From the very first moving picture of an approaching train to the latest sci-fi movie with incredible special effects, movies have always had the capacity to fascinate and amaze people. Today, films are not just a source of entertainment anymore but have become a powerful medium to tell stories that often get overlooked, communicate important societal issues, and educate and inspire their audiences. This list features some of the most inspiring movies that can provide an enjoyable learning opportunity for young viewers. 

Movies that teach us how to navigate life

Inside Out (2015) (PG)

In this movie, Pixar did a wonderful  job putting into words and images what is mostly seen as an abstract concept: our emotions. Most of the film takes place in the head of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, where five emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, help her navigate her world. Throughout the movie, along with Riley, we viewers start understanding our emotions, how important it is to accept and embrace them, and ultimately, that sadness is an inevitable and necessary part of life. While it might be disguised as a comedy, Inside Out is actually filled with valuable lessons that will resonate with both children and adults.

The Belier Family (2014) (PG)

The whole Bélier family is deaf, except for sixteen-year-old Paula who is the important translator in her parents’ day-to-day life especially when it comes to matters concerning the family farm. When her music teacher discovers she has a fantastic singing voice and she gets an opportunity to enter a big Radio France contest, the whole family’s future is set up for big changes. In an extremely emotional scene, we can hear Paula interpreting the famous French song “Je vole” about a child needing to spread its wings and leave the nest, taking the form of a plea by the girl for her parents to let go and not see her transformation as a rejection. Parts of the concert’s performance are shown without sound, to make us experience the boredom and exclusion of those who cannot hear, making the viewers truly understand the huge gap between Paula and her parents and their difficulty in bridging it. This movie is filled with lessons about family, inclusion, and passion and how to find the balance between them. 

Wonder (2017) (PG) 

Learning math and science is important, but how do young kids learn empathy and emotional intelligence? How do they learn to be kind to one another? This is the question that the movie Wonder, based on a best-selling book, tries to answer. It follows Auggie, a fifth-grader born with a severe facial deformity, on his first day of school after being homeschooled. As his family, his new classmates, and the larger community all struggle to discover their compassion and acceptance, Auggie’s extraordinary journey will unite them. The movie has clear positive messages about choosing kindness, embracing who you are, true friendship, accepting differences, and appreciating everyone for who they are, rather than what they look like.

Ferdinand (2017) (PG)

Ferdinand is a vibrant, colorful, and energetic film about a bull who wants to be a friend rather than a fighter. While they were still young, Ferdinand’s friends were convinced that bullfighting and competing against the matador was their ticket to freedom. But Ferdinand didn’t want to become a fighting bull, he just wanted to be at peace, smelling flowers and relaxing comfortably in the shade. He ran away and was adopted by a little girl named Nina and lived peacefully on their farm, finally finding a family who loved him and accepted him for who he was. One day, he was captured and brought back to the ranch, forced to decide between fighting the matador or getting taken to the slaughterhouse. Staying true to his convictions and his peaceful nature, Ferdinand refuses to resort to violence even when facing the matador. He inspires everyone around him to be themselves and not let anyone shape who they are or what their destiny will be, that all animals deserve to be treated ethically and with kindness, that violence is never the answer and that what matters is on the inside, with the catchphrase of the movie being “Built to fight, born to love”. 

Soul (2020) (PG)

The movie Soul tackles the concept of life and death, passion, purpose and the meaning of life, topics that aren’t usually addressed in animated films. The movie centers on Joe, a middle school band teacher who feels unfulfilled because his ambition is to be a full-time jazz musician. On the day he lands the biggest gig of his career, Joe nearly dies — but then gets the chance to return to his body if he can help a lost soul, number 22, figure out the purpose of their life.  We’ve become conditioned to believe in this perfectly constructed idea where if we reach our ultimate goals — or get accepted to join a famous jazz band — then our life matters. Through a series of adventures with 22, Joe realizes that the only purpose of life is to live it, no matter how we decide to do that. We all feel pressured to find the unique talents that are the reason we’re placed on earth, but this movie reminds us that living our best life, whether it’s by using our sparks and our gifts or appreciating the small and big things life has to offer, is all we need.

