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Best Hopeful Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of hopeful cinema — measured across 2,597 indexed frames from 33 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Hopeful films over-index on boy, clouds and trench coat — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    The Iron Giant (1999)

    Brad BirdDP Steven WilzbachIMDb 8.1TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    This is the story of a nine-year-old boy named Hogarth Hughes who makes friends with an innocent alien giant robot that came from outer space. Meanwhile, a paranoid U.S. Government agent named Kent Mansley arrives in town, determined to destroy the giant at all costs. It's up to Hogarth to protect him by keeping him at Dean McCoppin's place in the junkyard.

  2. 2

    Great Expectations (1998)

    Alfonso CuarónDP Emmanuel LubezkiIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Based on Charles Dickens' timeless tale, this is a story of the love of a man for an unreachable woman. Updated to modern-day New York City, the story concerns a man of modest background who falls in love with a rich girl. But when a mysterious benefactor greenlights the man to make his dreams come true, everything done has the ultimate goal of making Estella fall in love with him.

  3. 3

    Fanny and Alexander (1982)

    Ingmar BergmanDP Sven NykvistIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    It's the early twentieth century Sweden. Adolescent siblings Alexander and Fanny Ekdahl lead a relatively joyous and exuberant life with their well-off extended paternal family, led by the family matriarch, their grandmother, Helena Ekdahl. The openness of the family culture is exemplified by Helena's now deceased husband ending up becoming best friends with one of her lovers, a Jewish puppet maker named Isak Jacobi, and their Uncle Gustav Adolf's open liaison with one of the family maids, Maj, who everyone in the family adores, even Gustav Adolf's wife, Alma. Between the siblings, Alexander in particular has inherited the family's love of storytelling, his parents and his grandmother who are actors and who manage their own theater. Things change for Alexander and Fanny when their father, Oscar, dies shortly after Christmas 1907. Although she truly does believe she loves him, the children's mother, Emilie, decides to marry Bishop Edvard Vergérus, who she first met as the officiate at Oscar's funeral. She also wants a father figure for the children. Going into the marriage, Emilie has inclinations that it will be a much different life than she had with the Ekdahls, but is not prepared for the harsh, austere and strict life Edvard rules with an iron fist. Emilie, Alexander and Fanny end up being prisoners in the bishop's stark and humorless house. As Alexander butts head with his stepfather and tries to learn how to keep to his own principles while obeying Edvard, Emilie tries to figure out a way to regain her and her children's own destiny, as Edvard will not consent to divorce, and her "desertion" in the eyes of the law means that Alexander and Fanny would become his wards.

  4. 4

    The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

    Peter JacksonDP Andrew LesnieIMDb 8.8TMDB 8.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Frodo Baggins and the other members of the Fellowship continue on their sacred quest to destroy the One Ring--but on separate paths. Their destinies lie at two towers--Orthanc Tower in Isengard, where the corrupt wizard Saruman awaits, and Sauron's fortress at Barad-dur, deep within the dark lands of Mordor. Frodo and Sam are trekking to Mordor to destroy the One Ring of Power while Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn search for the orc-captured Merry and Pippin. All along, nefarious wizard Saruman awaits the Fellowship members at the Orthanc Tower in Isengard.

  5. 5

    Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)

    Dave BullockIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Adapting the award-winning DC Comics miniseries DC: THE NEW FRONTIER by Darwyn Cooke, Justice League: The New Frontier spins a tale of the DC Universe in the 1950s, focusing on test pilot Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) and the Martian Manhunter. The story also features other DC characters, including Barry Allen (the Flash), Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and many more.

  6. 6

    Highlander (1986)

    Russell MulcahyDP Gerry FisherIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    In New York City, the owner of a sophisticated antique shop Russell Edwin Nash is challenged to a sword fight in the parking lot of the Madison Square Garden by a man called Iman Fasil that is beheaded by Russell. He hides his sword and is arrested by the police while leaving the stadium. Russell recalls his life in the sixteenth century in Scotland, when he is Connor MacLeod, and is fatally wounded in a battle against another Clan. However, he surprisingly survives and his Clan believes he has a pact with the devil and expels him from their lands. Then he meets Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, who explains that he is immortal unless he is beheaded. Further, the immortals dispute a game killing each other and in the end only one survives receiving a prize with the power of the other immortals. Russell is released by the police, but the snoopy forensic agent Brenda J. Wyatt is attracted by the case since she found fragments of an ancient Katana and follows Russell. But the also immortal Kurgan is hunting down MacLeod, and Brenda is in the middle of their battle.

  7. 7

    Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

    Hayao MiyazakiDP Atsushi OkuiIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    A love story between an 18-year-old girl named Sophie, cursed by a witch into an old woman's body, and a magician named Howl. Under the curse, Sophie sets out to seek her fortune, which takes her to Howl's strange moving castle. In the castle, Sophie meets Howl's fire demon, named Karishifâ. Seeing that she is under a curse, the demon makes a deal with Sophie--if she breaks the contract he is under with Howl, then Karushifâ will lift the curse that Sophie is under, and she will return to her 18-year-old shape.

  8. 8

    Gravity (2013)

    Alfonso CuarónDP Emmanuel LubezkiIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer, is on her first Shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The Shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone-tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness of space. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.

  9. 9

    The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

    Wes AndersonDP Robert D. YeomanIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.

  10. 10

    Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

    Gus Van SantDP Robert D. YeomanIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

What hopeful films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a hopeful frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — boy is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • boy3.1×
  • clouds2.1×
  • trench coat1.9×
  • water1.7×
  • chair1.5×

How hopeful films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate hopeful from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 24%widevs 20% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,597 frames from 33 films carrying the hopeful label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/hopeful

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used