Empathy and kindness are among the integral characteristics and strengths essential to everyone. They’re crucial for establishing and maintaining wonderful friendships and a good life. Yet, you cannot have these traits if you were not taught at a young age.
Movies can stir emotions, creating fun lasting memories, spark curiosity, and act as a portal to other worlds. Besides that, movies can activate our feelings and traits like empathy and kindness. Educational movies for kids can act as the gateway to opening their hearts to humanity.
Here are popular family movies that help to teach kindness and empathy. These movies will encourage you to navigate life with wisdom. Let’s dive in.
Inside Out
The first movie in our list of movies to watch with family is Inside Out. It’s an animated movie that depicts emotions as little characters with their own mind living inside your head. The movie is told from the perspective of an 11-year -old.
The movie teaches the importance of expressing all emotions, whether sad or happy. But that’s not all! It highlights how to cope up with feelings and how to regain control of them. All these are lightened up with humorous, sweet lines delivered by Mindy Kaling as Disgust, Phyllis, Lewis Black as Anger, Amy Poehler as Joy and Smith as Sadness.
Inside Out will help kids and even grownups to understand their moods and the moods of others, as well as learn how to cope up with major life changes.
The Chronicle of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
The Chronicle of Narnia is an adaptation of a famous novel by C. S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It follows the magical journey of 4 movie characters who are on a mission to find the King of Narnia, Liam Neeson, as Aslan the Lion.
The characters Lucy, Peter, Edmund, and Susan experience the kindness of several inhabitants of Narnia. But Aslan depicts the biggest act of kindness when he forgave Edmund, even after betraying him. Several actors behind the characters, including James McAvoy and Tilda Swinton, brought the movie to life. Thus, making it one of the best family movies.
Beauty and the Beast
The “tale as old as time” is an animated film that covers important values. Most importantly, the power of empathy and kindness. Initially repulsed by the appearance of the beast, Belle finally learns how to love the beast. She sees past his look to reveal the kindness within him.
For some, this movie may seem as a lame choice. Most of us remember this old tale since we were kids. However, as proved by many students and high-schoolers at https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/kindness/, this movie remains one of the most commonly used examples of how kindness can save the word. The romantic story of Beauty and the Beast is quite memorable thanks to its vivid characters and enchanting music while the deeds and attitude of the characters inspire students and writers on creating similar stories and using this one as a prototype of immense kindness and humanity.
Life of Pi
Imagine being stranded in the middle of the ocean with a ferocious Bengal tiger. That’s what the movie Life of Pi is about. The movie is an adaptation of the book “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. It captures the voyage of an eponymous Indian teenager adrift in the ocean, after a shipwreck. The teenager had to share a lifeboat with a tiger, Richard Parker.
At first, it was a matter of life or death. But at some point, kindness set in, and he cared for the animal, even though it tried to make a meal out of him severally. He risked his life to keep the animal alive by giving it his food. His kindness pays off as the tiger lives through the entire ordeal.
Filled with amazing acting from Suraj Sharma as Pi and stunning visual effects, Life a Pi is an epic adventure of realism. Teachers can use this movie to explain kindness to students in their lessons, and friends and family can watch it together.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Released in 1982, E.T. is one of the all-time classics. The movies cover a story of a group of aliens who visited Earth, and one of them, E.T. got lost and left behind on earth. The alien soon finds a friend and emotional support in a boy.
The film addresses kindness, empathy, compassion, and understanding. E.T. develops a powerful bond with Eliot, even though he can hardly communicate. Through this unique friendship, the alien learns about the earth, and Eliot learns the importance of standing up to others who’re commonly misunderstood.
Conclusion
The right movies teach us a lot. Besides kindness and empathy, we can also learn integrity, diversity, resilience, curiosity, etc. But, if we don’t put into practice what we learn from the movies, it’s all for nothing.
These movies will help you learn the value of putting yourself in someone’s shoe to understand the feeling and perspective of others. Let’s all strive to show love, kindness, empathy to everyone, whether people or animals.