10 Films For Stress Relief

National Stress Awareness Month. Seems kinda silly. Most of us are already extremely aware of our stress. It bombards us all the time, from all directions, and feels inescapable. And often the typical advice for stress-reduction can itself feel stressful. Exercise! (I have neither time, nor energy) Eat healthy! (nutritious food is expensive and food prep takes forever), Reduce caffeine! (okay, I’ll just stop functioning altogether, I guess), Spend time with friends! (again, WHAT TIME?), Take a yoga class! (that’s nice. You paying?)

But if you’re here, you’re probably already carving out time regularly to watch movies, which—when used correctly—can be great stress relievers. Movies can help in a number of ways:

  • Connection. Feeling like we aren’t alone in our troubles can do so much. Connecting with a character or seeing our struggles laid out in film may ease our woes.

  • Motivation. Watching a character succeed despite difficult circumstances can help restore our belief in what is possible. Sometimes that’s all we need to take that all-important first step.

  • Optimism. As a stalwart cynic I’m internally rolling my eyes a bit here, but even I can’t deny it: A positive outlook is vital to success. Belief that good will triumph, that hard work will be rewarded, that love conquers all—without that, it can feel impossible to go on. The right movie can help realign our worldview, reminding us that there is actually good out there. 

  • Laughter. “Laughter is the best medicine.” There’s a reason for the cliché. It’s been thoroughly researched—laughing acts on dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine to promote relaxation and wellbeing, and has health benefits akin to exercise. Some of the surprising effects: better heart health, lower blood pressure, better ability to fight infection, increased pain tolerance, and decreased anxiety, both short- and long-term. (If you’re interested in the details check out this scientific article that lays out laughter’s physiological effects.)

  • Catharsis. Sometimes feeling bad can actually help us feel good. Tearjerkers or movies that let us go through the full range of emotion can clear out negative feelings that have been piling up inside of us. For stress reduction though, it’s important to choose those that end on a high note!

Ready to de-stress? 

Here are ten movies that tick multiple of the above boxes, and which leave me feeling like I was just hugged by a Care Bear, in a bubble bath, while watching funny cat videos, and being told by my professional idol that I’ll get there someday… *Note: Film descriptions may contain spoilers!

#10: Leap of Faith (1992)

“I believe in life—what it does to you, and what you do back.”

Jonas Nightengale (Steve Martin) is an enigmatic preacher who runs a traveling tent revival. He delivers rousing and inspiring sermons, bolsters people’s faith and love in their Lord, and even heals the sick. There’s only one problem—it’s all a scam. When his traveling show breaks down in the struggling agricultural town of Rustwater, Kansas—a town plagued by bad harvests, massive unemployment, and home foreclosure, and whose crops are in dire need of rain—he decides to set up there instead of his original destination, the more lucrative Topeka. Jonas uses all his considerable gifts as a conman (with the assistance of his crew- Debra Winger, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Meat Loaf) to bleed the town of every last cent. Not really the makings of a feel-good story. But wait! When the town’s crippled orphan boy (Lukas Haas) suddenly regains the ability to walk, this real-life miracle causes a wrinkle and a crossroads. Jonas could exploit the circumstances and take the boy on the road, using him as a shill to really rake in the dough (err… I mean, donations). In the end, Jonas can’t bring himself to corrupt the innocent boy, and is instead changed by him, and he flees in the night, just as the sky opens up, drenching the grateful town with its much-needed rain (another miracle!). 

The tensions between faith and cynicism, the entertaining backstage look of the swindle, the frequent, gorgeous gospel music, some great jokes, a well-placed Liam Neeson as the distrustful Sheriff, and (of course) the redemption arc of not one but two characters combine to make Leap of Faith one of my favorites for when I need a smile.

Stress Soothers: personal growth, joyous music, letting go of pain/trauma, zen moments

Stress-Relief Score: 6/10

#9: Practical Magic (1998)

“Being normal is not necessarily a virtue—it rather denotes a lack of courage!”

Conventional Sally (Sandra Bullock) and her free-spirited sister Gillian (Nicole Kidman) are a little different than most people. They’re orphans, they’re the town outcasts, and they’re witches, from a long line. After the family curse claims Sally’s beloved husband, she and her two daughters go to stay with her aunts (Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing) in the (literally) magical house where she grew up. Sally’s grief is interrupted by Gillian, who needs help to leave her controlling, abusive boyfriend. The pair accidentally kill the boyfriend while attempting to escape and, fearing the consequences, try to raise him from the dead. Instead, they end up with his spirit haunting them and a handsome, moral law enforcement officer (Aidan Quinn) investigating his disappearance. 

