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A great education is the surest way to a stable career and success in your life goals and ambitions. It builds a strong foundation upon which you can always rely, giving you the confidence to face any challenges that your professional life or even life in general may throw at you. My teachers have always said education/academic excellence is the one thing that can’t be stolen or lost as it is embedded in your mind and with time also becomes a part of your character.
Everything being said and done, it isn’t easy to stay motivated while studying for tests, and exams and ace them. In such cases, you can always resort to a playlist of movies that show how cool academic excellence can be and how it can help you win in life.
Movies Inspiring Academic Excellence
1. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
The movie is about John Nash, a highly eccentric mathematical genius, who overcomes schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize. Based on the real-life story of John Nash, the movie is directed by Ron Howard quite well, portraying schizophrenia realistically where people can’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s being imagined by your mind.
What you can look forward to in this movie is spectacular performances by Jennifer Connelly, Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, and Paul Bettany. The cast shares great screen chemistry with each other which comes across well, making this one of the best movies inspiring academic excellence.
2. The Martian (2015)
One of the best movies out there, The Martian offers a creative look into astrobiology taking quite a few liberties with what’s possible on extra-terrestrial planets. Mark Whatney played by Matt Damon is an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars on an exploratory mission.
When he finds that he has to survive on his own until the next mission brings him supplies and rescues him, he “sciences the sh*t” out of things to generate breathable oxygen and grow food. What follows is a delicious blend of sci-fi, humor, and Golden Globe-level acting and direction. ( It won the Golden Globe for Best Picture ).
Why is this movie a glowing endorsement for acing your academics? Everything that Mark tries on the surface of Mars by himself he does with the help of decades of study and research he accomplished back on Earth.
However, Mark’s resourcefulness does extend well beyond what academics can teach, which makes this movie really fun to watch.
3. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
A constant tearjerker of a movie, The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is a biopic and origin story of a businessman and motivational speaker. Played by Will Smith, Gardner’s life struggles are highlighted in this movie where a maiden business venture goes badly leading to his wife leaving him with his son.
But Gardner was and is a naturally intelligent person whose talent is discovered on accident in a shared cab ride by a person from a stock broking firm which leads to a shot at an internship at the firm. What we see is the crazy hard circumstances that Gardner faces with his son such as homelessness, insolvency, and general socioeconomic hardships while raising his young son by himself.
The academic connection in this movie is how Gardner calculates that since he was great at school, it would give him a fighting chance to ace the internship at a stock broking firm and get the job while competing against classically educated professionals in a corporate environment.
4. The Social Network (2010)
Mark Zuckerberg said that the only thing that they got right in this movie was the clothing. While the portrayal of what happened between Zuckerberg and his founding team at Harvard is not accurate according to the Meta CEO ( erstwhile Facebook ), the facts of the movie remain quite the same such as Sean Parker’s contribution to the company, the Winklevoss twins’ involvement and Eduardo Saverin’s disagreement with Zuckerberg.
What you CAN look forward to is a movie that runs like a tech-thriller with high stakes involving a lot of money, fame, and everything that comes with the two. Jesse Eisenberg’s acting is on point and Aaron Sorkin is doing what he does best, storytelling with his screenplay using courtroom backdrops. It is an entertaining movie for sure.
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Where do academics factor into this? While Zuckerberg did drop out of Harvard to build Facebook, it was Harvard after all. So think twice before you drop out of college or high school. While a strong grasp of academics is a good indicator of how successful you can be, if you are sure of your capabilities you can pursue your dreams regardless of academic qualifications - provided you already have acquired enough knowledge and expertise to pursue your ambitions.
The takeaway here is that the easiest way to ensure you are prepared to make your “Mark” in life is to study well, get good grades, and build a strong foundation in academics through a good education.
5. Good Will Hunting (1997)
This Matt Damon and Ben Affleck vehicle has a really interesting origin story where they shopped around for suitable producers with a version of the script that was slightly altered with a totally out-of-context scene. The reason was to ensure the producing studio would read the script completely before accepting it, therefore making it worth the duo’s while and all the effort and passion they put into writing it.
Each studio wanted the script to make into a movie but none of them acknowledged the out-of-place scene in the script. When they finally landed a person/studio who asked a question about the scene, that’s when they signed up for the movie to be made.
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The plot is simple - an orphaned child who is a gifted prodigy is spotted by a mathematician and helped by his therapist friend to overcome his childhood trauma and live up to his potential in life. Since this was a labor of love by Damon and Affleck, the passion clearly comes across on screen with great acting, good execution, and everything in between.
The academic connection? Even with Will Hunting’s gifted mind he still needs well-educated academicians to heal, find and keep his love, and eventually get his life on track.
Summing Up
Education and academic excellence don’t have to equate to boredom, the list of movies above proves otherwise. Whenever you feel that your motivation to study is lagging you can always watch these movies and hype yourself up for the next test, exam, or assignment.
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