Watching movies is one of our favorite past-times, we casually lose track of time when we are hooked into multiple movies in one sitting. The Hollywood industry has been earning the dough for decades and mostly all movies that we adored and love are produced accurately by people behind the camera and also the actors performing in front of the camera.
The movies described are also some all-time favorites. You might have noticed that one or two movies in this list are familiar to you or may have already watched. Also, one thing in common about these movies is the number of awards it has received (I am not the only one who find all of these movies favorable, even the high-profile people in Hollywood would agree with me) and how much money they earn and became a box-office hit.
1. Forrest Gump (1994)
This classic movie that has moved our hearts the moment we watched it, the story of Forrest Gump is a narrative film that talks about the kind and loving Forrest Gump as he goes through life as a prodigious athlete to an ex-military veteran. Even if he is slow-witted and have been bullied for being “a retard”, everyone is in favor of him because of his likable character.
Forrest Gump has tripled its earning and a box-office hit with a whopping $677 million. Some of the film’s awards include the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Actor for Tom Hanks, and Best Director for Robert Zeneckis.
2. Shutter Island (2010)
Based on the novel written by Dannis Lemane, Shutter Island is a psychological-horror movie starred by Leonardo DiCaprio as the US Marshall Edward ‘Teddy’ Daniels. It focuses on the criminally-ill people who’re admitted in the mental institution that is in the center of the creepy “Shutter Island”. I can’t count how many times I never expected for some frightening scenes to happen. In exaggeration, I could say that it is a jaw-dropping film, and DiCaprio gave such an amazing performance.
This movie is so well-praised by the audience that it raked in $294.80 million at the box office.
3. The Help (2009)
My love for Viola Davis’ role in How to Get Away With Murder has made me love her even more as she plays Aibileen Clark in The Help.
It talks about the lives of African-American maids working in a white household in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s. The maids started to voice out their daily lives filled with racism and discrimination to a young journalist Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (played by Emma Stone).
4. 12 Years A Slave (2013)
12 Years A Slave is considered one of the important movies that portray the lives of African-American people in the 1840s who are kidnapped to become slaves in white properties. Center of the narrative is Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is a New York State-born African-American who is manipulated and kidnapped by crooks to be a slave in Washington, D.C., even if he was promised a part-time music career.
What can I say about this film? It is so so so sad. And it makes you curse at the “toxic” white crowd who made the lives of the black community a living hell. On a side note though, you can also catch Avengers star Benedict Cumberbatch in the movie.
5. The Pianist (2002)
A film directed by Roman Polanski, this movie made our eyes intensively weep as it story-tells the life of Wladyslaw Szipilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist and composer, who is captured along with his family by the Nazis.
Many praise Adrien Brody for his performance as Wladyslaw.
6. Black Swan (2010)
Black Swan is a tale of a ballerina dancer named Nina (played by Natalie Portman) who strives to be the leading character of a dance production, Swan Lake. She faces an upturn of events in her life, as she loses herself in the midst of perfecting her art.
The movie is a giant metaphor of achieving artistic excellence despite losing one’s self, like as if they are placed in a pressure cooker for too long that they began to blow up, and Nina is the perfect portrayal for that. Black Swan became a box office hit and has been nominated for five academy awards. Natalie Portman was hailed Best Actress for this movie as well.
7. Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Shawshank Redemption tells the wacky and surreal adventures of the Shawshank inmates and the friendship of Andy Dufane and Red who have shown humanity and kindness despite being prisoners. A lot can be learned when watching this movie. I learned the role of freedom, friendship, and the ruthless events that could go down while in prison. This movie is a taste of reality and gives a glimpse of the melodramatic moments of life. I love this movie as much as I love hearing Morgan Freeman’s voice.
8. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
This movie fictionalizes on the life of American Mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. who won a Nobel prize for his incredible work. The movie though is said to explain poorly about the Nash Equilibrium. But despite that, A Beautiful Mind is heart-melting, just like most of the movies in this list.
9. Amadeus (1984)
Have you read the story The Cask of Amontillado? Well, the story’s concept is kind of like Amadeus, except that this movie is about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his companion, Antonio Salieri, who harbors strong envy toward Amadeus’ better music career than his.
It is the oldest film out of all the movies I mentioned here but this movie is a classic. It even earned $52 million dollars in the U.S. alone.
10. Get Out (2017)
A horror film that speaks lightly about modern America and has a sinister plot and a twisted ending - this is the general consensus of moviegoers for the film Get Out. It is not your typical kind of horror movie and I don’t want to spoil what the movie is all about. The movie alone sparks controversy and has been giving multiple awards. Everyone - from the cast to the crew - really deserves them.