Movies That Get Better The Older You Get...

[Dark City Denizen]

Maybe you like them when you were young but missed the profundity in them, or something you didn’t like them earlier because your limited life experience hadn’t opened your eyes to them yet.

What are the movies that get better as you get older? Here are my top picks...

City Slickers (1991)
A League of their Own (1992)
Parenthood (1989)
High Fidelity (2000)
Stand By Me (1986)

Keen observers will note the connection between those first three.

[Martoto]

All good movies get better over time or else they sucked in the first place and you just didn't notice.

[Dark City Denizen]

Originally Posted by Martoto

All movies get better over time or else they sucked in the first place and you just didn't notice.

This is not true.

[Warm Gun]

Mulholland Drive went from above average eight years ago to very good last year.

I've watched Nikita three times in ten years, and it's gotten slightly better every time.

[CreasyBear]

Blade Runner continues to age like fine wine, as does 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Dragon78]

The two Grumpy Old Men movies come to mind

[Dark City Denizen]

Originally Posted by dragon78

the two grumpy old men movies come to mind

lol.

[Darthvaderrocks]

Civil War, Fargo, TDKR, Anything directed by Kubrick, Pulp Fiction and Dog Soldiers

[DR Herbert West]

Bubba Ho-Tep

[ArtVanderlay]

Sideways

[Monterey Jack]

Big is a lot more resonant as an adult than viewed for the first time at age fourteen.

[SlayersCouncil]

It's a Wonderful Life

I don't really like old black and white movies, but this is the exception. It gets better every time I watch it.


.

[Michael24]

I usually find this happens with movies that are focused on adult life issues, the two biggest examples for me being City Slickers and The Big Chill.

I used to watch City Slickers all the time as a kid and simply enjoyed it for the comedy. As I got older I started seeing it from an adult perspective, and a lot of the stuff with the characters dealing with mid-life issues began to stand out to me and just made the film even stronger. Billy Crystal's classroom rant about growing older used to make me laugh because it sounded so funny, and now it makes me laugh because I realize it's so true. Especially this part: "Your 20s are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, 'What happened to my twenties?'"

The first time I saw The Big Chill was back in the mid-2000s when I was only in my 20s, and I didn't think much of it. Great cast, some amusing moments, but I didn't really get it. When I saw it again a few years ago I was 37, around the same age as the characters in the film, and this time it immediately clicked with me. A saw a lot of my own questions and concerns about life and adulthood brought up, and I loved it.

[Dark City Denizen]

Originally Posted by Michael24

I usually find this happens with movies that are focused on adult life issues, the two biggest examples for me being City Slickers and The Big Chill.

I used to watch City Slickers all the time as a kid and simply enjoyed it for the comedy. As I got older I started seeing it from an adult perspective, and a lot of the stuff with the characters dealing with mid-life issues began to stand out to me and just made the film even stronger. Billy Crystal's classroom rant about growing older used to make me laugh because it sounded so funny, and now it makes me laugh because I realize it's so true. Especially this part: "Your 20s are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, 'What happened to my twenties?'"

The first time I saw The Big Chill was back in the mid-2000s when I was only in my 20s, and I didn't think much of it. Great cast, some amusing moments, but I didn't really get it. When I saw it again a few years ago I was 37, around the same age as the characters in the film, and this time it immediately clicked with me. A saw a lot of my own questions and concerns about life and adulthood brought up, and I loved it.

This is precisely why I mentioned City Slickers. It came out when I was a kid & I always found it funny, but man, how resonant now are those scenes talking about the male experience.

In a funny sort of way, it’s part of an unofficial, “All About Life” trilogy. Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel wrote this, along with Parenthood & A League of their Own. You have a film for family life, a film for the male experience, & a film for the female experience, each wrapped in the guise of a comedy. Such profound writing in every instance.

I still get a look from people when the question, “What’s your favourite Jake Gyllenhaal movie?” comes up 😂

[The Sovereign]

A Face in the Crowd
Network
Minority Report
They Live
Idiocracy
No Country for Old Men

[canucksam]

Just about anything I saw when I was younger (< 15) as I find I can appreciate them now, but didn't then. Maturity has its rewards!

[Thomas Veil]

Cast Away - I've always loved it but since getting older and add in the pandemic the positives and negatives of having time to think and how you choose to use those thoughts seems even more relevant....not to mention the sense of optimism at the end despite what came before.

[Blu Titan]

Anything Samurai or Yakuza related...well anything that does not have an American character that doesn't belong like The Last Samurai.

[Dark City Denizen]

Originally Posted by canucksam

Just about anything I saw when I was younger (< 15) as I find I can appreciate them now, but didn't then. Maturity has its rewards!

It can go the other way too, though. I love a lot of screwball comedies still, but re-watching Dumb & Dumber, that movie does not hold up to adult viewing IMO.

[Monterey Jack]

It. Viewing the original miniseries and reading the book when I was just a handful of years older than the characters as children gave me one perspective, and by the time the big-screen remake movies came out, I had a totally different one.