It’s a film about sisterhood, love, grief, empowerment, and midnight margaritas; a metaphor for the way bad relationships can haunt us; and a warning that fear of getting hurt can stop us from truly living. It’s funny, adventurous, and uplifting, with just a hint of spookiness. And, let’s face it, everyone secretly wishes they could just point their fingers and give their bullies chicken pox.

Stress Soothers:  Letting go of pain/trauma, acting selflessly, idyllic setting, happily ever after

Stress-Relief Score: 6/10

#8: Free Guy (2021)

“Don’t have a good day. Have a great day!”

Guy (Ryan Reynolds) was just an average guy (hence the name).  Life was drab, boring, and repetitive. Every day he would put on a blue shirt and khakis, go to work at the bank, then have a couple of beers with his best friend. But Guy was supremely happy with this simple life, finding joy in the mundane (medium coffee, cream, two sugars!). With one exception—he always felt like he was missing something, that special someone to take a good day and make it into a great day. Then one day he finds her, and his life can never be the same. Oh, and did I mention Guy is actually a super advanced algorithm existing in the background of an ultra-violent massive multiplayer online game? And that the girl of his dreams (Jodie Comer) is a real-world person who also happens to be the one who wrote his programming? In Guy’s pursuit of “molotovgirl,” he’s finally brave enough to step out of his comfort zone. He learns to play the game, but does it his own way, with a Batman-esque mentality of righting wrongs and helping the little guy. And through a cascading series of events, he ends up saving the world (well… his world).

Free Guy is sweet, heartwarming, incredibly funny, and massively entertaining. You can spend an entire viewing just watching the background and reading the labels in the Free City world—my personal favorite is a floating bottle of Aviation Gin labelled “subtle product placement.” The entire movie is essentially Ryan Reynolds in a Looney Tunes cartoon. Yet it manages to be relatable because we’ve all felt like background characters at some point, going along our daily routines while crazy events just happen around us. And maybe in the grand scheme of things we are background characters. But we are each the main character in our own story, and the things we do—big and small—can end up changing things in big ways.

Stress Soothers: Personal growth, achieving goals, acting selflessly, laugh-out-loud moments

Stress-Relief Score: 6/10

#7: Game Night (2018)

“I’ve always enjoyed the camaraderie of good friends competing in games of chance or skill.”

Married couple Max and Annie (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams) bonded over their competitive nature and their love of all kinds of games. Together they are a powerhouse team that is rarely beaten in their regular game nights with family and friends. But the one person Max has never been able to beat (in games, or in life) is his older brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler). So it’s no surprise that Brooks has to one-up him even on the structure of game night itself, staging a kidnapping mystery instead of a typical trivia or board game. In fact, all three couples are impressed by the elaborate nature of the abduction scene, with armed men breaking into the house and dragging Brooks away after an epic fight. So off they go, each team determined to be the victor. After some hilarity, they realize that Brooks is mixed up in shady dealings and that the kidnapping was real.

There’s no grand message behind this one, nor a ton of emotion. There’s actually nothing really exceptional about the plot either—how many times have we seen a story where someone gets kidnapped and an unlikely cast of characters have to navigate a surprising criminal underworld to get them back? The beauty of Game Night is all in the execution: witty banter, silly one-liners, and perfect joke delivery. It’s a fun movie that is just constantly laugh-out-loud funny, with a great cast. Billy Magnussen as the handsome moron and Jesse Plemons as the straightman are particularly good. “3-for-1? How can that be profitable for Frito Lay?”

Stress Soothers: Laugh-out-loud moments, acting selflessly, personal growth, reconciling difficult relationships

Stress-Relief Score: 6/10

#6: Brittany Runs A Marathon (2019)

“It’s starting to feel like everyone’s lives are going places, and mine’s sort of stuck.”

One day you’re fresh into the adult world with ambitions, plans, and a bright outlook on life. Then the next thing you know, your career path has taken an indefinite detour, and you’ve fallen into an unhealthy lifestyle marked by too much partying. At least that’s how it is for Brittany (Jillian Bell). Resolving to be healthier without breaking the bank, she sets out for her first run. Then little by little, the mileage goes up, and the number on the bathroom scale goes down. More than the physical results though, she likes the feeling of taking control of her life by having a goal. So she decides to set a BIG goal—to run the New York City marathon. Change isn’t always without heartache, though. As she grows close to two new running friends (Micah Stock and Michaela Watkins), she drifts away from her unsupportive, insecure Instagram-influencer roommate (Alice Lee), who, besides having no interest, can’t join Brittany on runs because “if I do too much cardio, I get too skinny too fast.”  Running the marathon is a more complicated goal than it seems though, and it changes her life in surprising ways. Brittany ultimately has to confront her negative view of herself, her tendency to shut people out, and her lack of career direction, on top of nursing herself through an overuse injury that threatens to keep her sidelined on the day of the race.

