Hello!
If anybody knows me really well, I am not into chick flicks. I have a hard time believing the amount of times of love at first sight but I have noticed over the years that I am watching more drama based films. I like that they’re visually beautiful, there’s little details in the frames and they always seem to capture everything so well! Whenever I watch action movies, I’m looking for clues of who killed this character or that one? In a way, I’m glad these always seem to calm me late at night.
When I was coming up for a list for this post, I tried to keep the romance to a minimum and I realized that was harder than it looks! Surprisingly, there are a few movies where I was left breathless, isn’t that a bit shocking? If you haven’t watched any of these movies, I suggest you do so because they each have their own good points to them and only a fraction will make you cry! However, according to certain family members I’m built like an ox because I don’t really show my emotions that much, so the ones that didn’t make me cry will probably have a different effect on you.
You’ll come to find out through this list that I also have a selective mind, you know I like to watch things with history but I am interested in music and art too. I’ve found a few movies that fit in those areas and the rest are just the coming of age and heartwarming films that we all at some point have loved.
10. Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003 – Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson)
I have to say out of all the movies below, this was my most recent addition. I finally got to watch this mid-August and I’m very glad I kept looking out for it because it was very worth it!
I was very nervous about Scarlett Johansson as Griet though. At the time, I only had a small memory of how the real painting looked like imprinted in my mind and I thought at times she was a good choice but I know her as this ultimate badass so I had a hard time breaking away from that outlook, but she was absolutely beautiful! I wish there were more scenes of Johannes painting, because I mean it didn’t really bring him out to be this artist, it was more at Griet and her life as the family’s maid which was fine but I wanted to see Colin be around the paints more than he was shown!
9. Titanic (1997 – Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Billy Zane, Bill Paxton)
Honestly I went back and forth to put Titanic on here mostly because it is such a big movie that I didn’t want it to cloud my judgement for the rest of the films on my list. The main reason why I put it so low is because I’ve surprisingly only seen it probably less than 20 times since it came out.
I think I added it for the history aspect of it. I will admit for a long time I thought the whole thing of Rose and Jack was real. I think I was like ten when my mom basically told us that despite the fact that sinking of the ship itself was real, the characters weren’t, so it’s safe to say I believed it wholeheartedly. And it helped me learn more about the people that were on the Titanic, like Molly Brown and John Astor and his young wife. I also know a lot of about the lesser known people who were on board, and one day I would love to go to Branson, Missouri because they have a whole Titanic museum.
8. Thirteen (2003 – Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Holly Hunter)
I am obsessed with this film! I first found it by accident I think, because I don’t remember how I even saw it the first time. I do think we had it on DVD at one point of time. I even remember a somewhat awkward babysitting situation that involves my cousin Chris; I asked him if he wanted to watch it and I was an idiot for making him watch it with me in the floor because it had some racy scenes in it and I was literally too young to be watching it, as it was rated “R” but he was older like sixteen at the time.
It’s really a coming of age story, and it definitely wasn’t my first film that had teenagers who were dealing with drugs, sex, etc! I was watching Lifetime movies too and I can name close to four of them that could rival this movie. I will say that after watching this, everytime I saw Nikki Reed starring in another movie I’d always wanted to watch it. Now you know what really made me want to watch the Twilight films!
7. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008 – Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson)
This is going to sound really funny coming out of me, but I actually have a list of annoying actors and so I don’t necessarily like Brad Pitt, but yet I love this film!
I remember watching it the first time and when Thomas leaves Benjamin on those steps and Izzy is walking backwards down the stairs just made me cringe, it actually still makes feel uneasy just thinking about it. I thought the story itself was very heartwarming and surprisingly not weird considering Benjamin starts up this friendship with Daisy when he’s an old man and she’s a young child, you can kind of see him falling in love with her at the same time. I just loved how as time went on they’re friendship thrived when they were going in two separate direction, age wise.
6. Love & Basketball (2000 – Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps)
Love & Basketball has been a favorite of mine. It always has been but I’m still unsure on how I would have seen it the first time. My mind is taking me back when the TV network Oxygen was at its prime (I used to watch Xenia: Warrior Princess on that channel too) so maybe that’s where I must’ve watched it.
