Most people assume that if a goal is hard to achieve, getting there has to feel hard too. We tend to believe that extraordinary results require extraordinary suffering.

But my guest says the secret to success isn’t gritting your teeth; it’s making the path enjoyable. His name is Jia Jiang, and in his new book, Easy Discipline, he argues that consistency comes from designing your work and your life so that doing the right thing becomes something you actually want to do. Today on the show, Jia explains the difference between hard and easy discipline, why “eating bitterness” isn’t the best way to go after your ambitions, and how to make your work feel more like play without lowering your standards. Along the way, we discuss Soviet hockey, Japanese tea ceremonies, rejection therapy, one-action goals, and the power of pursuing aims that are an expression of who you are.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Jia’s previous book: Rejection Therapy
• Jia’s 100 Days of Rejection Therapy videos, including asking for a “burger refill”
• AoM Article: Motivation Over Discipline
• AoM Podcast #954: The Feel-Good Method of Productivity

Connect With Jia Jiang

• Jia on Substack
• Jia’s website
• Jia on LinkedIn

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

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Transcript Coming Soon

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

You’ve been on the volunteer committee at church for three weeks when the texts start.

It’s 9:47 PM on a Tuesday, and your phone lights up with a wall of text from Linda. She’s furious about the budget vote. Except the budget passed the way she wanted, so you’re not sure what she’s furious about. Best you can tell, she thinks you sided against her in a meeting three weeks ago, and somewhere in there she’s accusing you of running a “shadow agenda.” You have no idea what that means.

Instead of writing back a snippy comment, you use your fully developed prefrontal cortex and write a calm, friendly note explaining that you didn’t side against her, that you actually agree with her on the budget, and that you’re happy to talk through the rest. You even ask your wife for a second opinion on the draft before you hit send.

Twenty minutes later Linda replies, angrier, because your calm reply proves you’re a condescending jerk. She starts a group chat with two other committee members and gives her rant again. Then she posts a scathing accusation against you on the congregation’s Facebook group. By morning, it’s a . . . thing.

Every attempt to smooth things over just throws gas on the fire. You apologize, and she treats the apology as a confession. You offer a compromise, and she pushes for more. After a couple days you find yourself dreading a volunteer gig you used to enjoy. You get your first case of heartburn. All because of a lady named Linda.

And you can’t for the life of you figure out what you’re doing wrong. Why aren’t all those tactics you’ve read about managing interpersonal conflict working?

Well, the thing you’re doing wrong is that you’re using normal, reasonable interpersonal tactics on someone who isn’t normal or reasonable.

Most advice about handling interpersonal conflict rests on a hidden assumption: that the person you’re in conflict with is reasonable and acting in good faith. We’ve talked about these tips on AoM before: Listen actively. Use “I feel” statements. Try to see things from the other person’s perspective. Look for a win-win compromise. For most people, in most conflicts, this advice works. The vast majority of folks you’ll butt heads with don’t like conflict any more than you do. So when you try to work things out, they’ll work things out with you.

But there’s a small percentage of people for whom this advice not only fails, it backfires. These are what Bill Eddy calls high-conflict people (HCPs). Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, and mediator who spent his career working with HCPs. He’s written some great books about how to deal with them like 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life. By his estimate, they make up about 10% of the population. But while they’re a small segment, just a single HCP can blow up a group or make your life miserable.

There’s not much advice out there on dealing with HCPs, so when most people encounter one, they’re baffled. Thankfully, Eddy has laid out some solid, field-tested advice on how to avoid them and how to protect yourself when you can’t.

What Makes Someone a High-Conflict Person

A high-conflict person isn’t just someone who’s difficult, prickly, or having a bad day. What sets HCPs apart is a specific, predictable pattern of behavior. Eddy identifies four traits:

1. A preoccupation with a target of blame. When something goes wrong in an HCP’s life, it’s the fault of their ex-wife, or their boss, or the neighbor, or you. Eddy calls this person the HCP’s “target of blame,” and it’s the defining trait of a high-conflict person. The HCP doesn’t just hold their target responsible for their problems. They become fixated on punishing them, often to the point that the vendetta overrides their own self-interest. Eddy has seen HCPs spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to keep an ex from getting $1,000 in a divorce settlement.

2. All-or-nothing thinking. For the HCP, people are either allies or enemies, and situations are either total victories or total defeats. It’s all black and white. This is why compromise doesn’t work on them. To an HCP, compromise feels like surrender.

3. Unmanaged emotions. HCPs have reactions wildly out of proportion to whatever triggered them. You take three hours to answer a text, and they respond as if you’d spit on their mother. Eddy explains this in terms of the brain: while most of us process conflict with our “thinking brain” — the prefrontal cortex, which handles logic and weighing consequences — HCPs process it with their “reactive brain,” the fight-or-flight machinery of the amygdala. They experience an ordinary disagreement the way you’d experience a bear attack. Which is why appealing to their reason mid-conflict is futile; the part of the brain that reasons is offline.

4. Extreme behaviors. Because HCPs believe they’re victims of a grave injustice, they feel justified in doing things 90% of the population would never do: spreading vicious rumors, filing frivolous lawsuits, making false accusations, showing up at your door at 10 PM to yell at you. What looks like an unhinged attack to you feels like righteous self-defense to them.

If you’re thinking these traits sound a lot like those of people with narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, or histrionic personality disorder, you’re right. Eddy spent years working as a therapist in psychiatric hospitals, and he developed his HCP framework with the DSM’s personality disorders in mind.

But Eddy is careful to point out that being an HCP and having a personality disorder aren’t the same thing. He estimates that only about half of people with personality disorders act as HCPs. A woman with histrionic personality disorder might cause a temporary ruckus when her boyfriend ends the relationship, but if she doesn’t spend five years trying to destroy him, she’s not an HCP.

At the same time, you can have HCPs who wouldn’t be given a personality disorder diagnosis.

For your purposes, none of this matters much. Diagnosing someone doesn’t help you deal with HCPs. What matters is the pattern. If someone shows all four traits, treat them as an HCP.

Your Best Bet With High-Conflict People: Avoid Them!

The best way to deal with an HCP is to never get entangled with one in the first place. That’s harder than it sounds, because HCPs are often charming, smart, and impressive at first. The pattern only reveals itself over time — usually after you’ve hired them, married them, or signed a lease with them.

To speed up your detection, Eddy offers a screening tool he calls the WEB Method: pay attention to a person’s Words, your Emotions, and their Behavior.

Their words. Listen for all-or-nothing language. When a person tells a story about a conflict, do they heap all the blame on the other person without admitting any responsibility? When an HCP tells you about their past, every story has a villain, and the villain is never them. All the bosses from the jobs they got fired from were idiots. All three ex-girlfriends were crazy. One bad ex is a data point; three is a pattern, and the common denominator is sitting across the table from you at Chili’s right now.

Your emotions. Notice how you feel around this person. If you find yourself walking on eggshells, feeling vaguely attacked, or getting angry for reasons you can’t quite name, take note. And watch out for the opposite feeling, too. If someone you met a week ago makes you feel like the most fascinating human being on earth, that too-good-to-be-true charm can be the front end of a high-conflict pattern.

Their behavior. Apply the 90% test: has this person ever done something 90% of people would never do? Keyed an ex’s car? Sued a neighbor over a fence line — twice? Normal people don’t do these things, no matter how upset they are. Extreme behavior is the most reliable tell there is.

If you detect a potential HCP, keep your distance. You don’t need to be rude. Just keep things arm’s length and formal. Be boring. The goal is to fly under the radar so you never become a target of blame. If a job candidate shows these signs, look at someone else. If you’re thinking about popping the question to a gal who’s shown repeated HCP behavior, reconsider.

How to Deal With a High-Conflict Person When You Have To

Sometimes avoidance isn’t an option. The HCP is your coworker, your sibling, your next-door neighbor. You’re stuck with them, so you need a strategy.

