Snow Dogs (2002)

Disney can still make pro-life, pro-family films when it wants to. Snow Dogs, based on Garr Paulsen's book Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, is a light-hearted, slapstick comedy about a city slicker traveling to the country to discover his roots. Ted Brooks (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is a dentist in Miami who only learns that he's adopted when his birth mother dies and leaves him a cabin and a team of sled dogs in Tolketna, Alaska. The small town's resident curmudgeon, Thunder Jack (James Coburn), wants to buy the canines so he can race them in the region's annual sled race. Ted has never gotten along with dogs, but finds he dislikes the seemingly mean-spirited Thunder Jack even more and becomes determined to win the race on his own.

The two men scheme against each other until they uncover a secret that bonds them together. Adoption is depicted in a positive light, and the choice made by Ted's birth parents not to have an abortion is implicitly applauded.

The Flying Tigers (1942)

It seems likely that future generations will get their history from Hollywood. If so, they may conclude that John Wayne won World War II. The Flying Tigers, the Duke's first war movie, sets the pattern for the films that followed. It's a fictionalized account of the American Volunteer Group, which flew against the Japanese for Chiang Kai-Shek's China under the command of Gen. Claire Chennault before Pearl Harbor. Squadron leader Jim Gordon (Wayne) is a true-blue hero—two-fisted, but fair.

Each pilot receives $500 for every Japanese plane shot down. Gordon's second-in-command, the experienced Hap Davis (Paul Kelly), has failing eyesight. The new recruit, the wise-cracking Woody Jason (John Carroll), is a lone ranger who cuts in on the kills of his fellow pilots to grab the reward. Gordon pulls everything together to make the enemy suffer, grounding Jason until he gets his head right. Director David Miller mixes the personal conflicts with well-staged aerial combat footage. The American pilots come off as mercenary and patriotic, carefree and brave.

The Remains of the Day (1993)

Director James Ivory (Howard's End) uses Kazuo Ishiguro's award-winning novel to take an imaginative look at the dark side of English aristocratic culture during the 1930s. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) is the perfect butler to the arrogant but seemingly decent Lord Darlington (James Fox). “I don't believe a man can consider himself fully content until he has done all he can to be of service to his employer,” Stevens comments.

Darlington is hosting soirees with Nazi sympathizers in a misguided effort to keep England out of war. He hires a head housekeeper, Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), who's critical of much that she sees around her. Stevens is at first scornful, but later develops deeper feelings for her that he doesn't know how to express.