Encanto (2021) (PG)

Disney’s Encanto is an exciting new family film centered around a close-knit family with magical gifts and the enchanted house they inhabit. The story follows Mirabel, the only one in the family without a magical gift, as she discovers that the miracle of her family’s gift is beginning to weaken and that cracks are beginning to appear in their home. Her journey to save her family’s magic and keep her family together is central to the story.

While its catchy tunes like “We don’t talk about Bruno” have been breaking billboard records, Encanto actually addresses important and relatable issues in a family. The grandmother’s traumatic past makes her controlling, which creates a big pressure on her grandchildren to always be perfect and never disappoint her, which is all tied to her fear of losing them. It is later revealed that the family’s problem is that they don’t talk about Bruno or about any other issue that might make them seem less than perfect, such as trauma, emotional burdens and mental health. With reflection, we understand Mirabel’s true gift is actually emotional authenticity, and that she was able to save the family by making them address their fears and talk about their needs. 

Movies about important historical events and people

The Imitation Game (2014) (PG-13)

Alan Turing is a person not many have heard of, but a lot of people have survived combat in World War II thanks to him. Turing’s biopic The Imitation Game tells the story of how he and a team of mathematicians, using a rudimentary computer of Turing’s design, broke Germany’s seemingly unbreakable enigma code, significantly shortening World War II and saving countless lives. Alan Turing is often described as “the father of computer science”, and this movie educates viewers, whether experienced in the field or new to the concept, about the fundamentals of coding and computer science. The movie addresses a significant story in the course of history, detailing the background of the war, while underlining the often untapped potential of people who are not taken seriously by mainstream society. This movie can be inspiring to anyone interested in computer science, as it also highlights the presence of women in this male-dominated field.

Hidden Figures (2017) (PG)

The film is based on the book “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly.  It tells the true story of three African-American female scientists who worked at Langley Research Center, a field center of NASA,  in Hampton, Virginia in the 1950s, and how “the computers in skirts” contributed a lot to the United States Space Program. 

All three of the real-life human computers portrayed in the movie became the first in their areas of expertise.  Katherine Johnson was a mathematician whose numbers were so concise that the astronaut John Glenn called her to check the calculations of a complicated trajectory made by the computer before launching the Friendship 7, in 1962, a scene dramatized in the film. Dorothy Vaughn headed Langley’s segregated West Area computing division and went on to become NASA’s first African-American manager. Mary Jackson, NASA’s first black female engineer, went on to head NASA’s Equal Opportunity Office, making changes to benefit female workers.

With this story being left out of American History books, the movie chose to highlight how these women used their brains, their education, their gifts of math and science, and their spirit of excellence as a weapon and a solution to fight racism. 

The hate you give (2018) (PG-13)

Based on Angie Thomas’ 2017 young-adult novel, the movie follows Starr, a 16-year-old girl stuck between the rich and white-dominated private school she attends and the black community she has in her neighborhood. The story is centered on a fateful night when Starr was riding home with her childhood friend Khalil when they got pulled over by the police. Khalil reached for a hairbrush inside the car and got shot by the white police officer who thought it was a gun. Starr ultimately decides to be the voice of Khalil, and in that process, find her own. 

The movie takes themes of Black Lives Matter, police brutality, systemic prejudice, and black identity and puts them in the thought-provoking story of an African-American girl stuck between cultures, while also emphasizing youth activism and making the hard decision to speak out when necessary.

Capernaum (2018) (R-Rated)

Emotionally scarred and hardened by life on the Beirut streets, a 12-year-old boy named Zain runs away from his abusive home after his parents marry off his underage sister. He is befriended by an Ethiopian woman working as a cleaner without legal papers and gets to stay with her in return for minding her baby while she is out at work. But when she is picked up by police, he has to head off back to the streets, taking the baby with him – and is confronted by some terrible choices. Later arrested for commiting a violent crime, he decides to sue his negligent parents for bringing him into the world. 

Based on years of research conducted with refugees and neglected, abandoned, and incarcerated minors, this movie stars real-life refugees such as Zain, who was a refugee from Syria’s civil war and was only 12 years old and barely literate when the director met him, and Yordanos, the actress who plays Rahil, who just like her character, is also an undocumented migrant laborer. The movie offers an immediacy and authenticity that would not have been possible without its nonprofessional performers improvising versions of their own experiences. It also highlights the struggle, pains and sadness of minorities stuck in poverty and exile, whether in Lebanon or other countries, and sheds the light on how unfair it is to live without any basic rights, which is what Zain is suing his parents for. 