Start with what not to do. Eddy has four rules he calls the “fuhgeddaboudits”:

Forget about giving them insight into themselves. An HCP’s self-image is that of an innocent victim, and no amount of gentle feedback will change it. Try to help them see the role they’re playing in the conflict, and they’ll just add your feedback to the list of your offenses.

Forget about arguing over the past. HCPs have their own immutable version of history. Relitigating it accomplishes nothing except handing them fresh material to distort.

Forget about focusing on their emotions. Asking an HCP to reflect on their feelings will likely just make them more upset.

Forget about labeling them. Never tell someone you think they’re a narcissist, a borderline, or an HCP. It will not produce the moment of humble self-reflection you were hoping for. It will produce a war.

So what do you do instead? Eddy has a framework for interacting with HCPs: CARS. It’s an acronym for Connect, Analyze, Respond, Set limits.

Connect with EAR statements. When an HCP is escalating, your first job isn’t to solve the problem; it’s to calm their reactive brain enough that a problem can be solved. You do that with a statement showing Empathy, Attention, and Respect. Say an HCP on your work team is ranting that you’ve torpedoed his project. You could say something like: “I can see this is really frustrating. Tell me more about what’s going on. I know you’ve worked hard on this.”

You haven’t agreed with him, admitted any fault, or conceded a single point. All you’ve done is show him you’re not a threat, and that’s usually enough to get his thinking brain working again.

Analyze options. Once the HCP has calmed down a bit, move the conversation toward the future. HCPs like to dwell on past grievances, and they’ll rehash them all day if you let them. But thinking about what to do next requires the thinking brain, so questions about options and next steps help keep them out of reactive mode. These questions also keep you from getting saddled with a problem that isn’t yours. If an HCP starts dumping his problem in your lap, you can say, “That sounds like a tough spot. What do you think your options are?” Now he has to come up with a plan instead of a complaint, and the responsibility for his problem stays with him.

Respond with a BIFF. Writing a long reply in your defense will only give the HCP more ammunition. He’ll pick apart every sentence and use it to fuel another round of attacks. So instead of a rebuttal, Eddy recommends you respond with what he calls a BIFF — a reply that’s Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm.

Let’s say your coworker Dave sends a three-page email accusing you of sabotaging his project, and he cc’s half the department on it. Here’s what a BIFF response would look like:

“Hi Dave, thanks for your email. To clarify the timeline: the report was submitted to Susan on March 3rd, per the schedule she set in February. The project files are all in the shared drive. Best, Steve.”

That’s it. Four sentences. You’ve stated the facts, you’ve stayed polite, and you haven’t given Dave anything to work with.

Set limits and enforce them. HCPs don’t have internal brakes. You have to supply the brakes for them by setting boundaries and enforcing consequences if they’re violated.

When you set a limit with an HCP, it helps to tie it to some outside authority instead of your own personal preference. If an HCP asks you for something you have to turn down, “Company policy doesn’t allow me to do that” will go over better than a flat “no.” The HCP can be mad at the policy instead of at you, and you’re less likely to end up as his target of blame.

If there’s no policy or authority you can point to, you can still set limits on how the HCP gets to engage with you. Take Linda and her Tuesday night text barrages. You could send her a BIFF like this: “I won’t be continuing this conversation over text. If you’d like to talk, we can meet in person Sunday after the service.” Then mute her texts. You’ve drawn a line, but you’ve also given her a legitimate way to air her grievances. She probably won’t take you up on it, though. HCPs like attacking from behind a screen; sitting across from you after church is a lot less appealing.

Whatever boundary you set, enforce it. This takes some grit. HCPs wear people down by pushing the same boundary over and over. Hold the line, and if you need help holding it, bring in reinforcements — HR, church leadership, or, worst case, a lawyer.

How to Break Away From a High-Conflict Person

Sometimes you need to end the connection with an HCP entirely. How you exit matters a lot.

Whatever you do, don’t deliver the honest exit speech. Telling an HCP you’re leaving because of their behavior just makes you more of a target, and they’ll pursue you more intensely. But don’t fall on your sword either; taking the blame yourself just confirms their victim narrative.

Instead, frame the split as a neutral mismatch: “Our goals have gone in different directions.” “It’s just not a good fit.” Nobody gets blamed, and nobody takes responsibility. Then withdraw gradually rather than dramatically.

And brace yourself for what Eddy calls “hoovering.” The HCP may suddenly get uncharacteristically vulnerable and offer a tearful apology. It’s usually a tactic to suck you back in. Keep walking.

Most of the people you’ll ever be in conflict with deserve your good faith, your listening ear, and your willingness to meet in the middle. Keep giving them all three. But learn to recognize the small number of HCPs who will use those things against you. With them, the best thing you can do is steer clear. And when you can’t, use Eddy’s battle-tested tactics to keep them at arm’s length.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

For whatever reason (most likely the fact that viewing is easier than reading), films don’t seem to garner the same kind of cultural respect as books do. Which is a shame because excellent movies can be just as entertaining, mind-expanding, and life-changing as good books. Scenes, characters, and quotes from the greatest movies stay with us long after we view them. 

And for better and for worse, film has had a huge impact on masculinity in the 20^th century. Movies have produced archetypes of manliness that many men judge themselves against today. To view how male characters of cinema have been portrayed over the decades, is to see clearly the ways in which our perception of masculinity has changed and continues to change. Thus it seemed only proper that the Art of Manliness take a stab at creating a list of essential movies every man should see.

We didn’t want to make a bro-y list, in which the movies were selected based on their amount of titillating sex and explosive violence. Nor did we want to create a high-brow list consisting solely of independent avant-garde movies that, while culturally or cinematically significant, aren’t very entertaining. We wanted to create a well-rounded list of films that have something to say about manliness. Some of the movies speak poignantly about what it means to be a man. Others give examples of true manliness in action (like the best war movies). Some are lessons in how not to be a man. And others are simply entertaining movies that are just plain virile. But the common thread that runs through all of them is that they’re great movies that have stood the test of time.

Without further ado, we present AoM’s 100 must-see movies for men.

The Great Escape

This group of Allied POWS fought the enemy the best way they could – by bustin’ out of prison. Based on a true story, the film has been hailed as one the greatest escape movies of all time. Despite its length (172 minutes), the movie maintains interest through the engaging relationships of the prisoners. Each individual contributes their skills and personality to the effort, even the self-interested American (played by Steve McQueen). I guess his skill would be making killer motorcycle chase scenes. (Be sure to read our article on why men love The Great Escape).

Best line: “I’m going . . . out.”

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Based loosely on the real lives of Western outlaws Robert Leroy Parker (aka Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (aka the Sundance Kid), Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is a classic movie about two buddies trying to make it in a changing world. What’s funny about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is that you forget that these guys were hardened criminals who robbed banks and trains for a living. The easy going charm Robert Redford and Paul Newman bring to their roles makes you like the characters despite their choice of profession. Their clever hijinks and humor make the movie an enjoyable ride.

Best line: “Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”

Dirty Harry

Cops that won’t let anything — even the law — stand in their way of catching the bad guy may have become a Hollywood cliché, but when Dirty Harry first pulled out his .44 magnum it was a brand new story. Harry Callahan stops at nothing as he hunts down the Scorpio, a serial killer that picks people off with a sniper rifle. The plot is okay, but it’s Clint Eastwood that drives the entire picture. His rebel good- guy cop set a high mark for others to try and follow.

Best line: “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?”

The Endless Summer

Working 60 hours a week sucks. I mean, it really sucks. The idea of travelling around the world to exotic spots with the simple objective of surfing every chance you get is about the most enticing thing on the planet. In step Mike Hynson and Robert August. Famed documentary director Bruce Brown follows the pair around the world as they chase the summer and whatever waves they can ride. If you can’t surf, or you can’t take the time off work to surf — live vicariously through this movie.

