Film List
The films listed here are significant because they portray different aspects of the paradox of affluence. Use these films and others like them to better understand the issues related to affluence and to explore the concept of paradox as it relates to prosperity, material comfort, privileged circumstances, and poverty. Consider these films another reference when planning and implementing your chapter’s Hallmark programs.
A Place in the Sun (1951) - A poor young man gets a job in a factory and deals with his relationships with both a co-worker and a beautiful socialite. Not Rated.
All the King’s Men (1949 & 2006) - A cautionary tale about a model southern politician who is corrupted by the system. 1949: Not Rated. 2006: Rated PG-13 for an intense sequence of violence, sexual content, and partial nudity.
Apocalypto (2006) - A man risks his life and family to save his culture in a Pre-Columbian Maya civilization in decline on the eve of Spanish conquest. Rated R for sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images.
Babel (2006) - The lives of an affluent American couple who become victims of a random act of violence while on vacation become intertwined with those of a Moroccan, a Japanese, and a Mexican family. Rated R for violence, some graphic nudity, sexual content, language, and some drug use.
Barbarians at the Gate (1993) - Charismatic, greedy CEO F. Ross Johnson tries to buy a conglomerate and runs up against a banker who is trying to do the same thing. Based on the R. J. Reynolds-Nabisco leveraged buyout of the 1980s. Rated R for language.
Boogie Nights (1997) - A patriarch reigns over a non-traditional family of co-workers in the pornography industry at its height in the 1970s. Rated R for strong sex scenes with explicit dialogue, nudity, drug use, language, and violence.
Brideshead Revisited (1981) - This PBS miniseries parallels the life of two young Oxford students: one from a wealthy titled family and one from the upper middle class. They become friends and enjoy all the privileges and luxury of money and title. Not Rated.
Buena Vista Social Club (1999) - Legendary Cuban musicians are brought together by American Ry Cooder to record a compact disk in Havana. Rated G.
Clueless (1995) - Retelling of Jane Austin’s Emma about Cher, a Beverly Hills, California high school student, her family, friends, and classmates. Rated PG-13 for sex related dialogue and some teen use of alcohol and drugs.
Enchanted April (1992) - Four affluent women rent a chateau on a remote Italian island to assess their lives, personalities, goals, and relationships. Rated PG for some mild language.
Erin Brockovich (2000) - An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a town’s water supply. Rated R for language.
Far From Heaven (2002) - A Connecticut housewife deals with her husband’s affair with another man and learns about civil rights in the 1950s as she befriends an African-American neighbor. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content, brief violence, and language.
Gone With The Wind (1939) - Scarlett O’Hara deals with life during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Rated G.
Gorillas in the Mist (1988) - Biologist Dian Fossey travels to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and she later fights to protect them. Rated PG-13.
Hotel Rwanda (2004) - Paul Ruseabagina, a hotel manager in Rwanda, housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia. Rated PG-13 on appeal for violence, disturbing images, and brief strong language.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) - George Bailey is a good man who’s spent his life serving his community and making life a little easier for others. When the Great Depression hits and there is a run on George’s bank, he wishes aloud that he had never been born and decides to end his life. Clarence, his guardian angel, shows George what life would have been like for his friends and neighbors had he never been born. Not Rated.
John Q (2002) - John Q finds his health insurance will not cover the heart operation desperately needed by his son. Rated PG-13 for violence, language, and intense thematic elements.
Joy Luck Club (1993) - Four Chinese women friends gather weekly to share stories about their daughters and their struggles for better lives. Rated R for strong depiction of thematic material.
Les Misérables (1998) - Jean Valjean, a man who served jail time for stealing a loaf of bread, tries to live a decent life. His affluence does not protect him from Javert, a police inspector who strives to put Valjean back in jail. Rated PG-13 for violence and for some sexual content.
Less Than Zero (1987) - Clay comes home from college to find his former girlfriend and best friend have begun a relationship that is based on club-hopping and drug use. Based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis about the drug and party culture and its impact on wealthy teens who embraced it. Rated R.
Lewis Black: Red, White, and Screwed (2006) - Comedian Lewis Black delivers a routine about hot-button cultural and political topics, including the federal government’s reaction to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq. Rated TV-MA.
Lost in Translation (2003) - A washed-up movie actor travels to Tokyo to film a television commercial and meets the neglected wife of a photographer who is searching for things to do while waiting for her husband to complete his work in Japan. They find a peaceful friendship with one another. Rated R for some sexual content.
Marie Antoinette (2006) - Austrian princess, Marie Antionette, marries Louis XVI and becomes queen of France at age nineteen. Her affluent lifestyle eventually becomes her undoing. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity, and innuendo.
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) - The last Russian czar, Nicholas Romanov, his wife, Alexandra, and their children live their affluent and insulated lives against the back drop of the Russian Revolution. Their son’s hemophilia ties them to a mystical monk Rasputin and reinforces the perception of a family out of touch with the realities of everyday Russians lives. Rated PG.
Ocean’s Eleven (2001) - Danny Ocean selects a crew of specialists to help him steal more than $150 million from three Las Vegas casinos. Rated PG-13 for some language and sexual content.
Out of Africa (1985) - Karen Blixen enters a marriage of convenience with a baron and moves to Kenya in search of a better life. In the midst of a loveless marriage, Karen begins a relationship with free-spirited hunter Denys Finch Hatton. Rated PG.
