People are mostly good. These films remember that when it's easy to forget.
Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.
It shows people at their best without pretending the world is easy. That's the specific thing.
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sook-hee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
There's a moment in this that restores something. You'll know it when you see it.
A family dog – with a near-human soul and a philosopher's mind – evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, a race-car driver.
There's a moment in this that restores something. You'll know it when you see it.
In 1999, a teen girl keeps close tabs on a boy in school on behalf of her deeply smitten best friend – then she gets swept up in a love story of her own.
It shows people at their best without pretending the world is easy. That's the specific thing.
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
There's a moment in this that restores something. You'll know it when you see it.
The best version of this effect is quiet. Not a speech. A small moment. These films have them.
Human connection at its clearest. Natural fit.
Good conversation-starter for a first date night in.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
There's a moment in this that restores something. You'll know it when you see it.
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.
There's a moment in this that restores something. You'll know it when you see it.
A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.
There's a moment in this that restores something. You'll know it when you see it.
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
It shows people at their best without pretending the world is easy. That's the specific thing.
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.
It shows people at their best without pretending the world is easy. That's the specific thing.
Some films earn their effect. These do.