You don’t see many Asian leads in Western cinema, that’s why The Joy Luck Club’s all-Asian cast was so radical. Its portrayal of complicated mother-daughter relationships and the immigrant experience spoke to Amy Choi as a child — and again as a mother.

Movie characters can rewrite the possibilities for our lives. That’s what Uma Thurman’s role as The Bride did for Lauren Wilford. The character redefined Lauren’s idea of femininity — helping her find her inner strength, determination, and persistence.

For Oscar-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla, the classic German film Wings of Desire transformed how he makes music. It showed him the value of silence and space in sound — qualities he embraced in his music for movies like Brokeback Mountain and Babel.

Complex portrayals of women with mental illness are rare. But that’s what Vulture’s Angelica Jade Bastién saw in the Bette Davis feature Now, Voyager. Angelica says the movie saved her life, giving her hope and encouraging her own healing.

Looking for some chill in your life? For the 20th anniversary of The Big Lebowski, Scott Oliver talks about how the movie helped him keep perspective in a time of chaos. In typical Dude fashion, he remembered “nothing is f***ed,” even if it felt that way.

Siblings. Love them or hate them, if you had one — or many — odds are they played a big role in your life. Song Exploder’s Hrishikesh Hirway talks about his relationship with his sister, and how You Can Count On Me shaped the type of brother he wanted to be.

From bodybuilding to thriving in the male-dominated Goldman Sachs, Jacki Zehner turned to Wonder Woman to become the leader she is today. In leading a campaign to bring her hero to the big screen, Jacki embodied the power of women to change the world.

Movies can fundamentally shape the course of our work. That’s how the 1940s noir-Western The Ox-Bow Incident transformed salsa musician-activist-lawyer Rubén Blades. It taught him that it wasn’t enough to speak about justice — he had to defend its ideals.

Toy Story helped Monsignor Charles Pope through a time of personal crisis. From ego to failure to self-acceptance, Charles Pope embraced his inner Buzz Lightyear and in the process, himself.

For Samantha Powell, the pressure to be the perfect adult felt like a stranglehold. But this all changed with Bridget Jones’s Diary. The movie loosened the grip of perfectionism, and taught her she didn’t need to be flawless to be happy.

What movie mirrors your life so perfectly you think it was made about you? For Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican, that film is Avalon. The story of a Jewish immigrant family reminds him that families are so much more alike than they are different.

Naomi Shihab Nye uncovers poetry in the everyday, an art practiced in Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age classic, Boyhood. Naomi found herself “living inside” the movie — seeing her daydreaming-childhood-self and life as a mother on screen.

Love is an ability, not just a feeling. That’s the lesson Dan in Real Life brought home for meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. The story of Steve Carell’s flawed but loveable character echoed Sharon’s own work — to realize love as a capacity within ourselves.

Dear Sugars’ Steve Almond talks about the liberating vulnerability of this Robert Redford classic. It taught him to embrace the complexity and pain in his own family, and in the process, move towards a more meaningful life.

Sexual tension? Romance? Teen angst? Sounds like a typical ’80s movie. But The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman says Say Anything is different, even radical, in its portrayal of women and men as friends.

If you could, would you erase memories of past lovers? This idea is at the heart of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Chaitanya Kumar says he wouldn’t. Still, the movie made him rethink the way we experience and remember love.