Life Lessons from Movies World Clock
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Welcome to our Movie Conversations

Here's the page where we'll share the Life Lessons you learned from watching your favorite movie! Listed below is a sampling of just some of the movies and questions that help create the movie conversations we have on the show. Take a look at our movie list and ask yourself the following questions:

What inspired you about the movie?

What lesson did you walk away with?

What feeling does the movie still conjure up for you?

Join us every Tuesday when we get together and talk about lessons we have all learned from watching our favorite movies!

To share your lessons, click here.


The Big Chill (1983)

At a funeral, seven friends from college are reunited for a weekend and re-evaluate their lives and goals. As the friends catch up with each other, they reminisce, and, each member of the group becomes aware that the life they idealized is not always the life that will make them happy.

Question: When we idealize the past, does it prevent us from living in the now?

The Matrix(1999)

Neo is a young software engineer and part-time hacker who sensing that there is much more to the Matrix then what most people believe. He has a secret yearning to explore the Matrix in more depth and gets the opportunity. He soon learns that his belief system and the Matrix isn’t real; that they are both driven by programs and illusions.

Question: Is it better to accept life as it is or be curious about what you believe and why you believe it?

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

A Southern house is divided by patriarchal dominance and the marital problems between one of the sons, a heavy drinker, and his wife’s hypocrisy.

Question: Can letting go of old emotional baggage and living your life more authentically change your relationship?

Run, Lola Run

Lola's boyfriend is an errand boy for a local criminal. He only needs to deliver some smuggled goods and return with the payment, but he accidentally leaves the bag with the money on the subway. He calls Lola and tells her he must come up with the money within 20 minutes. Lola’s goal is to help her boyfriend come up with the money. She plays out two scenarios that end in disaster, but the third scenario is the one that works.

Question: How powerful are our choices in how our lives unfold?

Now, Voyager (1942)

Bridled by an autocratic mother, Charlotte Vale is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A psychiatrist persuades her to drastically change her life.

Question: Have you ever had to reclaim your life from a dominating and aggressive person?

A Home at the End of the World

After Bobby loses his entire family, he meets and Jonathan, from the moment they meet they are inseparable. For Jonathan, the unconventional Bobby is a connection to a larger world; while for Bobby, Jonathan’s family and in particular Jonathan’s mother Alice--represents a kind of stability that he hasn’t known. As they grow up, the boys grow apart only to reunite in New York where, together with the free spirited Clare, they invent a new kind of family.

Question: Is it possible to invent your life?

It's All About Love

A famous ice skater is reunited with her husband in New York. Although they are in the process of getting a divorce, when he arrives, some many strange things are happening, that they embark on a journey that leads them to recreate their relationship.

Question: What would our lives be like if we believed that every moment mattered?

Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest Gump leads us through American social history from the early 1960s through the present. Vietnam, desegregation, Watergate and more are presented from the perspective of Forrest Gump, a lovably slow-witted character whose simple views of life are quite charming.

Question: What would your life be like if we could be impeccable with your word, not take anything personally, not make assumptions and always did our best?

What the Bleep do we Know? (2004)

Following the story of Amanda, a divorced photographer, she learns how unexplained phenomenon creates her life. As her daily life begins to unravel, Amanda becomes more aware of the uncertain world of energy and the role it plays in creating our normal, waking reality.

Question: What would happen if you could manage your emotions and prevent them from controlling you?

Bird Man of Alcatraz (1962)

Convict Robert Stroud finds solace in his life sentence of solitary confinement for murder by becoming an internationally renowned expert on birds and their diseases.

Question: What would be possible for you to achieve if you focused on your passion?

Marty (1955)

A lonely, overweight Bronx butcher lives with his mother, and his shyness and low self-esteem prevents him from asking girls out. When he is invited to a dance and meets a nice girl he begins to really like her. When his friends meet her, they seem to think that she is not good looking enough for him.

Question:What would it take to be true to yourself and choose a partner that will make you happy?

Rudy(1993)

Based on the true story of Dan "Rudy" Ruettiger, a five-foot, six-inch Notre Dame football player who sat on the bench until the last game of his collegiate career and finally proved himself on the field.

Question: What are you willing to do to manifest your dream and how often are you willing to do it?

Saving Face (2005)

In this comedy set in New York, Wil avoids her mother’s attemps to marry her off. At 28, Wil's the old maid of her traditional Chinese family, so there's no way she can tell them about her budding romance with Vivian. But there's no avoiding mom's meddling matchmaking when she shows up on Wil's doorstep looking for a place to stay.

Question: What would it take for you to live life more authentically?

Like Water for Chocolate (1993)

This is a story about forbidden love that takes place on a ranch in Mexico near the Texas border in 1910, during the Mexican Revolution.

Question: How do your choices impact your life and the lives of others?

The Fountainhead (1949)

A story about architect Howard Roark and his refusal to create buildings that violate his sense of aesthetic value, choosing instead to work as laborer until he can find funding for his own projects.

Question: What are you willing to do to express your talent your way?

Devil's Advocate (1997)

Kevin Lomax, a top-notch Florida lawyer who specializes in jury selection, is summoned to New York City by the enigmatic owner of a huge law firm. And through it all, John Milton keeps reminding his protege that life is rich with possibilities for those who are unafraid to sample them.

