MISSION
Extraordinary Movies is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to providing helpful information to individuals who seek to discover the very best foreign and independent films. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard famously observed, “Just as we cannot step off a train while it is moving, so we cannot step away from life to reflect on its meaning.” The very best movies from around the world convey universal truths that help us reflect upon and understand our lives.
ART OF CINEMA
When the lights go down and the film begins, we give ourselves over to the magic of movies. In every good movie there is a tension between place, sentiment, thought, and character. Click below to discover some of the different ways movies express their magic:
LIFE STAGES
Click below on a stage of life such as “Family,” “Childhood,” or “Coming of Age” and you will find an introductory essay which frames that stage of life and identifies the issues which are central to that stage of life. Following the introductory essay, you will find reviews for the movies I have selected for each stage of life. The movie reviews explain how each movie contributes to our understanding of each stage of life. The movie reviews also suggest things to look for as you watch each movie and explain what makes each movie special. My hope is that if you watch these movies you will become more aware, more understanding, more at peace, and more loving.
LIFE STAGES VIDEOS
Life Stages videos combine critical commentary with scenes from the movies. Click below to select videos to watch.
You can also watch these videos on YouTube. Simply search for “Life Stages.”
LIFE STAGES FILM FORUM
The Life Stages Film Forum is about life as it is interpreted by movies. We meet on Saturday afternoons in a classroom setting to watch a cinematic masterpiece. The movie screenings are followed by a lively group discussion. Make new friends with fellow movie lovers. We will be watching and discussing some of the great classics of world cinema. Just as there is a canon of great books, we believe there is also a canon of great movies. We also believe that great movies can change lives. Click below on “Program Summary” to learn how to become a Life Stages Film Forum discussion group leader. Click below on “Enrollment” to learn how to enroll in a FREE Life Stages Film Forum class.
MOVIE REVIEWS
Here are the movies which are discussed in the book “Movies That Will Change Your Life.” The movies are listed alphabetically. Click the movie title below to read the review.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Purchase the book “Movies That Will Change Your Life” on Amazon in e-book format for $9.99 or in paperback format for $16.99. Your purchase helps support the Extraordinary Movies website! Download the ebook edition of “Movies That Will Change Your Life” for FREE if you subscribe to receive updates!
Movies That Will Change Your Life
by Thomas J. Lowry III
180 pages
Introduction
1 My Life at the Movies
2 Art of Cinema
3 Spirited Away
4 Conversational Movies
5 Character Driven Movies
6 Family
7 Childhood
8 Coming of Age
9 Romance
10 Sex
11 Relationships
12 Love
13 Old Age
14 Memory
15 Death
16 How To Start A Film Club
Expanded List of Movies
About the Author
Also by Thomas J. Lowry III
BOOK REVIEWS
An inspiring survey of the very best foreign and independent films!
“Movies That Will Change Your life” is an inspiring survey of the very best foreign and independent films, including some of the great classics of world cinema. The author has curated the movies based on the stages of human life. This is a highly original and helpful way of categorizing and thinking about the movies. The movies the author has selected are emotionally powerful, beautiful, and wise. They reflect on the events and decisive themes of everyday life such as childhood, coming of age, love, old age, and death. I agree with the author that these movies will change you because many of the movies have changed me. This book is completely honest and deeply personal, and the central message, which is carefully worked out in fifty case studies, is profound and universal: The experience of great movies contributes to the cultivation of better human beings. I find the author’s respect for movies as high art to be admirable because he uses insight into human nature, knowledge of film technique, philosophy, literature, and passionate observation in a Baudelairian sense to convey his ideas. This is a very persuasive approach to the interpretation of film!
– Glenn
The fifty movie challenge!
I decided to watch all of the movies discussed in the book “Movies That Will Change Your Life.” If I watch one movie each week, it will take me an entire year to watch all fifty movies! I had never even heard of most of these movies, but I can report that the movies I have watched so far have been truly extraordinary! By organizing the movies based on the life stages of a typical person, the author addresses the crucial question, “What does it mean to be human?” The first movie I watched was “Roma” directed by Alfonso Cuaron. “Roma” is available on Netflix. “Roma” was so beautiful and so emotionally wrenching that I was in tears by the end of the movie. You simply must read this wonderful book and watch the movies!
– Serena
The perfect guide for starting a film club!
