# Best Movies with Redemption Themes
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 29, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910 "2003-11-29T14:37:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/41 "2014-05-05T16:43:43Z")
Carlito’s Way.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/42 "2014-05-05T16:44:45Z")
It’s currently a comic book, but I hear it’s being adapted to the TV:
Cassidy the vampire from _Preacher_.
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### Author:  [@Kelevra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelevra)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/43 "2014-05-05T17:28:20Z")
_Man On Fire_. Redemption and sacrifice all rolled into one.
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### Author:  [@jerez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerez)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/44 "2014-05-05T17:50:09Z")
**About Schmidt** is another one. Jack Nicholson does such a beautifully understated job. Posts on the IMDB board suggest that the last few minutes of the film aren’t to everyone’s liking, but, in fact, it’s the only moment in the entire film that Nicholson lets something else emerge from behind the composure.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/45 "2014-05-05T18:21:49Z")
> [@RobuSensei](#):
>
> The Shawshank Redemption. Those last lines always get to me.
>
> “I hope.”
This is one of the best movies on Redemption anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you were good or bad, what matters is whether you are going to get busy living, or get busy dying.
His judgment cometh, and that right soon.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/46 "2014-05-05T18:45:32Z")
> [@DCnDC](#):
>
> **Warm Bodies** - the redemption of zombies.
I see what you did there.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/47 "2014-05-06T00:57:16Z")
The Mission
Schindler’s List
Empire of the Sun (the boy is redeemed, he is such a shit at the beginning)
The African Queen
True Grit (especially the newer version)
The Searchers
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/48 "2014-05-06T15:50:25Z")
Warlords. Lynda Weismeier’s character, broken by the bad guys and reduced to begging to have sex with his minions for food, stabs a bad guy in the crotch and then runs out into machine gun fire, and despite being mortally wounded, manages to crawl to the switch that connects to the bomb that will blow up the bad guys’ defenses and push it, allowing the heroes to defeat them.
The interesting thing about her is, she’s never portrayed as evil or even slutty, what she has to redeem herself from is succumbing to the psychological effect of repeated, prolonged gang rapes and beatings.
I’ve always thought that was a really weird storyline to throw into a Roger Corman cheap-ass B-movie that otherwise had literally nothing going for it.
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### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/49 "2014-05-06T16:09:22Z")
> [@Cicero](#):
>
> It would have to be ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. What more can you give than your life? Other than that it would be ‘The Rakes Progress’.
There’s a film version of The Rake’s Progress?
Also, what about _Cars_? It’s makes fun of the genre, and plays it straight at the same time. I love that movie.
In _Gone with the Wind_, both Scarlet and Rhett sort of find redemption, in that they became less shallow, and Scarlet becomes self-sufficient, but the ending is a downer.
There’s a film that isn’t quite what you are asking about, in that it isn’t an adventure, but it is about a person without direction finding purpose, called _A Child is Waiting_, with Judy Garland and Burt Lancaster. It was very topical when it was made; now, the propaganda aspect is dated, but emotionally, the film is very effective. It also features a young Steven Hill-- Adam Schiff from\* Law & Order\*.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-movies-with-redemption-themes/215910/50 "2014-05-06T16:35:52Z")
[Ikiru](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru) really goes after your tear ducts with pliers.
(I could have sworn I’d posted in this thread in 2003 to mention **In Cold Blood** , because of the pop bottles.)
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