These are films that I found to be very meaningful and worthy of revisiting time and time again. They lead to deep thought, make for great discussion, and have strong morally uplifting themes. Those that might not be appropriate for students of a certain age are listed under their ratings and for rated-R films I listed the details of what makes it so strictly rated. Please only view those with mature audiences.
PG
Life of Pi
The Mission
Spiderman – Into the Spider-verse
Disney Animated Films
Lilo & Stitch
Zootopia
PG-13
Forrest Gump
The Sixth Sense
Ender’s Game – some violence, sci-fi action and thematic material
Batman Begins
Luther
X-men First Class
R
Shawshank Redemption – language and prison violence
The King (2019 on Netflix) – some strong violence, and language.
Silence – some disturbing violent content
The Last Samurai – strong violence and battle sequences.
Papillon – violence including bloody images, language, nudity, and some sexual material.
Trilogies
These mythologies do a great job of world building. They contain ageless archetypes but can be somewhat overwhelming for children. They make a strong impression so use discernment when showing to younger audiences.
The Matrix
The Avengers
Star Wars
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises
Lord of the Rings
The Godfather
Television Series
I didn’t provide ratings here but the contents really are only for very mature audiences.
Star Wars Clone Wars the animated series – some cartoony violence
Samurai Jack Season 5 – some cartoony violence
The Animatrix – The Second Renaissance
The Queen’s Gambit – some promiscuity though not shown explicitly
Pixar Movies
Brave
Ratatouille
Inside Out
The Incredibles
Wall-E
Coco
Up
Finding Nemo
Finding Dori
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 4
