Top 10 Comfort Movies

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Sometimes, after a crappy day or a very long week, or just because I’m feeling bad/sad/whatever, I just need to make some popcorn (PopSecret Movie Theatre Butter with a dash of extra salt because I CAN), curl up on the couch with a blanket, and watch a nice mood-enhancing movie. When I talk about “comfort movies,” I don’t just mean movies that are trying to be heartwarming and cuddly. Depending on the kind of crummy mood I’m in, actually, those kind of movies are sometimes the opposite of what I need to watch. Instead, when I am classifying movies as “comfort movies,” what I really mean is “movies that make me happy.” A couple years ago that was the theme of my birthday party (because in my late twenties I still have themed birthday parties, because I am awesome like that).

So here’s a list of my top 10 go-to movies to make me happy. The first titles I turn to when I’m in need of cheering up or chilling out or having my faith in humanity restored. (They’re in alphabetical order, because I love them all too much to actually attempt to rank them.)

1. 13 Going On 30 (2004)

This movie just makes me happy because Jennifer Garner’s face is adorable (those dimples!) and Mark Ruffalo is scruffily handsome and there is magic wishing dust. The pitch for this movie was probably something along the lines of “it’s Big, except it’s a girl.” And Big is a nice enough movie, but to me there’s just something impossibly cute-but-not-saccharine about 13 Going On 30 that makes it more than just genderbent Big. It’s a charming movie with a lot of heart and a soundtrack filled with fabulous 80s songs like “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads, “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield, and of course “Love is a Battlefield” by Pat Benetar. (Although the song is technically from a 1977 album, the use of Billy Joel’s “Vienna” is also excellent.) This movie does such a good job of making me happy that the first time I saw it (I missed it in theatres and bought it used at Blockbuster because I figured I was going to like it enough to own it), I watched it, let the credits run, and then when the DVD menu came up again after the credits, I just hit play again and watched it a second time.

2. Anastasia (1997)

I have a bachelor’s degree in history, and as such there are any number of reasons why I should probably hate this movie. Czar Nicholas was a victim, but he was hardly an innocent one, and we now know for sure that Princess Anastasia was killed along with her family, and they fudged ages and circumstances. Also Rasputin probably didn’t make any deals with the devil in order to gain magical powers with which to destroy the Romanoff dynasty. BUT I DO NOT CARE. THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME. The songs are catchy, and Bartok the bat is adorable, and Dmitri is the hottest animated character ever (this is a discussion I have had with many of my female friends), and I still sort of wish that someone would make a PG-13 live action version of this movie. Anastasia is just a really delightful movie and never fails to cheer me up if I’m feeling down or help me chill out if I’m feeling pissed off about something.

3. Ever After (1998)

Ever After is hands-down my favorite adaptation of the Cinderella fairy tale. I like movies (and books, and tv shows…) that take fairy tales or other established stories and do something different with them. (See also my love for shows like Once Upon A Time and Elementary or the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.) Sure, Drew Barrymore’s British accent is kind of weird, and it’s sad that Dougray Scott is using a British accent instead of a Scottish one, and why do they all have British accents anyway when they’re all supposed to be French, but I just don’t care. Ever After is charming and sweet and heartwarming and has ladies being awesome and Leonardo da Vinci being awesome and Anjelica Huston being awesome… lots of awesome going on, is what I’m saying. I’m never not smiling by the time the movie comes to a close and the framing narrator says that the point isn’t that Henry and Danielle lived happily ever after but that they lived.

4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Prisoner of Azkaban is probably my favorite of the Harry Potter movies and vies with Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows for the title of my favorite Harry Potter book. My two favorite Potter characters are introduced in this installment of the series – Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Artistically speaking this was the first Potter movie that I felt like achieved the right aesthetic (the first two were too sparkly and Disnified for my taste). I think this is one of my go-to comfort movies because I know the Potter story so well at this point, so watching this movie is comforting in its familiarity. Also, I’m guaranteed some inappropriate laughter because of the fabulous Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Fifteen Minutes parody (“Shut up and let me chain you!”), and inappropriate laughter is always a good mood enhancer.

