The 15 Best Movies About Resilience

Created by Igor_Brynner.

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Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress— such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means “bouncing back” from difficult experiences (American Psychological Association).

However, even though resilient people can survive the tragedies they have endured, it does not mean that they do not experience emotional pain, difficulty or distress.

As with most things, a combination of factors contribute to resilience – mainly having supportive relationships that encourage love and reassurance, problem solving skills, the capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out and managing strong feelings and impulses. The listed films provide a wide range of instances in which the characters must endure their pain and trauma, and continue living.

An important distinction must be made between resilience and revenge. While there may be fights against injustice and an aim for retribution in these resilient-themed films, the characters do not use harmful means to do so – which is the main component in vengeance films like “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, The Vengeance Trilogy, and Memento, and hence why these and others are not listed.