Rain Man - 1988

"What you have to understand is, four days ago he was only my brother in name. And this morning we had pancakes."

Winner of both an Academy Award and the Golden Globe for best picture this film is a heartwarming look at family and how two brothers suddenly brought together by life's circumstances save each other.

Fast-talking yuppie Charlie Babbitt is forced to slow down when he meets a brother he never knew he had, an autistic savant named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman, in an Oscar-winning role) who's spent most of his life in an institution. When their wealthy father dies, leaving everything to Raymond, Charlie takes his unusually gifted older brother on a life-changing cross-country odyssey that neither is likely to forget.

Dustin Hoffman was originally supposed to play Charlie, but he wanted to play Raymond. Raymond was also supposed to be mentally retarded, but Hoffman changed it to an autistic savant.

Holds the unique distinction of being the only film to have won the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear and a best picture Academy Award.

"What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" - 1993

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a 1993 film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio. Peter Hedges wrote the screenplay adapted from his 1991 novel of the same name. It was filmed in the Texas cities of Manor, Elgin, and Lockhart.

In a small town of Endora, Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) is busy caring for his mentally challenged brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio) as they wait for the many tourists' trailers to pass through town during their yearly camp ritual at a nearby recreational area. His mother, Bonnie (Darlene Cates) is morbidly obese after years of depression following her husband's suicide. With Bonnie unable to care for them by herself, Gilbert has taken responsibility for repairing their shanty of farmhouse and looking after Arnie, who has a habit of climbing up the town water tower (like Spider-Man) if he is left unsupervised for too long, while his older sister Amy (Laura Harrington) and younger sister Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt) slave away in the kitchen. The relationship between the brothers is one of care and protection. In order to cope with his frenetic life, Gilbert has taken on a secret love affair with a housewife, Betty (Mary Steenburgen), whilst her insensitive, unsuspecting husband Ken (Kevin Tighe), is fully intent on selling Gilbert insurance for his family. A new chain supermarket has opened, threatening the small Lamson's Grocery store where Gilbert works, as well as threatening all the other small-time businesses in Endora. The chain supermarket stocks all kinds of goods, rendering many of the local shops redundant. This is a key theme in the film - which constantly portrays the futility of goods made with love in light of ever sweeping corporate greed.

C.R.A.Z.Y. - 2005

This movie was crazy good. Both a coming of age and a coming out movie that fed me the full range of human emotion. The father/son relationship in this film is dealt with in a very honest and heartfelt way.

There are five boys in the Beaulieu family -- Christian, Raymond, Antoine, Zachary and Yvan. But Zac (played by Emile Vallee and Marc-Andre Grondin) is the only one who's gay. That's why growing up in Montreal alongside his heterosexual brothers and his strict, emotionally distant father (Michel Cote) proves especially challenging for the blossoming outsider, who finds solace in the music of Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie.

Defiance - 2008

This moving, dramatic film is based on actual events.  Daniel Craig stars as Tuvia Bielski, one of four Jewish brothers who escape from Poland into the forests of Belarus during World War II to lead a band of resistance fighters and create a safe haven for Jewish refugees.  The real-life sanctuary established by the Bielski brothers saved more than 1,000 Jews from persecution and death.  Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and George MacKay also star.  I love this film.