Bull Durham

This movie is great for many reasons — of which, I cite two: 1) Kevin Costner can actually play baseball, instead of looking like a moron as do many other actors trying to swing a bat. 2) Tim Robbins character wears lingerie when he pitches — which is completely classic. Besides these, there are many other elements that make the movie relevant: the mentor/mentee, the old vs. the young, fighting for the woman, baseball. But ultimately it’s about a bunch of guys trying to make their mark on life — which we can all certainly relate to.

Best line: “Charlie, here comes the deuce. And when you speak of me, speak well.”

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is a character study in what happens to a man who becomes ruthlessly consumed with besting his fellow man, with winning at all costs. Daniel Day-Lewis, in what may be his best performance, at first garners the audience’s sympathy and admiration, only to invite their repugnance as he loses his humanity in the pursuit of ambition. The movie’s ending is grim and grisly, and the shock blast the film creates around the themes of greed, religion, and family will embed thought-provoking, long-lasting shrapnel in your brain.

Best line: “I’ve got a competition in me.”

The Shootist

Nobody wants to die alone. Especially gunslingers. In a haunting portrayal that foreshadowed his own fate, John Wayne plays J.B. Brooks, an aging gunfighter dying of cancer who resigns himself to live out his days in private. But skeletons from his past prevent him from fading away, so he decides to go down the only way he knows — with his six gun blazing.

Best line: “I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

Hoosiers

At its core, Hoosiers is about redemption — basketball is just the vehicle. The story revolves around a basketball coach that has fallen from grace and finds himself at a small rural town in Indiana. He ruffles feathers and fights to earn the respect of his players, the town, and a doubtful teacher. The team chases glory, while others in the town remember what it is like to win. Not only is it one of the most inspiring movies of all time, it has one of the most hardcore stoics in all of sport movie history. Jimmy = Clutch.

Best line: “You know, most people would kill . . . to be treated like a god, just for a few moments.”

Last of the Mohicans

This movie set the standard for war epics of the modern era. Few are its equal. A Mohican father and his son, along with their adopted son, attempt to maintain their neutrality amidst the French-Indian War in colonial America. The men are pulled into the fray after rescuing two daughters of a British Officer during a skirmish and escorting them to their father’s fort. As the impending battle builds around them, the men remain devoted to the daughters, going to great lengths to preserve them. From the opening sequence of Uncas and Hawkeye sprinting through the dense forest, to the final scene on the promontory, the movie is gripping and powerful. 

Best line: “Someday I think you and I are going to have a serious disagreement.”

The Bicycle Thief

An Italian Neo-Realist classic, The Bicycle Thief tells the bleak story of a man in impoverished post-war Italy whose bicycle, which he needs to work, is stolen. Father and son hunt all over Rome to find the bike, with no one to help them and ultimately no success. And thus the father is faced with a classic philosophical problem: is it okay to steal to feed your family? Realistic and honest, this movie provides one of the best glimpses into the nature of the father/son relationship.

Best line: “Why should I kill myself worrying when I’ll end up just as dead?”

Field of Dreams

To what lengths would a person go for a chance at reconciliation? If it is for your (dead) father, most of us would do anything. Field of Dreams is Ray Kinsellas’s journey of reparation with his father. Ray, an Iowa farmer, erects a baseball field in his cornfield after a voice tells him, “If you build it, he will come.” The voice continues, and after a series of mysterious and supernatural events, he is able to make amends. It is quite possible that a game of catch can heal most wounds between a father and son — even death, I suppose.

Best line: “If you build it, he will come.”

North by Northwest

Starring dapper dude Cary Grant, North by Northwest is classic Alfred Hitchcock. Grant plays a hapless New York advertising executive mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive. The problem is the government thinks he’s a spy, too, and they’re on the chase as well. Talk about a bad day.

Best line: “I don’t like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.”

The Outsiders

The film adaption of SE Hinton’s famous novel perfectly captures the tumultuous nature of teenage angst. The well-to-do Socs and blue collar Greasers hate each other’s guts, and when Johnny the Greaser kills a Soc, a series of dramatic and tragic events are set in motion, including an old fashioned rumble. The film is a star-studded affair, filled with the likes of Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane, many before they were household names. And best of all, it was shot on location in my home city of Tulsa.

Best line: “Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.”

First Blood (Rambo)

The more weighty issues in First Blood are usually overshadowed by the gratuitous action. Understandably so, but the movie is built on Rambo’s struggle to return to society after the Vietnam War. A Medal of Honor recipient, Rambo is kicked out of a small town and then arrested for vagrancy. The sheriff and his deputies go overboard with torture and Rambo reverts back to what he does best. Nothing good can come from pissing off a guy named Rambo.

Best line: “They drew first blood, not me.”

The Manchurian Candidate

A Cold War classic starring Frank Sinatra in probably his best movie performance. The film was so controversial that it was banned from further release after JFK’s assassination. The Manchurian Candidate focuses on the way in which propaganda and the manufacture of political views can influence one’s perception and behavior in the most provocative of ways. The story follows several former Korean War soldiers who have been brainwashed by the military. Follow them as they try to unravel the source of the reoccurring nightmares. A real thriller. Don’t bother with the Denzel Washington version. The original is still the best.

Best line: “There are two kinds of people in this world: Those that enter a room and turn the television set on, and those that enter a room and turn the television set off.”

In the Heat of the Night

Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a respected detective from up north, is thrown into a murder investigation in the small town of Sparta, Mississippi. While he initially doesn’t want any part of the case, Tibbs exemplifies manly resolve as he sticks around, staring down bigot after bigot while searching for the murderer. The film is famous for a scene in which Tibbs, after being slapped by a white man, slaps him right back. The screenplay originally called for Poitier to simply take it, but the actor found this passive response degrading and insisted he be allowed to hit back. That my friends, is being a man. You slap me in the face, I’ll slap you right back, Sucka.

Best line: “They call me MISTER Tibbs!”

Shane

A quiet gunslinger who is trying to escape his past befriends a pioneer family that has settled out west. He attempts to settle down and become a hired hand to the family, but the ranchers who want to drive cattle through the homesteaders’ property are attempting to drive them out. Shane tries to stay out of the disputes, but keeps being drawn in and is finally compelled to put his six shooter back on to protect his adoptive family. Perhaps the most touching part of the movie is the relationship Shane develops with the farmer’s son.

Best line: “A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.”

Double Indemnity

Perhaps the greatest American contribution to the noir style, Double Indemnity is dark rumination on greed, manipulation, and betrayal. Barbara Stanwyck plays a classic femme fatale who uses her womanly wiles to lure insurance salesman Walter Neff into a plan to kill her husband for the “double indemnity” payout. But Neff is not a guileless victim after all. Palatable tension, suspense, and snappy dialogue make this film a true classic.

Best line: “How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”

Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside)

Politics of euthanasia aside, living is so much more than just breathing. Based on the life of Ramón Sampedro, the movie examines the fight to end his own life after 30 years of being paralyzed from the neck down. Despite his desire to end his life, through his courage and self awareness, he inspired others to embrace their own.

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon is filled with ambiguities in morality. Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart, is a hardened and cynical man. But underneath his rough exterior is a man with a sense of idealism. Spade lives by a code of honor that doesn’t let him take the corrupt and easy solution to life’s problems. The Maltese Falcon forces us to answer a simple question: when push comes to shove, will we stick to our own code of honor or will we sell out?

Best line: “[It’s the] stuff that dreams are made of.”

Das Boot

Das Boot puts you inside a stranded and submered German U-Boat and explores the physical and emotional tensions of the situation with a vivid, terrifying realism. Holding it all together, under harrowing conditions, is a single man. The captain is a scruffy, mildly cynical, bastion of strength. He deals calmly with almost any situation, drawing on a seemingly unlimited store of courage.

Best line: “You have to have good men. Good men, all of them.”