Question: How and when do we take responsibility for the choices we make everyday?

The Hero (2004)

At the height of China’s Warring States period, the country was divided into seven kingdoms: The Qin King was obsessed with conquering all of China and becoming her first Emperor. He had long been the target of assassins throughout the other six states. Of all the would-be killers, none inspired as much fear as the three legendary assassins, Broken Sword, Snow and Sky.To.

Question: Have you ever had to take a stand for something you believed in, and found yourself standing alone?

The Usual Suspectss (1995)

After staying overnight at NYPD, five notorious thieves hatch a plan to steal $91 million. In a surprise plot twist, an eager Federal Agent is being outwitted by a con man.

Question: What situations have you been in where you relied on your instincts and they were right?

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

George Bailey is a small-town man whose life seems so desperate he contemplates suicide. As he prepares to jump from a bridge, his guardian angel intercedes; showing him what life would have become for the residents of his small town of Bedford Falls if he had never lived.

Question: Have you ever had someone tell you how much something you did meant to them and you were totally surprised?

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Struggling to make ends meet, Chris Gardner finds himself and his five-year-old son evicted from their San Francisco apartment with nowhere to go. When Gardner lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, he and his son endure many hardships, including living in shelters.

Question: What are you willing to do to achieve your dreams?

Crash (2005)

In post September 11 Los Angeles we get to explore the reactions of a diverse populations through their day-to-day challenges. This movie challenges us to confront our prejudices.

Question: Have you ever asked yourself where do you get the assumptions you make about people?

Frida (2002)

Frida Kahlo, lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary. Inspite of her physical and emotion challenges, she was able to live her life to the fullest degree of joy and happiness.

Question: What would life be like if you could live totally free?

Godfather (1972)

In 1940s New York, a Mafia family and struggles to protect their empire from rival families. As the leadership switches from the father to his youngest son, the youngest son learns what it will take to lead the family .

Question: Who do you need to become in order to get to where you’re going?

Gattaca (1997)

In the near future, where corporations screen their employees based on their genetic makeup, a man with a congenital heart condition assumes the identity of a former athlete with perfect genes in order to fulfill his dream of traveling in space.

Question: What’s possible when you are focused and determined to achieve your goals?

Happy Feet (2006)

Living with his colony in the Antarctic, where every penguin has the same ability – singing. Young emperor penguin Mumble is aptly named: While his friends use their singing skills to attracts mates, Mumble’s in ability to sing, sends potential sweethearts in the opposite direction. But Mumble is blessed with an unusual gift -- he can tap dance in a way that would make Fred Astaire jealous!

Question: What happens when you finally value yourself and your natural abilities?

Soylent Green (1973)

The year is 2022, and New York City is on the verge of complete disaster. Forty million people are crammed into this heavily polluted city, living only on Soylent Green, a soybean-lentil concoction that serves as the single source of food for everyone.

Question: How important is joy in our lives?

Children of Men (2006)

A futuristic society faces extinction when the human race has lost the ability to reproduce. England has descended into chaos, an iron-handed warden is brought in to institute martial law. The warden's ability to keep order is threatened when a woman finds that she is pregnant with what would be the first child born in 27 years.

Question: How far will we go and for what?

Fire (1997)

A tender and passionate love story develops in the dark recess of a traditional New Delhi household signaling the slow and painful dissolution of the old order in this contemporary story of women breaking the bonds of obedience, fidelity and silence; and of men struggling to maintain their traditional advantages while exploring the freedoms of westernized life.

Question: What’s in the way of getting your needs met?

A Christmas Carol (1938)

This is the adaptation of Charles Dickens's yuletide classic. Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge gets a last chance to redeem himself on Christmas Eve through the intercession of three spirits.

Question: Have you ever changed your life simply by letting go of old hurts and disappointments?

Children of the Damned (1964)

A sequel to "Village of the Damned" in which six children who appear normal in all respects are actually radically evolved superior human beings with acute psychic powers. When a psychologist attempts to find out where they came from, they escape and hide in a church as the inferior human race revolts against them.

Question: Why are we so afraid of seeing and experiencing our greatness and why do we stifle it in others?

The X-Men: Last Stand(2006)

When scientists develop a miracle drug to treat unwanted mutations, Professor Charles Xavier and his heroic band of X-Men must battle a group of mutants known as the Brotherhood, led by Xavier's former ally.

Question: Why is it so hard to accept people who are different?

A Night to Remember (1958)

A Night to Remember recounts the sailing of the Titanic, billed as the "unsinkable ship" and its inevitable voyage toward the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and doom.

Question: How do you determine what’s real and what’s an illusion?

Enchanted April (1991)

During the summer of 1922, a group of women rent a castle in Italy to escape their troubled lives in London.

Question: Have you had the experience of stepping back from your everyday life and being renewed?

Lady in the Water (2006)

A shy building manager rescues a mysterious young woman from danger and discovers she is actually a Narf--a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. Cleveland and his fellow tenants start to realize that they are also characters in this bedtime story.

Question: What would happen if we could accept our differences and value everyone?

Hampton Roads Publishing for the evolving human spirit


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