Watch Me When Humanity Seems Hopeless
This is the category for days when you’ve had enough of people. These movies won’t lie to you about the world being hard. They just insist that small decency still exists, and that it still matters. It’s not optimism. It’s recovery.
The Picks
A kid invents ‘be nice to people’ as a social system and the movie dares you not to cry about it. Emotional damage, but purposeful.
Official synopsis
Like some other kids, 12-year-old Trevor McKinney believed in the goodness of human nature. Like many other kids, he was determined to change the world for the better. Unlike most other kids, he succeeded.
Math teacher goes to war with low expectations and wins. It’s not magic. It’s math. That’s why it hits.
Official synopsis
Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.
Grumpy man tries to be left alone but keeps accidentally becoming a decent human. The neighborhood refuses to let him self-destruct in peace.
Official synopsis
When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.
Honorable Mentions
Teacher fights chaos with notebooks and empathy. A bit idealized, but it lands if you’re in the mood for hope with a side of anger. Plus it actually is a tru story.
Official synopsis
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.
Two men from different worlds become friends and accidentally re-teach each other how to live. Funny, warm, and annoyingly effective.
Official synopsis
A true story of two men who should never have met – a quadriplegic aristocrat who was injured in a paragliding accident and a young man from the projects.
Man gets stuck in an airport and responds by building a life out of snacks, friendships, and pure persistence. Surprisingly warm.
Official synopsis
An Eastern European tourist unexpectedly finds himself stranded in JFK airport, and must take up temporary residence there.