If you never saw Contagion, why start now? That’s like stopping to watch Jaws as your life raft springs a leak. Yet movies about viral pandemics — like the excellent but eerie Steven Soderbergh thriller as well as such lesser efforts as Outbreak and Pandemic — are topping digital movie charts, despite the reality, we’re living in. Our advice? Give your mind — and your stress level — some relief and seek out something upbeat and life-affirming. Any of these five films will do just fine in lifting your spirits.
Groundhog Day
Streaming on: Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube
Bill Murray is a weatherman trapped reliving the same day, again and again. Sort of like being locked down at home. Murray’s predicament generates raucous laughs, but by the end, both the character and the equally sarcastic movie are channeling Frank Capra, elevated by the big-hearted notion that a man can improve, even if it’s one day at a time. FOR AGES: 12 and up
Ratatouille
Streaming on: DisneyPlus
Remy is the best chef in Paris. Unfortunately, he’s also a rat. Enter Linguine, a garbage boy who is clueless at cooking. Working together — sort of Cyrano de Bergerac meets Anthony Bourdain — the new partners enjoy huge success until a food critic with his own issues turns up the heat. This undervalued Pixar movie is for anyone who’s ever been told they can’t realize their dreams just because of what they are or where they came from. FOR AGES: 6 and up
Singin’ in the Rain
Streaming on: Amazon Prime
The quintessential Hollywood musical, this 1952 classic stars Gene Kelly as a silent film star making the career move into “talkies.” Together with a chorus girl (Debbie Reynolds) and a vaudeville pal (Donald O’Connor), they plot to make a masterpiece. Once you surrender to its old-school, all-ages charm, it’s impossible not to be won over by the performances and the iconic musical numbers, which still endure almost 70 years later. FOR AGES: 6 and up
The Princess Bride
Streaming on: Amazon Prime
Don’t expect the effects, violence and grit of today’s action-fantasy genre in this 1987 Rob Reiner comedy. A sly, self-aware fairy tale that favors humor and romance over battles and bloodshed, what distinguishes The Princess Bride is its utterly unique tone: whimsical, silly and warm, without a trace of mean-spiritedness. It’s framed as a bedtime story told to a child, but really, it’s a bedtime story being told to us. FOR AGES: 8 and up
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Streaming on: Netflix
Argue all you like about who the best movie Spider-Man is — Maguire? Garfield? Holland? — the best Spider-Man movie, period, is this 2018 animated Oscar-winner, in which a teenager named Miles Morales partners with Spider-heroes from alternate realities to save the multiverse and defeat the villain who killed his world’s Peter Parker. Bolstered by a sensational soundtrack, standout cast (including Nicolas Cage, Hailee Steinfeld and Mahershala Ali) and eye-popping animation, this thrilling, emotional adventure truly feels like a comic book sprung to life. FOR AGES: 9 and up