Cinephile (15/15): 15 Movies That Changed My Life
As of this essay, I have watched 1,239 movies in a theater and thousands upon thousands more in the comfort of my home. In all those stories, I have spent time with 75 films that I deem perfect. This year, as my website, Natetheworld.com, celebrates its 15th anniversary, I gave myself the impossible task of ranking my favorite 15 films of all time.
After ranking, moving, rearranging, and debating the impact of 75 beloved films, this is my list as of today. Tomorrow, it is bound to look completely different. For this essay, instead of reviewing each film again, I want to take a different approach. I want to tell you why these 15 movies changed my life.
Into the Wild
I don’t know why I added this film to my Netflix queue in 2008. It might have been the actor turned director leading the project. It might have been the soundtrack (my favorite movie soundtrack of all time) featuring the lead singer of my favorite band. Whatever it was, this film moved an impressionable 26-year-old in a completely different direction.
A year after seeing this film, a friend of mine and I took a massive road trip from Oklahoma to the Smoky Mountains, onto Washington, DC, and through to New York. A year later, I packed everything I owned and drove toward my new home in Seattle.
It isn’t hyperbole to say this film changed my life. I am often asked to name my favorite film of all time. I almost always mention this movie. Not because I think it is a cinematic masterpiece. It isn’t a movie without flaws, but it tops my list because I have never felt such a deep connection with an artistic expression.
This film lit a spark under a depressed young man living in Oklahoma who needed a dramatic change. It provided all the permission needed to move across the country, pursue meaningful work, add to my education, fall in love, and deeply wrap myself around nature and the great outdoors.
In Alex’s journey, I found permission to move to Seattle, Los Angeles, and back to Seattle. This film gave me permission to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, Colorado Trail, and attempt many other backpacking expeditions. It guided me on countless road trips across the country and countless other journeys exploring this world of ours.
I have watched this movie countless times. Every time I finish it, I feel less weird and alone. I close my eyes, rejuvenated, and aware that I am not alone in this world. There are lots of people like me who reject the tyranny of the expected, who desire more from this life than a predetermined path drawn before we ever took our first breath. A piece of art did this for me. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Goodfellas
Goodfellas is a cinematic masterpiece. It is Martin Scorsese at his pinnacle. It is a violent and cautionary tale of how unfettered power can corrupt and tear people apart. It is the very best of American cinema, because it is the story of immigrants trying to make it in America.
The first time I watched this film, I was in high school. Up until this point, movies were just entertainment. They were something meant to distract you from the noise of the outside world. As the credits rolled on this film, I felt transformed. Film could be used to tell powerful and life-altering stories. They could force you to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.
Now, I view movies as empathy machines, and the best ones pull from me emotions, challenges, and personal stories hidden away in the archives of my soul. In the best movies, I can see myself in the characters and stories. When these movies end, I am forever altered.
Seven
Seven is dark and brutal. It wrestles with man’s sinful nature. It beautifully interweaves religious texts into a modern detective mystery. Every scene leaves you guessing until the absolute end, and its ending may be one of the best in cinema.
This is another movie that captured my attention when I was in high school. Before this film, my life had been filled with over-the-top action films and sophomoric comedies. This film served as a pivotal point. It served as an introduction to adult cinema, and it was an invitation to come see all the things that profound storytelling can do.
The Dark Knight
I still believe The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie ever committed to film. No one on the screen possesses fantastical powers. No one leaps tall towers in a single bound. No one has x-ray vision, superhuman strength, or spider sense. This film is centered on a regular man with irregular means using his gifts to hold together a city he dearly loves as a way to honor the legacy of his parents. His arch-nemesis is a man who wishes for nothing more than to sow chaos. He envisions a Gotham brought to its knees, not in search of riches, power, or fame. No, “he just wants to watch the world burn.”
Every time I watch this movie, I find myself enraptured and in total awe. Using a well-known story, it constructs a world that could take place in any major city in the world. Cities are living organisms, and like all living things, they are prone to illness and disease. Our cities can collapse under the weight of apathy, or they can flourish when good people decide to do something about the injustices they see surrounding them.
