325 Best Touching Movies to Watch (Page 17)

Funny, refreshing, and heartwarming, You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah gives the seminal girlhood film Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. a Gen Z update. Stacy and her friends are constantly on social media and watch each other for potentially politically incorrect terms, but they also struggle with period pain, crushes, and falling out with former friends. It’s a confusing time in a kid’s life, and  You Are So Not Invited, like Are You There God? before it, honors that. It never condescends, never strays far from the child’s perspective. It’s jubilant and heartwarming, and (to me at least) it’s always fun to see real-life families play themselves in movies. Judd Apatow experimented with this structure in his semi-autobiographical films Knocked Up and This Is 40, which first gave us a glimpse into his daughter Maude Apatow’s acting prowess. I feel You Are So Not Invited will do the same to its young star Sunny Sandler, whose effortlessly funny and charming performance will surely carve a path for a promising career in the future.  

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adam Sandler, Allison McKay, Beth Hall, Briana Andrade-Gomes, Bunny Levine, Dan Bulla, Dean Scott Vazquez, Dylan Chloe Dash, Dylan Hoffman, Idina Menzel, Ido Mosseri, Jackie Hoffman, Jackie Sandler, Jean Edwards, Joseph Vecsey, Luis Guzman, Michael Buscemi, Miya Cech, Nigel Downer, Oscar Chark, Sadie Sandler, Samantha Lorraine, Sarah Sherman, Sunny Sandler

Director: Sammi Cohen

Rating: PG-13

We mostly think of objects as just stuff to buy, to sell, to give, and to throw away, but for many musicians, their instruments are quite important to them. The Red Violin takes it to the extreme– with the titular instrument infused with the life force of a human– but the film justifies this passion, the pain, and the cost through one of the most beautiful violin scores ever made, and through an ambitious series of vignettes spanning across four centuries and five countries. As the object passes hands, and the owners live, and play, and die, The Red Violin suggests that while these artists’ lives are fleeting, there’s still something human and important in chasing the sublime, and this instrument is just proof of it.

Genre: Drama, Music, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

Actor: Anita Laurenzi, Arthur Denberg, Carlo Cecchi, Clotilde Mollet, Colm Feore, Dany Laferrière, David Gant, David La Haye, Dimitri Andreas, Don McKellar, Dorothée Berryman, Eva Marie Bryer, Florentín Groll, Gregory Hlady, Greta Scacchi, Herman Meckler, Hong Tao, Irene Grazioli, James Bradford, Jason Flemyng, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jody Shapiro, Johannes Silberschneider, Joshua Bell, Julian Richings, Liu Zifeng, Monique Mercure, Rainer Egger, Rémy Girard, Russell Yuen, Samuel L. Jackson, Samuele Amighetti, Sandra Oh, Stuart Yung Sai-Kit, Sylvia Chang, Sylvia Stewart, Tan Zeng-Wei, Tao Hong, Tommaso Puntelli, Wang Xiaoshuai, Wolfgang Böck, Zhi Qiao, Zifeng Liu

Director: François Girard

Rating: R

There are a plethora of father-son road trips in film, but rarely portrayed on the path are fathers with their trans sons. That is because most queer stories often focus on the romance, and if not the romance, the coming out process. Runs in the Family does things differently – it’s the connection between trans drag performer River and his father Varun that lovingly stays the same. The easy, comforting dynamic between them is something that needed to be on screen, and it’s what makes the movie shine. While the film still showcases the extra hurdles society sets in front of them, and the way other people let them down because of discrimination, this father-son duo is the one thing they can depend upon. Runs in the Family is by no means perfect, but their natural father-son dynamic is something everyone needs to see.

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Actor: Ace Bhatti, Diaan Lawrenson, Faniswa Yisa, Gabe Gabriel, Kathleen Stephens, Khadija Heeger, Paul Snodgrass, Rob van Vuuren

Director: Ian Gabriel

You’d think a Disney movie about a sweet kid overcoming the difficulties of cerebral palsy would be overly sweet or forcefully positive (Disney-fied, if you will), but Out of My Mind is surprisingly tempered. A smart and sensitive script and great performances across the board work to make the film a balanced and heart-warming portrait of a disabled girl coming of age. It doesn’t give you false hope that everything will be okay, but it’s not grim about the world either. Instead, it gives you a realistic and likable character in Melody (played by Phoebe-Rae Taylor and voiced, amusingly, by Jennifer Aniston), a bright 6th-grader determined to compete in a national trivia quiz with her classmates. Throughout the film, displays a toughness and an agency that not many disabled characters get to enjoy onscreen. There are cliched moments here and there, but Taylor and her co-stars make them feel true and lived in.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Catherine McNally, Courtney Taylor, Emily Mitchell, Gavin MacIver-Wright, Ian Ho, Isaiah Rockcliffe, Janet Porter, Jennifer Aniston, Judith Light, Kate Moyer, Kevin Jubinville, Luke Kirby, Maria Nash, Michael Chernus, Phoebe-Rae Taylor, Rosemarie DeWitt, Sharron Matthews

