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Central Theme / Live-Action Films

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Central Themes of live-action films.

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    #-F 
  • 8½: Creativity comes from life, from the chaos around you, from your past, your present, your fantasies, your desires, your mistakes and your guilt. There's no perfect ideal state and set of circumstances, you will have to deal with the life around you every time you create something.
  • 8mm: Sometimes, people do horrible things for no reason other than they can.
  • It seems unlikely at first, but the single most consistent message coming from the Addams Family films is that blood is thicker than water.
  • The Adjustment Bureau: Do we really make our own destinies, or are there some unseen forces controlling everything we see and do?
  • Air Force One: Caring for The Needs of the Many.
  • Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: Everyone has bad days, and anyone who says there's no such thing just hasn't had one yet.
  • Alien: The folly of trying to use something inherently evil for profit.
    • Aliens: The anxieties of childbirth and motherhood, and the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her child—seen both through the Alien Queen's protective instinct towards her hive, and Ripley's protective instinct towards her surrogate daughter Newt.
    • Alien³: Coping and redeeming oneself even amidst death and other tragic circumstances, and accepting one's own inescapable mortality.
    • Prometheus: The agony of living in the shadow of a distant parental figure, and the natural conflict between parent and child—seen through humanity's relationship with the Engineers, David's relationship with the humans who built him, and Meredith Vickers' relationship with her father Charles Weyland.
  • Alpha Dog: Be wary of your actions or you may suffer the consequences.
  • American Beauty: Changing your life, for better or worse.
  • American Pie: Searching for things that are actually under your nose.
  • American Psycho: How the pursuit of success can blind one to obvious dangers.
  • Angels with Dirty Faces: Suffering for the good of others.
  • Animal House: Anarchy vs. fascism.
  • Annihilation (2018): How do we confront and deal with life-changing events, particularly pain and trauma?
  • Apocalypse Now: The effects of war on a man's psyche, and what kind of monsters can be found lurking within as a result.
    • Much like the story that inspired the film, it also meditates on the nature of evil and savagery within the human soul, and how people give into their worst temptations when away from civilized society.
  • Arrival: Language and how it shapes our reality.
  • As Good as It Gets: The small, unexpected or even unwanted changes in life.
  • The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: The effects that legend and reality have on each other.
  • Assassin's Creed (2016): Fitting the concept of the Animus - described In-Universe as "a means of learning about who made us what we are" - nobody in the film has a healthy relationship with anyone they're descended from, their parents least of all.
    • Callum despises his father for killing his mother, and only after fully synchronizing with Aguilar does he realize that his father only wished to spare his family from Abstergo's experiments.
    • In reverse, Sophia would do anything for her father, who only sees the Animus project as a means to glorify himself, without a single thought for her amazing accomplishments: specifically, she's responsible for Animus technology from concept to final product, for which he ultimately takes full credit. She thus permits Callum to assassinate him and reclaim the Apple in the closing of the film.
    • Then there's all the other Animus subjects who have suffered severe psychological damage from being subjected to their ancestors' memories.
  • Await Further Instructions: How people consume news and the dangers of consuming mass information without questioning it, or the possible agenda behind it.
  • The Babadook: Grief, and how it affects someone, their health, their relationships, etc.
  • Back to the Future:
    • If you had the knowledge to change your life, would you?
    • No matter what time you're in - past, present, future - people are always going to be people.
    • Your parents really were young once too.
    • One for the whole series as well: your life is not set in stone. All of your actions have consequences, intended or not, but you are ultimately free to make your life whatever you want.
  • The Banshees of Inisherin:
    • Loneliness and how it makes people increasingly bitter and vindictive.
    • Is it more meaningful to live a simple life based around kindness towards others, or to pursue success and greatness even if that means facing disappointment?
  • The Batman (2022):
    • The way people perceive others, and the harm that incorrect presumptions can cause.
    • Is hope an ideal worth fighting for, or are some things just beyond saving?
    • Being passive and apathetic to others' problems is just as bad as actively causing those problems.
    • The Cycle of Revenge breeds resentment and despair that will keep going on and only makes things worse unless someone breaks from it.
  • Batman Forever: Identity.
  • Battle Royale: The breakdown of family and friendship.
  • Beasts of No Nation: The effects of war on children forced to participate in it.
  • Bedazzled (2000): Magic won't solve your problems or make you happy, you've got put in the work.
  • Bicentennial Man: Time and mortality. It's not an accident that Andrew becomes wealthy making clocks.
  • The Big Country: The nature of bravery, particularly in the face of futile conflict.
  • Big Fish: The nature of stories, and whether the emotional meaning and impact they have on someone outweighs whether or not it's true.
  • The Big Lebowski:
    • The things the rich (money, trophy wives) and the not so rich (bowling, the rug) find important.
    • Life doesn't always make sense, but we grin and bear it because it's still the best thing we've got.
  • The Big Red One: Survival is the only glory of war.
  • Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure:
    • The simplest philosophies can be the most meaningful. A simple philosophy may very well save the world.
    • Art, passion for life, and The Power of Friendship are just as important to the world as education, leadership, and productivity; in fact, they may be more important than you think.
  • Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): Ambition and how it can screw us over.
  • BlacKkKlansman: White supremacy is still alive and well.
  • Black Lightning (2009): It's not always rewarding to help others, but you'd wish there'd be someone for you when you're in danger.
  • Blade Runner / Blade Runner 2049: Empathy is what makes us human.
  • Boiler Room:
    • Is it possible for money to control our lives? Does making a quick buck on the stock market make us truly successful?
