One of the single most beautiful martial arts movies ever, House of Flying Daggers is a 2004 wuxia film directed by Zhang Yimou, it holds a two-fold look at beauty, combining traditional Wuxia films with a romance story line. House of Flying Daggers finds its place in this list principally thanks to its breathtaking martial arts action, for which it also finds itself in Arolemodel.com’s list of the best fight scenes ever. 

Okay; so The Living Planet is a TV show and not a movie but nevertheless it is breathtakingly beautiful.

The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, and is the sequel to his ground-breaking Life on Earth. The Living Planet studies how life adapts in order to survive. The Living Planet was followed by two short series: The First Eden and Lost Worlds Vanished Lives before finding its true sequel in The Trials of Life.

Sam Mendes 1999 film American Beauty, written by Alan Ball, is probably the first movie people think of when looking for Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence movies. American Beauty stars as office worker Lester Burnham, who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter’s best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). Annette Bening co-stars as Lester’s materialistic wife, Carolyn, and Thora Birch plays their insecure daughter, Jane. The film was met with much attention from film critics focussing on its explorations of romantic and paternal love, sexuality, beauty, materialism, self-liberation and redemption.

Stanley Jubrick’s  1975 period romantic war film, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray, recounts the exploits of 18th century Irish adventurer Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal).

Despite finding only moderate comercial success on release Barry Lyndon is now considered one of Kubricks’ best works and was part of Time magazine’s poll of the 100 best films in 2005 as well as the Village Voice poll conducted in 1999,  and tied for the 27th spot in Sight and Sound’s 2002 film critics poll.

The 2007 American biographical drama film directed by Sean Penn, Into The Wild is an adaptation of Jon Krakauer ‘s 1996 non-fiction  book based on Christopher McCandless journey across North America in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless with William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as his parents.

Le Peuple Migrateur

Le Peuple Migrateur is a movie of any names: Le Peuple Migrateur (French), Winged Migration (English), or The Travelling Birds (in some UK releases) or The Travelling Birds: An adventure in flight in Austalia. Whatever you call it, however, this is a stunning beautiful 2001 documentary directed by Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats and Jacques Perrin and shows the immense journeys routinely made by birds during their migrations.
The film is dedicated to the French ornithologist Jean Dorst.

The animated film based on Chris Van allsburg’s book The Polar Express was written, produced, and directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Daryl Sabara, Nona Gaye, Jimmy Bennett, and Eddie Deezen, with Tom Hanks in six different roles.

Waking Life is an animated film rotoscoped  from live action (meaning it was original a live action movie the frames of which were then turned into animations by artists) and directed by Richard Linklater and released in 2001. The film looks at consciousness, dreams and existentialism, the title being a reference to philosopher George Santayana’s maxim: “Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.”

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the second wuxia film to make it on this list. Directed by Ang Lee and featuring an international cast of ethnic Chinese actors, including Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen, Crouching Tiger Hidden Drgaon was based on the fourth novel of the Crane Iron Pentalogy, by wuxia novelist Wang Dulu.

What can be said? Enter the Dragon is the most perfect work of the great martial arts performer of all time, Bruce Lee. The film also features Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Words cannot do the beauty of this film justice. So go watch it . . . NOW!

 

America’s Heart and Soul is a 2004 film produced by Blacklight Films. America’s Heart and Soul is a documentary which shows the different cultures and lifestyles that exist in America; from a family in New Orleans to the West to the peak of Mt. Everest.

The Story of the Weeping Camel  is a 2003 German docudrama distributed by ThinkFilm released internationally in 2004. It tells the story of a family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi desert trying to save the life of a rare white bactrian camel  calf after it was rejected by its mother.

March of the Penguins depicts the yearly journey of the emperor penguins of Antarctica. In autumn, all the penguins of breeding age (five years old and over) leave the ocean, their normal habitat, to walk inland to their ancestral breeding grounds. There, the penguins participate in a courtship that, if successful, results in the hatching of a chick. For the chick to survive, both parents must make multiple arduous journeys between the ocean and the breeding grounds over the ensuing months.

Farinelli depicts the life and career of the Italian opera singer Farinelli (Stefano Dionisi), considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time. Its musical director was the French harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset. The musical recording was made at the concert hall, the Arsenal in Metz, with the orchestra Les Talens Lyriques.

Callas Forever centres on the making of a movie of Georges Bizet’s Carmen. The diva, whose now-ragged voice is well past its prime, is persuaded to star in it by longtime friend and former manager Larry Kelly, who abandoned classical music to become a rock impresario. He insists by lip-synching to her old recording she will recapture her lost youth and leave behind a priceless legacy for her admirers, and his theory is supported by Callas confidante and journalist Sarah Keller.