Director: Amber Sealey

Rating: PG

The title says it all: this is a story of love and basketball, one where the two intertwine and excitedly inform one another. Two childhood friends with a passion for ball develop deep feelings for one another. They have ambitions to go pro, but as Monica discovers how uneven the playing field really is for female athletes, and as Quincy grapples with his own needs and career, they reconsider their relationship both to each other and to the game they so love. 

Love & Basketball is a beautiful and sensitive movie that breaks stereotypes about Black love, which exists here as soft and nuanced as any other expertly drawn pairings in movies, and about Black women; Monica gets angry, but also vulnerable, hardworking, and loving. The sports component of the movie is just as finely detailed, with the energy of the matches bouncing off the screen walls. Clearly ahead of its time, Love & Basketball gets at the core of the game without losing sight of its talented players. 

 

Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Al Foster, Alfre Woodard, Boris Kodjoe, Chick Hearn, Chris Warren, Christine Dunford, Colleen Matsuhara, Debbi Morgan, Dennis Haysbert, Erika Ringor, Gabrielle Union, Glenndon Chatman, Harry Lennix, James DuMont, Jesse Corti, Kyla Pratt, Monica Calhoun, Naykia Harris, Omar Epps, Regina Hall, Robin Roberts, Sanaa Lathan, Shar Jackson, Tyra Banks

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood

Rating: PG-13

Food can warm you, can nourish you, and can make you feel so much better. Food is also the way people can keep their culture, with techniques and knowledge passed down by generations to better make use of the ingredients in the country. However, in Like Water for Chocolate, food is the means for rebellion, for breaking free from tradition, with Tita, who’s stuck in the kitchen by her mom, infusing her creations with so much emotion that the rest of her family is compelled to find a love just as passionate as hers is for Pedro. It’s a passionate adaptation made by director Alfonso Arau for his wife and the novel’s author Laura Esquivel, and it’s just so well done that it’s easy to be swept up in the family’s unfulfilled desires.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Ada Carrasco, Andrés García Jr., Arcelia Ramírez, Claudette Maillé, Joaquin Garrido, Lumi Cavazos, Marco Leonardi, Margarita Isabel, Mario Iván Martínez, Regina Torné, Yareli Arizmendi

Director: Alfonso Arau

Rating: R

Given that it is a modern day, colored film remake of a classic, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai was always going to be compared to the 1962 film, especially since it’s considered one of the greatest Japanese films of all time. Admittedly, there’s not a lot added aside from the 3D filming, and for fans of director Takashi Miike, the remake is much more restrained than his other films. However, Nobuyasu Kita's cinematography is striking, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score is impeccable, and the performances still deliver on the film’s contemplation of honor, sacrifice, and the self-interest of the elite. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai doesn’t compare to the classic, but it’s nonetheless a decent introduction for the generations that missed the original story.

Genre: Drama, History

Actor: Ayumu Saito, Baijaku Nakamura, Eita Nagayama, Hikari Mitsushima, Hirofumi Arai, Ichikawa Ebizo XI, Kazuki Namioka, Kōji Yakusho, Munetaka Aoki, Naoto Takenaka, Takashi Sasano, Takehiro Hira

Director: Takashi Miike

Electric Shadows is often deemed something like a Chinese Cinema Paradiso. It has the friendship with an older film projectionist, the small town gathering around outdoor screenings of foreign film, a childhood friendship between a boy and girl that meet again unexpectedly, and of course, it wears its heart for the movies right on its sleeve. It doesn’t quite compare to the Italian classic, and there are some moments when the film slightly drags, but Electric Shadows does capture the feeling of awe that you get when you watch your first movie, whether that be when you’re a kid taking your first steps in the world, or when you’re an adult hoping for something more despite the life allowed to you.

Genre: Drama, Family

Actor: Guan Xiaotong, Jiang Hongbo, Jiang Shan, Li Haibin, Wang Zhengjia, Yu Xia, Zhongyang Qi

Director: Jiang Xiao