    • The film also deconstructs the "get-rich-quick" mindset behind those who get involved in such scams.
  • Brazil: Do our dreams and fantasies make us brave and free ourselves from our surroundings, or do they serve as a means to condition us to accept our surroundings as "normal" and prevent us from truly changing it?
  • The Breakfast Club: Is there anything beneath the face one shows to the world?
  • Bridesmaids: Hitting rock bottom and getting back up.
  • Brightburn: What if Superman chose to use his powers for evil instead of good?
    • To a lesser extent, some creatures cannot be anything other than what nature intended they be, and it is foolish to believe otherwise.
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: How two people can spend their whole lives together and never really know each other.
  • Call Me by Your Name: The intensity of First Love.
  • Calvary: Guilt and forgiveness.
  • Carlito's Way: What debts should and should not be paid.
  • Casablanca: Are there some causes so worth fighting for that even love should be sacrificed to fight for them?
  • Casper: Death, the acceptance of loss, and the importance of moving on.
  • The Cell: Uncovering a killer's Dark and Troubled Past does not mean they can be redeemed.
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade: War is a confused mess run by inept Upper-Class Twits and blustery Glory Seekers, and nobody gains anything at the end.
  • Chinatown:
  • Cinderella (2015): The refusal to let your circumstances change you.
  • Citizen Kane:
    • How will the world remember you when you are gone?
    • Money can't buy love or happiness. Even the most powerful people in the world often truly desire simple things — like having a real childhood.
    • Even in a world of mass information, it's sometimes impossible to truly "know" the people around us.
  • A Clockwork Orange: Do people have a right to their freedom of will, even if they use it to be evil?
  • The Conversation: The difference between listening and hearing.
  • Crimson Peak: Love, and how it can bring joy or horror for those who seek it.
  • The Crowd: Everyone is a Hero of Another Story, if not in their own eyes than in the eyes of their children or their wives and families, even if they aren't financially successful or only mediocre in talent.
  • The Dark Knight Trilogy is about as a whole also explores the strengths, weaknesses and dangers in various political and social systems and what effects these can have. Batman Begins is about what happens when our established forms of authority — the police, the court system, local government etc — become too corrupt, decadent and uncaring to effectively function. The Dark Knight, is about the conflict between order and chaos, and the dangers of pure, unrestrained nihilism and anarchy. The Dark Knight Rises is about the dangers of unfettered populist mob rule.
    • In addition to the above political themes, each film explores an aspect of the human psyche and condition. Begins is about fear: it's the ubiquitous state of the general populace, and used as a weapon by all three principle villains (Falcone, Crane and Ra's al Ghul), as well as by Batman himself, all in different and opposing ways. Dark Knight is about freedom and responsibility, order and chaos, whether it's best to be The Fettered or The Unfettered. And Rises is about truth, trust, and pain: every lie and deception carried out in the course of the series contributes to making the situation much worse, and revealing the truth provides the steps to improving matters. Bane is a villain defined by the physical pain he feels, contrasted to the psychological pain Batman feels. Significantly, by the end of the film every main character knows Batman's true identity.
    • The power of myth also is a significant theme, as is the problem of escalation — Batman ultimately derives his strength not from his money, which can be lost, or his physical powers, which can fail him, but his power as a symbolic icon to the people of Gotham, and in doing so becomes "more than just a man". On the flip side, however, the more powerful the myth of Batman becomes, the more powerful his enemies become as they rise to challenge him.
    • The films also warn about making short-sighted decisions to solve immediate problems. Bruce Wayne joining the League of Shadows, Gotham's gangsters hiring The Joker, Daggett hiring Bane and Catwoman stealing Bruce's fingerprints all prove to be very bad ideas.
    • Another theme is Control, specifically one's control over situations.
      • Begins: Losing said control
      • Dark Knight: Struggling for control
      • Rises: Regaining control
  • Dangerous Liaisons: Corruption and Redemption.
  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Peace doesn't happen if only a few are willing to work at it. All must be striving to achieve it.
  • DC Extended Universe:
    • Man of Steel: The freedom to choose one's own path in life and how working for the greater good sometimes means making hard decisions, but if your values are clear, these decisions are easier than they seem.
    • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice:
      • No matter how much good you do, there will always be people out there who hate you. But it doesn't mean you have to give up.
      • "Men are still good." (A theme that could apply to possibly every DCEU film)
    • Suicide Squad: Family. The Big Bad Duumvirate are siblings that care deeply for one another, Diablo and Deadshot both have families that motivate large parts of their actions, Harley's deepest wish is to start a family with Joker, and the Squad themselves grow into a strange little makeshift family themselves.
    • Wonder Woman: Some humans can be truly despicable, but on the whole Humans Are Good and try to do better; the world can be a terrible, awful place, but it's worth fighting for.
    • Aquaman:
      • Don't judge a place you've never been to.
      • There's also a lot of emphasis on familial bonds, with even the villains showing that they care about their relatives.
      • Dealing with the emotional fallout of a parent's premature death.
      • If you're looking for a fight you will probably find one.
      • There is strength and nobility in making friends.
      • Arthur's ability to communicate with sea life is directly tied to why he is the rightful king of Atlantis.
    • SHAZAM!: Incompleteness and inadequacy. If you feel you are not what you're supposed to be, how do you try to remedy it? What if the world and the human race are themselves not all that they should be?
    • Birds of Prey Freeing yourself from a relationship to something toxic. Also, that genuine loyalty is better than selfish betrayal.
