Everyone wants to feel good. While audiences may love the thrills of a great action film, or the screams of a horror film to experience something they've never felt before, sometimes all one needs is a movie that makes the heart grow and feels like a warm balm to the soul. The 2010s were a particularly rough decade for many, from a growing political divide becoming even larger due to rises in nationalism and isolationist sentiments, to growing conflicts across the world between nations, to fears about the rise in technology leading to a disconnect between people. It was a difficult decade and while the blockbuster scene did move away from the post-9/11 grit and realism of the Bourne movies and The Dark Knight trilogy with crowd pleasers like the MCU, the Star Wars sequels, and Jurassic World, there still was the need for a simple feel-good movie, and the 2010s offered a wide variety of options.

These six movies tapped into something special during that decade, having big impacts on future projects, receiving great critical acclaim, and becoming instant classics in the process. These are the six best feel-good movies of the 2010s for those looking to just sit back, relax, and feel a bit better about themselves and the world, and have a momentary smile.

6 Love, Simon

Love, Simon
20th Century Fox

Love, Simon, based on the novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, is a 2018 film that follows a closeted gay high school boy who struggles to balance his friends and family while attempting to discover the identity of the anonymous classmate with whom he has fallen in love online.

Owing a great deal in tone to the work of John Hughes, Love, Simon feels both timeless in its emotions while also very of the moment when it was released, as audiences were more open about their sexuality, but it still wasn't, and in some areas of the world still isn't, fully accepted. So to have a mainstream studio coming-of-age movie and rom-com centered on a gay character was a big deal. When Simon's parents open up to their son and defy his own expectations of them that they would treat him any different because of his sexuality, and the film's final moment of Simon getting the big romance ending is both refreshing and affirming that love is love and that everyone should be allowed to see themselves represented on screen.

Related: Why Our Flag Means Death Is the Queer Feel-Good Show We Needed

The film's success lead to an equally successful television spin-off on Disney+, Love, Victor, which is set at the same high school Simon attended a few years later with a few fun cameos from the film dropping by for the series. Love, Victor ran on Hulu from 2020 to 2022 and has also been recently made available on Disney+. It may not be an artistic masterpiece, but Love, Simon is one of the most important LGBTQ+ movies of the 2010s, and certainly one of the decade's most feel-good films.

5 Inside Out

Inside Out
Walt Disney Motion Pictures

The 2010s saw Pixar release some great emotional movies, from Toy Story 3 to Coco, yet the most feel-good is the one fittingly about feelings: 2015's Inside Out. While it packs in heavily emotional moments, including the death of a cherished major character, it is in the film's climactic moment where Joy learns that Sadness as an emotion has a place.

When Riley breaks down to her parents in tears, it is the moment her parents can really understand and empathize with her. It is an important lesson for both kids and adults, and with a good cry comes a cathartic feeling of joy and the sense that everything will be okay. One of Pixar's best movies, Inside Out is an emotional rollercoaster, but once the journey is over one can't help but smile and feel a better understanding of oneself and others.

4 Sing Street

Sing Street
TWC

Director John Carney's filmography is filled with stories of musicians, from the delightful Once in 2007 to 2013's Begin Again. Yet it is his 2016 film Sing Street which became a surprise hit and Golden Globe nominee that takes the spot on the list for the specific youthful energy it taps into. Set in Dublin, Ireland in 1985, the story focuses on a boy's attempt to impress a girl by forming a band with his new schoolmates all while discovering a whole new world of music like Duran Duran, The Cure, and Hall & Oats thanks to his older brother.

While much of the media landscape during the 2010s was nostalgic for 80s pop culture, Sing Street takes a unique approach to examining American music from a non-American setting. There is a great youthful sense of energy to the proceedings, where these kids have their whole world in front of them and are at the cusp of growing into the people they will eventually be. The world outside of them is cruel and unfair, but with each other and their music they not only have control but have found a sense of identity that makes them happy. The film's final scene, of the two romantic leads going off to England to start a new better life for themselves set to Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine's beautiful song 'Go On,' is incredibly moving and will leave the viewer with a smile and the reminder that there is always a chance in life for something more.

3 Hugo

Hugo
Paramount Pictures

2011 was a great year for legendary filmmakers making movies aimed at family audiences, as Steven Spielberg directed The Adventures of Tintin and Martin Scorsese helmed Hugo. Scorsese takes what appears to be just a simple kids' film and turns it into an ode to classic cinema and a call for film preservation.

Hugo is a gorgeous movie on a production level and truly feels like a storybook come to life, as evidenced by the fact that the movie won five Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Visual Effects, Art Direction, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. Yet regardless of that, Hugo is a film that is a reminder that movies are dreams, and Hugo invites the viewer to enjoy the dream as well as the dream makers. Seen through the eyes of a child, Hugo reminds even the oldest viewer of the magic they felt when they would go to the movies and the new sense of adventure that waited behind every film, and the connections they form with those around who experience the same movie.

2 Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Mister Rogers Documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Focus Features

The 2018 documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? detailed the life, career, and philosophy of Fred Rogers known to the world for his hit television series Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. The film is short but taps into the legacy of a true pioneer in children's television who looked at the medium and realized it could be a tool used for good. Much like the man and the show itself, it is honest but kind, and speaks to the viewer with real love and understanding. It is the story of one man's goodness that inspires others to be just as good.

The documentary film was a breakout hit with critics and audiences, as this small little movie about a soft-spoken man made $22.8 million in a crowded summer movie season and inspired the also great film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood the following year, with Tom Hanks as Rogers.

1 Paddington 2

Paddington 2
StudioCanal

No movie list counting down the top films of the 2010s would be complete without Paddington 2, and for a feel-good movie list of the decade, Paddington 2 certainly leads the pack (and Rotten Tomatoes rankings). 2014's Paddington is an incredibly cute and charming movie, but it is the 2017 sequel that takes everything that worked about the original film and improves upon it. Everything about this movie is a delight, from its bright warm color palette to the fact that even the main antagonist played by Hugh Grant gets a big musical number at the end that will leave any viewer smiling.

Yet at the center of it is Paddington himself, and the story of how this very polite bear just wants to do good by the people in his life, and even when he is in the worst environment surrounded by hardened criminals, his sheer presence brings out the best in everyone. He reforms the prison system, shows people a better way to live their lives, and inspires true good. Even without Paddington, Paddington 2 stands on its own as the feel-good movie of the 2010s.