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.

What movie helps you reckon with the loss of a loved one? Jamie Berube turned to Interstellar to cope with the death of her father. Matthew McConaughey’s character showed that her father’s love was still alive, beyond the dimensions of time and space.

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.

Harry Potter and the Sacred Text’s Casper ter Kuile talks about this classic Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movie, one he always watches with a pint of ice cream. It shaped the world he longed for as a 14-year-old, and later on, even the kind of man he would marry.

The Nightmare Before Christmas helped writer Ashley C. Ford accept life’s imperfections. As a kid, the movie taught her that it was okay to be different and to embrace the weird and the creepy.

David Greene, co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition and Up First, shares how Star Wars: Episode IV instilled a sense of wanderlust and adventure in his life and ultimately made him want to become a foreign correspondent.

A sneak peek into This Movie Changed Me, a new podcast from On Being Studios.