    • Zack Snyder's Justice League:
      • Parentage. The character development of Barry and Victor is punctuated by the relationship with their parents, the expectations set upon them, and how the world is influenced by them. It is Silas' kidnapping and subsequent sacrifice which drives Victor to join the League, and it is Henry's words that inspire Barry to go far beyond the speed of light to save everyone. Moreover, the epilogue is called "A Father Twice Over", with Silas' audio recording to Victor playing over the Dawn of an Era ending.
      • It can be argued that "parentage" is also the overlying narrative connecting the Man of Steel - Batman v Superman and (Zack Snyder's) Justice League trilogy. Man of Steel deals with Clark trying to live up to the expectations that Pa Kent and Jor-El set for him, and in this film, he finally manages to reconcile both, and Batman V Superman has Batman motivated by the death of his parents, - it's when he loses sight of his original purpose that he becomes a jaded cynic willing to murder Superman - and it's also the knowledge that Clark has a loving mother and family that breaks him out of his funk.
      • Unity. Both heroes and villains alike believe in the power of being united as the best way to beat obstacles. Steppenwolf describes Earth as “divided, at war with one another, too separate to be one”, citing that their free will must be ripped away from them and “given absolution in one glorious belief”, obviously referencing how his master Darkseid believes in unity under his domain, eradicating individuality. The Justice League believes in unity while maintaining their own free will and individuality, combining their different sets of skills and powers. Bruce assembled the team with the idea that “divided (they) are not enough”, Darkseid’s loss in the past was possible only due to the defenders of Earth working together despite never doing so under normal circumstances, and his possible victory in the Knightmare timeline is achieved only by the League being divided.
  • The Descent: If you feel like things are turning out for the better, things can always get worse.
  • Dirty Dancing: The rediscovery of innocence.
  • Dirty Harry: How crime and law enforcement are hideously intertwined.
  • Dog Soldiers: The camaraderie between soldiers; contrast and combination of militaristic strategy and werewolf savagery, and undeniable revelation of the supernatural.
  • Do the Right Thing: Racism is still alive and kicking, only this time the issues present are lot more complex and nuanced and no side is truly in the right
  • Dr. Strangelove: How do you save mankind when they are bent on destroying themselves?
  • Drive (2011): Your actions speak much louder than your words. Also, how important is it to have a code?
  • Dunkirk: Day-to-day survival can be a victory.
  • The Empty Mirror: Evil devours itself.
  • Event Horizon: Grief, guilt, corruption and redemption.
  • Ever After: Finding freedom in a restrictive society.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once: The question of whether or not life is meaningful in a universe of infinite possibilities. If nothing matters, the only thing that matters is finding happiness with the people in our lives.
  • Evil Dead: Man's capacity to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds.
  • Falling Down: Dealing with the traumas of everyday life.
  • Fargo: The stupid things people do out of greed and desperation.
  • Fatal Attraction: How one stupid, isolated mistake can derail one's whole life.
  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Don't be afraid of taking chances. Live your life instead of being stuck to the grindstone.
  • Final Destination: The futility and madness of putting off the inevitable.
  • First They Killed My Father: The harsh, desperate struggle for survival in a country that is completely devastated by war and genocide.
  • Footloose:
  • Forrest Gump: American life after World War II has changed radically with every decade, and nobody really knows how to fit into the times.
  • Full Metal Jacket: War Is Hell. Also is violence part of human nature, and can one become a killer and still remain human?

    G-L 
  • Galaxy Quest: The appreciation of fandom, warts and all.
  • Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys:
    • How far would you go to protect- or avenge- what you love?
    • Bottling up anger and negative emotions will only hurt you and everyone around you.
    • Likewise, never let nihilism and hate consume you.
    • Faith and hope, in both a higher power and in other people, is needed for life.
  • Get Out (2017): Condescending Compassion and Positive Discrimination can be every bit as dehumanizing as overt racism, no matter how well-intentioned it may be.
  • Ghostbusters: Heroism is a thankless job, but someone has to do it.
  • Ghostbusters II: While vitriol leads ultimately to destruction, benevolent endeavours may turn the tide.
  • Giant: The constantly changing face of family.
  • The Gift (2015): You may be done with the past, but the past is never done with you. To add on, the consequences of lies, or as Gordo puts it, how ideas can poison minds.
  • Gladiator: How A Simple Plan never seems to go right. Also the role of charisma, personality and popularity in leadership.
  • The Godfather trilogy:
    • Loyalty to one's family is all well and good, but to what extent?
    • Families can contain hidden tensions that never truly go away, and people who feel they are doing good for the family can also do the most to destroy them.
    • A crime family will never "go legit" because they are useful to other powerful factions (such as politicians, businessmen, Hollywood, the Catholic Church, etc). If they grow soft, they will be taken out by more ruthless enemies who want to usurp their position as a power broker; so they must stay ruthless not only to protect themselves, but also to prevent someone worse than them from taking their place.
    • Turning to evil, no matter how well intentioned, will lead to not only your destruction, but the destruction of everyone else around you.
  • Godzilla: The eternal conflict between humanity, nature and technology. Nature Is Not Nice, and humans can't always succeed in taming the beasts of the Earth — but humanity's own creations can turn on them just as quickly.
    • Godzilla (2014):
      • That Nature Is Not Nice and that mankind isn't nearly as powerful as they think they are. Also, family is important.
      • Nature may not be nice, but she's been here longer than us, and sometimes, she knows what's best for everyone. So, "let them fight".
      • Nature really only cares about balance; if something threatens that balance, something else will knock it back into place.
    • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019):
      • Bearing grudges have long-term effects. Godzilla has a personal vendetta against Ghidorah since the ancient times. Mark has a personal grudge against Godzilla for his son's death, but eventually learns to let it go because he realizes Godzilla is humanity's only hope against Ghidorah.
      • Tragedy bears consequences and consequences bear tragedy. Emma is so stricken with grief by the death of her son that she strikes a deal with ecoterrorists to free all the Titans, realizing too late that a murderous three-headed monster plans to terraform the Earth to his liking and even actively goes out of his way to kill every human he sees.
  • Gone Baby Gone: What is ethically right and what is lawfully right don't always overlap.
  • Gone with the Wind: The conflict between lofty ideals and hard edged reality.
  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Even war won't stop the greedy.
  • Goodfellas: Why are some men lured into the world of organized crime?
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel: Is there still a place for kindness in a post-war world?
  • The Grand Illusion: Fighting a war is absurd because you will often find that you have more in common with your counterpart in another nation than you will among your countrymen.
  • Harakiri: "Honour" is a meaningless, abstract concept, mainly used by the powerful to protect their own corruption.
  • Hard Candy: Is it morally justifiable to Pay Evil unto Evil?
  • Haunted Mansion (2023): Grief, and the dangers of becoming transfixed by it rather than learning to appreciate life.
  • Heat:
    • The thin line between police and the thieves they pursue.
    • The price of devoting yourself to excelling in a particular vocation on yourself and those around you.
  • Hello Mary-Lou: Prom Night II: Loss of innocence, whether wantonly, involuntarily or grudgingly; and the futility of burying one's past.
  • her: The connections that people share with one another, even if you can't see them at first.
  • Highwaymen: Revenge.
  • High Noon: Staying courageous in a community that isn't.
  • Hitch: Be yourself.
  • The Hitcher: The thrill of the hunt.
  • Hobo with a Shotgun: Do desperate times really call for desperate measures, or will that just make everything worse?
  • Hocus Pocus: The bonds between siblings.
  • Home Alone:
    • Self-reliance.
    • The value of family.
  • Hot Fuzz:
    • The importance of achieving balance in your life between the things you find important (such doing a good job at work and maintaining a perfect community) and maintaining healthy relationships with the people around you.
    • The conflict between illusion and reality. Note that this is seen through Danny Butterman's obsession with buddy cop movies (escapist fantasies that barely resemble real police work) and Frank Butterman's obsession with maintaining the illusion that Sandford is the perfect village.
  • The Host (2006): Family can overcome even the most obstructive bureaucrat.
  • I Dream In Another Language: Is a dying language worth keeping alive, or should we focus on current trends? Regret is another.
  • Ikiru: How do you spend the last days of your life? And in a broader sense, what gives one's life meaning and fulfillment in the first place?
  • In Bruges: How guilt can rip someone apart, as well as how it's never too late to redeem yourself and turn your back on evil.
  • Inception: The power of an idea.
  • Independence Day: Strength through unity, and transcending national and cultural borders.
  • Indiana Jones: What's treasure versus what's valuable; each movie sees Indy and his friends on the hunt for some ancient artifact of incalculable power and worth, but while they might not end up with the treasure, they usually come to some understanding about themselves that is more valuable and meaningful.
  • Inglourious Basterds: The side that you choose will always be more important than your individual actions and moral character. You can't be a good person while serving an evil ideology; it's just not possible.
  • Ingrid Goes West: Para-social relationships in the age of social media and the effects of it in the psyche, especially of those around suffering from some mental illness.
  • Interstellar: Maintaining hope in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
    • Also, the power of love in the face of endless despair, and how it can drive you to do things you never thought possible.
  • It: Coming of age and facing fears.
  • It's a Wonderful Life: The importance of a single person to the community of man.
    • The people who truly make the community happy are the No-Respect Guy for whom Being Good Sucks and however much people take them for granted they should never be forgotten.
  • Jakobs Wife: Subservience and marriage.
  • James Bond: Films made between 1962 and 1989 showcase the tensions between NATO and Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, while those made after 1991 deal with new threats such as terrorism and whether 007 can adapt to a post-Cold War reality.
  • Jerry Maguire: Whether or not ideals and principles are a liability in business.
  • Jo Jo Rabbit:
    • The power of Groupthink and what it means to grow to have your opinions.
    • Is bigotry learned or inherent?
  • Joker (2019): "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."
  • Judas and the Black Messiah: Government institutions aren’t as good and honorable as they look.
    • Anyone can be a revolutionary.
  • Julie & Julia: How committing to a simple hobby (like French cooking) can enrich your life more than you ever thought possible.
  • Jumanji: You can't keep running from your fears; you have to stand and face them.
  • Jurassic Park: The fragility of man's control over nature.
  • The Karate Kid: The different dynamics of the student/mentor relationship.
  • The Killer (1989): Even in a world of criminals, brotherhood and loyalty are still important traits to have.
  • King Arthur (2004): Is freedom tangible? Can it be given or taken away?
  • Kingsman: The Secret Service:
    • Class conflict, how it can be viewed from different sides and how it isn't necessarily black and white.
    • The nature of money. Can fabulous wealth ever be used for the good of humanity, or does it inevitably distort a person's view of the world? Yes.
  • Kong: Skull Island: "Sometimes, an enemy doesn't exist till you go looking for one" as one character puts it.
  • Knives Out: Rich people, despite differing beliefs and petty in-fighting, will always unite in class solidarity once their wealth is threatened by an "outsider".
    • Glass Onion: Complexity versus simplicity. Some mysteries are not so complicated when you don't look too hard for an answer; in fact, the answer is often right in your face..