5. The Holiday (2006)

This is in contention for the chick flickiest chick flick on this list, but it’s also actually a pretty great movie. It has Jack Black playing against type as a decent and reasonably mature guy (i.e. the only kind of role in which I enjoy Jack Black) and Jude Law as an adorable and sexy single father. But most of all I love this movie because of Kate Winslet’s character and her character arc. As a frequent victim of unrequited love, I identify pretty strongly with her various monologues about the evils of unrequited love and what it does to a person, and I like seeing her ultimately triumph by telling off the guy who was stringing her along and finding happiness with someone who actually loves her back. Also, Hans Zimmer did the score, and I adore Hans Zimmer scores.

6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

If you don’t enjoy this movie, we probably can’t be friends. We can try, but I find success unlikely. I love Monty Python, and this movie is Python at their best. Nonsensical, whimsical, and full of extremely quoteable lines (if I wanted to I could probably recite the whole movie while I watched it), this movie is a guaranteed mood-improver. Even just watching the credits is enough to cheer a person up after a bad day. They say that laughter is the best medicine. If that’s the case, then this movie is one of the best ways to deliver said medicine.

7. Penelope (2006)

This movie has a lot going for it. It is definitely more than just another chick flick. The ultimate message of this movie is that you should love and accept yourself the way you are – even if your nose looks like a pig snout. Christina Ricci looks surprisingly cute with a pig nose, and James McAvoy is flawless as the guy she ultimately ends up with. There’s a scene towards the end where the camera just focuses on his face while Christina Ricci’s character is talking, and there’s no music, and the entire scene is carried by the things McAvoy is doing with his face in reaction to Ricci’s monologuing, and it works because he is amazing. I also love this movie because I feel like it takes place in the same universe as Bryan Fuller’s tragically short-lived television show Pushing Daisies (which I mentioned in my recent article about the (supposed) Moonlighting Curse), and that is a universe rooted in magical realism and which I would deeply love to live in. Ultimately, this is a movie that’s just trying to tell a good story with a good message and manages to do so without getting preachy or cheesy, and I just feel good when I watch it.

8. Pride & Prejudice (2005)

I can already hear fans of the Colin Firth miniseries adaptation crying foul over my confession of love for the more recent movie version of Jane Austen’s excellent novel. Look, I love Firth’s Darcy coming out of the lake in a white shirt soaking wet just as much as the next red-blooded male-fancying person. And I think that miniseries is great in general as well. But it’s five hours long and I don’t always have time for that! And on top of that, judged on its own, I think the 2005 film is actually pretty great. It’s gorgeous. I mean, anyone who wants to be a cinematographer should be required to watch this film. I think the casting is actually pretty flawless, although I might prefer Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennet to Keira Knightley’s. Maybe. I JUST LOVE THEM BOTH OKAY. And don’t tell anyone, but… I might actually love Matthew Macfadyen’s Darcy even more than I love Colin Firth’s. Between the gorgeous cinematography, the lovely score music, and Matthew Macfadyen’s incredible voice, I find this movie to be incredibly soothing, and therefore it gets a spot on my list of top comfort movies.

9. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)

I should probably be embarassed by how much I adore this movie, but I’m just not. It’s populated with a whole host of quality people (Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Chris Pine, Callum Blue…). It’s adorable. It has funny moments and sweet moments and touching moments. Did I mention it has Chris Pine and Callum Blue? Yeah, it’s a chick flick, and a Disney chick flick to boot. But it’s sweet, and it’s cute, and sometimes that is just what I need when I’m in a bad mood.

10. Star Trek (2009)

Last summer, I visited my parents in England. The day before my flight home, a few of the flights back to the States on the airline I was flying had to be delayed until the next day, so the morning I was flying out, they were a little backed up at check-in due to the additional flights. As such, I was a little bit more harried than I like to be before an international flight (it could have been worse, but it definitely could also have been better). So when I’d settled in and started browsing through the available movies on the seat back in front of me and saw Star Trek, I thought “yes, good. Just what I need.” So I watched it, and I felt better. If I were actually ranking these instead of just listing them alphabetically, this movie could very well have topped the list. There isn’t any one reason why this movie makes me as happy as it does. The cast is fantastic and perfetly-chosen, there are a number of attractive people, there’s a happy ending, there’s lots of great callbacks to the original show, it’s very well-shot (JJ Abrams is actually one of my favorite directors)… But I think the thing that most makes this such a great comfort movie for me is that Star Trek as a whole has a pretty optimistic view of the universe. Ultimately, that positive and optimistic viewpoint makes Star Trek a great movie to watch when I’m feeling down.

And Karl Urban’s handsome face doesn’t hurt, either.