The holiday season is upon us, and many people’s favorite thing to do during the holidays is to watch movies. It is one of my favorite things to do, as well. My friends know how big a fan I am of watching movies, and keep asking me for movie recommendations. Here, I present you with a list of movies that I have found very thought-provoking, inspirational, and have learned a great deal from. The breadth of learning could encompass a wide variety from simply learning good manners and etiquettes, to discipline and diligence, to passion and not giving up, to happiness and meaning of life, to salvation and enlightenment. A word of caution: these are not necessarily feel-good, happy, movies. These are thought-provoking movies.

The movies below have not been numbered from best to worst, this is not a top ten list, and I am not going to pass on my judgment about which movie is the best of all. They are all exceptionally beautiful movies (based on my personal opinion, of course) and I feel inspired and thoughtful after having watched them. Some of these movies don’t even rank highly in IMDb (Joe versus the volcano and Serenity, for examples). So, this is just a personal list of my favorite movies that provide me not just entertainment but also food for thought. I am not going to describe the movies or their plots but simply list them, because these movies are to be watched and savored, not described.

1.      The Shawshank Redemption

2.      Pay It Forward:

3.      Joe versus the Volcano:

4.      It’s a Wonderful Life:

5.    Life is Beautiful

6.      Simon Birch: .

7.      The Pursuit of Happyness:

8.      Forrest Gump: .

9.     Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

10.  Cast Away:

11.  127 hours:

12.  Antwone Fisher:

13.  The Bucket List:

14.   One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest: Worth reading the book as well.

15.  Dances with Wolves:

16.  Dead Poets Society:

17.  The Truman Show:

18.  The Family Man:

19.  Field of Dreams:

20.  Finding Forrester:

21.  Good Will Hunting:

22. Groundhog day:

23.  Into the Wild:

24.  Invictus:

26.  Jerry Maguire:

27.  The King’s Speech:

28.  The Kite Runner:

29.  Life as a House: .

30.  Mr. Holland’s Opus:

31.  My Sister’s Keeper:

32.  Philadelphia:

33.  Pi:

34.  Django Unchained

35.  Rain Man:

36.  Road to Perdition:

37.  Schindler’s List:

38.  Instinct.

39.  The Green Mile:

40.  The Legend of Beggar Vance:

41.  The Way .

42.  The Unknown Saint.

43.  The Platform

44.  Paterson

45.  To Kill a Mockingbird:

46.  Les Miserables:

47.  12 Angry Men:

48.  Scent of a Woman:

49. Peaceful Warrior:

50. Fight Club: A rare occurrence where I decided to read the book after having seen the movie. The only occasion where I decided to read all books this author has written after having read the Fight Club.

51. The Big Lebowski:

52. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring

53. The Edge

54. Free Guy:

55. My Dinner with Andre

56. Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?

57. Swiss Army Man

58. Serenity

59. Population 436

60. One Week

61. Hwal : Any movie by Kim Ku-duk is thought provoking. You can watch them all.

62. Alive

63. The Secret: Dare to Dream

64. Inkan, Gongkan, Sikan Grigo Inkan

65. The Big Short

66. Da Mo Zu Shi

67. The Seventh Seal

68. The Walk