Raise the Red Lantern (1991) - This story, set in 1920s China, deals with the balance of power and affluence as four wives manipulate and plot against each other for the attention of their husband. Rated PG.
Silkwood (1983) - The story of Karen Silkwood who conducts her own investigation into radiation exposure among her fellow power plant workers. Rated R.
Stand and Deliver (1987) - Math teacher Jaime Escalante is scheduled to teach a bunch of rebellious remedial-math students in East Los Angeles. He faces opposition from fellow teachers when he plans to teach AP Calculus to his mostly Hispanic students and from district administrators when his students ace the AP exam. Rated PG.
Super Size Me (2004) - Morgan Spurlock’s documentary about the impact on his health of eating three meals a day at McDonald’s for a month. Rated PG-13 for language, sex and drug references, and a graphic medical procedure.
Thank You For Smoking (2006) - Big Tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor is good at his job making Americans forget about the dangers of smoking. He works, among other tactics, to ensure leading characters in films smoke, the Marlboro Man does not take his story about his battle with cancer public, and politicians against Big Tobacco are discredited. Rated R for language and some sexual content.
The Age of Innocence (1993) - An affluent man-about-town is engaged to marry his seemingly ideal mate when he meets an intriguing, free-thinking beauty. This is an inside look at affluent society in the 1870s. Rated PG for thematic elements and some mild language.
The Aviator (2004) - Howard Hughes makes a fortune as a film producer and attempts to transform the airline industry, among others, as he builds that fortune. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual content, nudity, language, and a crash sequence.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006) - Andrea Sachs takes a job in New York City as assistant to the editor of a leading fashion magazine, but wonders if the experience is worth it as she strives to become a serious journalist. Rated PG-13 for some sensuality.
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) - A series of vignettes, including one about a man who discovers a coca-cola bottle after it falls out of the sky. He takes it to his African village where it becomes a prized object, one over which dissention develops. To alleviate the conflict, the man takes the bottle to the end of the world. Rated PG.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) - Based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the Joad family as they migrate from the Oklahoma Dustbowl to California. Not Rated.
The Hoax (2007) - Author Clifford Irving writes an alleged authorized biography of Howard Hughes then gets caught when the book is revealed a hoax. Rated R for language.
The Hours (2002) - Three women, including Virginia Woolf, cope with their parallel lives and with depression at different points during the 20th century. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, some disturbing images, and brief language.
The Insider (1999) - A tobacco company scientist exposes industry secrets to a broadcast journalist who fights corporate forces to get the story on the air. Rated R for language.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) - Ten years after returning home from serving in World War II, Tom Rath takes a high-paying job at a Madison Avenue company, so his family can move into a nice house and live a better life. He is uncomfortable with his more affluent lifestyle. Not Rated.
The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) - A small farmer in a Mexican town takes on a developer who wants to expand a resort. The town is split on whether to support the developer or Joe, the farmer. Rated R.
The Outsiders (1983) - The affluent teenaged “Socs” and the underprivileged “Greasers” challenge one another in small-town Oklahoma with tragic results. Rated PG.
The Painted Veil (2006) - An affluent woman, shunned by her husband who is more interested in his work, travels to the Far East and finds passion in the arms of another man and in her work to stem the cholera epidemic in the area. Rated PG-13 for some mature sexual situations, partial nudity, disturbing images, and brief drug content.
The Spanish Prisoner (1997) - An employee develops a process that will make millions for his company, but despite assurances from his boss that he will be adequately rewarded, he learns he will be left with nothing. In an attempt to outwit his superior, he finds himself charged with murder. Rated PG for thematic elements including tension, some violent images, and brief language.
The Wizard of Oz (1939) - A political allegory about the late-19th and early-20th century battle between agrarian and urban ways of life in the United States. Dorothy wakes up after a tornado and finds herself in Oz. She makes friends and works to make her way back to Kansas. Rated G.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices (2005) - Robert Greenwald tells the story of everyday people trying to fight the spread of Wal-Mart stores they claim exploit employees and destroy communities. Not Rated.
Water (1985) - Baxter Thwaites serves as a laid back governor in a forgotten British Caribbean island. The island’s fortunes change when oil explorers accidentally tap into a rich vein of mineral water which fuels a race for affluence and power. Rated PG-13.
Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) - A documentary film that traces the short life of the GM EV1 electric car that was thought to be, in the mid-1990s, the answer to high gas prices and air pollution. Rated PG for brief mild language.
24 (television) (2001 - Season 1) - Federal agent Jack Bauer works for 24 hours at being a husband, father, and agent who, among other feats, protects the President of the United States from an assassin. Rated TV-14.
Futurama (television) (1991 - Season 1) - Fry, accidentally frozen 1000 years ago, thaws in the year 3000 and gets a job risking his life delivering packages and performing charitable tasks for tax deductions. Rated TV-14.
The Simpsons (television) (1989 - Season 1) - Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie live their animated lives and adventures in Springfield. Rated TV-14.
The Office (television) (2005 - Season 1) - A group of interesting and uninspired office personnel and their painfully incompetent boss who work for Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. Rated TV-14.
Ugly Betty (television) (2006 - Season 1) - A young woman, Betty, achieves her dream of working at a fashion magazine despite her decidedly un-fashionista appearance. Rated TV-PG.
Weeds (television) (2005 - Season 1) - Suburban widow and mother of two, Nancy Botwin, becomes a drug dealer to support her lifestyle in the fictional town of Agrestic. Rated TV-MA.
