Movies that deeply affected/effected your life?

[goldcanyonaz]

If These Walls Could Talk was it for me. It deals with abortion from the late 1950s to present day. If you have never seen it please rent it. It will change your life. What movies have deeply affected your life?

[alfredo]

1. It was Fahrenheit 451. I had already read the book.

[ananda]

2. The Quiet American

Let's say my eyes were opened.

[schrodinger_I]

3. Schlindler's List

Awesome movie!

[goldcanyonaz]

6. OMG! another great film. Remember the little girl that they colorized? Only to see her dead later

[CaliforniaPeggy]

14. Oh, absolutely!

Amazing film...

I will never forget it!

[Zynx]

20. Same here.

Phenomenal movie showing both the ugliness and goodness people are capable of.

[mucifer]

4. A Face in The Crowd

Is a great syncal movie about politics and the media.

[Krakowiak]

54. One of the best ever - still holds up (nt)

[taterguy]

5. The Bad News Bears. Seriously

It came out when I was ten years old.

It's about defying authority and holding the "Haves" in contempt.

It's about putting up a good fight but remembering to have fun no matter what the outcome and to fight like hell despite overwhelming odds.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. The Tatum O'Neal version is the best...

...kids and sports movie ever!

The ending made that movie.

[Xipe Totec]

7. Bless the Beast and the Children

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYYklYRTNIc

[w8liftinglady]

53. Man,that movie affected me,too...the clip made me cry

[alphafemale]

60. So I'm NOT the only person in the world who has seen this movie.

I usually get blank stares when I mention it.

[KaryninMiami]

8. "Forest Gump" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

How's that for two, VERY DIFFERENT films! Also, I still laugh when I think of the first time I watched "A Fish Called Wanda" (and all of the Monty Python movies)....

[DAGDA56]

16. Ï agree with you on "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

it showed me what a movie could be. Whenever I mention it to people, I get a blank look...glad someone else likes it, or even knows about it, for that matter.:hi:

[tom_paine]

29. I read that book many years ago. I had no idea it had been made into a movie.

I'll be seeing it soon.

Thanks.

[KaryninMiami]

65. LOVED that movie= the images remain with me today.

Forest Gump too but for different reasons.

[jojo54]

10. Something the Lord Made.

Excellent real life movie. It was about the first real breakthrough in medicine to treat the "blue baby" syndrome. But the real treat was how bridges were built between a black and a white because of a common goal and the black man's natural talent being recognized.

[housewolf]

26. Oh, I LOVE that movie!

It is SO excellent... very moving and such a terrific story. The humbleness of the man, Vivien, inspires me no end. It's just a wonderful story and movie.

[goldcanyonaz]

11. Requiem for a Dream is another one for me.. WOW!

That movie disturbed me for months.

[bain_sidhe]

12. The Handmaid's Tale

Probably the most important. But also:

Norma Rae and Not Without My Daughter (two great Sally Field performances)

God Bless the Child (A made for TV movie staring Mare Winningham)

That's all I can think of right now.

[Uncle Joe]

13. "It's A Wonderful Life", and "The Matrix" have shaped my current political view of the world. n/t

[flowomo]

15. "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- wrote my column about it recently

it's here:

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2008/03/26/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis37.txt

[Blue_In_AK]

36. I LOVED that movie.

[flowomo]

50. as I wrote in the column... it still works, 40 years later....

the Clarke/Kubrick collaboration worked timeless magic.

[FredStembottom]

17. Grave of the Fireflies.

Simply the saddest movie ever made - (sad as opposed to the much more common brutal)......and one of the best. I've watched it more than once.
It's a cartoon. And a "semi"-animated one at that. About brother and sister war orphans during WWII. It's japanese and the objections that many people express that there should be no sympathy for those who start wars is justified IMO. But watch it and see if you can even remember who the good guys and the bad guys are by the end. It is clearly a universal condemnation of all war. And while kind of rickety-looking, resonates more realistically than a thousand other movies.

Here's Roger Ebert telling you better than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3AAIWyak94

[Trajan]

18. Easy .. The Shawshank Redemption

"Get busy living, or get busy dying ..."