Star Wars (The Original Trilogy)

The reason Star Wars became a cultural phenomenon wasn’t because of the special effects. It was the story. Star Wars simply put a futuristic spin on the archetypal story of heroic good vs. evil that men have been telling around fires for millennia. Stick with the original trilogy. They’re still the best. Mainly because manly man Han Solo is in it. If CGI effects was all it took to make a good movie, then we would have all loved Jar Jar Binks.

Best line: “I am your father.”

Rudy

Rudy, a scrappy blue collar kid, has a dream of playing football with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. While Rudy wasn’t blessed with the talent or the body to be a star athlete, he’s a got a lot of heart and determination. When you’re feeling like the underdog in life, just plop down and watch Rudy. You’ll be ready to “Play Like a Champion” afterwards.

Best Line: “You’re 5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’, and you have barely a speck of athletic ability. And you hung in there with the best college football players in the land for 2 years. And you’re gonna walk outta here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself. And after what you’ve gone through, if you haven’t done that by now, it ain’t gonna never happen. Now go on back.”

High Noon

High Noon is film about being torn between duty, love and standing up for what you believe in, even when everyone else abandons you. Gary Cooper plays Will Kane, a town marshal from New Mexico, who settles down with his pacifist Quaker wife (played by Grace Kelly, one of your grandpa’s babes). Kane plans to retire to a peaceful life are interrupted after he gets word that a former gunslinger is coming in on the noon train to settle an old score with him. His wife pleads with him to leave town, but Kane knows he can’t. He has a duty to defend the town and his honor. Will finds himself alone in the battle as everyone in town, including his deputy sheriff, have turned away from him. The tension builds, leading up to the final gun battle.

Best line: “Don’t shove me Harv. I’m tired of being shoved.”

Gandhi

It is impossible to capture the life of any man in one film, much less the life of a man who saw and did as much as Mahatma Gandhi. Thus the filmmakers who tried to capture his life on the silver screen sought not to give a blow by blow account of Gandhi’s life, but instead to capture his spirit in what they did show. The film begins with Gandhi’s assassination and then starts the retrospective of his life, beginning with his being thrown off a train for being Indian, and through his non-violent efforts to win Indians their rights and then their independence. One man truly can free an entire nation, if not change the entire world.

Best line: “They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me, then they will have my dead body. NOT MY OBEDIENCE!”

Rebel Without a Cause

When people think about James Dean, they typically picture him in his role in Rebel Without a Cause. Even though it’s over 50 years old, Rebel Without a Cause still captures the feelings of modern teenage angst: nervous, confused, and feeling lost in a world that is changing. James Dean plays Jim Stark, a juvenile delinquent who moves into a new town. Jim clashes with other teenagers and his parents, whom he feels simply don’t understand him. The movie often points a finger at weak or absent fathers as the cause of teenage rebellion. Jim father’s always backs down to his wife when they argue, leading Jim to ask, “What do you do when you have to be a man?”

Best line: “You’re tearing me apart!”

The French Connection

The French Connection is based on the true story of the Turmanio Case — a large heroine smuggling ring that linked the New York mob with a French mob in Marseilles. Two NYC cops busted the ring using tactics that were morally and ethically questionable. In The French Connection, the names have been changed, but the overall story stays the same. Legendary actor Gene Hackman plays Popeye Doyle, a ruthless cop who’ll do anything, legal or not, to get the job done: wiretaps, shakedowns, theft distribution of heroin to informants, extortion. You get the idea. The French Connection is thus a Machiavellian film. It forces the viewer to ask themselves if the ends really do justify the means, even if the end is noble. Oh, and a porkpie hat never looked so bad ass on a man as it does on Gene Hackman in this film.

Best line: “All right, Popeye’s here!”

Casablanca

Filled with iconic scenes and memorable (but often misquoted) lines, Casablanca is a love story that you can watch with your girlfriend, while still feeling manly because it has Humphrey Bogart in it. Bogart plays Rick Blaine, a bitter American ex-patriate living in Casablanca during World War II. One day his old flame and the woman who turned him cynical, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) walks into his club with her husband. An awkward and tense love triangle commences. In the end Blaine has a decision that many men face in their life: get what you want or sacrifice for the greater cause.

Best line: “Here’s looking at you kid.”

Unforgiven

Cinema often glorifies the Old West as a mythic time when good guys wore white and the bad ones wore black. In Unforgiven, director/actor/producer Clint Eastwood shines a light on the dark, violent, and morally ambiguous aspects of life in frontier America. Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, a once notorious and violent killer. Now, he’s just a quiet and tired farmer who is a devoted father still mourning his dead wife. But Will’s old life comes back to haunt him when he’s asked to do a hit on a cowboy who slashed the face of a prostitute. Will is transplanted from his farm in Kansas to a town in Wyoming where he meets Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), a mean son-of-a-bitch who is determined to not let the hit go down, no matter what it takes. Hold onto your hats, partners. This isn’t your grandpa’s Western.

Best line: “Hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”

The Iron Giant

Animated films often don’t have much to offer a man, packed as they are with zany animal sidekicks and pop culture humor. But The Iron Giant is not so much an animated film as it is a film that happens to be animated. It’s a beautifully drawn, intelligent, and thoughtful film in which a giant robot falls from space and is befriended and taken care of by a boy. It’s 1957, and Cold War paranoia is running high, making the robot a target of government suspicion. I won’t give the ending away, but the story is an emotional tale about doing the right thing and sacrifice. A real masterpiece.

Best line: “You are what you choose to be. You choose. Choose.”

Gladiator

General Maximus Decimus Meridius represents all that is good in a man. He loved his family, he loved his country, he knew how to lead, and he kicked some serious ass. This movie has everything a man would want in a flim: epic battle scenes involving huge swords and a protagonist who is fighting for what is right. If you ever need a film to pump you up for something, watch Gladiator.

Best line: “What we do in life, echoes in eternity.”

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Jimmy Stewart plays a small town scoutmaster named Jefferson Smith who is picked to fill an empty U.S. Senate seat. The scheming politicians and party boss who foisted this office on Mr. Smith had plans to control this naive country bumpkin as a cog in their political machine. Little did they know, they picked a man filled with integrity, honor, and ideals. The filibusterer scene is classic. Mr. Smith spoke for 23 hours straight, beseeching his fellow Congressman to listen to their consciences, only to faint out of exhaustion at the end. Hokey? Maybe a bit. But in a world where corporate and political corruption runs rampant, men like Mr. Smith can inspire all men everywhere to stand up for what is right.

Best line: “Because of just one, plain, simple rule: Love thy neighbor. And in this world today, full of hatred, a man who knows that one rule has a great trust. You know that rule, Mr. Paine, and I loved you for it, just as my father did. And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any others. Yes, you even die for them, like a man we both knew, Mr. Paine.”

The Hustler

A brash young pool shark named Fast Eddie (Paul Newman) sets his sights on defeating one of the game’s greatest players — Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). But getting up on Fats isn’t enough. He wants to crush his opponent. Eddie’s relentless drive eventually becomes his undoing as his winning streak turns to defeat. But Fast Eddie is tenacious. He musters up some more cash and challenges Minnesota Fats again. The Hustler is about more than pool. It’s about winning and losing, greed, self-respect, and redemption.

Best line: “You know, this is my table, man. I own it.”

The Untouchables

During the time of Prohibition, when it seemed the whole country could be bought and sold by ganglords, a small group of men stood firm and fought the storm that raged around them. The movie follows Eliot Ness, a U.S. Treasury Agent, and his group of hand picked men that brought down the infamous mob boss, Al Capone. Sean Connery is perfect as Jim Malone, the gritty Irish street cop who taught us never to bring a knife to a gun fight.

Best line: “You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way!”

The Grapes of Wrath

Based on John Steinbeck’s famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath follows a group of “Okies” during the Great Depression on their westward trip to a California in search of a better life. Henry Fonda plays the story’s main protagonist, Tom Joad, a man who has to hold his family together as the high hopes they began the journey with collide with a far colder reality. The film softened Steinbeck’s political overtones and gave the story a more hopeful ending, yet it’s still a movie of real thought-provoking substance.

Best Line: “I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.”

Bullitt

Steve McQueen is the man and Bullitt puts his rugged manliness on full display. The film is raw and edgy and changed the way detective movies were made in Hollywood. The best thing about this movie? The epic car chase scene through the streets of San Francisco. It was and still is the best car chase scene in film history. A 390 GT Mustang never looked so good.

Best line: “You work your side of the street and I’ll work mine.”

The Best Years of Our Lives

Although we remember World War II as “the good war,” the one where the soldiers didn’t complain much about the hell they went through, GIs from the Big One had the same rough time transitioning back to home life that all soldiers did and do. And The Best Years of Our Lives is a rare movie that honestly captures that experience. The film follows 3 servicemen who hitch a ride together back to the same town. Each has a very different life he is coming home to, and each has their own struggles to fit back into that life.

Best line: “You know, I had a dream. I dreamt I was home. I’ve had that same dream hundreds of times before. This time, I wanted to find out if it’s really true. Am I really home?”

Die Hard

With believable characters and deft touches of humor supplementing the blow em up plot, Die Hard reigns as one of the greatest action films of all time. John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, is an off-duty cop who gets caught up in a fight when sophisticated bank robbers crash his wife’s company Christmas party. He picks them off one by one, and even survives their attempt to blow up the building. I’d hate to see what John McClane would have done if he had his shoes on.

Best line: “Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs . . .”

Enter the Dragon

An underground martial arts tournament, drugs, prostitutes, revenge, some sick Kung Fu, mirrors — is there anything this movie doesn’t have? The first Kung Fu flick to come out of Hollywood was, sadly, the final one from Bruce Lee. Hailed as one of the most financially profitable films of all time, Enter the Dragon capitalized on the insane ability of one of martial arts’ prodigies. The story follows Lee on a journey to avenge his sister’s death and bring honor back to his master and Shaolin Temple. Throw in a secret island, some hookers, maybe a little international espionage and . . . let’s face it, we don’t really watch these kinds of movies for the plot. Bruce Lee is ridiculously awesome and that’s all I really need to say.

Best line: “Don’t think. FEEL. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

Malcolm X

American culture has unfortunately and simplistically rendered the history of the civil rights movement as a battle between Martin Luther King Jr., the good guy who got it right, and Malcolm X, the bad guy who got it wrong. The story is of course much more complicated, as is Malcolm X himself. You owe it to yourself to get a fuller picture of the man by reading his autobiography, and watching this film which also goes a long way in showing both his faults and his too often forgotten virtues.

Best line: “A man curses because he doesn’t have the words to say what’s on his mind.”

Cinderella Man

A validation of self-worth can be a powerful element to sustain a man. After an injury caused James Braddock to plummet from the top of the boxing world, he struggled to survive and provide for his family through the Great Depression. At nearly the breaking point, he gets a chance to fight again. Everyone expected him to be an easy opponent, but a desperate and hungry man can be extremely dangerous. He wins the fight and continues to win, leading him to fight in the heavyweight championship. Braddock’s true story is about more than boxing; his rise, fall, and dream of redemption mirrored the whole nation’s hopes.

Best line: “I have to believe that when things are bad I can change them.”

The Right Stuff

From the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager to the space flights of the Mercury 7 astronauts, the movie provides an inside look at the American side of the space race. The flaws and reality of the program are exposed along with those of the astronauts. They were human – which makes them all the more heroic.

Best line: “What Gus is saying is that we’re missing the point. What Gus is saying is that we all heard the rumors that they want to send a monkey up first. Well, none of us wants to think that they’re gonna send a monkey up to do a man’s work. But what Gus is saying is that what they’re trying to do to us is send a man up to do a monkey’s work. Us, a bunch of college-trained chimpanzees!”

True Grit

As westerns go, is there any greater than those starring John Wayne – and here the eye patch only makes him more hardcore. Hired by a young girl to track down the man that killed her father, Wayne takes on the role of Rooster Cogburn, the marshal with “grit” enough to bring the man to justice. Despite his failing health, John Wayne played the ailing law man to an Oscar-winning performance.

Best line: “Well, a gun that’s unloaded and cocked ain’t good for nothin’.”

A Streetcar Named Desire

Sometimes people are just barely hanging on to their sanity. Those around them can either talk them off the ledge, or push them over it. Case in point: Blanche Dubois. Now this chick may have been a few cards short of a deck to start with, but at least she was holding on. Stanley may be the perfect example of how a man should never treat a woman. If the man had any ounce of sympathetic understanding to replace his uber-brutish machismo, Blanche may have turned the corner into the land of the functional.

Best line: “Stella!”

Vertigo

Hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time, the film captures a man’s descent from sanity as the effects of his acrophobia prevent him from saving the woman he came to love. Of course, the movie wouldn’t be a Hitchcock classic if there weren’t some crazy twists thrown in there. The character played by Jimmy Stewart suffers from an intense fear of heights and strange events continue to unfold as a result. Mix in some shadowy women, a little murder and you’ve got one of the greatest mystery films ever made. Moral of the story: get over your fear of heights before people start dying.

Best line: “You shouldn’t keep souvenirs of a killing. You shouldn’t have been that sentimental.”

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is the godfather of modern war movies. Almost all pay homage in their execution or effect. The film is from the eyes of German soldiers fresh to the front lines in WWI. The story follows Paul as he and his buddies question the politics of war and other atrocities they face. As those in the group continue to die, even when they are supposed to be out of harm’s way, the futility of war becomes ever more apparent. A glimpse into the mind of those that fight, the film was groundbreaking in its intense portrayal of the frontlines.

Best line: “You still think it’s beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for country, it’s better not to die at all.”

The Shawshank Redemption

Several themes run deep in this adaptation of Stephen King’s novella. Not to get too philosophical on you, but I could spend days digging through all the elements this movies presents. Andy, a banker, (Tim Robbins) is falsely imprisoned for the murder of his wife and her boyfriend. In prison he develops a friendship with Red (Morgan Freeman), and they do whatever it takes to survive. In the morally bankrupt world of the prison, Andy maintains his integrity and relies on his unfounded hope in the world. I guess I probably shouldn’t use the word “redemption” to describe the movie because it’s actually in the title, but it’s how this redemption is achieved that makes the story shine. Hands down, a movie for the ages.

Best line: “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

Cool Hand Luke

At first glance, this movie seems like just another slacker anti-establishment movie, and maybe it is, but what makes this movie great is the layers of interpretation that can be applied to it. Luke (Paul Newman) is sent to prison camp for vandalizing parking meters and faithfully resists whatever authority is thrown at him. Though gaining the admiration of his peers with his non-conformist attitude and escape attempts, the prison officials brutally punish Luke to break his spirit. Eventually they do and Luke is abandoned by his admirers. One last escape attempt leads Luke to a final confrontation. Take whatever path of interpretation you want, religious to existential to just about anything – Cool Hand Luke speaks to the rebel in all of us. R.I.P. Paul Newman. Thanks for all the manly times.

Best line: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Spartacus

Gladiator/Slave revolts – does it get any more inspiring? You’re forced to fight some dude for no reason, they take the woman you love, the crap just keeps piling up and there’s really no other choice – let’s take on the most powerful empire on the planet. Sounds crazy, but Spartacus almost pulled it off. Rallying the oppressed around him, he led one of the largest revolts of all time. In one of the most memorable scenes in movie history, while facing certain death, his men stand up and proclaim “I am Spartacus” to preserve their leader from crucifixion. That’s some serious loyalty, gentlemen.

Best line: “I am Spartacus.”

