One of the movies that made the greatest effect on my life was Life is Beautiful.  I was first interested in this movie when I saw its director jump over seats and people at the Oscars to accept his award.  Then I watched the movie, with subtitles, and found it very touching.  It is funny and sad at once, just like life.

I know that this makes me sound pretty sappy and melodramatic, but the movie that had the greatest long term effect on me was Rocky. I found it to be a very inspiring story. I think most of this effect is due to the fact that Rocky doesn't win the fight at the end, but he is still happy with where he is. He changed his goal from winning to "going the distance," with Creed, and this gave the story such a realistic and meaningful human element that it lifted the movie above all the other similar stories. It was a brilliant plot detail that changed and deepened the impact of the entire movie.

The film that made the greatest impression on me was Brief Encounter (1946). It wasn't the love story but the musical score that changed my life. The whole movie was accompanied by Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. I knew nothing about classical music before I saw that film. I had never realized there could be so much emotional and intellectual depth to music. I bought the record and listened to it over and over. Then I began attending concerts and discovering other composers who appealed to me, starting with Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Classical music has been an important part of my life for many years. I have watched the movie several times over the years and am still impressed by the way the music is woven into the story and the story seems woven into the music.

I would have to say that Red Dawn, 1984, with Patrick Swayze, made the biggest impact on my life. My father was a Viet Nam veteran and required each one of his children to see that movie to understand why it is better to fight wars on someone else's land than it is to have the war come to us. At the height of the Cold War, and being an 8-year old at the time, I was greatly concerned that one day I would have to jump into a truck with random supplies and head for the hills for survival. I seriously thought that by the time I was 30, we'd be invaded by the Russians and living in the mountains trying to battle our oppressors. It has been interesting to see how history has played out since then.