If you're wondering what the greatest degree of character development and growth can look like your search is over. An incredible story of having to overcome a traumatic life change and how it changes your relationship to those closest to you, yourself, and the world.

This earns a place on my sparse list of movies I'll re-watch just for the incredible natural acting and characters staying true to themselves and their limitations of growth. When Ruben makes a bad decision it's not hard believe and his good decisions come with some painstaking learning that it takes a long time to grow and develop. Nothing made me happier than the bittersweet ending of Ruben finding his place in the world and accepting that a life of silence can be just as beautiful as life of loudness (demonstrated by the loud digital shrieking of church bells to the quiet, peaceful, and more melodic silent swinging).

Charming, romantic, heroic. My favorite Ghibli film but that may be for my strong bias of planes. Strong female roles were quite refreshing to me especially when the movie acknowledges it's bias against women and goes against it. A tale of redemption for a pilot with wounded honor.

An incredible short story of a legendary climber. Thrilling and motivating. It was a film that truly 'rocked' me to my core hahaha...

A movie about crappy depressed middle aged white men making their crappy depressed lives a little more crappy and depressed by making stupid alcoholic decisions earning themselves potentially the most crappy and depressed position in their lives. I have no idea what other critics see in this movie, maybe I have to re-watch it. But I see a bunch of sad middle aged men experience a slow burn into even sadder middle aged men.

What this movie lacks in depth it makes up for in realism, honesty, and raw feeling and emotion. Captain Krause is a character that stays true and remains at arm's length throughout the movie. It's true that we largely make up his feelings throughout the movie from hard gritty expressions but what else are we to realistically expect from a hardened captain trying to maintain the morale of his crew? It tells a story of trauma and a brave sea tale of the bravery and courage it takes to cross the Atlantic in World War 2.

Character progression comes out of nowhere with no realistic progression or authenticity that they've experienced internal growth or change. This is particularly true of the character Norman who's thrust into war with unrealistic outbursts of rebellion and then a sudden light switch flick into just another bland killing machine. Fight scenes are just that. Moments of mindless action just meant to thrill the audience and make up for the lack of realistic and integral character writing. But it gets at least two stars for spending all that budget blowing up Nazis.