Kinda sparked a realization inside of my atheistic psyche that I am mortal, finite, and wasting precious time to live ....

A very uplifting piece of art ....

[Contrary1]

31. For me too...

A recent cancer diagnosis had me in a tailspin. I think that one single line helped me to put things in perspective.
At the time, I needed that desperately in order to fight back.

[Trajan]

33. I was in a deep depression ....

And sometimes it is hard to see outside of that dark world of fear ....

That line DID make me think of what I have to do to pull myself out ..... and how it would rest on my own hard work and dedication to lift myself up by the bootstraps, as the saying goes ....

I had to 'Get busy living' ... absolutely ....

I hope you have successfully beat back the problem you had .... You do need to find the strength within for such a battle .... And I hope you found that strength ....

And to think: Each of us has our own fight we need to prepare for, or even several ..... Hopefully we can all find that strength ....

[opihimoimoi]

55. SR is a Classic...TOP 3 easily for me....Andy and Red are heros in my mind.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

19. A Man For All Seasons, Gandhi and Defending Your Life.

[FredStembottom]

22. Thanks for remembering Defending Your Life!

I loved that one and keep meaning to see it again.:applause:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

24. I had to have the DVD and use it as an occasional reminder!

It had a profound affect on me. Half way through I started to sob.

Peace

[TroglodyteScholar]

21. "Love Liza" with P. Seymour Hoffman

Not exactly a feel-good film, but very very emotional. Also, somewhat of an omen for me.

[justgamma]

23. Black Like Me

I was born and raised in a small, midwest town. There weren't any blacks in our town and I had never met any.

Around 1959 or so, we took a trip to Niagra Falls. My parents and I and a black couple were waiting for a car tour. The driver had a thick accent, maybe Mexican. Well there were 3 of us and the other couple. I remember like it was yesterday the expression on their faces and the look that the driver gave my dad, when he told them to ride in the front. The woman said "You want US to ride in front?" It was like he challenged my dad to say something. My, being a kid, didn't understand. I thought, well of course we'd sit in the back, there were 3 of us and only 2 of them. We were at a museum or something and I tried to talk to the other couple and there was fear in their eyes. I just didn't get it.

I was 14, when this movie came out. My mom and dad stopped me in the street and said comeon we're going to the movies. Dad never went to the movies! This movie opened my eyes to the injustices in this world. I cried. It was so unfair. It hit me between the eyes. Now I understood what had happened in Niagra Falls a few years earlier. I'll never forget.

[PassingFair]

25. The Tin Drum.

I still haven't completely recovered, and
I saw it MANY years ago.

[Initech]

27. Fight Club

The movie's insanely anti-corporate stance is what first clued me into what was really happening in the world, and how badly we're getting fucked by the system. It also showed me how much desk jobs suck and it's one of the main reasons why I dont take anything the media says seriously.

[Kitty Herder]

64. I second that. nt

[tom_paine]

28. So many, but the orig.Planet of the Apes sits near the top of the list and is first to come to mind.

Why? A couple reasons. First off, for a young kid to understand the scope of time and have it brought home in that poignant way ("You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you. Damn you all to hell!") is something which, from a perspective of shortsighted vs. long-term, it was something that changed my way of thinking forever. A human lifetime would never seem such a long time, compared to the long stretch of human history that exists and was brought to the fore by the movie.

The Charlton Heston character...Taylor. More perspective widening, and now that we know what Charlton Heston the man is actually like many years later, I can truly say that was one of the finest pieces of acting ever. I mean, for Heston to pull that off convincingly and believable is the equivalent of Josef Goebbels successfully pulling off acting 100% convincingly and sympathetically like a Jewish Intellectual for Nazi Dinner Theater.

Finally, the placing of apes in the BushCheney role, and the heresy trial, so interchangable with our own Dark Ages and in fact these New Dark Ages that are just dawning, also brought home a message that couldn't be failed to be gotten by any but the weakest minds.

HINT: Don't watch Planet of the Apes with a Bushie. They simply will not understand the movie beyond it's explicit plot.

