness

The remembrance of past love.

Design for Living Writer: Noel Coward 1932 1900s United Kingdom

Life can be giddy and bright. Facing up to one's anti-conventional values is important. Conventional morality must be questioned if it causes suffering and conflict.

You should follow your deepest values and accept them no matter how unconventional the outcome.

A rare combination of the wittiest, lightest of Noel Coward's style, along with deeper themes of romantic love, proper morality and how should one live.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams Composer: Warren and Dubin 1933-34 1900s United States

Weariness & Sadness

Life is loss of dreams and sadness

Ruggles of Red Gap Director: Leo McCarey 1935 1931-1950 United States

Happiness and fulfillment is in yourself.

Personal declaration of independence from servitude

Blue Steps of Naumkeag Landscape Designer: Fletcher Steele 1937-39 1900 - 1950 Stockbridge, MA United States

elegance and grace

The man-made enhances nature -- it is what makes nature beautiful

Anthem Rand, Ayn: 1938, revised 1946 1900 - 1950

The book starts out psychologically dark and disorienting because of the protagonist struggling with the radically collectivist world he was born into. But what shows even in the early pages, and grows to the climax is the triumphant struggle of a rare few who break free of the yoke of total mind control and become free to live a life as a conceptual human and rediscover what it means to be an individual. Thrilling and emotionally satisfying (unless the reader is a committed determinist.)

Ego and using one's individual mind is the core of being human.

Johnson Wax Building Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright 1939 1900 - 1950 Racine United States

Day to day life can be exalted and pleasurable.

To Work should be a condition of grandeur and joy.

Landfall Shute, Nevil: 1940 1900 - 1950 United Kingdom

Heroes and Heroines are self-made, by anyone at any level of intelligence who seriously pursues what is important in their lives.

Truth will triumph -- with perseverance.

Tzena Tzena Tzena Miron - Parish: 1941 1900s Israel

Joyous celebration

Joyous celebration

Brief Encounter Screenwriter: Noel Coward 1945 1931-1950 United Kingdom

Passionate love. Tragic choices.

High romance is possible. Such love is unlikely to survive. This film manages to embrace two contradictory themes, leading to a major bittersweet outcome.

Etudes Choreographer: Harold Lander 1948 Pre-1950 Ballet/Dance New York United States

Thrilling pleasure at beautiful movement and great success at developing the best within you.

Hard work results in great achievement in life -- and that results in beauty and excitement in life.

Rashomon Director: Akira Kurosawa 1950 1931-1950 Japan

The world is terrible and full of disasters and mankind is awful and pathetic.

Objectivity is a myth -- everyone sees a different reality, a different "story".

East of Eden Author: John Steinbeck 1952 1951 - 2000 United States

Life is filled with great and important choices.

The battle between good and evil, guilt and innocence. Takes the position that we are influenced by many things, but ultimately we have free will.

Far Country, The Author: Nevil Shute 1952 1951 - 2000 Australia

Life can be bright, happy and successful, but hard decisions must be faced and dealt with.

A good and happy life is made up of self-directed actions, self-chosen goals.

A less important theme is:
Freedom from government control.
Whether the government control results from devastating wars, or from socialist control of medical care, freedom is to be sought and prized.

High Noon Director: Fred Zinnemann 1952 1951-1970 United States

There is palpable evil in the world. There is heroism in the face of evil in the world. The movie is full of fear and foreboding and betrayal.

Civil Society is the ideal, and worth fighting for. Doing what is right is the right way to live. Don't let the evil bastards win. The theme is expressed repeatedly in the movie via the contrast of the Marshall who grimly faces the need to do what he lives for, despite the death facing him, vs. the mealy mouthed town folk, many of which who won't fight for their civil society, and vs. the deputy marshall who portrays the sellout who will give into evil force in order to "get along".

Atlas Shrugged Author: Ayn Rand 1957 1951 - 2000 New York United States

Life can be good; Men are competent to live happily; The world can be a shining, happy place to exist, if one is free. But novel also presents a dark, dystopian world to help make real that positive view.

The crucial value of the human mind.

Psyche Author: Phyllis Brett Young 1959 Canada

Optimistic, Hopeful, even under terrible circumstances.

We are beings of self-made soul

Trustee from the Toolroom Author: Nevil Shute 1960 United Kingdom

A feeling of gentleness, kindness and generosity towards good people in the world.

The importance of pursuing one's personal values.

Camelot Composer: Lerner and Loewe 1960 1951-2000 New York United States

One must attempt to live by values, even though virtue is powerless and hopeless.

Camelot: a medieval place of goodness and justice, and its inevitable failure.

Godfather Director: Coppola Francis Ford 1972 1971-1990 United States

Life demands death; life is a horror of killing and retribution. Life is tragedy and malevolence

Behind beauty and success lies corruption and death.

Black Stallion Director: Carroll Ballard 1979 Sardinia Italy

Everything is possible between boy and beast, between an innocent human and mother nature.

Man and nature in harmony. At least this is the theme of the first half of the movie. See "Description" and "Context" info below for more on this comment.

Fame Director: Alan Parker 1980 1971-1990 New York United States

Life is hard, but you can succeed, and it is worth it and exhilarating.

Go after your heart's desire.