10 MOVIES ABOUT DEATH & GRIEF
More often than not when we talk about celebrancy, it is in relation to weddings. Sometimes a qualified celebrant is called on to officiate at other ceremonies including funerals. In past blogs we’ve talked about:
Funeral Poems
10 POEMS FOR FAREWELLING AT FUNERALS – Rose Training Australia
Irreverent Funeral Songs
10 Fun & Appropriately Inappropriate Funeral Songs – Rose Training Australia
And whether it is okay to –
Put the Fun in Funerals
Is It Appropriate To Put The Fun In Funeral? – Rose Training Australia
As humans we will often draw inspiration from art and culture and so today I thought we could list a few films that come at death from different angles, whether that’s in anticipating your end or dealing with grief after the loss of a loved one.
Here are 10 Movies About Death & Grief
1. Meet Joe Black (1998)
Let’s start with one where “Death” is personified and is the main character.
Death, played by a young Brad Pitt at the peak of his good-lookingness that had all the girls’ hearts aflutter, visits 65-year-old Bill to tell him it’s time to go. Bill strikes a deal with Death to live a few extra days so that he can get his affairs in order. With those extra days Death (taking on the name Joe Black) gets to feel what it’s like to be alive on earth, including eating peanut butter straight.
2. P.S. I Love You (2007)
Gerard Butler went from playing a ripped Spartan warrior in the hit 300, to jumping into a romance centred around loss. In this film he plays a husband who dies, leaving his wife (played by Hilary Swank) as a young widow. On the morning of her 30th birthday she receives a letter from her husband, followed by 9 more letters which he had planned and set up to be delivered after his death. The letters help ease the pain in her mourning and help her find a new outlook on life.
3. We Bought a Zoo (2011)
When his wife is suddenly taken from him, a man decides to take his young family, escape the rat-race and sink his money into a struggling zoo.
4. The Bucket List (2007)
The play-off between two of our world’s most iconic actors, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman is worth the watch in itself. Two old men bearing down on the end of their lives find themselves sharing a hospital room. After talking about and sharing their bucket lists, they decide to sneak out of the hospital to complete each activity.
5. The Sixth Sense (1999)
This highly acclaimed psychological thriller tells the tale of a bond that forms between a young boy who claims that he can see the dead, and his child psychologist. If you haven’t seen it yet make sure you stay well away from the spoiler that had everyone talking at the turn of the millennium.
6. Stand By Me (1986)
Four intrepid boys venture out into nature to find the body of a stranger they had heard tales of. A stranger who had been in an accident but who’s body hadn’t been found and reported on. As morbid as that sounds, this Stephen King penned story is more about death and danger being a bonding experience for those who experience it together. As it does for the film characters, it causes the audience to get a little introspective about their own lives.
7. My Girl (1991)
This is one of those sentimental movies that kids and teens of the 90s remember fondly. It’s about learning to work through death in a healthy manner. Starring Macaulay Culkin (a year after Home Alone rocketed him to stardom,) Anna Chlumsky, Jamie-Lee Curtis and Dan Akroyd, this stellar cast make this simple, small town story resonate.
8. Beetlejuice (1988)
This Tim Burton classic may have dated a little but the quirkiness of acting, plot and scenery keeps it well and truly in the frame when discussing beloved cult classics. A couple die in a car accident without realising at first that they have died. When they return home, they realise that they can’t leave their home and they are in fact stuck in a kind of purgatory. When some new uppity tenants decide to buy and move into the deceased couple’s home the couple employ the services of a devious ghost named Beetlegeuse to help scare them off.
9. Coco (2017)
Another critical hit from the Disney Pixar machine. This is a truly heart melting tale told with animated colour and music. Miguel is a young kid and aspiring musician who travels to the Land of the Dead where he seeks to break his family’s ban on performing music that has spanned generations thanks to his great-great-grandfather’s musician lifestyle having hurt his kin.
This article was brought to you by Rose Training Australia
Planning a funeral can be a highly emotional and exhausting challenge. Oftentimes a family will look for assistance to help design a personalised, unique send off for their recently departed loved one that will capture and share the spirit of who that person was.
Can you imagine yourself in a role where you get to meet the challenge of designing a farewell around the deceased’s wishes, their personality, their culture and more?
Talk to us now about the track to becoming a qualified and nationally recognised Funeral Celebrant.
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