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Moral Dilemma Movies? / List the Best
Inspired by the What Are You Watching? thread....
I have whittled a narrow genre of movies that focus on solving a moral dilemma... I find them in strange places. The most potent might be Sophie's Choice. But there are lots of other great ones. Just watched, for perhaps the third time, Abandon Ship with Ty Power, based a true story, (though I can find no evidence of it on Google) A first mate in charge of an overcrowded lifeboat grapples with the worst choice anyone has to make.
Last night I watched Steve King's The Storm of the Century. Again, a terrible moral choice. Hitchcock' Lifeboat is another... drag the Nazi survivor aboard your own survivor's boat. Sustain him? Kill him? What is one to do?
So, what other movies qualify? Does To Kill a Mockingbird? I think not. The lines between good and evil are clearly defined. A Few Good Men? Again, the moral dilemma is not wrought fine enough. Twelve Angry Men? What are the best of these great ones?
Comments
The Bell and the Butterfly
Johnny Got His Gun
Both involve a voiceless character narrating his thoughts and providing us with a sense of self in total isolation. I think they will fail your criteria but they highlight the fundamental question of existence which is a moral dilemma.
One we essentially face daily.
You are leaving a very thin margin here if the ones you mentioned are not to be considered as contenders 😯
My favourite moral dilemma movie is ‘A Simple Plan’. There is not many movies that I have watched several times- but this is one of them.
@Max23, I know your mind is on other things, but... I think Fail Safe works better for me than Dr. Strangelove. Prez Fonda swaps NY for Moscow... I think. what is the trade in Strangelove? The others I am not familiar with. Can you give a sentence for each to describe the moral conundrum? @robosardine and @McD can you do the same?
I just watched Clooney in Michael Clayton. Does that fill the bill? I think so, but that is an easy one on the moral scale. Sacrifice millions in potential blackmail money to get the bad guys roasted. That does not reach the moral high bar like Sophie’s Choice in any way. I guess I expect a lot for this narrow genre.
Btw if you get a chance to see “Twelve”, the Russian version of the epic 12 Angry Men, grab it. Surpasses the original in gritty realism,
This.
More of a recent choice and a bit overstuffed at times, Watchmen has an interesting moral dilemma at the end. Maybe reading the graphic novel would be better.
My first suggestion was Sophie's Choice but you beat me to it!
I will echo @Max23 's suggestion of The Brain That Wouldn't Die if you want something a little goofy and campy. One of my favorites (brilliant surgeon's wife's head is severed in an automobile accident, he keeps her head alive while prowling the night clubs for a suitable body replacement). Also probably easy to find on YouTube and other streaming outlets (it's in the Public Domain, I believe).
@Ripper7620, this might be fiction but not the kind I was talking about. Btw, I think your enthusiasm about iOS is terrific. Anyway, can you state the moral conundrum here in a single sentence? Thanks.
Europa, by Lars von Trier.
An American conscientious objector goes to postwar Germany, where everybody hates him. Amazing movie, back when Trier hadn't become the Dogma maniac (before becoming a garden-variety maniac). (And I still like him.)
Can we list the types of moral conundrums faced in the movies?
In Abandon Ship, for example, Tyrone Power (and apparently some real life dude) must cast off a dozen people to save another dozen. In real life the guy was tried for murder but given six months because of the unusual “circumstances”. So, the conundrum is: Do I murder some people (and I do the choosing of who is the weakest and must go) in the cause of saving the rest?
Kind of like Sophie’s Choice if you think about it. Moral dilemmas like the Donner Party fade into simply the Law of the Sea by comparison. Can there be a higher moral dilemma than having to unwillingly play god and be accused of the ultimate evil at the same time?
Hmmm... One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Antisocials must be lobotamized. In some movies the moral dilemma must be solved by the audience alone, not the characters in the film. No one struggled in Cuckoo’s nest over whether it was right to lobotamize Nicholson, but we are left with the tragic loss wondering why he had to go, and angry at the system.
Kubrick’s Paths Of Glory? Scapegoat nobodies must pay for the bigshots’ fuck ups. Happens all the time. But that is not a moral conundrum.... simply amorality. Like what we got going in the US.
Also, Avatar, but that was a no brainer. Turning on your own, violent brethren to get your legs back, a beautiful girlish creature and the utmost respect of the whole alien tribe? Hardly a moral conundrum. More like winning the lottery,
@Max23 , unfamiliar with Lars. Will check him out.
So, okay, I hereby limit it to movies where the main character or characters have to make the impossible decision. In Storm of the Century, inhabitants of an island town must decide to give up one child to a devil like being or possibly lose all the children and adults. That fills my bill perfectly. The decision has no good outcome.... just the lesser of two evils.
Not a movie but Luther is basically driven by the protagonist dealing with moral dilemma. And handsomeness. Haven't seen the newest series yet but loved the others.
Here’s a link with a brief description in it
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=30&ved=2ahUKEwjgofPn-PjhAhVLSxUIHZlhAXcQFjAdegQIAxAB&url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/simple_plan&usg=AOvVaw1Hlk9oHOR44HdIpNodzaZy
I just remembered I wrote a five minute play called The Death of Art which poses a typical human dilemma.
A surgeon saves the life of a famous artist during an operation by removing the painter’s final masterpiece that had somehow lodged in his thorax. Gripping the rolled up painting the surgeon listens closely as the assistant muses that paintings of masters are of much greater value when the artist is dead. The surgeon returns to the patient’s incision and in a few moments the artist is dead. A simple, Hitchcockian resolution. And one that happens all too often in the real world.
'Should I crush my enemies or slay them?'
To me that's a tale of redemption. Turning from a corrupt life towards an ethical future.
The turn from immoral to moral conduct can happen early setting up a test of consequences. (Thomas of ) "Beckett" siding with the church over the King, "Joan of Arc" electing to face the barbie, "Jerry MacGuire" giving up the big dollar sales approach and finding that clients prefer it (such pain for poor Jerry and he gets the girl).
My 2 examples are people facing the decision to force the world to kill them by expressing their pain so well it is deemed a mercy. The person doing the act is usually the focus but not in these cases. It's too dfrom the point of view of the person begging to end it all and make someone assist.
Donnie Brasco
All is Lost - Robert Redford- I don't know if it's a moral dilemma or just a dilemma as to whether to keep fighting for life, but amazing movie.
And of course, star wars. What greater moral dilemma the resisting the dark side?
https://mondrian.mashable.com/uploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F747238%2F733d2985-6b8d-4b91-979b-b267635a25d1.jpg%2F950x534__filters%3Aquality%2890%29.jpg?signature=be1qNWsOO3A73qN8XhQa87AP6vE=&source=https://blueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com
Matthew 10:28 King James Version (KJV)
28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
I think most of these movies represent a moral choice as opposed to a moral dilemma. This definition works best for me...
A dilemma is a tough choice. When you're in a difficult situation and each option looks equally bad, you're in a dilemma.
Dilemma is from a Greek for "double proposition." It was originally a technical term of logic, but we use it now for any time you have a problem with no satisfactory solution. If you're at the mall choosing between red or blue socks, that's not really a dilemma. But if you have to choose whether to save your cat or your dog from a burning building, that's an awful dilemma.
Yes, strictly speaking, a dilemma is a decision between to equally unappealing choices. Which makes for a great parable — Solomon and the splitting of the baby — but probably doesn't make for a great narrative.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjOpumx6_rhAhUSj54KHV8bCrwQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Kings+3%3A16-28&version=KJV&psig=AOvVaw2D2G2hAnFUKz1bR1oc2tS-&ust=1556817533588865