Enlightenment/personal Development Movies

[Pia]

hey ? can you recommend some movies about personal development/enlightenment?

[abrakamowse]

Little Buddha (1993)

 

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107426/

[Monkey Mind]

Waking life, Frank and The Great Beauty. 

All three have well written dialogues and present a lot of hints.

[jespernoren]

A lot of good movies in here! Keep them coming!

 I really love "the pursuite of happiness" and "interstellar" for their deeper knowledge about life. Will smith great in the first mentioned.

Another good one is "a man from earth". It's a story about a teacher at a school claiming to have lived trough all times of hunanity. Really low budget production but amazingly effective storytelling.

[Myke]

On February 7, 2016 at 1:52 PM, walt said:

Groundhog Day movie.

Amazing.  "I am God...well, I'm a god...I'm not THE God...at least I don't think"

[Jay S]

Avatar

[jjer94]

Here's a nice list that'll keep you occupied:

Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos
    "Even in my dreams I feel like an idiot who's about to wake up." - A near-perfect allegory of enlightenment.

The Truman Show
    "We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. It's as simple as that."

Dark City
    "Sleep, now." - Reality is not what we think it is.

Blade Runner
    Philosophy on the trustworthiness of memory. Great for dispelling beliefs about who you think you are.

The Fountain
    "Death is the road to awe." - Ego's failed attempt to live forever, and then finally saying 'yes' to surrender to Truth.

The Matrix
    Plato's cave allegory. One of the best allegories for enlightenment, except for the fact that Neo's new reality is not the Truth. Also, really entertaining.

Joe Vs. The Volcano
    A fun, allegorical presentation of the path to enlightenment.

Pan's Labyrinth
    On overcoming fear and ego.

American Beauty
    Disillusionment upon disillusionment. A man who wakes up halfway through his life. Watch for Ricky Fitts.

Apocalypse Now
    The horrors of realizing the truth and what you have to do to get there. Also note how ego exalts their leader.

Cast Away
    A man forced awake. Wilson represents everyone else.

Dead Poet's Society
    Think for yourself. Be a heretic.

Nineteen Eighty-Four
    2+2=5. You can believe yourself out of an idea as powerful as love.

Pleasantville
    More heresy, and ego's resistance. A fun one.

Star Wars (+The Empire Strikes Back)
    The hero's journey. Dying of the flesh to be born of the spirit. Surrender. Unlearning. Human Adulthood.

The Thirteenth Floor
    The unreality of reality. "Turtles on top of turtles".

Waking Life
    Thought-provoking ideas. Belief-destroying ideas. The dream allegory explained well.

About Schmidt
    The stark fact of your death.

Total Recall
    More flimsy memory philosophy.

What Dreams May Come
    Flow/manifestation.

How To Get Ahead in Advertising
    Ego failing to overthrow itself. Pretty dang funny.

Being There
    The wise fool and flow.

Fight Club
    "Why do you think I blew up your condo? Hitting bottom is not a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! Let go!" 

The Thing
    Philosophy on what it means to be a self.

Harold and Maude
    American Zen. A funny feel-good movie. 

500 Days of Summer
    Love as we know it in modern society is bullshit. Is anything ever a coincidence?

The Giver
    Human Adulthood, heresy, and breaking free. Read the book; waaay more powerful than the movie.

Watchmen

     "We are all puppets, Laurie. I'm just the puppet who can see the strings."

 

Enjoy!

[Stef]

 

Not only is it a touching real life story but a brilliantly executed film and lesson we can all learn from. Not only about the strength of human spirit and will of perseverance but in general. An enlightening experience.

It works pretty well as a metaphor too - of being stuck in life (caught between a rock and a hard place) and the scrifice you need to make in order to move forward and gain a lot more.

[Heart of Space]

Page 2 and The Fountain is only mentioned once.  For shame.  Very underrated film and one of the best films with enlightenment as its theme. 

Edited February 10, 2016 by Heart of Space

[Dhana Choko]

1 hour ago, Heart of Space said:

Page 2 and The Fountain is only mentioned once.  For shame.  Very underrated film and one of the best films with enlightenment as its theme. 

I love this movie. It used to be my favourite movie of years! I think it still is definitely up there in top 5. I love it!

[Keyblade Viking]

I just watched Revolver (2005), what a fucking amazing movie about breaking your ego and who the real enemy really is.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Keyblade Viking - Tobias

[Sargon]

What about:

• Hero (2002; Yimou Zhang)
• Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000; Ang Lee)

Beautiful films...

[Blind Observer]

What about eXistenZ and Videodrome of Cronenberg way before Matrix and same doubts about perception of reality, or The Tree of Life, The Seventh Seal and Enter the Void  about life, death and afterlife. May be considered also Inception about the awake, Thank you for smoking and A Clockwork Orange about society,  Life of Brian about dogmas of religions in a funny way. 