Mississippi Burning

Based loosely on the true story of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964, Mississippi Burning follows the FBI’s attempts to bring the perpetrators of that crime to justice. The film centers on two of the Bureau’s agents, Alan Ward (William Dafoe) and Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman). Ward wants to conduct the investigation by the book, while Anderson, who is from Mississippi, understands that using more, let’s say loosely legal tactics, is the way to go. Like threatening the deputy sheriff with a deadly straight razor shave. Nice.

Best line: “With an old man who was just so full of hate that he didn’t know that being poor was what was killing him.”

Chinatown

Who would have thought stealing water would lead to such craziness? Nicholson is at his hardcore finest as a private eye that sheds light on a huge scandal involving real estate, dams, water, some unsuspecting senior citizens, and even incest. That’s a really random list, but it clearly worked for a lot of people – it was nominated for 11 Academy Awards.

Best line: “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Remember the Titans

Nothing brings people together like football and desegregation. In the early 1970s, two schools in Virginia are forced to segregate in order to comply with a federal mandate. Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) is selected as the head coach of the football team over the current successful white coach. The town goes crazy. The team goes crazy. The coaches go crazy. But the team comes together and they play a dream season for their new coach. I love this movie. I forget how much I love it until it comes on TV, and I can’t change the channel. I seriously wish Denzel Washington was my football coach. I would have destroyed everyone.

Best line: “This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today. This green field right here, painted red, bubblin’ with the blood of young boys. Smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men. I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family. You listen, and you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other of not, but you will respect each other. And maybe . . . I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”

Braveheart

Mistake #1: Primae noctis? Are you crazy, Long Shanks?

Mistake #2: Slicing up William Wallace’s woman? Are you asking to get your fort burned down? Never hack off a Scotsman.

Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the battle painted warrior poet William Wallace is easily one of the greatest heroes in all of movie history. I refrain from commenting on historical accuracies, but the Battle of Stirling is one of, if not the best battle scene of all time. I can say no more.

Best line: “Every man dies, not every man really lives.”

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is not only a classic film frequently ranked as the very best of all time, it’s also a handy primer on how not to be a man. Don’t let power corrupt your soul; don’t let pride crush your relationships; don’t push everyone away until you die alone, an arrogant jerk with his just desserts. And don’t get so hung up on childhood memories that you can never build a life for yourself.

Best line: “Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn’t have explained anything . . . I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a . . . piece in a jigsaw puzzle . . . a missing piece.”

On the Waterfront

It’s the story of longshoreman and ex-boxer Terry Malloy (Marlin Brando) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. During the film we see Malloy become aware of his personal power to fight and eliminate the corruption that surrounds him. It’s a classic story of one man defying insurmountable odds to fight for what’s right.

Best line: “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”

The Bourne Identity (Trilogy)

I truly believe, that deep in our hearts, all men want to be assassins. I don’t know if it is the mystique, the weapons, the fact that you are a killing machine, or whatever; assassins may very well be the top of the food chain. But what makes the Bourne movies so watchable, is that they don’t rely solely on Jason Bourne kicking the crap out of people. Of course that element is present, but Matt Damon is able to bring the character to the forefront. It is the relationships that Bourne builds with himself and others that keep the films from crossing over into the cliché. That and killing guys with pens and/or magazines.

Best line: “I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?”

Rocky

I love a good underdog story, and Rocky is the king of them all. The movie poster’s tag line sums up the movie pretty well: “His whole life was a million-to-one shot.” Sylvester Stallone plays Rocky Balboa, a two bit working class boxer from Philadelphia who gets the chance to fight the world heavyweight champion of the world. The training montage with Rocky running up the stairs of the library at the end is a cultural icon and still inspires men to get off their butt and start exercising. Cue “Eye of the Tiger.”

Best line: “I just want to say hi to my girlfriend, okay? Yo, Adrian! It’s me, Rocky.”

Apollo 13

I don’t think you could dream up a worse situation: stuck in a tin can, floating around in outer space with no power and running out of oxygen. The now famous line, “Houston, we have a problem,” is definitely an understatement. Three guys trapped in a disabled shuttle after a trip to the moon goes horribly wrong, and all they have to save them are some of the greatest minds on the planet. Using some killer brain power and whatever junk they can find around the ship, NASA tries to bring these boys back home.

Best line: “With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour.”

Glory

Overcoming prejudice, the men of the 54th Massachusetts become one of the first units in the US Army to be made of up African American volunteers. In the face of a decree claiming that any black man caught fighting for the Federal Army would be hanged and any white officer leading those men would also be executed, the group fights to prove themselves to their own Union Army as well as the enemy Confederates. Lead by Col. Robert Gould Shaw, the unit makes a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to take Ft. Wagner – losing half their men in the process, but gaining respect and admiration for their bravery.

Best line: “Give ’em Hell ’54!”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

In an Oscar-winning performance, Jack Nicholson plays the part of a criminal who pretends (or is he?) to be crazy in order to placed in a mental hospital instead of prison. The patients there are under the oppressive, icy watch of Nurse Ratched. R.P. McMurphy (Nicholson) sets out to give the patients some optimism, happiness, and freedom, while also driving Nurse Ratched crazy. There’s no big action scenes or special effects, almost the entire movie is set in the hospital, and yet the characters and McMurphy’s rebellion against the soul-sucking nature of the institution makes for a story that will stick with you for a long time to come.

Best line: “But I tried, didn’t I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.”

The Karate Kid

I am hard pressed to think of a saying with more philosophical depth and insight than “Wax on, wax off.” It’s too bad that doing chores doesn’t really teach karate. I would be a grand master by now – but that’s beside the point. Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi create one of the most memorable underdog stories as they take on the Kobra Kai at the All-Valley Karate Tournament. Plus, Daniel-san gets a car and the girl, Alli with an “I.” Will Smith’s ten-year-old son is slated to star in a remake of the Karate Kid, constituting the greatest sacrilege in film history.

Best line: “Wax on, wax off.”

The African Queen

The things a man will do at the insistence of a woman. Poor Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) gets suckered into going after a German gunboat by the feisty Rose Sayer. When her brother is killed by the invading Germans in East Africa, she recruits Charlie, the captain of the African Queen, to take down the offenders. I guess Katherine Hepburn can be pretty persuasive because despite the craziness and certain death that awaits them, Charlie gives in. It works out pretty well for him because they get married and he gets to blow up the bad guys.

Best line: “Well, yeah, but I never tried shooting myself in the head neither.”

The Sting

A classic caper movie set in 1936 Chicago. Two Chicago con artists (Newman and Redford) set out to avenge the murder of a mutual friend, only to find themselves in a high-stakes game against the master of all cheating mobsters (Robert Shaw). The dialogue between Newman and Redford is fresh and entertaining. Art of Manliness readers may appreciate the format of the film. The movie’s sections are divided by old-fashioned title cards with lettering and illustrations rendered in a style reminiscent of the Saturday Evening Post. The Sting also breathed new life into “The Entertainer,” a piano rag written by Scott Joplin.

Best line: “Sorry I’m late. I was taking a crap.”

Chariots of Fire

How much do you believe in yourself? And maybe more importantly, what are you willing to do to stand up for what you believe? Two men from the British track team vie for Olympic glory in 1924. Both run the 100 meters and both have extremely different reasons for running. One must overcome prejudice and Anti-Semitism, the other risks everything to stay true to his God.

Best line: “Then where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within.”

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

If you inherit a bunch of money, and you want to be charitable and buy poor people farms so that they can work and provide for themselves, and your financial advisor calls you crazy, and they end up putting you on trial to judge your sanity – what do you do? Start punching people in the face, that’s what.

Best line: “People here are funny. They work so hard at living they forget how to live.”