Anyway, there are more of these perspective-changing movies, plays and books I could mention ( Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut being one ) but Planet of the Apes came first to my mind.

[Trajan]

37. Cat's Cradle was a revelation ....

That book, above all others, expanded my mind to see through the nonsense of religion and petty human foibles that ruin societies .... It is a brilliant masterpiece of American literature ....

But then: so were the rest of Vonnegut's early works .... From 'Player Piano' to 'Breakfast of Champions', I was enthralled ....

[tucsonlib]

30. How About a Movie For People Who Still NEED a Wakeup Call?

V For Vendetta

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

32. On The Beach made a big impression on me when I was a kid

I think I saw it around 1960 when I was a preteen. I had seen other great anti-war movies before that, like All Quiet On The Western Front and The Grand Illusion. But that movie really hit close to home. When I was younger, my dad who was in the Air Force was stationed to Germany. On the American Air Force base, I remember several occasions when the entire base was on alert and, at 3:00 in the morning, scary sirens would sound and the military families had to go down into basements for drills. There was a real threat of all-out nuclear annihilation then. On The Beach was the first movie that really brought to me the realization that war is just plain madness and insanity. It wasn't a preachy movie and was more about how nuclear war affected the simple lives of ordinary people. I haven't seen it in years and I don't know if it holds up well after all these years. But it left quite an impression on me at the time.

[flowomo]

51. yes, same for me....

though I think I read the book first. Also very powerful.

[MindPilot]

34. To Kill a Mockingbird n/t

[Ezlivin]

35. Tom Robinson was innocent!

The movie was instrumental in destroying the racist myths my father consistently taught me. In fact, Gregory Peck in the form of Atticus Finch became a role model father figure for me.

Thank the gods for Harper Lee and Horton Foote.

[Trajan]

38. I too had a racist father ....

Thank nature I had the opposite in my mother, who was raised in Brooklyn and shared schools with people of all ethnic backgrounds ....

To Kill a Mockingbird did provide a decent polemic against racist thinking and behavior .... It was a 'life changer' for me as well ...

[MindPilot]

41. My dad was racist in word, but not in deed

It was weird; he would watch the news and rant about minorities using every racist epithet you can imagine. But his two very best friends in the whole world were an Italian and a Black man. He was in the Air Force and in his work life, race meant nothing.

But yeah, I remember seeing To Kill a Mockingbird when I was like 11 or so and it was the first time I got angry at injustice.

[Blue_In_AK]

39. The earliest one I can remember

that affected me deeply was West Side Story. I loved the music, and the story broke my little 14-year-old heart. I played the grooves off my soundtrack.

I was deeply moved by Dr. Zhivago, and loved 2001: A Space Odyssey, although I still don't know what it meant exactly.

These days when we go out to the movies, it's just for the documentaries. Tomorrow we're going to go see "Taxi to the Dark Side."

[babsbunny]

40. The movie Skins

and the movie Big Eden! Both with Yummy Eric Shweig!

[w8liftinglady]

42. J.T. I saw it when I was 9...I still get choked up 40 years later

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158681/

J. T. Gamble, a shy, withdrawn Harlem youngster, shows compassion and responsibility when he takes on the care of an old, one-eyed, badly injured alley cat days before Christmas and secretly nurses it back to health.

[NashVegas]

43. Matewan

[ThatsMyBarack]

44. John Q

It really opened my eyes on how criminal the health-care industry has become (even before Sicko did).

BTW, I saw If These Walls Could Talk when it was new. Painfully disturbing and very well made.

[Kazak]

45. INLAND EMPIRE

A paradox, a ghost story, a riddle that cannot be solved, but there's a sort of therapy in the trying. I like it's anti-misogyny bent too. All Lynch, really, is very affecting to me.

[DFW]

46. "If" with Malcolm McDowell

I had just graduated from Andover (unlike Bush, I had to earn my diploma).
After my first and only year at a boarding "prep" school, I developed a
strong hate for authority and discipline that I never quite managed to get
rid of, despite my future career. I may have obtained an Andover diploma,
but I never became an "Andover Man."

Seeing that movie helped me realize that I was not the only one with such
feelings, nor was I the one with the strongest of those feelings.