Greetings from Warsaw, Poland! My boyfriend suggested “Movies That Will Change Your Life” to me because the author mentions in his book that his favorite movie director is Krzysztof Kieslowski who is from Poland! If you love foreign and independent movies, I promise you that you will love this book! The author has selected extraordinary movies for each stage of life. These life stages include Family, Childhood, Coming of Age, Romance, Sex, Relationships, Love, Old Age, Memory, and Death. Each chapter includes an essay which discusses the issues we all face as we make our way through each stage of life. The introductory essay is followed by reviews for the movies the author has selected for each stage of life. The movies are simply extraordinary! The first movie I watched was “Y tu mama tambien” directed by Alfonso Cuaron. I was deeply moved by this movie about two teenage boys and their road trip across modern Mexico with a beautiful, intelligent, twenty-eight year old woman. The last chapter of the book explains how to start a film club. I plan to invite some of my friends who love movies to start a small film club! This book will be the perfect guide for my film club!
– Elvira
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WHERE TO STREAM THE MOVIES
My fondest hope is for this website to inspire you to watch the movies! If you watch just one movie each week, you can watch all the movies over the course of a single year! Your life will surely be transformed! At any given time, several of the movies discussed on this website are likely to be available on Netflix or Amazon Prime. You can pay to stream individual movies by searching for the title of the movie on Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, or iTunes. Finally, approximately thirty of the forty-eight movies discussed on this website are available on the superb Criterion Channel streaming service. Learn more about the Criterion Channel by watching the short video “Introducing Filmstruck.” Please be aware that the Filmstruck streaming service was subsequently renamed Criterion Channel.
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BEST MOVIES OF 2023
Selecting the best movies of the year is a daunting task. This is especially true for someone like myself who spends most of their time watching classic cinema and contemporary art films and is barely aware of all the franchise blockbusters. I begin my search by reading the “Best Movies of the Year” articles which always appear in early December in publications like the New York Times and the Austin Chronicle. Film critics like Manohla Dargis, the chief film critic for the New YorkTimes (and my favorite movie critic), watch hundreds of movies and attend many of the major film festivals in their search for the best movies of the year. I am extremely grateful for all their hard work!
Whenever I read movie reviews, I am always on the lookout for movies that relate to one of the Life Stages discussed on this website. I especially keep an eye out for movies like My Golden Days and Y tu mama tambien that have something to say about how events in one life stage often cast shadows that affect a subsequent life stage. After all, we live life as a continuum not as a series of “stages.” I generally prefer introspective movies that focus on the human condition and touch my heart. Marcel Proust, the author of the masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, explains why we desperately need art to help us understand our present lives:
Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.
Both of my selections for the best movies of 2023 present stories that connect the different stages of life. I recommend that you watch and discuss these extraordinary movies with someone you love. If you watch these movies, I am confident that you and your partner or friend will become more aware, more understanding, more at peace, and more loving!
Thomas J. Lowry, III
Author, Movies That Will Change Your Life
Past Lives
directed by Celine Song
Celine Song’s first feature film is brilliant and moving. Past Lives examines the ways in which love, memory, and destiny bind us together. Past Lives begins in a bar in New York City. An unseen couple are playfully trying to guess the relationships between the three people seated on the other side of the bar. Nora (Greta Lee) is nestled between Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Arthur (John Magaro). Are the Korean Nora and Hae Sung a couple? Are they tourists with their white tour guide? Or are Nora and Arthur actually the ones who are a couple? Then, suddenly, something extraordinary happens. Nora turns and gazes directly into the camera. I have never seen this technique used except at the end of a movie. Using it at the beginning of the movie is brilliant. It connects the audience with Nora. Nora’s gaze directly into the camera is both personal and mysterious. We can’t help but wonder, “Who is this woman and what is her story? Past Lives then proceeds to tell the story of a girl and boy who are classmates in elementary school. They are very competitive academically, but they love to hang out together and they develop deep feelings for one another. The girl’s family immigrates to the United States. The girl grows up, becomes a writer, and marries an American guy. The years go by, but eventually there is an opportunity for the boy (now a handsome young man) to come to America and visit his long ago schoolmate. After you watch the movie, I highly recommend that you watch this wonderful interview with Celine Song, the director of Past Lives (see link below). Celine is so articulate and has such a compelling, feminine perspective on movie making that she reminds me of the director Agnes Varda who is also renowned for her debut feature film (La Pointe Courte).
