
My favorite reading material to leaf through while I’m taking care of some personal matters in the bathroom is Time Out’s 1000 Films to Change Your Life. The book is organized into ten chapters, each focusing on a particular emotion that a person might experience while watching a movie. In each chapter, a list is provided intended to exemplify the films that best evoke whatever emotion the chapter is exploring. Of course, no two people are always going to experience the same emotions when watching a film, and so everyone’s individual lists will differ.
After spending many hours debating with myself over which movies represent the purest distillation of each emotion to me, I threw together this list of movies that never fail to get my emotional juices flowing. (NOTE: In order to dig a little deeper into my movie watching past, I will not be including some of my more obvious choices. I’ve mentioned Bandidas in enough of my articles as it is. I’m not even sure what emotion to assign it to, since it encompasses the total cinematic experience.) So, from my lavatory to your computer screen, here are the choices: