The Straight Story(1999) David Lynch's The Straight Storyis a feel-good, down-home celebration of family loyalty, kindness to strangers, the ending of old quarrels, dignity in the face of weakness and frailty, and the wisdom that comes with advanced years. Sweetly gentle, luminously photographed, touchingly homespun, the simple tale is based on a real-life incident.

In the fall of 1994, 73-year-old Alvin Straight learns that his brother Lyle has suffered a stroke. Alvin's own health is none too good, and he and Lyle haven't spoken in 10 years, but Alvin is determined to make a 300-mile trip to see his brother again.

Unable to drive a car due to failing eyesight, Alvin lights upon the audacious, foolhardy plan of making the entire trip on his tractor-style lawnmower.

Lynch doesn't try to “explain” what makes Alvin tick, to reduce a man to a motivation. The only “explanation” comes in the very last moments of the film, when we finally see for ourselves the point of Alvin's determination to make the journey his own way – why he couldn't accept a kind stranger's offer to drive him the rest of the way. It's an eminently satisfying moment.

The Scarlet and the Black (1983)

Also known as The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, this World War II drama tells the true story of a Holy Office notary who, during Nazi occupation of Rome, covertly ran an underground railroad for Jews, anti-fascists and escaped Allied POWs. Riveting and edifying, the film stars Gregory Peck as Msgr. Hugh O'Flaherty, a plain-speaking, straight-dealing Irish priest who boldly aids enemies of the Third Reich under the watchful eye of Christopher Plummer's Nazi Lt. Col. Herbert Kappler. Their cat-and-mouse game is thrilling and great fun, and culminates in a startling showdown.

John Gielgud plays Pope Pius XII, who is depicted sympathetically and is shown to be willing to stand up to the Nazis. In one scene he is depicted as having had second thoughts about his Concordat with the Nazi regime – a portrayal the well-meaning filmmakers undoubtedly meant to put the Holy Father in the best possible light. The acting is superb and the final coda is so uplifting that it might seem contrived if it weren't historically accurate. About the only weakness is the score, which is rather thin and stark. Otherwise, this is one inspiring and very satisfying entertainment.

The Fugitive (1947)

Not to be confused with any version of the story of Dr. Kimble and the one-armed man, this Fugitive is director John Ford's underrated adaptation of Catholic novelist Graham Greene's masterpiece The Power and the Glory. Starring Henry Fonda as a flawed priest in Mexico during the anticlerical purges of the post-Mexican Revolution era, the film softens and conventionalizes Greene's difficult parable but still packs spiritual punch.

No Hollywood film of this era could have depicted a cleric as flawed as the original book's “whiskey priest,” who doubted that anything he did was pleasing to God. So Greene's morality play, in which a man deprived of every earthly consolation from human gratitude to divine approval nevertheless persistently chooses to serve others at great risk, becomes a more traditionally uplifting story about a basically good man serving God despite self-doubt and trying circumstances.