Brittany is kind of a hot mess, and I personally find that endlessly relatable. A story of someone striving for a goal is always inspiring, but this one is also hilarious. 

Stress Soothers: Achieving goals, letting go of pain/trauma, personal growth, laugh-out-loud moments

Stress-Relief Score: 6/10

#5: Spirited (2022)

“It’s an every day decision—two steps forward, one step back. But if you try to do what’s right, you’re on the right track.”

Who says it needs to be Christmastime to watch a Christmas movie? Seriously. Point them out, and I’ll slap them. In my book, Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds dancing and singing about how “Good Afternoon” used to be a curse is a wonderful, anytime indulgence.  As a musical version of A Christmas Carol, Spirited contains all the usual moral messages of that tale: money doesn’t equal happiness, kindness and compassion are paramount, and we have the power to change people’s lives in bigger ways than we know. But by flipping the script and telling us the story from the perspective of the ghosts, particularly the Ghost of Christmas Past—a redeemed soul who is still obsessed with improving the world to atone for his misdeeds—it gives us a few others. Specifically, to forgive ourselves for past mistakes, to have faith in our own goodness, to always follow our personal moral compass, to realize that friends and family are the true measure of success, and to understand that change doesn’t have to come all at once.

An adult reimagining of a classic tale (well… PG-13), with two comic powerhouses and a moving-yet-funny Octavia Spencer, filled with toe-tapping original music AND inspiring messages? Sign me up. Spirited affected me more than I expected, and the song “Do A Little Good” has become my motivating song and unofficial mantra for personal growth, reminding me that some days are going to be harder than others, and some days I may even fail… but that doesn’t make me a failure.

Stress soothers: Joyous music, laugh-out-loud moments, letting go of pain/trauma, acting selflessly, personal growth

Stress-Relief Score: 7/10

#4: This Is Where I Leave You (2014)

“Anything can happen. Anything happens all the time.”

Things are going well for Judd Altman (Jason Bateman, again). That is, until he walks in on his wife in bed with his boss. And then, while avoiding dealing with that, he gets a call from his sister Wendy (Tina Fey) telling him that his ailing father has just passed away. That would be bad enough, but it turns out that his father’s dying wish was for his non-religious family to sit shiva for him. Information for the gentiles: sitting shiva is essentially a seven day ritual where the family remains together at home and mourns—think of a week-long funeral. And that’s exactly as off-putting to Judd and his grown siblings (Corey Stoll and Adam Driver, in addition to the aforementioned Tina Fey) as you would expect, since they have spouses, kids, jobs, busy lives, and/or enabling former-therapist girlfriends to tend to. Not surprisingly, being stuck in the same house where they grew up revives sibling rivalries and old issues like childhood friends and crushes. 

It's not often that I’ve found a movie that both makes me laugh uproariously and sends tears streaming down my face, but This Is Where I Leave You did that. It’s a lovely meditation on the realities of grief, the frustrating but indispensable nature of family, and the way to move forward when things fall apart. And it contains a wealth of life lessons, such as to always open a window when you’re smoking pot during Temple, lest you set off the sprinkler system.

Stress Soothers: Laugh-out-loud moments, loving unconditionally, personal growth, reconciling difficult relationships

Stress-Relief Score: 7/10

#3: A Good Year (2006)

“This place just doesn’t suit my life.”  –  “No, Max. It is your life that doesn’t suit this place.”

Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) is a high-powered London banker who is called to Provence when his Uncle Henry (Albert Finney) dies intestate, leaving his rustic chateau and vineyard to Max, as his only living relative. The trip coincides with a suspension following a questionable stock trade being investigated by the authorities. In typical banker fashion, at first all Max can see of his inheritance are pound signs (the pound sterling, that is), and quickly moves to sell the place, pushing away any residual sentimentality from the summers he spent there as a boy. A few things hinder his quick payout though—the rundown house and ramshackle grounds, the undrinkable wine produced by the vineyard, and a surprise visit from a young American woman (Abbie Cornish) who may be Henry’s illegitimate child. While attempting to solve these problems and get back to his life in London, Max falls a bit in love with the place, and with the short-tempered local goddess (Marion Cotillard) he meets through a series of unlucky encounters. In the space of a week he learns that the situation, like wine, is more complex than it seems at first taste, and that the idyllic rural life might have more to offer him than he knows.  