Looking at my own city, I see a city on a bent knee, attempting to catch its breath, and rebound following the pandemic. It can fall like Detroit once did, or it can be born again into something new. It is up to us to decide.
Spotlight
Spotlight is a love letter to investigative journalism. For two hours, it shows us the sheer power of the written word. It is cliché, but there is profound truth buried in the old saying that “the pen is mightier than the sword”. In this story, we see that might on full display as a corrupt institution, and those who shield them are brought to their knees in the name of accountability.
As someone who once dreamed of being a broadcast journalist, it makes me wonder what direction my life might have taken if I had pursued the field meaningfully. What kind of stories might I have told? What kind of difference could I have made?
I will never know the answers to those questions, but I am thankful for those who want to rise above talking heads chasing soundbites. I am thankful for the journalists of this world who are doing the work of bringing the truth to light.
Philadelphia
I watched Philadelphia for the first time in college. In my English Composition course, our professor wanted us to compare and contrast two distinct stories. We could choose any medium. Naturally, I chose two movies that seemed worlds apart: Philadelphia and Ghost World.
I wish I still had that essay. I wish I could remember all the things I had to say about these two movies, but I will never forget how Philadelphia made me feel.
Since the age of 13, I have known I was different. I didn’t know what to call it at the time, but I knew my attractions were vastly different from those who surrounded me.
Growing up in a small, conservative, and religious town in Oklahoma during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, I didn’t have anyone to talk to about these feelings. From the pulpit and in conversations with my friends, I was told my feelings were sinful, and if I ever acted on them, I would commit a grave sin against God.
This film was the first story I can recall watching centered on a gay character. While the main character is dying from AIDS, he is also standing up for himself, his community, and against a system that would rather cast him aside. To this day, this film still breaks my heart, but I will never forget how it empowered me to seek out positive role models and more stories from a community that would one day welcome me with open arms when I was ready. This is why representation matters. This is why making room for diverse stories matters.
12 Years a Slave
I have written thousands and thousands of words about the film, 12 Years a Slave. To me, it is more than a chronicling of a freeman’s time spent in the unspeakable hell of slavery. It is an empathy machine that flies in the face of all the myths we have been told about a lost cause, war of northern aggression, or the proud and mighty south.
This film is tortuous. It is painful, heartbreaking, and tragic. It opens the book on a chapter of American history that should fill us with shame, disgust, and anger. But it should do more than that. It should move us toward empathy. It should force us toward learning. In this education, we should uncover the true history of our country, as well as the ongoing repercussions of that history.
This film opens a door. It is up to us to walk through it. If you choose to do so, I promise you will never be the same again.
Boyhood
Boyhood is a miraculous film chronicling the lives of one family. We watch the children grow into young adulthood, and we watch their parents morph and change in profound ways.
Shot over 12 years, and featuring the same actors, I see so much of my story in the characters that comprise this film. I relate to the confusion of adolescence. I feel deeply the awkwardness of your teenage years. I intensely understand the plight of parents who are doing the best they can.
Without a doubt, this is a movie-going experience and story I will never forget. Within its walls, the power of cinema is on full display.
Nomadland
Great stories can come in all shapes and sizes, but some of my favorite films ask us to step into the shoes of people who fly under the radar of society.
Across this country, there are people living nomadic lives. They survive off seasonal work and drift from point to point on the map, attempting to survive, writing a story uniquely theirs. This film focuses on one of those nomads. As we get to know her, we see the trauma that forced her away from a traditional life. We see the lengths she must go to survive. We uncover what it means to be a woman on the open road. We see her turn away from a chance at normalcy in pursuit of absolute freedom.
Much like Into the Wild, this film is about a rejection of society’s norms, and an attempt to make your own rules while chasing something more.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of Rings trilogy is big and audacious. It is daunting in its scope, but rich in humanity. It is the culmination of an epic journey written with the hopes and dreams of countless readers who have longed for a worthy adaptation of the beloved books.
The Return of the King shines, because despite its scale, it still manages to tell a human-centered story of good triumphing over evil in the face of insurmountable odds. It achieves greatness, because it is a story about friendship and miracles coming from the most unexpected place.
