1. Die Hard
The ultimate Christmas movie, bar none. You have explosions, witty remarks and John McClane fighting Professor Snape, I mean Alan Rickman. It is surprising how often this knowledge comes in handy in your day to day life at university.
2. Amélie
The classic French movie about freedom, individuality, and self-expression, that everyone should see. It will help you embrace everything it means to be a student, growing into the person you can become, from being at university for the first time.
3. The Breakfast Club
The breakfast club is a movie about an unlikely friendship forming out of a group of misfits. This is going to be akin to your university experience. You will be put into several classes full of strangers, attend social events with people you have not known your whole life, and perhaps even have to live with someone you have never met before. What the Breakfast Club can teach you is this is not a bad thing, you can and will find fierce friends in the most unlikely of places, that you may have never even thought to look before. Getting the most from university is about embracing this and not being put-off by being in the position of having to make friends all over again, something you have most likely not done since you were in primary school.
4. Wall:E
Everyone needs cheering up once in a while and Wall:E is a movie that is guaranteed to cheer you up. Any pixar movie in fact would do this but some of them can have a slightly depressing bent, I am looking at you ‘Up’. You are guaranteed to at least crack a smile when the little metal robot rolls onto screen.
5. Dead Poets Society
It was either this or the Inbetweeners movie. I went for Dead Poets but you can take a similar message from both. Carpe Diem is the message that is laced through both and it is one that can help you get the most from your university experience. Sure things might go wrong and people might look down on you for it, but as long as you are enjoying yourself does it really matter?
6. Carrie
Carrie is about a telekinetic girl who is being bullied and she extracts her own brand of vengeance. It’s written by Stephen King, do I really need to say more? Ok, I could make it into a message that you should try and be inclusive of anyone you can while at university but really, it is just a good movie that everyone should watch at least once.
7. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
A movie about truanting and not getting caught. On reflection this might not be the best movie to suggest as you start university. But it is the reasons Ferris takes his day off that are important, sometimes you just need time for yourself. It is a movie about saying to yourself that you are going to take that day off and to hell with the consequences. While you don't want to make a habit of it sometimes days like that can be essential.
8. Primer
One of the most complicated movies you will ever see. I am not just saying that because I did not understand half of it on first pass. Primer has time lines within time lines. Fan's have created studies of the movie that looks like left over spaghetti, it can get so complicated. It is the kind of movie you want to watch when you want to make yourself feel intelligent but have three or four days to watch it continuously until you work out what is going on.
9. The Karate Kid
Wax on, wax off. If we all had half the work ethic that Mr. Myagi can instil in a person we would never have to fear about passing our degrees. Some lecturers could take a leaf from his book as well, you can find a way of learning hidden in the celluloid, not learning the subject but teaching in such a way that your students don't even realise they are learning.
10. Trick R' Treat
This is one of the hidden gems of the past couple of years that follows little Sam (short for Samhain) as he enforces the unwritten rules of Halloween and extracts vengeance on any who dare violate the them. Told in a series of anthology entries with a star studded cast, this film had a criminally limited release and if you are looking for something original to watch while away from home for the first time, this is it.
Get popcorn and cinema discounts with the NUS extra card at Odeon.