10 Movies Everyone Should See Before They Turn 40
Some movies entertain you. Others make more sense after you've lived a little. Here are 10 films worth seeing, and perhaps seeing again, as adulthood changes the way you watch them.
By Jack Sullivan | Entertainment
Some movies entertain you for two hours. Others make considerably more sense after you’ve lived a little.
There are plenty of lists telling you which movies are the “greatest of all time.” This isn’t one of them.
If you’re looking for the classics, blockbusters and unforgettable films that belong on just about everyone’s watchlist, start with our list of 25 Movies Everyone Should See at Least Once.
These are movies I think are worth seeing before you turn 40—not because life suddenly changes when the clock strikes midnight on your 40th birthday, but because somewhere along the way, most of us begin looking at life differently.
Careers don't always turn out as planned. Parents get older. Friendships change. Relationships become more complicated. Dreams get revised. And eventually you discover that adulthood is largely the process of realizing that almost nobody knows what they're doing.
These ten movies have something to say about that.
1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
On the surface, The Shawshank Redemption is a prison movie.
It really isn't.
It's a movie about what happens when circumstances take almost everything away from you—and whether you allow them to take your hope too.
Andy Dufresne's quiet persistence makes the movie increasingly meaningful as you get older. Life has a way of producing stretches when nothing seems to change despite your best efforts.
Shawshank's answer is remarkably simple:
Keep going.
2. Groundhog Day (1993)
Yes, it's funny.
It's also one of the smartest movies ever made about changing your life.
Phil Connors wakes up every morning trapped in exactly the same day. At first he exploits it. Then he resents it. Eventually, he starts changing himself.
That's when everything changes.
Most of us aren't trapped in a supernatural time loop, but adulthood can certainly feel repetitive: wake up, work, errands, dinner, television, bed. Repeat.
Groundhog Day asks a surprisingly profound question:
If your circumstances didn't change, could you?
3. Good Will Hunting (1997)
Will Hunting is extraordinarily intelligent and extraordinarily good at making sure nobody gets close enough to hurt him.
That's what makes this much more than a movie about a mathematical genius.
It's about the defenses people build around themselves—and how those defenses can eventually become prisons of their own.
Robin Williams' performance as therapist Sean Maguire remains the heart of the movie. His conversations with Will gradually expose something many adults eventually learn: intelligence can explain a lot of things, but it can't protect you from being human.
4. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Forget the fact that it's considered a Christmas movie.
Watch it sometime when it isn't Christmas.
George Bailey spends much of his life believing the important things are happening somewhere else. He has plans. He has ambitions. And one by one, life seems to interfere with them.
Eventually he concludes that his life hasn't amounted to much.
He is spectacularly wrong.
Few movies capture something adulthood teaches quite as well: you may never fully understand the impact you've had on other people.
5. The Truman Show (1998)
When The Truman Show arrived in 1998, its premise seemed wonderfully strange: a man's entire life is secretly being broadcast as entertainment.
Today?
Maybe not quite so strange.
Social media, algorithms, influencers and the constant pressure to perform our lives for other people have made Truman's world feel remarkably prescient.
But underneath all that is a more personal question.
How much of your life did you choose?
Your career. Your expectations. Your definition of success. The things you're supposedly meant to want.
At some point, it's worth asking.
6. Dead Poets Society (1989)
This is the movie that gave generations of viewers "Carpe diem."
But Dead Poets Society isn't simply telling us to seize the day.
It's about the tension between the life other people expect you to live and the one you actually want.
That's an especially important movie to encounter before middle age, because the longer you live according to someone else's expectations, the harder it can become to distinguish them from your own.
Robin Williams appears on this list twice.
I'm comfortable with that.
7. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
Chris Gardner's story can easily be reduced to an inspirational slogan about working hard and never giving up.
The movie is better than that.
It shows how exhausting perseverance actually is.
There are bills. Embarrassment. Rejection. Fear. Parenting. Exhaustion. And long stretches when hard work produces absolutely no evidence that anything is getting better.
That's why the eventual success matters.
Sometimes perseverance isn't dramatic.
Sometimes it's simply getting up tomorrow and trying again.
8. Up (2009)
Yes, I'm putting a Pixar movie on the list.
And yes, the opening sequence alone earns its place.
Carl and Ellie imagine a lifetime of adventure together. Instead, life happens: work, repairs, expenses, ordinary days and plans repeatedly postponed.
Then Carl discovers something beautiful.
Those ordinary days were the adventure.
That's a lesson people often understand far too late.
9. About Time (2013)
Tim discovers that the men in his family can travel backward through their own lives.
Naturally, he tries to use that ability to make life better.
But the movie gradually becomes less interested in time travel and more interested in something else entirely: paying attention.
The ultimate lesson isn't that we need another chance to live our days correctly.
It's that we should learn to notice the day we're already living.
This one sneaks up on you.
10. Rocky (1976)
People remember the training montage.
They remember the steps.
They remember the music.
But Rocky isn't really about winning.
Rocky Balboa knows he probably can't defeat Apollo Creed. What he wants is to "go the distance"—to prove to himself that he belongs in the ring.
That's a very different definition of success.
By adulthood, most of us have experienced something we didn't win: the job we didn't get, the relationship that ended, the business that failed, the dream that didn't happen.
Sometimes success isn't winning.
Sometimes it's discovering what you're made of when winning isn't guaranteed.
The Movies Change Because You Do
Here's the strange thing about great movies.
The film stays exactly the same.
You don't.
Watch It's a Wonderful Life at 18 and George Bailey may seem frustrated and old.
Watch it after you've spent years working, paying bills, caring about people and wondering where the time went, and George looks very different.
The same thing happens with Up. And Rocky. And Groundhog Day.
Maybe that's why certain movies remain with us.
They aren't simply stories we watch.
They're stories we eventually catch up to.
And if you've already turned 40?
Don't worry.
There's no late fee.
