Titlesort icon Creator Date Era City Country Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) Theme
3 Idiots Screenwriter: Chopra Vidhu Vinod 2009 1991-2010 India

Life can be fun and productive and exciting. As is true in some other Bollywood features, this story and the ideas behind it about pursuing the good life, has an honesty and clarity and benevolence that is not part of the U.S. movie scene.

Be what you want to be; follow your passion in life

A Few Good Men Director: Rob Reiner 1992 1991-2010 United States

Justice should be fought for, needs to be fought for and can be fragile.

Commitment to a moral code is central to a good man's life.

Billy Elliot Director: Stephen Daldry 2000 1991-2010 United Kingdom

Life is dirty but one can clean up.

Go after what you love.

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.

Bolero Dancers: Torvill and Dean 1994 1990-2009 United States

Harmony, grace exist.

Two people as one.

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.

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.

Chariots of Fire Director: Hugh Hudson 1981 1971-1990 United Kingdom

A complete feeling of openness of the world to greatness of your own choosing.

Life is achievement.

Chocolat Director: Lasse Hallstrom 2000 United Kingdom

Pleasure is good; religion and conventional thinking is bad.

Follow your dream and disregard convention.

City Island De Felitta, Raymond: 2009 1991-2010 New York United States

Anxiety and pain from all the lies and mistaken motives. Catharsis from the climax, leading to feelings of wanting to be truthful in life!

Lying is not the way to live.

Cyrano de Bergerac Playwright: Edmond Rostand 1897 1900s France

Life can be exciting. Life can be grand, literally. There is also some great sadness about consummated love, since it is portrayed as unreachable.

The importance of independence and independent thought. Compromise is deadly to one's soul. Sub-themes: a) Doubt of one's goodness because of an incidental fact (physical feature) is terribly damaging and tragic. b) Helping someone by faking reality is damaging and can come to no good.

Dangerous Beauty Director: Marshall Herskovitz 1998 United States

The world is a horrible split of conventional marital morality vs. honest but promiscuous morality. The way to live requires one sacrifice one's body for one's soul.

  1. The importance of accepting your own rules for living, your own morality.
  2. The grim metaphysical conflict for a Venetian woman of being a slave to a husband or a free woman requiring sexual work.
Die Hard Director: John McTiernan 1988 July 15 United States

The way to beat evil is to give no quarter, no compromise. Life is hard, but fighting for the right is rewarded.

Giving up in life is not an option.

Dirty Dancing Director: Emile Ardolino 1987

Life is passionate and meaningful.

The joy and passion of love and life and dancing, while learning integrity and independence.

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.

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.

Flying Fish Dancers: Torvill and Dean c.1995 (verify) 1990-2009 NY NY United States

A heightened sense that Life is fantastically unbounded by daily cares. Life is imbued with unlimited potential and ease of movement.

Life is light and fluid.

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.

Greystoke Director: Hugh Hudson 1984 1971-1990 United Kingdom

Life is Loss -- life is grim and culture is grim and the jungle is grim. All is grim.

The other important feature of the film emotionally is that Tarzan has been crippled by his circumstances of being brought up in the jungle -- he cannot live as a man, so the great tragedy of the story is that he has to return to the jungle, which is below primitive -- it is an isolated hell in which death is at every corner, and at best the companionship of apes. Given that the story partly portrays civilized men as brutes who relish killing animals, perhaps the emotional intent is to make the choice to return to the jungle as positive, but for this reviewer it is unutterably tragic and ugly.

Loss, Loss, Loss. Man as metaphysically alien from human culture.

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".

Love Actually Director and Screenwriter: Richard Curtis 2003 1991-2010 United Kingdom

Romantic love, family love, filial love, and the love of friendship are of central importance to human existence, and are possible to achieve.

Wonderful experiences of love are found in many forms and places.

Owl and the Sparrow Director: Stephane Gauger 2007 1991-2010 Saigon Vietnam

A child shows sweetness and strength and determination.

Searching for family, for soulmates.

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".

Rob Roy Director: Michael Caton-Jones 1995 1991-2010 United Kingdom

Life is a struggle. The life you make for yourself can be difficult, but living it with strength and morality is the way to live. Happiness is possible in romance.

Heroism in everyday life leads to heroism writ large. A man works hard to lead his life and those of his extended clan in an honorable, productive, honest way. This is the everyday heroism. But dishonorable, evil men seek to steal from him and ruin him. This leads to a life of larger-than-life heroism to vanquish his mortal, and stronger enemies.

Romeo + Juliet Director: Baz Luhrmann 1996 1991-2010 United States

Tragedy is central to life.

Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives.