By the way… I believe this is my 300th post… did anyone buy a cake? No? :smack:
Anyways… American Beauty, Good Will Hunting, Meet Joe Black and I’ll throw Donnie Darko in there as well.
What are the movies that were lifechanging for you… you got out of the theater or took the vhs/dvd out of the player and said, “Damn, that really changed me.”?
American Beauty, definitely.
Maybe Cremaster 3 in that for months after watching it, I found myself looking at completely arbitrary things as having amazing potential for artistic imagery - like a deformedstyrofoam cup or an unblemished tub of vaseline.
…Fellowship of the Rings.
Back in 2001, life wasn’t so good. I don’t know if it was just the movie, as such, or the effort behind it, and the knowledge that the whole thing was filmed literally on my back doorstep (Stone Street Studios is only five minutes walk from my house! ) , but after seeing it, my life was oddly, just a little bit better… 
Natural Born Killers
Just wanted to kill people for a few days
I’ve said this before but I doubt anyone was paying attention.
Bringing Out the Dead is meant to be a harrowing movie about how hellish it is to be an EMT in New York. Or so I read in every review. To me, it painted the picture of an interesting, exciting and meaningful job.
It’s one reason (though not the main!) that instead of working at an IT helpdesk somewhere I’m a second year Nursing student.
A Clockwork Orange.
After watching it I developed an interest in Classical music, especially Ludwig Von.
Pulp fiction.
I now put mayonaise on my chips (fries) instead of ketchup. I never thought of that before.
Those are the only two life changing movies I can think of.
Amelie (re)opened my eyes to the nice little details that pass us by every day, although, in case you’re wondering, the glove thing preceded my first watching of the movie.
Remains of the Day- I resolved not to not tell a woman if I was interested in her.
Telling them has never gotten me anywhere but now I don’t wonder anymore “What if I’d told her…”
Plus, I got my poetry-mojo going writing volumes to two of them!
Star Wars. I was two and a half when it came out and going to see Star Wars is my oldest memory. Helped me shape my views on good and evil.
Many years ago, after observing the characters played by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not, I resolved to always be as honest and direct as practical when dealing with others, preferably through terse expressions of sardonic wit.
Hasn’t worked out all that well, but hey, I keep tryin’.
Star Wars - I can’t imagine my childhood without the trilogy.
Almost Famous - I left the theatre and quit my thankless dead-end job.
Lord of the Rings trilogy - got me back to my bookworm self after my stroke
Donnie Darko - totally encapsulated the post 9/11 despair and irrational hope rattling through my mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - warmed my cold spinster heart enough that I took another stab at love
I Heart Huckabees - made me realize that I’m an atheist. There is no big blanket.
There’s Something About Mary taught be to be nice to retards and always use a button-fly.
Field of Dreams. Maybe this is too sappy, but after watching this for about the tenth time a few years back, I realized I should have the courage to live my life to the fullest, completely disregarding what others might think of my choices.
Star Wars: Made me move to California and get a job for the Evil Empire.
Adaptation: Made me re-consider everything I’ve thought about passion, obsession, fear of failure, and playing it safe.
The Untouchables: I’m hesitant to call this movie “life-changing,” since I still would just classify it as good but not great. But, it did totally change my perception of guns and violence. That was the first movie I ever saw that did more than just “Bang! You’re dead!” but showed people getting really torn apart by guns (and baseball bats).
*The Defiant Ones
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Judgement at Nuremberg
The Diary of Anne Frank*
(in their first theatre runs)
Saving Private Ryan. My father fought in WWII and I had always had this foolish, unrealistic image of that war drawn from the old black and white movies we used to watch together, where the suffering seemed somehow unreal, the wounds bloodless. Then I saw SPR and it gave me a true appreciation of what my father and his whole generation went through.
Two, both of which have already been mentioned:
American Beauty - I was in college when I saw this, and it played a strong role in formulating a few of the goals I have for myself in life: Avoid the suburbs at all cost, and avoid a vague, formless, soul-crushing career. Since I’m in journalism, it’s not like I’m going to have some vague “Dilbert” job, but the goals I got from watching American Beauty are part of the reason I’m not a night cops reporter at a midsize paper in Michigan.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I had gotten out of a bad relationship a few months before seeing this (I had been cheated on) and this movie allowed me to again cherish the good things that happened during that relationship and it made me want to fall in love again (With someone else, of course.) That hasn’t gotten me into a loving relationship yet, but ever since I saw that movie, I’ve had the right attitude about it all and I’ve learned to not let bad memories (of anything, not just women) overwhelm the good ones. That’s no way to walk through life.
I walked out of both thinking that I was a better person for having seen them.
To Kill A Mockingbird. The book has always been a favorite of mine, but I didn’t see the movie until I was an adult. Seeing Atticus Finch come to life exactly as I pictured him made me realize that acting is a craft, not just grown-ups playing make-believe. You almost can’t NOT be touched in some way by the story, but seeing it onscreen, so beautifully done, just etched its messages into my brain.
Lots of movies have impressed me or “spoken” to me in some way, but this is probably the only one that made an impression I’ll carry to my grave.
Stardust Memories. Clarified for me the notion that the only difference between comedy and tragedy is timing.