Don’t we all wish we could slow down sometimes? Leave behind our fast-paced lives and sink into a lazy, hedonistic existence in a beautiful locale? To learn that there is so much more to life than making money? Well, now you can—for two hours, at least. A Good Year is light-hearted and sweet, with notes of comedy, and a smooth finish of self-discovery. And if you’re not sold yet… it’s also directed by Ridley Scott.

Stress Soothers: Idyllic setting, living simply, personal growth, laugh-out-loud moments, pleasing accents, zen moments, happily ever after

Stress-Relief Score: 8/10

#2: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

“Everything will be alright in the end. If it is not alright, it is not yet the end.”

A very unconventional ensemble film which follows seven elder Brits who move to Jaipur, India to retire at the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” which turns out to be considerably less luxurious than pictured in the brochure. The cast of characters includes new widow Evelyn (Judi Dench) who spent her life relying on her husband and is ready to get out of her comfort zone, xenophobic former domestic worker Muriel (Maggie Smith) who is only in India for a hip replacement without the six-month wait, high court judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson) who has returned to the country where he grew up to find a loved one from his past, married couple Douglas and Jean (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton) who can’t afford to retire in the UK after investing their savings in their daughter’s internet venture, self-imagined ladies man Norman (Ronald Pickup) who is looking for one last fling, and endless romantic Madge (Celia Imrie) who has come looking for love and adventure. The film follows the ups and downs of this varied group as they navigate unmet expectations, culture shock, and new friendships under the guidance of the young, well-intentioned but inept hotel proprietor Sonny (Dev Patel), who is also struggling with his failing business and a controlling mother who wants him to forget the woman he loves and agree to an arranged marriage.

All of the characters are realistic portrayals of good people trying to do their best with lives that haven’t turned out exactly as they hoped. Their intertwined stories bring us meditations on aging, acceptance, self-belief, friendship, and love. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is heartwarming, inspiring, joyful, sad, and funny. It’s a film that leaves me with an intense feeling of contentment (as oxymoronic as that sounds). 

Stress Soothers: Zen moments, living simply, personal growth, laugh-out-loud moments, idyllic setting, pleasing accents

Stress-Relief Score: 9/10

#1: About Time (2013)

“We’re all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.”

When Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) is 21, his father (Bill Nighy, again) lets him in on a secret—the men in their family have the ability to travel back in time, to revisit any moment of their lives. Tim decides, with his father’s guidance, to use the gift to find love. After some initial disappointment, he meets and has a wonderful night with a lovely girl (Rachel McAdams, again), but that night is erased when he goes back to help a friend avoid professional embarrassment. It takes a bit of trial and error, but from information he gleaned in their first meeting, he’s able to reverse engineer a new perfect first date with her. In some films that would be the entirety of the movie, but for About Time, that’s just the jumping off point. The two marry and Tim continues to use his gift throughout their young lives to right wrongs, help loved ones, visit those who’ve passed on, and learn about what is truly important in life.

About Time is very unique. Unlike most films that torture the characters in order to move the plot forward, in this one there is no bad guy, and there really is no central conflict. There aren’t many (if any) situations where you’re yelling at the screen, imploring them to make better choices. There are some difficult moments the characters must navigate, but mostly you’re just going along with them, experiencing the good and the less good, watching them do their best to live rightly and appreciate the time they have. The descriptor that keeps resounding in my head when I think of this is lovely. Lovely people, lovely story, lovely message… a truly lovely way to spend an evening.

Stress Soothers: Living simply, loving unconditionally, acting selflessly, personal growth, laugh-out-loud moments, idyllic setting, pleasing accents, zen moments, achieving goals, happily ever after

Stress-Relief Score: 10/10

Making this list (and especially rewatching these films in preparation) was an absolute joy. And the best part about it is there are many more that I could have included, and, I’m sure, many other films that would fit alongside these that I don’t even know about. We can all use a little less stress and a little more joy, so please, reach out to me and to Movie Friends on Twitter and let us know some of your favorite films for stress relief!

Stay safe and healthy, and Happy National Stress Awareness Month!

Stephanie Kennerley

Stephanie is a writer, student of life, embracer of clichés, and lost soul. A regular girl with too many thoughts who really loves movies, she lives in her dreams and resides in the middle of nowhere with her two dogs.

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