Do you have those movies that you just can’t help but watch, even if you own them/have seen them a thousand times? My little collection has grown over time (thanks HBO and Showtime for eating up hours of my life). Even if there’s that new TV show I want to start…or work to be done…or even if I’m in the middle of another program – if I see one of these is on, I have to watch it. I totally can’t resist – I know they’re going to make me laugh or cry or feel instantly better. They aren’t necessarily my all-time favorite movies (although The Way, Way Back and Silver Linings Playbook are certainly on that list), but they’re good enough and different enough that I’m pretty much always in the mood to watch one of them, and there’s almost always one of them playing on TV or available on demand. They’re pretty mainstream, but I thought I’d give a quick rundown of my seven must-watch movies (to convince you to watch them if you haven’t already).

1 // The Way, Way Back: My dad and I are kind of obsessed with this movie. (In all honesty, I watch it – or at least parts of it – several times a week. It’s a little insane.) I first watched it a long time ago and sort of forgot about it, but watched it again when it started popping up on HBO – and I sort of fell in love with it. Owen is one of my favorite characters ever, and the more you watch it, the more you pick up on – it really gets better every time you watch it (which is kind of hard to believe). It is seriously hysterical and surprisingly touching. If you haven’t seen it – watch it. Now.

2 // Les Misérables: I can’t imagine that anyone hasn’t seen this adaptation yet. It’s heart-wrenchingly sad, and I never make it through without crying. And the music…man, can those guys all sing.

3 // Silver Linings Playbook: This one’s also pretty popular, but for good reason. So much awesome dialogue and acting. And the dance scene at the end will never not be funny.

4 // About Time: I kind of got sucked into this movie by accident. I was having a bad/weird day, and this came on after another movie I had been watching (undoubtedly another one off this list). I had totally thought this was one of those horrendously cheesy Nicholas Sparks-esq movies, but it’s surprisingly not. I mean, it is a romantic comedy, but it’s also sci-fi – the movie is actually about the concept of time, as the title says. The whole romance only takes up the first half hour or so, and there are some cheesy but valuable life lessons mixed in. It’s such a lovely movie, and I bawl hysterically at the end.

5 // The Grand Budapest Hotel: This movie is aesthetically perfect. And the whole plot is quirky and bizarre and funny, which matches perfectly. Again, something you need to watch now if you haven’t already.

6 // The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Two things regarding this movie: one, the soundtrack is perfect. Two, it feeds my wanderlust like nothing else. Let that be a warning.

7 // Elizabethtown: This is kind of a bizarre movie, and one I came across by chance – I’d never actually heard of it before. It’s funny, and a little weird – Kirsten Dunst’s character is strange and amazing – it’s a unique movie about family and optimism (I suppose, that’s basically what I took from it).

Images from Wikipedia and IMDb

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