  • Krampus: Relearning the Christmas Spirit the hard way.
  • La La Land: The clash between ideals and reality.
  • The Last Emperor: "Is that really so bad? To be useful."
  • The Last Temptation of Christ: What does it mean to be fully human and fully divine?
  • The Last Boy Scout: In an increasingly cynical world, are there any heroes left?
  • Legend (1985): The duality inherent in life and in all of us — good vs. evil, light vs. darkness, innocence vs. corruption — and what it takes for the former to triumph over the latter.
  • The Leopard: Society will change and alter in all manner of unexpected ways and not everyone can live in a changed world.
  • Life (2017): In times of crisis, making decisions based purely on emotions will only make matters worse.
  • Little Shop of Horrors:
  • Lord of War: Gun runners are integrated into the world market and vital to great power interests, so they can't be eradicated through policing.

    M-R 
  • M: Helplessness.
  • The Machinist: The truth will set you free, no matter how awful.
  • Mad Max: Holding on to the bits and pieces of society and civility.
  • The Magic Christian: Every Man Has His Price.
  • Magnolia:
    • The lifelong scarring that parental abuse, neglect, or exploitation can have on children. Frank, Claudia, and Donnie are all dysfunctional and emotionally stunted adults as a result of their parents' actions, while Stanley attempts to fight back against his father's exploitation of him.
    • The strange, sometimes coincidental ways, that a group of seemingly unrelated people can be connected.
  • Maleficent: The loss and reclamation of faith in humanity.
  • The Maltese Falcon: Can matters of the heart override one's sense of justice?
  • Manchester by the Sea: Grief is a lifelong struggle, and not everyone is equipped to handle it.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • The Infinity Saga as a whole (Phase 1 through 3): The at times extreme mental, emotional and physical cost of being a hero and the question of whether that cost is a price worth paying.
      • Phase 1: Weaponization and the consequences of the desire for ever more powerful weapons to either kill or protect
      • Phase 2: "You Create Your own Demons": Regardless of whether it happens in 70 minutes or 70 years your mistakes will eventually come back to haunt you or those who succeed you.
      • Phase 3: How the mistakes of the older generation effect the new generation and how the older generation can make up for it even if it means death.
      • Phase 4: Remembering those who are no longer around, whether through death or the fact that they simply retired from what they used to do, and how you can carry on their legacy.
      • Phase 5: The effects of regret on your past and how it can make even the most noble and heroic of people affect those around them in a negative way.
    • Iron Man: Peace through superior weaponry is a self-defeating prospect without a measure of responsibility.
      • Iron Man 2: Facing the possibility of death and how should you spend your last days. Also, the effects of next of kin following your footsteps, as shown with Tony and the main villain.
      • Iron Man 3: How much are we defined by our pasts?
    • The Incredible Hulk: Fear of rage and unleashing your darker self. When is it okay to lose control?
    • Thor: What does it mean to be worthy and should it matter if not everyone sees you as worthy?
      • Thor: The Dark World: Love, of both the familial (as shown with Thor and Loki with their mother) and the attraction kind (as shown with Thor and Jane).
      • Thor: Ragnarok: Self-reflection. Who the characters really are and can they leave the past behind?
      • Thor: Love and Thunder: The perservence of Love. Even if loved ones are gone, they still remain loved by the people closest to them.
    • Captain America: The First Avenger: Determination and how your morality can make you the best or worst of who you are.
    • The Avengers: How do those with power handle their differences when dealing with a bigger problem? This relationship is found not only between the title characters themselves, but also between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the World Security Council.
      • Avengers: Age of Ultron: Children, evolution, and legacies- what do we leave behind, and will it change the world for the better or the worse? Also a secondary one: Where is the line between a hero and a monster/a spy and a murderer/a visionary and a mad scientist?
      • Avengers: Infinity War: Sacrifice. Is it right to kill one in order to save trillions? What if that one person is someone you love?
      • Avengers: Endgame: Second chances. You may have failed once, but never give up. Use your failure to create an even better success.
      • What is stronger? Sacrificing others to save trillions, or giving up everything - even your own life - to do so?
    • Guardians of the Galaxy: Having a Family of Choice, and how the one you came from isn't always more important than the one you choose.
    • Ant-Man: Being defined by our pasts, for good and ill. Also the fear of losing control of our own legacy, and whether there are things for which The World Is Not Ready.
      • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Consequences. The second and third-order effects our actions have, and the collateral damage we do in pursuit of our goals (and how much collateral damage we are willing to ignore or accept.)
      • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: The loss of time to a love one and how making up for loss time can affect us both positively and negatively. Also, the choice between acting for the greater good or saving a love one.
    • Doctor Strange: Finding new purpose in life after losing your previous one. Also the lengths someone will go to in order to achieve their goals, and whether or not such lengths are ever justified.
      • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Being content with where you are in life and pondering about the what if, or as the film describes it in this question "Are you happy?" Another theme is wondering if there is a constant trait in different versions of someone or one version of someone is completely different from another.
    • Spider-Man: Homecoming: The "little guy" and how they react to their perceived treatment by those in power. Do they try and help those even less fortunate than themselves, or do they try and get their own piece of the pie by any means necessary? Who out there is really looking out for the interests of others?
      • Spider-Man: Far From Home: Truth and deception. Everyone tells comfortable lies to themselves, and those who can craft and control the narrative of events have a power that must not be underestimated. To drive this point home, the villain of the movie is a charismatic Consummate Liar, while the hero's love interest is socially awkward and has a brutally honest streak.
