Uplifting Movies
Relax with some feel-good movies...
Here’s a cross section of some of our favourite uplifting, feel-good, silly, and profound movies (and TV series). Some have depth and substance while others are just for laughs and entertainment.
Some you may be able to borrow from your local library, others may be viewable on your favourite streaming service or YouTube, but failing that, we have provided links to Amazon in case you feel like purchasing them.
Note: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission that helps support this website, at no extra cost to you. It’s one of the 7 Ways You Can Support Our Work.
Take a break and escape into an alternate reality for a couple hours!
Bank of Dave
Based on the true-life experiences of Dave Fishwick; ‘Bank of Dave’ tells the story of how a working class Burnley man and self-made millionaire fought to set up a community bank.
Ted Lasso (TV Series)
American college football coach Ted Lasso heads to London to manage AFC Richmond, a struggling English Premier League soccer team.
Yesterday
A struggling musician realizes he’s the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where they never existed.
Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
A struggling musician realizes he’s the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where they never existed.
Instant Family
A couple find themselves in over their heads when they foster three children.
Me Before You
A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man she’s taking care of.
Sing Street
A young lad notices a beautiful girl who begins to occupy his thoughts. While struggling with poverty, personal relationships and life’s woes, he starts a band, hoping to catch her attention.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.
2nd Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
As the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has only a single remaining vacancy, posing a predicament for two fresh arrivals, Sonny Kapoor pursues his expansionist dream of opening a second hotel.
The Intern
Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. To get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin.
The Hundred-Foot Journey
The Kadam family leaves India for France where they open a restaurant directly across the road from Madame Mallory’s Michelin-starred eatery.
Road to Your Heart
Basson has five days to get to his father’s funeral in Cape Town, but he needs to complete certain tasks on this trip before he can call the family company his own.
My Old Lady
An American inherits an apartment in Paris that comes with an unexpected resident.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
When both he and a colleague are about to lose their job, Walter takes action by embarking on an adventure more extraordinary than anything he ever imagined.
Intouchables
After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caregiver.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
British retirees travel to India to what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than advertised, the Marigold Hotel nevertheless slowly begins to charm in unexpected ways.
Invictus
Nelson Mandela, in his first term as President of South Africa, initiates a unique venture to unite the Apartheid-torn land: enlist the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
Pineapple Express
A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after he witnesses his dealer’s boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.
Little Miss Sunshine
A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.
World's Fastest Indian
The story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years rebuilding a 1920 Indian motorcycle, which helped him set the land speed world record at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.
Millions
Ethics, being human and the soul come to the fore when a 7-year old finds a bag of Pounds just days before the currency is switched to Euros and learns what we are really made of.
Big Fish
A frustrated son tries to determine the fact from fiction in his dying father’s life.
Amélie
Despite being caught in her imaginative world, young waitress Amelie decides to help people find happiness. Her quest to spread joy leads her on a journey during which she finds true love.
Shallow Hal
A shallow man falls in love with a 300-pound woman because of her inner beauty.
Almost Famous
A high-school boy in the early 1970s is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.
Saving Grace
A small-town English widow, facing financial troubles after her husband’s suicide, turns to agriculture of an illegal kind.
The Green Mile
A death row guard learns that a gentle giant in his charge possesses a mysterious gift.
Galaxy Quest
The cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. They also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord.
Good Will Hunting
A therapist counsels Will Hunting, a janitor with a genius IQ.
The Man Who Knew Too Little
Wallace Ritchie is mistaken for a spy and must stop a plot to assassinate international leaders at a banquet.
Happy Gilmore
After his grandmother’s house is repossessed by the IRS, a bad tempered hockey player takes his talents to golf to earn the big bucks and get his grandmothers house back.
Michael
Two tabloid reporters checking out a report of the Archangel Michael living with an old woman find that it’s true. But that’s not the only surprise.
Tommy Boy
After his auto-parts tycoon father dies, the overweight, underachieving son teams up with a snide accountant to try and save the family business.
The Shawshank Redemption
A banker convicted of uxoricide forms a friendship over a quarter century with a hardened convict, while maintaining his innocence and trying to remain hopeful through simple compassion.
Dumb and Dumber
After a woman leaves a briefcase at the airport terminal, a dumb limo driver and his dumber friend set out on a hilarious cross-country road trip to Aspen to return it.
Cool Runnings
When a Jamaican sprinter is disqualified from the Olympic Games, he enlists the help of a dishonored coach to start the first Jamaican Bobsled Team.
My Cousin Vinny
Two New Yorkers accused of murder in rural Alabama while on their way back to college call in the help of one of their cousins, a loudmouth lawyer with no trial experience.
What About Bob?
A successful psychotherapist loses his mind after one of his most dependent patients, an obsessive-compulsive neurotic, tracks him down during his family vacation.
Shirley Valentine
Shirley is a 42-year-old bored Liverpudlian housewife who takes a holiday trip to Greece and meets a local man who bolsters her self-confidence. She evolves and transforms.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil
Dave is deaf, and Wally is blind. They witness a murder, but it was Dave who was looking at her, and Wally who was listening.
Field of Dreams
Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella is inspired by a voice he can’t ignore to pursue a dream he can hardly believe. Ray begins turning his ordinary cornfield into a place where dreams can come true.
The Princess Bride
A bedridden boy’s grandfather reads him the story of a farmboy-turned-pirate who encounters numerous obstacles, enemies and allies in his quest to be reunited with his true love.
Stand By Me
A writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.
Summer Rental
An overworked and exhausted air-traffic controller takes his family on a long-awaited beach vacation but is soon beset by a series of mishaps.
Local Hero
An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don’t go as expected.
The In-Laws
Prior to their kid’s marriage, NYC in-laws Sheldon Kornpett and Vince Ricardo embark on a series of misadventures involving the CIA, the Treasury Department and Central American dictators.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
A White couple’s attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her Black fiancé.
