As many of you may know, I’m a huge fan of self-love. To make a conscious decision to love and accept yourself is one of themost powerful things that you can do for your mindset and well-being.
So naturally, as a self-growth junkie, I enjoy movies thatcan inspire as well as teach us a lot about the human experienceand how to love ourselves as we are.
The list of movies we have put together has the full spectrum of deep impactful movies, and lighter romantic comedies with a feel good message. Either way, all of these movies offera great way to inspire yourself and motivate you to reach for your goals.
So, if you feel like you don’t love yourself and can’t seem to get there, check out these self-love movies to get inspired and pumped up. We will walk you through some of the best movies to get motivated.
Self-Love is about loving yourself enough to accept who you are and the things that you have done. It’s about embracing who you are, even if you’re not perfect. It’s about accepting your past and present and embracing your future, knowing it’s going to be great.
Best Inspirational and Self Love Movies
Settle down with your favorite snacks and drinks, and maybe a friend or two. It’s time to take an hour or two for some self care and pick out a movie to watch that is going to recharge and uplift you.
Here are a few of our favorite self love movie suggestions You can find many of these on Netflix or Amazon video.
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
- I Feel Pretty
- Wild
- Legally Blonde
- Eat Pray Love
- The Pursuit of Happyness
- Inside Out
- Precious
- How to be Single
- A Beautiful Mind
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Eighth Grade
- Hidden Figures
- Encanto
- Book Smart
- Pretty Woman
- Shawshank Redemption
- Karate Kid
- Goodwill Hunting
- Hunger Games
- Yes Man
- Breakfast Club
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Ben stiller stars and directs in this movie all about Walter Mitty, a negative asset manager at Life magazine. Walter Mitty is a daydreamer, and in his mind he sees himself as a hero.
Although his real life is boring and conventional, he escapes this with his mind and in the end he comes through as a hero in reality. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty encourages us to let go of the things holding us back, and dare to dream.
Life is about courage and going into the unknown.
– The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
I feel Pretty
This movie comes up a lot when you’re looking for self confidence and self love movie recommendations. It is a comedy movie, but has a really strong message. This movie, featuring Amy Schumer, tells the story of a woman named Renee Bennett who wakes up from an accident believing that she is supermodel beautiful, after having struggled with insecurity her whole life.
Her new attitude empowers her to life fearlessly and confidently, but what happens when she realises her appearance never really changed?
We do not have to be a beauty queen – what would happen if we just believe we are?
Wild
Starring Reese Witherspoon, as Cheryl Strayed, Wild is a movie about self discovery, survival and grief.
After the sudden death of her mother, 26 year old American writer Cheryl Strayed hiked 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in a 94 day trek. This movie is based on Cheryl’s true story, and has so many inspirational moments for us to relate to, and learn from.
“But I wasn’t out here to keep myself from having to say I’m not afraid. I’d come, I realised, to stare that fear down, to stare everything down really… I couldn’t do that while tagging along with someone else.”
Cheryl Strayed – Wild
Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde is another Reese Witherspoon movie, with a different vibe but equally as empowering in it’s own way! This is one of the best romantic comedy movies for female empowerment, and main character Elle Woods is an absolute baddie.
Representing in court, displaying the power of female intelligence, loyalty and female solidarity, and of never allowing yourself to be under estimated, Legally Blonde is one of the best feel good movies to watch over and over again.
“You must always have faith in people.And most important, you must always have faith in yourself.”
Elle Woods – Legally Blonde
Reese Witherspoon herself is just as iconic in real life. She founded her own production company Hello Sunshine and has a feminist commitment to telling women’s stories, and centering women in every story they create. We stan!
Eat Pray Love
Julia Roberts stars as Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love which is based on a true story.
After realising how unhappy her marriage really is, she goes travelling to find and reconnect with her true self and discover happiness.
There’s a crack in everyone, that’s how the light of God gets in
– Eat Pray Love
The Pursuit of Happyness
This is an iconic movie, telling a true story that will stay with you for days after watching. Will smith plays struggling salesman Chris Gardner and his real life son Jaden smith plays his 5 year old son in the movie.
This inspiring and heart-warming movie takes us through the true story of a man overcoming homelessness and rising up from rock bottom.
Fun fact: the spelling of happiness (happyness) comes from a poster seen outside his son’s daycare
Inside Out
This Disney movie may be aimed at kids but it has messages for all of us. It is one of our Disney Pixar favorites! In this movie, pre-teen girl Riley moves across the country settling in a new home, new school and new everything.
We see her struggles from the perspective of the different emotions who live inside her brain. In the end, this is a story about accepting and learning to love all of her emotions even the so called negative ones.
Precious
Precious is the story of an abused and illiterate teenage girl, Precious played by Gabourey Sidibe, who begins her journey to overcome her struggles, with the support of her new school and high school teacher.
The story is extremely powerful, and it is beautiful to see the character growth in Precious as she starts to realise her self worth.
“The other day, I cried. But you know what? f*ck that day. That’s why God, or whoever, makes other days.”
– Precious
This movie is based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.
It is heavy and not an easy watch, but worth it. Please be aware though, it includes severe trauma, rape and family abuse so choose the right time to watch it.