I haven’t revisited this film often, but when I do, I find something new to appreciate. As I age, it is friendships that hold this story together and impact me the most.
Close
Close is a rare film. It is an intensely told story about a friendship between two 13-year-old boys. As we see them at play and in school, we see the nature of their relationship change. As one of the boys develops an attraction toward the other, you feel the complexity and challenge of those feelings rise within you as an audience member. When rejection is finally felt, you also feel every shred of what that means for their friendship.
This isn’t an easy film to watch, but it is necessary. It made me think deeply about my own childhood and those secrets I kept locked away to protect myself. How I wish I could have been the most authentic version of myself in the clutches of childhood friendships that meant so much to me. Watching this film, I see so much of my struggle expertly and tenderly told.
Godzilla Minus One
The mere thought of another Godzilla movie exhausted me. That was before seeing Godzilla Minus One. After spending two glorious hours in the presence of this film, I came to a realization. I am exhausted by the American studio system’s interpretation of Godzilla.
What makes this film work is where it focuses its attention. We finally get a movie where the lives of the Japanese people are front and center. Trying to rebound from World War II and the use of two atomic bombs, we see an empire and its people trying to stitch their lives back together. As they do, we see a world in chaos and ruin.
On this journey, we meet characters who have lost everything, characters wrestling with their wartime choices, and others calculating the cost of their leaders’ decisions. The presence of Godzilla serves to amplify and humanize the misery visited upon the Japanese people. He is not the primary focus here. He is a byproduct and symbol of Japan’s place in the world following the war. But he also symbolizes the groundswell of work the Japanese people undertook to reclaim their promise.
1985
1985 is a small independent film I watched with a handful of people in a small theater in Los Angeles. It symbolizes everything I love about independent cinema. It tells a quiet story of a young man returning home for the holidays in 1985.
On this trip, he is on a mission to finally reveal his sexual identity to his family. More than that, he needs to reveal a private battle that gives this trip extra importance. As we watch him spend time with a little brother who is following in his footsteps, a religious mother, a conservative father, and a former high school fling, we understand how challenging it can be to be your real self.
So much of the story told in this film could have been my story. The lead character in this film could have been me. I too struggled with holiday trips in hopes of telling my family about my sexual identity. Thankfully, my story was written with very little drama, but the challenge remained.
A Star Is Born
A film centered on addiction will always grab my attention. In the capable hands of actor/director Bradley Cooper, we meet a hard-drinking country music star who falls deeply in love with a singer played by Lady Gaga. As her star shines brightly, addiction and emotional abuse take center stage.
On its own, this story line isn’t enough to garner a place in a list of my favorite films of all time. This film solidifies its placement in its third act. It doesn’t shy away from a deep and truthful conversation about fame, expectations, abuse, and addiction. It faces the ramifications of personal choice, with a bravery and intensity often missing from movies that attempt to wrestle with this subject matter.
The final act of this film is haunting and heartbreaking. It possesses moments I still think about to this day. For anyone who has ever lost someone to an addiction, it isn’t any easy film to watch, but I believe it is necessary. At the end of the day, this film asks us to walk in the shoes of someone going through hell. Standing on the other side, there is an opportunity to question ourselves.
Million Dollar Baby
For a while, Clint Eastwood was on an unmatched run in Hollywood. As both a director and a leading man, he chose to tell adult, human-centered stories focused on real people in real world situations. In Million Dollar Baby, Mr. Eastwood stars as a boxing gym owner. Alongside Morgan Freeman, they meet a determined female boxer played by Hilary Swank, with ambitions of a boxing career of her own.
This film is more than just a standard sports movie. It dares to do what few movies in the genre would ever consider. As it does, it tells a story focused on the triumph of the human spirit, the power of love we find in our chosen family, and the unconquerability of human determination.
While many tend to think about the brutality of the moment that changes everything in this film, I tend to think deeply about everything that occurs after that defining moment. It is filled with cinematic moments I will not easily forget, and scenes I consider quite often.
Be good to each other,
Nathan
As a member of the factory, you are taking a stand for human powered creation.