      • Spider-Man: No Way Home: Forgiveness. Finding the means to forgive someone of their past actions and finding the means to forgive oneself from their past mistakes, even if help is needed.
    • Black Panther (2018): Interventionism, how the past and present are meant to interact, and the Cycle of Revenge. Also, don't use past grievances to justify doing horrible things to people that had nothing to do with certain incidents.
      • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: In addition to the themes in the first movie, the stages of grief and how it is not as clear cut as it seems. One moment, there may be denial and anger, the next acceptance and then right back to the previous state of grief. However, even if it does take a long time, that grief can eventually be normalized to move on with life.
    • Captain Marvel (2019): Inner and outer discovery. Finding the courage to see what's more than meets the eye despite influences around you saying otherwise and having the strength to get back up when knocked down. Also the tendency of war to corrupt and destroy the lives of the innocent and vulnerable.
      • The Marvels (2023): How we view others and the change of that viewing. Monica didn't forgive Carol for not seeing her before her mother died and Kamala saw her as a celebrity. In time, Monica started to understand why Carol did what she did and forgave her while Kamala realized that she's only human and her admiration becomes more realistic. Likewise, Carol reconnected with Maria after everything clears up while becoming a mentor to the younger Kamala after getting to know her. Even their viewpoint of the Kree changed after knowing the circumstances behind their attacks.
    • Black Widow (2021): Confronting your past, from the good moments in your life that you realize and the bad that still affect you. Also, can someone who is a part of two different worlds have two chosen families?
    • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Family flaws. Children dealing with their parents grieving of their significant other and the fundamental effects of a child being used by the parent's ulterior motive or simply being denied their wish to help them.
    • Eternals: Duty versus love. Should one follow what it is that they are supposed to do at the expense of those they love or should one help those they love no matter the reason?
    • Werewolf by Night (2022): Family burden and how it can lead to either something good (like Jack and Man-Thing becoming a surrogate family and look after each other) or bad (like Elsa disowning her remaining family after her father died).
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Is the truth more important than a good legend?
  • Manos: The Hands of Fate: Possession and ownership.
  • A Matter of Life and Death: There is nothing on earth more powerful than love.
  • The Matrix: The nature of reality and the world around us; can we trust what our senses tell us? Might authority be using this to mislead us?
  • Memento:
    • The ways in which memory — and thus people — can be distorted and manipulated, by ourselves and those around us.
    • How is time supposed to heal all wounds if you are unmoored from it?
  • Men in Black: Things aren't always what they seem.
  • Million Dollar Baby: Taking risks. Is the potential reward of success always worth the potential cost of failure?
  • Moneyball:
    • Can anything in life be predicted, or is life's direction dictated by inexplicable quirks of fate?
    • Is rational analysis more powerful than intuition and instinct?
  • Monty Python's Life of Brian: Whether it is wise or not to follow someone who seems to have all the answers.
  • Moonlight (2016): Identity and its malleability over time.
  • Mystery Team: How do you find the perfect balance between growing up and following your childhood dreams?
  • Network: How viewers and network execs are enslaved by television.
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): The reality that sometimes adults are not always helpful and can even make things worse unintentionally.
  • No Country for Old Men: There's always been evil in the world. There is no happy place in the past where everything was perfect. That said, does America still have a place for an old man who still believes this to be true?
  • Nope:
    • Spectacle. The nature of it, humanity's insatiable hunger for it, and how far we will go to put on a good show.
    • A wild animal can never truly be tamed, and it foolish to think otherwise.
  • On the Waterfront: "Conscience, that stuff can drive you nuts".
  • Oldboy (2003): What is at the end of revenge, contentment or heartache?
  • The central theme of Once Upon a Time in China shows the European stranglehold over the lives of the Chinese people during the twilight of Qing Dynasty, and the futility of romanticized Chinese ideals. While the evils of Western imperialism is a major topic, the films also take a more nuanced approach in arguing that Western people are also capable of good, and Western knowledge can also be used to aid the Chinese people, as shown by the positive portrayal of the Jesuit priest in the first film and medical practitioners in the second film. Furthermore, the second film depicts the White Lotus sect's anti-Western ideals as a dark mirror to the Europeans' imperialism and racism; showing that Cultural Posturing by either Chinese or Westerners can be negative to both the practitioners and the victims.
  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Staying relevant in a changing industry.
  • The Ox-Bow Incident: What does it truly mean to take the law into your own hands?
  • Over the Edge: Delinquency and how society often fails to tackle it.
  • Pacific Rim:
    • Family. All of the regular Jaeger pilot teams we see, barring Raleigh and Mako, are related in one way or another, and there's a recurring theme of surrogate family members. Even the Kaiju, in an odd sort of way, are related to each other, despite being genetically-engineered bioweapons. One is even pregnant.
    • Unity. All of the family teams are defeated. The final victory requires everyone to work together; people of different races and nationalities, people who love and hate each other, fighters, scientists, and even criminals have to contribute something to achieve the win.
    • Hope. The hero of the movie refuses to trade ten lives in favor of improved odds for saving two million more, and instead resolves to save two million and ten lives. The entire Jaeger outfit at the end is still unhesitatingly going out to fight even when the war is visibly beyond the point of no return. The politicians who try to cut their losses and be pragmatic and play lifeboat are shown as taking the road of good intentions straight down to Hell. It's only the people who refuse to acknowledge 'hopeless' odds and instead persist in believing that they can score a clean victory rather than a mediated loss who end up achieving anything.
  • Paddington (2014): Can one person change a group, a family, or a community for the better? Can people accept those who are radically, fundamentally different, even if they struggle to integrate?
