A little warmth, with some bite

A comforting film does not have to pretend that everything is fine. Sometimes the lift comes from watching someone find a place in an unwelcoming world, or seeing a group of people learn how to look after one another. These picks offer different kinds of warmth, with room for sadness and friction.

Paddington is the clearest place to begin when you want kindness to be an active choice. Its comedy comes from a newcomer trying to make sense of ordinary life. School of Rock finds its energy in a very different outsider: the band gives individual children a way to contribute, and music turns a mismatched classroom into a group.

Little Miss Sunshine keeps the family arguments in the car with everyone else. Its affection does not depend on making the characters agreeable. The Princess Bride offers a lighter escape through storytelling itself, mixing adventure, romance and a storyteller’s delight in interruptions. They suit different evenings, so choose the mood rather than treating comfort as one genre.

About Time brings romance and family into a fantasy about revisiting moments. Expect grief as well as reassurance. The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most bittersweet choice here: its precision and comic momentum sit alongside loss and a changing world. Neither is simply a promise that nothing upsetting will happen.

Build a personal comfort shelf from the feeling a film leaves with you. One person’s gentle favourite may be another’s tearjerker. A short note explaining why you return to it makes that list more useful to a friend than an unexplained score.