Movies About Morality
Submitted by bertie on Sun, 08/14/2005 - 04:52
Tags:
- 3:10 to Yuma (1957, Elmore Leonard, Halsted Welles) Theme: courage
- ...And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003 Larry Gelbart). Themes: Ethics of film-making, ethics of revolutionary politics and warfare.
- The Apartment (1960, Billy Wilder, I.A.L.Diamond) Themes: sexual politics and corporate politics (compare Nine to Five)
- Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989, Woody Allen)
- The Cross (2002, Gino Cabanas, Steve Stavrakis]
- Deliverance (1972, James Dickey)
- Extreme Measures (1996, Michael Palmer, Tony Gilroy) [Thanks to buddy]
- Hero [a.k.a. Accidental Hero] (1992, Laura Ziskin, Alvin Sargent, David Webb Peoples) Theme: moral misjudgment
- The Great Gatsby (1974, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Ford Coppola) Theme: moral misjudgment
- Lawman (1971, Gerald Wilson) Theme: the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law [Thanks to flfrleta]
- The Life of Emile Zola (1937, Matthew Josephson, Heinz Herald, et. al.) Themes: bigotry, justice
- M (1931, Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang) Themes: law, social responsibilty for crime, punishment
- The Man in the Iron Mask (1998, Randall Wallace) Theme: honour.
- Nine to Five (1980, Patricia Resnick, Colin Higgins) Themes: sexual politics and corporate politics (compare The Apartment)
- The Ox-Bow Incident (1943, Walter Van Tilberg Clark, Lamar Trotti) Theme: justice [Thanks to stumpy]
- Pitch Black (2000, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat, David Twohy) Themes: responsibility, the problem of evil
- La Règle du jeu (1939, Jean Renoir, Carl Koch)
- The Third Man (1949, Graham Greene and Alexander Korda) Themes: exploitation, friendship
- Unforgiven (1992, David Webb Peoples) Themes: revenge, prostitution, politics, law
Author Comments:
As lukeprog has pointed out below, there is a sense in which all movies are about morality. My claim is that there are some movies that are designed to provoke moral thought, even moral argument (see, e.g., here).
The western genre is particularly strong in morally oriented stories. I expect to add a lot more westerns to this list.
You forgot one:
[Every Movie Ever Made] (1915-2005, Various)
That's true, of course. But some are much more pointedly about it than others.
I was hoping nobody had noticed this list yet, because I had just started work on it when I had some computer trouble and had to abandon it overnight.
How about Extreme Measures , that film about the morality of human testing to find a cure for whatever disease, starring Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman?
Yes, I think I have seen Extreme Measures, but my memory of it is dim. But I've done some reading about it at IMDb and it sounds like it qualifies.
There's Lawman. The story of a marshal as inflexible as they come in his interpretation of what is right and wrong.
The Ox-bow Incident?