[Blind Observer]

On 10/02/2016 at 0:26 AM, jjer94 said:

Here's a nice list that'll keep you occupied:

Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos
    "Even in my dreams I feel like an idiot who's about to wake up." - A near-perfect allegory of enlightenment.

The Truman Show
    "We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented. It's as simple as that."

Dark City
    "Sleep, now." - Reality is not what we think it is.

Blade Runner
    Philosophy on the trustworthiness of memory. Great for dispelling beliefs about who you think you are.

The Fountain
    "Death is the road to awe." - Ego's failed attempt to live forever, and then finally saying 'yes' to surrender to Truth.

The Matrix
    Plato's cave allegory. One of the best allegories for enlightenment, except for the fact that Neo's new reality is not the Truth. Also, really entertaining.

Joe Vs. The Volcano
    A fun, allegorical presentation of the path to enlightenment.

Pan's Labyrinth
    On overcoming fear and ego.

American Beauty
    Disillusionment upon disillusionment. A man who wakes up halfway through his life. Watch for Ricky Fitts.

Apocalypse Now
    The horrors of realizing the truth and what you have to do to get there. Also note how ego exalts their leader.

Cast Away
    A man forced awake. Wilson represents everyone else.

Dead Poet's Society
    Think for yourself. Be a heretic.

Nineteen Eighty-Four
    2+2=5. You can believe yourself out of an idea as powerful as love.

Pleasantville
    More heresy, and ego's resistance. A fun one.

Star Wars (+The Empire Strikes Back)
    The hero's journey. Dying of the flesh to be born of the spirit. Surrender. Unlearning. Human Adulthood.

The Thirteenth Floor
    The unreality of reality. "Turtles on top of turtles".

Waking Life
    Thought-provoking ideas. Belief-destroying ideas. The dream allegory explained well.

About Schmidt
    The stark fact of your death.

Total Recall
    More flimsy memory philosophy.

What Dreams May Come
    Flow/manifestation.

How To Get Ahead in Advertising
    Ego failing to overthrow itself. Pretty dang funny.

Being There
    The wise fool and flow.

Fight Club
    "Why do you think I blew up your condo? Hitting bottom is not a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! Let go!" 

The Thing
    Philosophy on what it means to be a self.

Harold and Maude
    American Zen. A funny feel-good movie. 

500 Days of Summer
    Love as we know it in modern society is bullshit. Is anything ever a coincidence?

The Giver
    Human Adulthood, heresy, and breaking free. Read the book; waaay more powerful than the movie.

Watchmen

     "We are all puppets, Laurie. I'm just the puppet who can see the strings."

 

Enjoy!

It's funny that you listed Fight Club because one famous quote of Tyler Durden is "Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction...". Just kidding I love Chuck Palahniuk which wrote the book that is much better than the movie of course.

[JustTom]

There are some great recommendations, I'll add two new ones:

Gattaca 

Dystopian world, where the parents can choose the genes of their child to make him/her perfect. Your DNA is the most valuable thing in the society, the stronger it is, the higher is your social status. One man was born naturally and wants to compete with genetically superior people with discipline, hard work and determination. Don't watch the official trailer, it's full of spoilers.

Gifted Hands

Regardless of what you think about Ben Carson as a presidential candidate, his story is extremely inspiring and shows you the potential every single person has in this world, no matter how deep in shit he starts in. There are strong religious themes, but I don't think that's the main point at all. HIGHLY recommended for high school/university students.

Mr. Nobody
I literally JUST watched this movie. It deals with the theory of multiple dimensions and timelines. What is you? What defines you? How do you make choices? Do you make them at all? I think @Leo Gura would love this movie.

Edited February 12, 2016 by JustTom
added Mr. Nobody

[cly]

One of my all time favorites is LOST IN AMERICA with Albert Brooks...  Always good for some laughs and to contemplate where you are at in life....

[Gapawa]

Yes, I loved The Martian!  Matt Damon is awesome.  Yes I live in constant amazement at the proportion of sleeping beauties compared to open eyed folks.  My favorite is The Matrix, also Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is great.  The Truman Show, yes.  I have to throw in AWOLNATION, not a movie but a band.  I instantly fell in love with "sail", and "jailbreak" is just beautiful.  I have abused the replay button with that one:)

[Florian-]

One of the best movie that i watched is Peacefull Warrior

 

 

 

 

@JustTom Mr Nobady is a great movie.

[Nicolai]

It's already been mentioned, but I'll mention it again. Such a great movie when it comes to enlightenment.

Groundhog day. 

Eckhart Tolle has also recommended this movie, because of the enlightenment deeper meaning.