    • Paddington2: On top of the prior two; what happens to those society has cast aside? Can they still find redemption or value, even if they don't believe they can? What will they do to achieve it?
  • Parasite (2019): Capitalism Is Bad, and it inherently pits the poor against one another to fight for scraps from the rich.
  • The Patriot (2000): Is there really such a thing as "rules" of war?
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock: For all of humanity's reason, we can do little in the face of nature.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Can a good man be also a scoundrel and vice-versa?
  • Pleasantville: The conflicts between nostalgia for the past and the reality of the past. Also, accepting the present, flaws and all, versus living in the past.
  • The Power of the Dog: Masculine ideals and the destructive cost of trying to live up to them.
  • The Prestige: Always pay close attention to everything around you. You never know what you might miss.
  • Prisoners: Two of them: The limits of man and and how far one will go to break them.
  • Psycho:
    Norman Bates: "I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch."
  • Pulp Fiction:
    • The ways in which people and their lives connect and overlap, even if those connections may not be immediately apparent or clear at first glance.
    • The unexpected. The movie's plot can be succinctly summed up as "A series of classic film noir stock plots that are all thrown out of whack by various bizarre and/or unexpected twists". Whether those twists take the form of a freak drug overdose, a random encounter with a pair of psychotic rapists, miraculously surviving a flurry of point-blank gunshots, accidentally blowing a man's head off, or a hitman having a sudden religious conversion, nearly all of the film's major plot points stem from them.
  • A Quiet Place: Parenthood, the fears and responsibilities that come with it.
  • Rambo IV: The war that goes on inside every soldier.
  • The Rapture:
    • How much are you willing to sacrifice in the name of your belief?
    • If there is a biblical God is he actually an all-loving Creator or actually an all-powerful dictator?
  • Rashomon: Truth is subjective.
  • Rebel Without a Cause: The need for grown ups to grow up. The realization that adults don't always have the answers to the larger questions in your life, and the need to be your own man without completely falling into cynicism.
  • Red Riding Hood: The devastating effects of secrets in a community.
  • The Red Shoes: You must make personal sacrifices to truly excel artistically.
  • Relic:
    • Mental illness and its impact across generations of a family.
    • Dealing with the inevitable.
  • Requiem for a Dream: The lengths to which someone will go to escape their reality.
    • Time passes by quicker than you realize, and life isn't defined by single events, so you need to learn to live in the moment.
  • Reservoir Dogs: Loyalty and betrayal.
  • RoboCop (1987): He may be a corporate mascot but Robocop, along with good honest cops, will always stand for what's right. Even if the people who made him don't.
    • The dangers of unrestrained, unfettered capitalism.
  • The Rock:
    • The power of the will.
    • The cost of serving your country.
  • Romy and Michele's High School Reunion: Living well is the best revenge. Also, life goes on after high school, and one's experience there eventually matters very little, if at all, in the grand scheme of things.
  • Run Lola Run: Learn from your mistakes.
  • The Running Man: The dehumanising effects of sensationalist television on those who participate in it and those who watch it.

    S-Z 
  • Saw:
    • Overcome your Fatal Flaw. Your life might depend on it.
    • Torture does not make people change for the better. It only makes things worse.
    • Cherish your life, and don't squander it for any reason.
    • Jigsaw: The truth will set you free.
  • Scarface (1983): Being Evil Sucks. Also, money and power can get you to the top as fast as it takes you down from it.
  • Schindler's List:
    • "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire". Even a (relatively) small act of good is still an absolute good.
    • The power of one person to make a difference, even in the worst of times.
  • Seven Psychopaths has two themes: Everyone's a little bit crazy and violence is not always the answer (but it works a hell a lot of the time).
  • Seven Samurai: Who has it better, the peasants who live normal but undistinguished lives or the warriors who live exciting but violent lives?
  • The Seventh Seal: Why death is necessary to the great scheme of things.
  • The Shape of Water: A love letter to the outsider.
  • Biographical drama Shattered Glass has Old Media Playing Catch-Up as its major theme. The film's antagonist, Stephen Glass, works for the New Republic, a veritable old stalwart of print media, with a long and proud (if slightly snobby) tradition of being, among other things, "the in-flight magazine of Air Force One" and a distinguished reputation for accuracy and honesty. They are contrasted with Forbes Digital Tool, a then-young digital magazine that is initially wary of taking them on. When the Forbes journalists some research into "Hack Heaven" for a follow-up article (via a basic search for "Jukt Micronics"note ) and find no evidence the company exists, they quickly find out that the New Republic and its traditions are completely ill-equipped to handle Glass' deception. In Real Life, the whole episode actually was one of the key moments that established online media as a serious competitor to traditional print media rather than just a novelty.
  • Shaun of the Dead: Getting stuck in a rut with your life, and what it might take to kick you out of it and realize your potential. For some people, it might be a bust-up with their loved one or an argument with their friend. For others, a Zombie Apocalypse might be necessary.
  • The Shawshank Redemption:
  • Shiva Baby: The chaos of life, and trying to have some control over it.
  • The Silence of the Lambs: Disillusion with authority figures.
  • Sleepaway Camp: Don't ever force your ideals on someone. There's a chance it could end badly.
