13 Films That Will Inspire You To Do More With Your Life

7) Before Sunrise

So, it’s all very well being inspired to do more with your life, but how exactly do you do it? You take chances, of course. You seize opportunities, as and when they arise. You live in the moment, and allow things to happen, and that’s exactly what Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise is all about.

Co-written by Linklater and Kim Krizan, Before Sunrise sees two people on a train meet, talk, and decide to disembark for a night spent walking around Vienna, talking some more. It is the simplest concept, but is so beautifully executed that it has spawned two more films, made nine years apart – building a series that chronicles a relationship over almost two decades. But it all comes down to that one scene in Before Sunrise, where Jesse (Ethan Hawke) persuades Celine (Julie Delpy), to seize the moment.

“Think of it like this: jump ahead, ten, twenty years, okay, and you’re married. Only your marriage doesn’t have that same energy that it used to have, y’know. You start to blame your husband. You start to think about all those guys you’ve met in your life and what might have happened if you’d picked up with one of them, right? Well, I’m one of those guys. “

The film is a magical ode to the way in which life can be entirely changed with one simple decision, in one tiny moment. A cautious, closed-minded Celine might have declined the offer of an evening in Vienna, choosing to stay in the comfort zone she has so clearly established on the train. Had she done so, she would have missed out on all the joy that followed, not to mention the love of her life. Instead she seizes the moment and, in doing so, not only inspires us all to do more with our lives, but demonstrates how to do it, too.