10 Movies That Will Inspire You  S.5  E.76

Listen to this episode to hear about movies that will inspire you to live a life of intention and encourage you to hold onto your dreams! 

Are you a movie lover? Today we’re talking about movies. Not just any movies, but movies that will inspire you to live with intention. We’ve got classic movies, little known movies, and movies from four different decades. If you are up for an inspiring movie, stick around and hear our choices.

In this episode:

We love a movie about someone who takes charge of their life and makes something better for themselves. It is not enough to dream about it, or to fall into circumstances that cause a great change.  The character has to be proactive and bring about change themselves, often through grit and determination.

We often talk about living with intention, and these movie characters are examples of people who make a decision about what they want and then make intentional choices about how they live their lives. They are models of all the things we talk about on this podcast.

Here are ten movies that will inspire you to live with intention and go after your dreams:

While You Were Sleeping

We probably all have that cheesy movie that we love for some inexplicable reason. This is mine. I’ve seen it so many times I know just about every line.

While You Were Sleeping stars Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman and a great cast of character actors. Lucy is a lonely ticket taker for the “L” in Chicago. She dreams of a different and better life. She has a crush on one of the passengers, Peter, a man she has never met. When he is accidentally pushed onto the tracks, she saves him, and later is mistaken for his fiancé.

While Peter is in a coma, Lucy meets his family. She has no family of her own, and she comes to love the warmth of this new family. She can’t make herself tell the truth and give them up. Ultimately, Lucy wants to create a better life for herself, and eventually, she does and she gets the family she’s only dared to dream about.

The Pursuit of Happyness

Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner, who struggles with joblessness and homelessness while raising his young son. He meets all kinds of obstacles, challenges and misfortunes, and somehow manages to stay upbeat and positive. It is an example of the ultimate in resilience. He just never gives up, and remains a positive role model for his son.

There are likely a lot of people who have many similar experiences. We know some teachers who have been through a lot and still show up at school and for their families in positive ways. It reminds us to have perspective, and to stay focused on what we can do. It is also about knowing that kids are watching us and we are modeling for them and influencing them.

Grab a tissue. And get ready to believe in your dreams.

Working Girl

Tess is a typing pool secretary dreaming of being more. She spends her commute from Staten Island into Manhattan reading newspapers and following business trends. When she gets a chance at a bigger life, she takes it head on, resulting in dramatic, romantic, and comedic antics. This movie stars Melody Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, and a hilarious Joan Cusack in one of her best roles ever. It scores bonus points for ridiculously big 80’s hair and big shoulder pads.

Tess teaches us that we can go after what we want, that women can care out a role in a male dominated business and that confidence will take you far.

The Greatest Showman 

This movie is a fictionalized version of the story of P.T. Barnum. You probably know some of the songs, it has a great soundtrack including songs like This Is Me, and Never Enough. The song A Million Dreams, sung by a young P.T. Barnum while he is dreaming of the life he will create, is the anthem for dreamers everywhere. We both agree that the soundtrack might even be better than the movie. It was remade in a great version by Pink.

Here are the lyrics of the chorus:

Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
Oh a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make

Doesn’t that just inspire you to want to go out and make the world a better place?

School of Rock

Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a lazy and slobbish musician turned substitute teacher with questionable ethics. Note: we are NOT promoting his bad ethics. Dewey has a love of music and an unexpected talent for helping students to see their unique talents. He sees their potential. He brings out the best in his students.

The teacher in us loves the way he really sees the students and how he is able to make them shine. He gets them excited about learning and performing. Isn’t that we all wish for with our students, that they grow into their best and we bloom into our best along with them?

 Erin Brockovitch

Julia Roberts plays a single mother fighting to take down a big energy conglomerate who is poisoning water and causing cancer. Based on a true story, Brockovitch is like a pit bull that won’t back down. As she learns more, she becomes stronger and stronger. We love seeing her grow into her power.

The lesson here is that one small person can take on the mighty and make a difference. And just maybe, that could be you.

Finding Neverland

This movie is the story of struggling playwright J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp. Barrie is inspired by a family of young boys he meets in the park and their widowed mother, played by Kate Winslet. Barrie amuses the boys with inventive stories and eventually puts them into his new play, Peter Pan. The producer and actors don’t hold out much hope for the new drama, but Barrie prevails and you know the rest. The message? Don’t give up your day dreams.

Julie and Julia

In this light comedy, Julie, is a chef and blogger played by Amy Adams. She wants to get better, and is inspired by the work of Julia Child, played by Meryl Streep. Julie decides to cook her way through the entire repertoire of Child’s book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is no easy task, but her determination keeps her going and her dream of becoming an author becomes real.

In a parallel story, we see a young Julia Child fighting her way into the world of French Cooking. Her determination and hard work ultimately result in her success as an iconic chef and cookbook author.  Add a little bouillon, add a little butter, and don’t give up your dreams- that is a good message from this movie.

Both of these women work with intention. They have lofty goals and work hard to realize them. Of course, just like for us, there are failures along the way, but they persist and are resilient.

It’s a Wonderful Life

This Christmas classic, starring Jimmy Stewart is beloved for many reasons. It is an example of good triumphing over evil. It is a family love story.  But mostly, it’s a story of redemption. George Bailey has big dreams and plans. Time and time again, he gives up his big dreams to sacrifice for the greater good of his family and even for the town of Bedford Falls. He keeps getting knocked down and can’t move forward with his plans and dreams such as going to college or traveling.

When he is contemplating suicide, the angel Clarence appears to him and shows him what life would have been like if he had never lived. In the end, he realizes that his choices through the years resulted in all the good things he wanted in his life.

Rather than sacrificing for a life he never wanted, he was investing in a life of riches. Perhaps we have all been investing in our lives through the choices we make, and this movie reminds us that we have the power to make choices and ultimately change the course of our lives.

Don’t we all want to say that we have created a life of riches?

Boys in the Boat

This is a true story about grit and determination. It takes place in the 1930s when US Poverty was high due to the Great Depression.

It tells the story of Joe, who is broke and pretty alone in the world. He goes to the University of Washington where he tried out for the crew team basically as a survival measure because he could get housing, money, and food.

The coach stressed that trying out for crew would be an exhausting, year-long process which it was but Joe was used to hard work. Joe made it onto the team, partly because he was used to working hard and enduring pain.

The movie focuses on the teamwork that is necessary for crew and for life. It is about grit and determination to make dreams come true. This team faced many obstacles due to poverty and people’s perception of them, but ultimately the story ends at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. You will have to watch the movie to see what happens there. Regardless of the outcome, the story is inspirational.

Conclusion:

It could be said that all movies are the story of a transformation. In most good literature, the main character has some sort of transformation as part of the story arc.

We are drawn to characters that make deliberate choices that cause their transformation, rather than those who are transformed by an accident or by the actions of others.

In our heart of hearts, we believe that we can choose our own lives and that we can make a difference in the world. These stories show us that we can.

Recap:

Sometimes we all need a little inspiration. We hope these movies have given you some ideas for your next movie watching binge and that you find them as inspiring as we did.

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