The Theory of Everything (2014) (PG-13)

Based on the memoir “Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen” by Jane Hawking, “The Theory of Everything” tells the love story of Stephen and Jane Hawking. The story starts with their carefree relationship at Cambridge, while Stephen was just a young college student studying astrophysics with his whole life ahead of him. It is when he receives his diagnosis – a motor neuron disease with a life expectancy of two years – that everything changes. His gradual loss in motor movements and speech abilities creates a sense of urgency in the film as Stephen tries to make the most of his limited time. The Theory of Everything  is a movie about the life of Stephen Hawking, his theories around astrophysics, and his achievements in the world of science but it is also an inspirational real-life story about faith, belief, love, and defying impossible odds.

Movies with scientific lessons

Wall-E (2008) (PG)

Set in the distant future, the movie takes place in a world that has become engulfed by trash due to decades of mass consumerism, and as a result, the planet has become inhabitable and humans have been evacuated to live in space. The film follows a trash-compactor robot named WALL-E who was created to clean up the planet. One day, WALL-E discovers a fledgling plant growing among the trash—does this mean Earth can sustain life one again? To find out the answer, WALL-E embarks on a journey through space that ultimately decides the fate of humankind. WALL-E is a film with a very clear message: We make and use too much stuff and if we keep going down this path, eventually our planet be overwhelmed with toxicity and threaten every life form to extinction. By the end of the movie, what we can think about is the importance of taking care of our planet and the dangers of relying on technology. 

My octopus Teacher (2020) (PG)

In this Netflix Documentary, a filmmaker named Craig Foster starts an underwater journey to understand an octopus, and himself. Foster says that “a lot of people say that an octopus is like an alien. But the strange thing is, as you get closer to them, you realize you’re very similar in a lot of ways. You’re stepping into this completely different world, such an incredible feeling, and you feel as though you’re on the brink of something extraordinary”.

Every day for a year, he dives into freezing waters without a wetsuit to avoid creating any barriers between him and the octopus. With each daily visit, the viewer watches as a connection is created and trust is built over time between a man and an octopus. The most important lesson Foster learned from the octopus is to feel like he was part of this place and not a visitor. The octopus reminded Foster and the viewers that we are part of a living planet, that nature and biodiversity are the immune system of the Earth.  If humans don’t come together and find ways of regenerating the natural world and protecting the wild places we have left, our species, along with millions of others, will become extinct.

David Attenborough: A life on our planet (2020) (PG)

As he looks back on the many adventures he’s had in his long career, the 93-year-old natural historian Sir David Attenborough also takes stock of the impact humans are having on the environment. Attenborough doesn’t sugarcoat the negative impact humans have had on the planet: he talks about lost species, uninhabitable areas, and irreversible damage, backed up by increasingly depressing facts and figures projected on screen. Despite all that, Attenborough gives hope by laying out some measures that can be implemented today to save ourselves and the planet we call home and help prevent Earth from further decline. While the documentary lays out some stark warnings about the future of our planet, it can be an opportunity for young minds to discuss the environmental messages Attenborough’s sending and elaborate on what we can do to make a positive change. 

The Social dilemma (2020) (PG-13)

This documentary/drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.The Social Dilemma explores the unintended and devastating consequences of social media including: polarization, isolation, anxiety, low self-esteem, disorientation from reality, and even violence against self or others. It exposes how social media corporations exploit the human desire for attention, belonging, affirmation, and community in order to make a profit. The ideas are addressed in a way that challenges young minds into thinking about their relationship with social networks in a non-threatening way, bringing up the topic in a way that won’t automatically make them defensive, without spoon-feeding them but instead allowing them to think for themselves about what they just learned. 

The big short (2015) (R-Rated)

The Big Short is based on the bestselling book by Michael Lewis. It follows the story of several investors who were among the first to spot warning signs in the real estate market that triggered the global financial meltdown of 2008. By betting against the housing market, they managed to reap huge gains as the economy crumbled, leaving millions out of work and homeless — which might make some viewers feel pretty conflicted about rooting for them. The Big Short manages to educate, amuse and sadden at the same time. It brings up issues that can be discussed with young learners such as greed, complex financial concepts and the reality of what happened during the economical crisis of 2008.