I have always gone in and out of basketball. I’ve never understood the right terms and positions so that’s why I’m still so shocked on how much I really watch it as an adult. It is also the film that got me interested in Sanaa Lathan, I have basically seen seven movies with her in them since I first watched this, Brown Sugar is another one of my favorites. They each have their romantic notes to them but they also use different topics to help create the love of the main characters. One uses hip hop music while this is about basketball, surprisingly I am more into this movie than the other since I know a lot about music, funny how that works huh?
5. Sweet Home Alabama (2004 – Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey)
I went back and forth whether to add this because I felt it is too much of a comedy-romance film than just a drama, but then as I was thinking about the rest of the list I figured I might as well include it! My mom is going to freak that I didn’t add Legally Blonde though! Maybe I should just do a romance list later on?
Anyways, I love this movie! I do remember how I got into this though! My dad had a friend years ago, he had two dogs that were just gorgeous! The female was pure white and part wolf, well she had puppies and wouldn’t take care of them so he asked my parents if we’d take care of them. We did. Blondie and enjoyed their company and were deeply sad that we weren’t able to keep one. I was especially upset over this because I have a love for huskies and wolves!
Anyways, the friend had a daughter who was older than me, but she brought over this movie to see if I liked it because I was really obsessed with LB and Reese Witherspoon. I cannot tell you how many times I borrowed that movie from her! I still don’t think she ever got it back during that last time! I remember we found a damaged case without the disc one time. Now I have it on my DVR and see it every once in a while on our movie channels.
4. Where The Heart Is (2000 – Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing)
This is the last film that I will say I don’t remember how I got into, but very happy I was introduced to it! Honestly, I’m thinking it was aired on Oxygen too! They used to play it like crazy and they were the only ones that left in some of the racy scenes too! As much as I don’t like watching movies on CMT or any other network channels, I will watch this movie on them. It’s not so much because I need a break in between, which helps sometimes, it just feels good to watch it on a slow afternoon or something!
I do know that it was the film that started my obsession with Natalie Portman. I loved her as Novalee! I loved everyone, but I began to regret watching The Tudors, The White Queen and True Blood back to back because James Frain is all three so beforehand, I did love him as “Forney” but I would be lying if I didn’t say that watching all three really annoyed the crap out of me.
3. Brooklyn (2015 – Saorise Ronan, Emory Cohen, Julie Walters)
Out of all the movies I’ve seen, this is the only one that wasn’t released in the early 2000’s! I actually saw it for the first time last November I think. It’s literally became one of my favorite movies and not surprisingly I want to read the book now!
I love everything about this film! I basically love anything set in Ireland, especially if they discuss life in different parts of the history. In this case, it is set in the 1950’s and you have a young woman being set to America away from her mother, sister and just her home in general, but she acts like me where she wanted to get away from everything and do something different. And when she makes it Brooklyn, she’s staying with a bunch of other Irish women in a boarding house and she meets this guy, who’s Italian and he changes her outlook on life and it’s so beautiful!
2. White Oleander (2000 – Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright, Renee Zelleweger)
I think once we get over Brooklyn, I think saying “this is one of my favorites” is kind of weird, because why would I put these next two at the top if they weren’t, you know?
I think this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. I’ve always been afraid of Michelle Pfeiffer and that started when I first watched this and now every film that I watch and she appears makes me weary. I liked the layout of events and how Astrid managed to get through it all in one piece. Over time I’ve wanted to read the book, but like Where The Heart Is I don’t know if I could get through because I’ve seen it so many times. I mean, there’s a reason why I couldn’t read all of Prisoner of Azkaban!
1. The Red Violin (1998 – Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi, Jean-Luc Bideu, Sylvia Chang)
I’m very weird when I say that I hardly ever watch films that were made past 1999, mostly because the special effects are awful and the quality is really bad, almost worse. I’m too into my HD television I think!
I watched this back in June actually. I was looking through my TV guide and saw this on one of our movie channels and thought the description was interesting so I recorded it. When I first watched it, I was somewhat confused at first but then once you got to the third chapter the whole thing started to make sense. It is about a red violin and a series of events that happen over the course of its life which was a long time and the people that were affected by it and prophecies you hear in the beginning. It’s such a beautiful story and wouldn’t you know it, I deleted it and I haven’t seen it. That’s just my luck!
Now that you know some of my favorite chick flicks, tell me some of yours? Have you seen any of the films I’ve listed above?
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