  • Song of the South: The trials and triumphs of the underdog.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): The importance of having others in your life. Even though Sonic starts the movie on the outside looking in, seemingly happy but really wishing he could interact with the citizens of Green Hills, he ultimately gets his happy ending when he is adopted and now friends with everyone in the city. Robotnik, meanwhile, has a resume worthy of respect but continually pushes others away from him, seeing mechanical lifeforms as far superior to humans. The end result is that he ends up banished to a planet where he can be by himself but begins to lose his sanity.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022): What it means to be a hero. While Sonic starts the film trying to do good, Tom can rightly see that he's mostly doing it for his own satisfaction and not for the right reasons. Knuckles in parallel, sees himself as the hero, restoring his ancestors' lost honor over the Master Emerald, never stopping to question the long history of bloodshed behind that quest. Both learn to see the true value in being a hero is not in the glory, but in protecting something.
  • The Spider-Man Trilogy has the theme of whether one can remain a hero even as their life crumbles around them. Spider-Man 3 also has a theme about choosing between revenge or forgiveness, as the former is the one driving the conflicts between Peter and the three villains.
  • Star Trek:
  • Star Wars:
    • In general:
      • The eternal (and cyclical) nature of the battle between Good and Evil, and how people can be brought to either side by a single choice.
      • Good exists where you may least expect it. And even the worst people can find redemption by facing their pasts.
      • How big things can be beaten by something small.
      • How being motivated by anger and hatred ultimately leads to self-destruction, and how patience, discipline, and faith (in your friends, yourself, and "the Force") can help you make peace with yourself and others.
    • Rogue One:
      • Hope. More specifically: even against insurmountable odds, even in the face of your own certain death, one must always have hope in the greater good. Or to paraphrase a fitting quote from another franchise entirely, the film's theme is summed up with:
        "I give hope to others, I leave none for myself."
    • The Last Jedi:
      • Failure, and how (or whether) people deal with it or recover from it.
      • Moving on from the past—and how that can be either a good thing or a bad thing.
      • Doing the right thing is more important than being glorified as a hero.
      • Protecting the people around you is more important than trying to destroy your enemies.
      • People are defined by their choices, not their lineage.
      • The perils of rushing to judgement. Nearly every character in the movie makes some assumption about somebody else that turns out to be woefully incorrect, often leading to tragedy; Rey assumes that Luke Skywalker is exactly the kind of larger-than-life hero who she's heard legends about, Poe assumes that Vice Admiral Holdo is leading the Resistance to their deaths, Finn and Rose assume that DJ is trustworthy, Kylo Ren assumes that his uncle Luke Skywalker tried to murder him as a child, and Luke is still haunted by the fact that he once briefly contemplated killing his nephew Ben Solo after assuming that he was too evil to be redeemed.
  • Steve Jobs: How are we defined by the things that we create? Can a bad person still create good things, or are their creations inevitably shaped by their own flaws and imperfections?
    "God sent his only son on a suicide mission, but we still like him because he made trees!"
  • Swing Kids: What should someone do when faced with evil in a corrupt society?
  • The Terminator series: There is no fate but what we make.
  • The Terminal: Rules shouldn't be absolute. While the rules exist for a reason, they can sometimes prevent good people from getting the help they need.
  • The Thin Red Line: War as a truly unnatural phenomenon.
  • The Thing (1982): Paranoia and the loss of trust.
  • The Trial of the Chicago 7: Who is entitled to a fair trial?
    • Letting your political views color your perception of people.
  • Trading Places: How wealth (or lack thereof) affects peoples' lives.
  • Train to Busan: How apathy, social hierarchy, and self-interest manifest in dire situations.
  • Trees Lounge:
    • What drives a person to drink?
    • People's self-destructive tendencies.
  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: Greed will destroy you in the end.
  • True Grit: How can you tell if one has grit or character?
  • The Truman Show:
    • What would you do if you learned that everything you believed about your life and the world around you was actually one big lie?
    • The film as a whole is also a scathing satire of voyeuristic reality television, and the amorality of mass media in general.
  • Tucker & Dale vs. Evil: How first impressions can be misleading and deceptive. Also, the importance of communication to avoid misunderstandings.
  • Unforgiven: Violence, as a means of establishing law and order, and violence, as a means to get revenge, is one and the same and equally self-destructive.
  • Vertigo: It's hard to love people for who they truly are, since you never really know if what you see is how they really are and you can be so lost in your fantasy that you can go insane.
  • Wall Street: Is Greed, for lack of a better word, good?
  • War for the Planet of the Apes: War Is Hell and it makes monsters of us all if we forget what we fight for.
  • WarGames: War doesn't determine who wins, but who loses the least.
  • Warm Bodies: Time healing old wounds.
  • The Wicker Man (1973): The need to believe that things will get better in the future.
  • The Wild Bunch: The Power of Friendship, Teeth-Clenched Teamwork and Undying Loyalty.
  • The Wolf of Wall Street: Money is a drug; it's addictive, it gives you a high, and you will always want more and more, but you will never really be satisfied.
  • The Woman King:
    • For Nanisca, should a person's ascribed status determine their right to the monarchy? If not, what controversies could stem from the ascension?
    • For Nawi, the journey toward attaining one's optimal self by rejecting their pain. If someone has nothing better to live for, then is the path of the soldier the best option they have?
  • X-Men Film Series:
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: The importance of maintaining hope, even in the face of hardship and tragedy, because hope can conquer anything, and that just because someone has lost their way, it doesn't mean they're lost forever.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: The main threads throughout the story are families coming together, and that love is stronger and more powerful than fear, hate or anger.
    • Deadpool 2: Can a Heroic Comedic Sociopath '90s Anti-Hero's heart be in the right place? Also, moving on from loss and the impact a surrogate family can have.
    • The New Mutants: Facing your fears and past trauma can be tough.
  • You Hurt My Feelings: The role of dishonesty and white lies in relationships.

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