Schindler’s List

One man’s eyes are opened to the brutality of the surroundings he once embraced. Though far from a perfect man, Oskar Schindler did all he could to preserve the lives of Jewish workers as the “Final Solution” threatened them all with extinction. Risking his life and using his personal wealth, he was able to save the lives of close to 1,100 people. Moving, brutal, and beautiful; it’s hard to watch but must be. A masterpiece.

Best line: “It’s Hebrew, it’s from the Talmud. It says, ‘Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.'”

All the President’s Men

With newspapers fighting to survive, it’s great to watch a film about how essential good journalism really is. The film follows Woodward and Bernstein as they shed light on the break-in at the Watergate Hotel and a trail of illegal activity that led to the White House. Talk about some gutsy reporters. Watchdogs, indeed. This movie has all the trimmings of the finest mystery thrillers – but it actually happened. I bet this movie makes Nixon wish he would have changed that whole “freedom of the press” business while he was in office.

Best line: “Listen . . . I’m tired of your chickens**t games! I don’t want hints . . . I need to know what you know.”

Zulu

The Victoria Cross is awarded to any person under military command for “most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice.” It is the highest military decoration awarded by the British military, and the battle at Rourkes Drift saw eleven awarded – the most in a single engagement.

140 British soldiers guarding a supply dump faced an overwhelming Zulu army of 4,000. They defended themselves and nearly a third of their men that were sick in the infirmary from the onslaught. The movie is ominous as the stage is set for the battle and urgency takes over as the battle ensues. Although the movie takes liberties with the elements of the true battle, little is diminished in its inspiring effect.

Best line: “A prayer’s as good as bayonet on a day like this.”

Patton

What do you get when you cross a crazy man with a military genius? George S. Patton. Old Blood and Guts. Patton was an American tank commander who was a main factor in the Allies victories in North Africa and Italy during WWII. Patton isn’t so much about WWII than it is about this larger than life man. Even if you haven’t seen this film, you’ve probably seen the famous speech scene in front of the American flag at the beginning of the movie.

Best line: “Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

Lawrence of Arabia

It seems we hear about guerrilla warfare in the desert almost every day in the news. Maybe we should take some cues from our good buddy Larry of Arabia and turn this war around. The film follows T.E. Lawrence, an officer in the British army during WWI, as he rallies the Arab people in fighting the British enemies. Lawrence overcomes crazy odds and impresses the locals with his tenacity and skill.

Best line: “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

The Godfather (I and II)

The Godfather is more than just a shoot em up mobster movie. It’s a cinematic masterpiece that touches on themes that are universal to the human condition: family, honor, the choice between good and evil, and revenge just to name a few. We get a first hand look at the inner-conflict that Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) faces as he chooses between leading a normal life or taking part in the family business.

Best line: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” And a hundred others.

12 Angry Men

A young disadvantaged boy is charged with murder, and the case against him seems overwhelming. While all the jurors are ready to convict the kid so they can get back to their lives, one man stands up for justice and gives the kid the fair trial that he deserves. Despite the social pressure to put in a guilty vote, juror #8 slowly persuades his fellow jurors that not enough evidence exists to convict the defendant.

Best line: “We may be trying to let a guilty man go free, I don’t know. Nobody really can. But we have a reasonable doubt, and that’s something that’s very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s SURE.”

Lord of the Rings (Trilogy)

Sure, most of the characters are mythological creatures like hobbits and dwarfs, but that doesn’t mean we can’t gleam some lessons on manliness from them. In this action-packed and beautifully filmed trilogy we see examples of loyalty, duty, and bravery displayed by the characters. And the story’s main protagonist, Frodo Baggins, teaches us that we often don’t choose our calling in life, it chooses us. And when it does, give it all you got. The story is so good you can’t help but watch all three back-to-back in a nine-hour marathon.

Gangs of New York

Gangs of New York takes viewers back to the mean streets of 19th century New York City. It was time when waves of Irish immigrants poured into New York City every day and the city was rife with political corruption. Irish American Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Di Carprio) returns to his old New York neighborhood to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the murderous, knife wielding nativist, Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis). The costume design and art direction in this film are amazing and Daniel Day Lewis does an impeccable job in creating one of the most interesting, evil, and strangely sympathetic characters in all of movie history. He totally got robbed of the Best Actor Oscar.

Best line: “Thank God. I die a true American.”

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is the last in Sergio Leone’s trilogy of “spaghetti westerns.” Despite being the last, it has come to stand on its own. Even if you haven’t seen the film, you probably know something about it. Most likely you’ve heard the iconic theme song with it’s spooky “wha wha wha” shouts. And you’ve probably seen images and scenes of Clint Eastwood wearing a poncho and smoking a cigar. The film follows three cowboys during the Civil War who try to double cross each other in search of Confederate gold. There’s not much of a deep message in this film. It’s just a lot of fun to watch.

Best line: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”

Dead Poets Society

To live deliberately. This idea is central to the awakening of a group of young preparatory school students inspired by their new English teacher. Robin Williams plays the role of John Keating, the brazen new teacher at a conservative all boys private school. He inspires them to view the world differently and suck the marrow out of their lives. The boys take on their teenage world armed with new perspectives and courage to live their lives with purpose. Sadly, their tightly controlled lives clash and their new insight is challenged. The movie is heartbreakingly inspiring and truly encourages one to seize the day, despite the overwhelming opposition.

Best line: “Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

The Searchers

Directed by the legendary John Ford, John Wayne gives his most intense acting performance of his career as the dark and vengeful Ethan Edwards, who vows to kill the Comanche raiders that murdered his beloved sister-in-law, brother, and took captive two of their daughters. Wayne does a fantastic job in embodying a conflicted, complex man whose racism and desire for revenge sets up a situation far more morally ambiguous than Cowboys vs. Indians.

Best line: “That’ll be the day.”

Pride of the Yankees

The Iron Horse’s talent and tenacity made him a legend. His courage in the face of a debilitating disease made him a hero. Lou Gehrig was one of the classiest baseball players America has ever had and who better to play him than Gary Cooper. If you’re not tearing up at the famous “Luckiest man” speech, you my friend, have no soul.

Best line: “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Saving Private Ryan

Hailed as the greatest war movie ever made, Saving Private Ryan immerses the viewer in the horrors of the Allied invasion of Europe. While the battle scenes are great, the story and the underlying question it poses are even better. Tom Hanks plays an army captain who leads a small squadron to find and send home a soldier who lost all three of his brothers in war. Why risk the lives of several men, just to save one? That’s the question that we’re left asking ourselves during the movie. The answer? It’s just the decent thing to do. The end scene will leave you crying like a baby and with a new found respect for the brave men who sacrificed everything for our freedoms.

Best line: “James, earn this . . . earn it.”

American Beauty

Meet Lester Burnham; a man who feels like he’s completely dead inside. His wife and daughter despise him and don’t show him any respect. His big corporate job and the demands of modern life have emasculated him. But Lester starts waking up from his emotional comma after he meets his daughter’s good looking friend. Sadly, Lester’s awakening leads him down a path of immaturity that results in tragic consequences for him and his family. American Beauty is a beautifully filmed movie that sheds light on the dark side of the American Dream. We learn from the messed up characters in this movie that happiness can’t be bought and that the suburbs can kill your manhood if you let it. It’s The Death of a Salesman for the 1990s.

Best line: “Both my wife and daughter think I’m this gigantic loser and they’re right, I have lost something. I’m not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn’t always feel this . . . sedated. But you know what? It’s never too late to get it back.”

Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai is probably one of the most influential films ever made. Countless westerns were inspired by this 1954 Japanese classic. The Magnificent Seven being one of them. Set in feudal Japan, a peasant village hires seven medieval mercenaries to defend it from marauding bandits. The bravery the seven samurai show will inspire any man to stand up for injustice.

Line: “This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourselves.”

