The best movies leave us feeling something — joy, heartbreak, fear, nostalgia — that stays with us for a little while, letting us walk around in the world of the movie for just a bit longer. Should you, during these cozily dark days of winter, be in need of a movie to inspire a specific emotion, behold: Here are some great ones, most from recent years, that took me on beautiful journeys. Here’s hoping they inspire … well, whatever you happen to be in the mood for.
Movies that make you feel joyful
“In the Heights” (2021): Musicals are the most joyous of genres, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tale of love and dreams in a primarily Latino neighborhood of Manhattan dazzles with movement and charm. (HBO Max)
“Paddington 2” (2017): Just try to find a performance funnier than Hugh Grant as a washed-up actor turned criminal in this wildly creative family film. Go ahead, I’ll wait. (HBO Max)
“School of Rock” (2003): Jack Black teaches a pack of middle schoolers how to raise their goblet of rock, er, how to become rock musicians, and it’s hard to tell who’s having more fun — them, or us. (Prime Video)
Movies that make you feel loved
“Beginners” (2011): The late Christopher Plummer won his one and only Oscar for this wistful, wonderful film about family — and about believing in love, wherever you happen to find it. (Prime Video)
“If Beale Street Could Talk” (2018): Two kinds of love — that between young lovers, and between mother and child — light up this incandescent James Baldwin adaptation, from director Barry Jenkins. (Netflix)
“Philomena” (2013): As the title character in Stephen Frears’ warm drama about a woman searching for the child taken from her decades ago, Judi Dench is loving kindness incarnate. (Netflix)
Movies that make you feel nostalgic
“A Little Princess” (1995): Alfonso Cuarón’s enchanting, magical film took me back to childhood, happily lost in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel about an orphan girl at a boarding school. (HBO Max)
“The Deep Blue Sea” (2012): Not the shark movie with Samuel L. Jackson, but a gorgeous romantic drama set in war-ravaged 1950 London and starring an achingly beautiful Rachel Weisz as a married woman seeking passion. (Prime Video)
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor” (2018): So many of us grew up with Mister Rogers, and Morgan Neville’s documentary lets us return to those gentler days, reintroducing us to our cardiganed friend. Have tissues handy. (Netflix)
Movies that make you feel adventurous
“The Handmaiden” (2016): This gorgeous, wildly creative film — basically an erotic-revenge-crime thriller — from Park Chan-wook is like nothing you’ve ever seen before; it’s a period film gone mad. (Prime Video)
“The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999): I rewatched Anthony Minghella’s elegantly Hitchcockian thriller, set in several gorgeous European cities in the 1950s, during the darkest days of the pandemic; it made me happily dream of travel. (Paramount+)
“The Wildest Dream” (2010): Watching this documentary about re-creating George Mallory’s famous Mount Everest climb on an IMAX screen was breathtaking; watching it at home is probably still pretty good (and warmer). (AppleTV+)
Movies that make you feel heartbroken
“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981): Here’s a swoony blast from the past. A young Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons play dual roles in this romantic drama, getting their hearts broken in two different centuries. (Netflix)
“Manchester by the Sea” (2016): Just thinking about this one, in which Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams beautifully play a former couple coping with crushing grief, practically has me in tears. Some broken things, this movie wisely tells us, can’t be mended. (Prime Video)
“Nobody Knows” (2004): Writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda makes eloquent movies about families; this one, about four children left to fend for themselves by their single mother, is both devastating and utterly mesmerizing. (Prime Video)
Movies that make you feel scared
“The Conjuring” (2013): I don’t mind tell you that this exemplary haunted-house saga scared the daylights out of me, and caused me to avoid my basement stairs after dark for quite some time. (HBO Max)
“The Little Stranger” (2018): If you like your horror movies with period costumes and more Gothic suspense than actual fright, this moody adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel should fit the bill. (Prime Video)
“Us” (2019): Jordan Peele’s follow-up to “Get Out” was a wonderfully scary exploration of otherness — and an occasion for a brilliant dual performance by Lupita Nyong’o. (Prime Video)
Movies that make you feel rebellious
“Rushmore” (1998): Still my favorite among Wes Anderson’s oeuvre, this irresistible comedy showcases a teen prep-school rebel (Jason Schwartzman) who’s nonetheless desperate to fit in. (Disney+)
“Widows” (2018): This crackling, wonderfully cast crime thriller, led by Viola Davis as the leader of a quartet of widows whose robber husbands never finished their last job, might just tempt you to pull off a heist of your own. (Prime Video)
“Young Adult” (2011): Charlize Theron is hilariously unlikable as a grown-up mean-girl rebel lazily trying to win back her high school sweetheart. Diablo Cody (“Juno”) wrote the sly screenplay. (HBO Max)
Movies that make you feel smart
“Inception” (2010): It could be argued that Christopher Nolan’s trippy hit makes viewers feel the opposite of smart — but stick with it and ride the kick. It’s a puzzle well worth figuring out, maybe with a repeat viewing or two. (HBO Max)
“Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” (2006): You don’t need to have read Lawrence Sterne’s meandering 18th-century novel to have a rollicking good time with this movie; a goofy hall of mirrors both literate and wildly funny. (Prime Video)
Movies to make you feel less alone
“The Best of Youth” (2005): Six hours long, and worth every minute. Watching this warmhearted saga of an Italian family (told over four decades, beginning in the ‘60s) is like reading a marvelous novel; you won’t want it to end. (Prime Video)
“The Farewell” (2019): Lulu Wang’s heartfelt drama/comedy (because what is life but both of those things?) is the tale of family love both very specific and completely universal; you look at this family and see, whoever you are, a warm shadow of your own. (Prime Video)
