6 Movies To Watch If You Love To Read or Write

Written by Blake Smith

Writing. It’s something we all love to do or you wouldn’t be reading this. Whether it’s pouring your heart out in a journal, releasing your innermost feelings from pen to page, or creating another world where your characters become a part of your family: writing is cathartic and can be truly magical. However, sometimes those thoughts and ideas can be hard to transfer to paper and we need some inspiration.

Read on to discover 6 movies that will inspire you to be a better writer and get the creative juices flowing!

Midnight in Paris

“No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.”

Take a nostalgic journey back to 1920’s Paris in the golden age of jazz and writing with this beautifully scripted Woody Allen film. Gill Pender is a writer, who like some of us, is having trouble finding his voice. Who better to help find it than Ernest Hemmingway, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein! You will be swept away by the music (featuring Cole Porter), art (featuring Picasso), and magic of the dazzling city of Paris. This movie captures what a writer’s life looked like in the 20’s and will inspire you to write like one of the greats!

Stuck in Love

“I remember that it hurt, looking at her hurt.”

That beautiful, profound first line hooks you in the opening scene. Stephen King says, “The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away.” The quote resonates with this post because this movie is very close to my heart for various reasons.

Stuck in Love is about a family of talented writers who can put words on paper, but have trouble communicating them to the people who matter the most. As writers, it’s easy for us to manifest our feelings through our characters, but when reality sets in, it can be hard to voice those feelings.

There’s a scene where one of the main characters quotes his favourite book saying, “I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moved, not even when the room went dark. And I think that that’s what writing is, it’s listening for that beating heart. And when we hear it, it’s our job to decipher it, to the best of our abilities.”

As writers, it’s our job to tell the stories others can’t. We are in constant search of that beating heart and we won’t sleep until we’ve found it. This movie will have you binge writing for days, whispering your deepest secrets to your notebook.

Saving Mr. Banks

“That’s what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.”

Are you emotionally invested in your characters? Would you turn down fame and fortune to stop someone from tinkering with them? If so, you’re probably a lot like P.L. Travers. Saving Mr. Banks follows Walt Disney and his 20-year quest of trying to acquire the rights to Mary Poppins from Mrs. Travers. The score is brilliant and the movie will melt your heart bringing you to the realisation of how influential characters in our stories can sometimes be. But honestly, what else would you expect from Disney?

The Words

“You have to choose between life and fiction. The two are very close, but they never actually touch. They’re two very, very different things.”

How far would you go to make yourself a successful writer? Would you stoop as low as stealing someone’s work and claiming it as your own?

The Words focuses on Rory (Bradley Cooper) who is an unsuccessful troubled writer that finds and old manuscript in an antique briefcase. Once he reads it, Rory knows he has found something special and publishes the work as his own. After receiving much acclaim for the novel, the original author finds Rory and teaches him the real lesson behind writing. This mystery/thriller will make you think twice before plagiarizing!

Spotlight

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”

Spotlight is the name of the investigative journalism team for The Boston Globe. During the early 2000’s, the team seeks out to uncover a sexual abuse scandal that the Roman Catholic Church has been trying for years to keep quiet. Spotlight brings to light (pun intended) the importance of investigative journalism and how our words can be one of the greatest sources of justice.

Misery

“I’m your number one fan. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re going to be just fine. I will take good care of you. I’m your number one fan.”

This Stephen King adaptation brings a whole new meaning to term “fangirling”. Successful author Paul Sheldon should consider himself lucky after being saved from a near fatal car crash by one of his greatest obsessive fans. After being nursed back to health, Paul realises that he might not be the patient anymore, but rather the prisoner. His rescuer’s obsession becomes too much and Paul’s only path to freedom relies on his writing. Could you write if your life depended on it?

Did we leave any great movies about writing out? If so, please feel free to comment below or tell us which one of these is your favourite!