How to be Single
How to Be Single is a romantic comedy starring Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson, with a powerful message about not needing to be in a relationship and just being happy in your own right.
At the end of the movie, we see Alice hiking the Grand Canyon alone – a dream she always had, and a powerful reminder that have the power to go ahead and fulfil our own needs and that life is worth living without waiting for anyone else. Maybe learning to love and accept our selves, is the real true love.
A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind is a true story biographical movie telling the story of late genius Nash. Starring Russel Crowe this movie won four academy awards and deals with overcoming mental illness to achieve huge things.
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is one of the best inspirational movies, starring Dev Patel. This movie is a lose adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup and tells the story of Jamal, an underprivileged Muslim kid in India.
He surprises everyone by answering all of the questions correctly on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and is then accused of cheating. As the movie goes on, he explains back through his life about how he knew the answers to each question.
This movie shows us that experience is the best teacher, and has won multiple Oscars along with eight academy awards.
Eighth Grade
Eighth Grade is a coming of age comedy drama written and directed by Bo Burnham, starring Elsie Fisher as Kayla, a middle school girl struggling with anxiety.
This movie deals with discovering who you are, sexuality and consent, mental illness, social media and sense of self.
“You can’t be brave unless you’re scared.”
– Kayla
Hidden Figures is a powerful true story about Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) an inspirational figure from Black history. Although often under-estimated, Katherine Johnson rose to be one of the most impactful people at NASA.
The tagline is “Genius has no race. Strength has no gender. Courage has no limit.”
“Katherine Johnson knew once you took the first step, anything was possible.”
–Margot Lee Shetterly.
Encanto
Walt Disney has so many powerful movies with positive messages and they are definitely not just for kids. In recent years, there has been a shift away from the traditional villain and Disney are handling topics like generational trauma, and we are so here for it.
Encanto deals with family expectations, pressure and acceptance.
The main message is the you don’t need a super power to be special.
Book Smart
This good movie is a coming of age movie in the teenage years. Starring Amy and her best friend Molly. The two high achieving girls realise that they have missed out on a lot of the fun of their high school years, and set out to cram in everything that they missed.
This movie is a breath of fresh air as a female-centric, feminist and extremely heart warming as the two girls find their way in life.
Good morning, winner. Take a deep breath. Visualize the mountain of your success and look down at everyone who’s ever doubted you. F***those losers. F***them in their stupid f***ing faces.
– Molly’s Self Help Tape
Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts is a 90s classic film. This romcom and great movie is all about Vivian (played by Julia Roberts) and Edward (Richard Gere)
This is a rags to riches story about a prostitute, romance and unlikely friendships, but as the final line says “she rescues him right back”
Shawshank Redemption
The message of the Shawshank Redemption is that we should never give up hope, even when the odds are stacked against us. A reminder that we could all benefit from hearing from time to time.
As the tag line says, “Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free.” We can apply this to all kinds of situations in life, as we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone.
Karate Kid
I like the 2010 version with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s son). This is a motivational fighting movie all about learning self discipline and how to succeed.
“You have taught me very important lesson, Xiao Dre. Life will knock us down, but we can choose whether or not to stand back up.”
– Jackie Chan, Karate Kid
Hunger Games
There are four movies in the Hunger Games franchise, so if you feel like it go ahead and binge watch them all!
Hunger games, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen is a powerful story of overcoming oppression, and winning against all odds.
Katniss inspires all of us to be a badass, and fight for what we believe.
Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting is an American Psychological drama starring Robin Williams, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon – a strong and talented cast.
This movie is about Will Hunting (Matt Damon) a maths genius from an underprivileged background, who is unrecognised as he hasn’t had proper access to education.
The story is about finding the meaning in life. This movie is real, raw and inspirational and has become a cult classic.
Yes Man
Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey is all about the power of saying yes.
This movie is inspired by the true story of Danny Wallace, who decided to just say yes to everything in his life, and the doors this can open up. Jim Carrey plays the character of Carl, who is a bank loan officer, depressed and divorced and has given up.
This movie is all about the power of saying yes, and living in the affirmative.
The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club is a classic 80s movie about the struggles of teenagers to be understood. It captures the teen angst of a generation, written produced and directed by John Hughes in 1985 and is still iconic 30 years later.
The name Breakfast Club comes from a nickname given to the detention at New Trier High School. In detention the five students are assigned a thousand-word essay, in which each must describe “who you think you are.”
These movies show us that although life isn’t always easy, with the right mindset and attitude you can achieve anything.
There’s no denying the fact that we need to love ourselves first in order to be able to love others. Our relationships with others begin with our own self-love.
I hope you enjoyed this list. Go ahead and press play on a great movie that’s going to inspire you to be a better person, or the best version of yourself!
Feel free to share with friends and family or on social media,andplease leave a comment if you have more recommendations to add, or a self-care movie review!
How many of these powerful self-love movies have you seen?
Anna Marikar
Website | + posts
Anna is a Wales-based writer and graduate from SOAS University of London.
As the voice behind On Your Journey, she empowers women to embrace holistic well-being and spiritual growth through her expert insights into wellness and symbolism.
When she isn't writing thought-provoking articles, you'll find her busy crafting and raising her 4 children.