Poor Things
directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Poor Things is a fabulous adventure story with an arresting erotic side. The film casts Emma Stone as Bella Baxter. Bella has a truly outrageous origin story. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, she throws herself off a bridge and is resurrected by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe) who swaps her brain for that of her unborn baby. Stone gets lots of comic mileage out of playing a full-grown woman with the mind of a child, but as the film follows Bella’s strange erotic journey from London to Paris to Lisbon, Bella begins a sexual and political awakening and eventually strives for independence. Along the way, the film’s lush cinematography revels in the beauty in every detail, including a zeppelin floating in the clouds and a fantasia of serenading ladies in Lisbon. In an interview with Kyle Buchanan of the New York Times, Stone spoke of her character in glowing terms:
My God, she’s the greatest character I’ll probably ever get to play. She’s drinking up the world around her in such a unique and beautiful way that I just dream I could. I find her so inspiring, and living in that every day throughout that whole process was just the greatest gift — it’s the most joy I’ve ever gotten to have as a character. Every person that exists has so much that built them up to what they are in adulthood, and it was interesting to discover that if you strip all that away, all that’s left is joy and curiosity.
BEST MOVIES OF 2022
EO
directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
It’s time to look at the world from a different vantage point! I found myself absolutely transfixed by this visually stunning fable. After being removed from a traveling circus, a nomadic donkey named EO begins a trek across the Italian countryside. Along the way, EO experiences kindness and cruelty in equal measure. Watch this film for its beautiful, heartwarming story. Also watch this film for the stunning cinematography by Michal Dymek and for the otherworldly beauty of Pawel Mykietyn’s musical score. Available on the Criterion Channel.
Tár
directed by Todd Fields
Tár explores an important question. Should an artist’s work be judged solely on its aesthetic merits or should we also consider the artist’s life story, sexual orientation, and ethical missteps or other forms of misbehavior? Tár is also about creativity, ownership, relationships, and personal responsibility. Because it focuses on ideas, Tár reminds me of the films of the renowned Polish filmmaker, Kristof Kieslowski. Kieslowski’s films also focus on ideas. In his trio of films based on the colors of the French flag, Red, White, and Blue, for example, Kieslowski explores ideas of Fraternity, Equality, and Liberty. Character driven films devoted to ideas are rare in American cinema. As the French director Francois Truffaut remarks in his book The Films In My Life, “The main difference between European and Hollywood films is that European films are first of all films of personalities, and the American productions are primarily films about specific situations.” For this reason, you may find the coolly intellectual Tár to be unfamiliar and off-putting at first. If you persevere, however, you will be rewarded with a film that is brimming with ideas and is crowned by one of the greatest acting performances of all time. Cate Blanchett is simply awe-inspiring as the renowned orchestra conductor Lydia Tár. Lydia is days away from recording the symphony that will elevate her career. When all the elements seem to conspire against Lydia, Petra, Lydia’s adopted daughter, becomes a crucial emotional support for her struggling mother. Because conversations between characters are central to Tár, I recommend turning on the subtitles or the closed captions feature so you won’t miss any of the very nuanced verbal exchanges in the film. Mysterious, provocative, and intellectual, Tár is an extraordinary example of a character driven film that focuses on ideas.
ChatGPT
Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to write a short review of the film Tár directed by Todd Field with reference to the “cinema of ideas.” Here is the response I received:
Todd Field’s film “Tár” stars Cate Blanchett as an orchestra conductor named Lydia Tár. The film has been described as “brainy, talkative, full of ideas and questions about contemporary culture and human nature.” Some critics have praised the film for its exploration of cancel culture while others have criticized it for its regressive ideas.
Richard Brody of The New Yorker describes the film as “a regressive film that takes bitter aim at so-called cancel culture and lampoons so-called identity politics.” On the other hand, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian describes it as an “entirely outrageous, delirious and sensual psychodrama.”
BEST MOVIES OF 2021
Licorice Pizza
directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
In 1973, in San Fernando Valley, California, while waiting to get his high-school photo taken, fifteen-year-old budding actor Gary Valentine asks twenty-five-year-old photographer’s assistant Alana Kane on a date.This sparks a fiery friendship, business partnership, and possible romance.”You’re a very powerful feeling,” one character tells the other towards the end of “Licorice Pizza.” It’s a coming-of-age tale sketched with the kind of nostalgia that manifests as memories often do: unformed, messy, and yet somehow profoundly moving.
The Power of the Dog
directed by Jane Campion
“The Power of the Dog” is a magnificent exploration of male ego and toxic masculinity. Directed by Jane Campion (“The Piano”), this adaptation of the 1967 Thomas Savage novel has an extraordinary intimacy that is both shocking and enthralling. Benedict Cumberbatch is brilliant as a boorish and bullying cowboy alongside strong performances by Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons. Available on Netflix.