Before you start watching horror movies for Halloween or diving into cozy holiday movies, check out these films that evoke feelings of early fall. Showcasing autumnal color palettes, knit sweaters, and orange leaves, the movies on this list are best watched alongside a warm mug of apple cider or a pumpkin spiced latte. These films would be optimal for fall programming events, whether at your library, school, or even just a cozy night with friends in your own living room.
Autumn Sonata
A wrenching and magnificent mother-daughter portrait, Autumn Sonata stars Ingrid Bergman, who brings glamour and authority to the role of Charlotte, a famed pianist who all but abandoned daughters Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Helena (Lena Nyman) to pursue her career. Sven Nykvist's exquisite cinematography relies on close-ups of faces twisted by emotion as the director cuts deftly from the unflinching present to still-life memories of the past, all rendered in painterly compositions and burnished autumnal color schemes.
Check out our review of Autumn Sonata
Dead Poets Society
Robin Williams is characteristically charismatic as the repressive Welton Academy, an all-boys prep school, with a heretofore unheard of maxim: carpe diem, seize the day. Slowly but surely his bewildered students begin to emerge from their conformist shells, and a handful of boys reopen Keating's old club: The Dead Poets Society.
Check out our review of Dead Poets Society
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Idiosyncratic filmmaker Wes Anderson has created a droll, delightful, stop-motion animated adaptation of Roald Dahl's bestselling children's book about an audacious, stubborn fox who refuses to stop stealing chickens from infuriated farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. Sly and smartly paced, this Oscar-nominated family film will appeal to adults as much as kids.
Check out our review of Fantastic Mr. Fox
Far From Heaven
An extraordinary homage to, and deconstruction of, Douglas Sirk's melodramas of the 1950s, Far From Heaven is a multi-layered tale of potent emotion, puritanical taboo, and forbidden affections festering below the idealistic facade of an Eisenhower-era New England family. Writer-director Todd Haynes (Safe, Velvet Goldmine) masterfully marries the idyllic Technicolor fiction of post-War Americana with the authentic, imperfect humanity and the malignant subterfuge that always lies beneath it.
Check out our review of Far From Heaven
When Harry Met Sally
Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal star as the eponymous Sally and Harry, best friends who not only prove that a perfect friendship can survive sex, but that after the afterglow the best is yet to come. This warm and very witty 1989 popular fave is screenwriter Nora Ephron's (Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail) first romantic comedy, and while it took MGM long enough to release it on DVD, the film's many fans got their special edition due in a beautifully mastered release that includes an audio commentary by director Rob Reiner.
Check out our review of When Harry Met Sally