[Nay]

49. I saw "If" and "clockwork Orange" as a double feature, if you can

believe it. I just listed "Clockwork Orange" as a life-changing film below, but could not remember the name of the other film I saw that day, and here you have named it. Thanks! Both films were life-changing events for me, and I have distrusted authority ever since.

[girl gone mad]

66. "One man can change the world...

with a bullet in the right place."

That used to be my signature before 9/11.

It's If.... w/ 4 dots, btw.

[DFW]

68. I admit to never having paid attention to the number of dots

The school I went to claims to have changed greatly since then, but after
what I told her, my younger daughter chose the boarding school in the United
States that is farthest from Andover and accepts English-speaking students.
There is one school farther still, but it only accepts native Hawaiians.

When I saw that film, I said OMG, that is what Andover could be if some of
the alumni and faculty had their way. To be fair, there WERE some progressive-
minded members of the faculty, but they were a tiny minority. As a first-year
senior, I never fit in, and as a parting gesture, smuggled my brother, a student
at arch-rival Exeter, into our class picture (there was only one taken) at graduation.
That is a scandal that was still being talked about as recently as 10 years ago. You
can tell what is really important to schools like that.

[Nay]

47. Clockwork Orange. Amazing film, changed my views on authority

forever.

[wildbilln864]

48. I have to add...

link and America: Freedom to Fascism by the late Aaron Russo.
:hi:

[drmeow]

52. Johnny Got His Gun

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067277/plotsummary

Once Were Warriors

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067277/plotsummary

[Kazak]

57. Even more powerful book...

if you haven't read it.

[pfitz59]

56. Old Yeller

He shot the dog! Disney had a dark heart....

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

58. The Grapes of Wrath

the cinematography by Gregg Toland, the acting of Henry Fonda, the direction of John Ford. The more things change the more they stay the same.

[Patsy Stone]

59. Harold and Maude

Uplifting story about love and life in a dark, black comedy shell.

[OhioChick]

61. Saw.....Nightmares Forever....

On a serious note, John Q brought me to tears and made me realize how health care companies operate. $$$$

[Reader Rabbit]

62. Breaker Morant

Sentry: Do you want the padre?

Harry Morant: No, thank you. I'm a pagan.

Sentry: And you?

Peter Handcock: What's a pagan?

Harry Morant: Well... it's somebody who doesn't believe there's a divine being dispensing justice to mankind.

Peter Handcock: I'm a pagan, too.

Harry Morant: There is an epitaph I'd like: Matthew 10:36. Well, Peter... this is what comes of 'empire building.'

Major Thomas: Matthew 10:36?

Minister: "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."



Eye-opening, brain-stretching movie for a teenager.

[Echo In Light]

63. Donnie Darko, and Waking Life

I happened to see both of these while going through a very difficult period of my life.

[abq e streeter]

67. V For Vendetta----powerful and inspirational

And believe it or not, Animal House, because it literally saved my life. I was in the throes of a deep depression, and having increasingly obsessive suicidal thoughts. Animal House was playing in the small neighborhood theater next door and I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard in my life . Still had some issues with depression the rest of that miserable cold and lonely Chicago winter, but the laughter that night brought me back from the brink of seriously contemplating ending my life, and almost thirty years later, obviously I'm still here.

[ensho]

69. the WWII news films shown before the hollywood movie

us kids got to see war in all its death and gory bloodiness. nothing was censored. watching the nazi death camps being liberated and seeing living skeletons smiling with happiness.

since then I have hated war and anything military.

---

Whose Afraid of Virgina Woolf? was a movie not to forget.

[PatSeg]

70. The Lord of War

With Nicolas Cage - I've watched it four or five times and it still blows me away every time.

Empire of the Sun with a young Christian Bale - stunning movie.

Kundun, the story of the Dali Lama.

Too many to list!

[leftofthedial]

71. Balls Of Fury

Man what a flick!

[Samurai_Writer]

72. Pay It Forward

I cry at the end of that movie every time I see it. And it really did start a movement of 'paying it forward'. Everyone should see that movie. It's inspiring.