From Here to Eternity

From Here To Eternity is probably best remembered for the famous beach love scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, but there’s a lot more to this legendary film. Based on the novel by James Jones, From Here to Eternity is about the life of an American soldier stationed in Hawaii before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The film considerably tones down the controversial topics in Jones’ book. However, it was still groundbreaking in its depiction of topics that were taboo in the 1950s: serial adultery, alcoholism, and a U.S. military teeming with corruption and incompetence. The film focuses on two professional soldiers: Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), a hard-headed ex-boxer given “the treatment” by his commanding officer to force him to fight in the regimental boxing championships and the company’s Top Sergeant (Burt Lancaster), who is having an affair with the officer’s frigid wife (Deborah Kerr). From Here to Eternity reminds you that sometimes life’s a messy thing and doesn’t always have happy endings.

Best line: “A man don’t go his own way, he’s nothing.”

Old Yeller

No other movie better portrays the powerful bond between man and canine. No other movie better drives home the message that becoming a man sometimes means doing things that hurt.

Best line: “He was my dog. I’ll do it.”

To Kill a Mockingbird

Gregory Peck plays Atticus Finch, a small-town Alabama lawyer and widower father of two, who passionately defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The courtroom scenes have inspired many a legal career. In addition to being an inspiring lawyer, Atticus Finch is an inspiring father. If you’re a dad or a dad to be, watch To Kill a Mockingbird and take some notes.

Best line: “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Dr. No

The first James Bond film and quite possibly the best. 007 (Sean Connery) is sent on a mission to Jamaica to investigate the murder of a fellow MI-6 agent. Action, intrigue, and suggestively-named women are mixed in to make this a stellar guilty pleasure.

Best line: “Bond. James Bond.”

Jeremiah Johnson

An American soldier (Robert Redford) goes west to escape the Mexican War and becomes a mountain man. A grizzled old trapper takes Johnson in and teaches him how to survive harsh winters, bears, and Indians. After accidentally violating an Indian burial ground, he loses his new Indian wife and their adopted child to vengeance, and a vendetta between him and the Crows ruins his idyllic life as a fur trapper. For about half the movie we get to see Jeremiah Johnson take on surprise attacks by Crow Indians with nothing but his fists and a Bowie knife. The film is actually based on the real life of mountain man Jeremiah Johnson

Best line: “Where you headed?” “Same place you are, Jeremiah: hell, in the end”

A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It follows an older brother’s attempt to save his talented brother from self-destruction through the healing power of fly fishing. Set in Montana’s beautiful Blackfoot River country, the viewer is presented with stunning shots of nature. Director Robert Redford’s commentary and narration engages the viewer to ponder important life questions. From the story we learn that sometimes the people we love the most are the hardest to help.

Best line: “It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.”

The Bridge On the River Kwai

A group of British prisoners of war during WWII are ordered to build a bridge for the Japanese Burma-Siam railway. Instead of sabotaging the bridge, the men build the bridge under the command of Colonel Nicholson. The bridge becomes a metaphor for the futility and insanity of war, egotistical pride, a belief in saving “face,” and stubborn, inflexible obedience to class, military codes, and rules.

Best line: “Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket.”

Gentleman’s Agreement

“I swear I’m not a racist but . . .” So many people have no idea what their true feelings toward people are until their foot is shoved in their mouth. In the film, Phil Green (Gregory Peck) poses as a Jewish man in the cultured society of New York and Connecticut to gain information for a magazine article. His eyes are opened to the world of bigotry that often goes unnoticed.

Best line: “I’ve come to see lots of nice people who hate it and deplore it and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew. People who think anti-Semitism is far away in some dark place with low-class morons. That’s the biggest discovery I’ve made. The good people. The nice people.”

Fight Club

At first blush, Fight Club just seems like another violent movie with guys beating each other to a bloody pulp. The fighting, however, is just a vehicle to explore and critique the sad state of modern American masculinity. Everything about Fight Club is amazing — the story, the cinematography, the acting, everything. Edward Norton plays a nameless narrator whose life has been hollowed out by his job and his desire to own all the contents in the IKEA catalog. His life changes when he meets soap salesman, Tyler Durden. I wish I could go on, but I can’t. The first rule of Fight Club is never talk about Fight Club. Guess you’ll have to see the movie yourself.

Best line: “You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your f****ing khakis.”

Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade)

The hat, the whip, the legend. There aren’t too many films that inspire adventure today. The problem with most current action movies is that there’s too much emphasis on the action and not enough time spent on developing a good story. Indiana Jones strikes a perfect balance of action and first-rate storytelling. Watching an Indiana Jones movie will take you back to your boyhood dreams of fighting Nazis, getting the girl, and swinging from beams with your trusty bullwhip.

It’s a Wonderful Life

A perennial Christmastime favorite (mainly because the copyright wasn’t renewed in 1975 and TV stations could air it for free). We often think of It’s a Wonderful Life as a heartwarming and inspiring film. But if you take a step back, you’ll see that there’s an underlying darkness to it. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) had dreams of traveling, going on adventures, and being an architect in a big city. But his responsibilities to his family and his community kept him from leaving his small town. After the savings and loan he owns goes bust, Bailey considers suicide (pretty heavy for the 1940s), only to be shown what life would be like without him. In the end, he learns that happiness is found not in pursuing big dreams but through family, friends, and fulfilling responsibility to those around you.

Best line: “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

A Raisin in the Sun

Is A Raisin in the Sun about racism? Obviously. Is it about family and dreams and identity? Of course. But it’s also about being a man. About becoming a man. Walter Lee Younger makes mistakes, he’s stubborn, and he has his dreams dashed. But he’s not defeated. He finds the humility to unite with his family and the pride to stand up for his convictions. He mans up in the end.

Best line: “He finally come into his manhood today, didn’t he? Kind of like a rainbow after the rain.”

The Natural

When we think of mythic heroes, we often think of characters from classical history like Achilles or Agamemnon. In The Natural, we see the archetype of the epic and mythological hero transposed from the battlefields of ancient Greece to the baseball diamonds of 1920s America. Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a baseball player whose promising career was cut short in his youth by a deadly dame. 16 years later, Roy is back to fulfill his dream to play major league ball. Just as Achilles had his mythological armor made by the gods, Roy wields his mythological bat, aptly named “Boy Wonder,” made from a tree struck by lightning. When you get down to it, The Natural is about re-birth and going after a dream no matter what it takes. Beautifully shot and masterfully scored, you’ll be bawling like a baby by the time the credits roll.

Best line: “You’ve got a gift Roy . . . but it’s not enough — you’ve got to develop yourself. If you rely too much on your own gift . . . then . . . you’ll fail.”

Ghostbusters

I hold a special place in my heart for Ghostbusters. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the movie. I watched it over and over, played the video games, and had all the Ghostbusters toys. Moreover, from the ages of 4 until 6, I demanded that my family call me Peter Venkman and not Brett. Back then I loved the movie primarily for the cool special effects and proton packs. 20 years later, I still think the proton packs are cool. But I’m finally starting to appreciate how incredibly funny Ghostbusters is. There’s no deep meaning you can take away from Ghostbusters, it’s just a really entertaining and fun movie. When you’re looking for something to watch after a long day at work, you know who to call.

Best line: “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say ‘YES!'”

Ben Hur

Two words: chariot race. Before CGI and all the other wires and fancy tricks, they had real guys doing crazy stuff that most filmmakers today won’t even dream about. And man, does it pay off for this picture. The chariot race is probably the most remembered event in the film, but it is certainly not the guts of the story. Family, the futility of revenge, inner peace, and a host of other themes lay the foundation for the character arc of Judah Ben Hur. One of Charleton Heston’s greatest roles.

Best line: “You can break a man’s skull, you can arrest him, you can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what’s up here? How do you fight an idea?”

Groundhog Day

On it’s surface, Groundhog Day is just another comedy. But if you delve deeper, you’ll find a story that drives home some profound messages. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a cynical egotistical weatherman who, for some reason, must live the same day over and over. That day just happens to be Groundhog Day. We never learn how long Phil is stuck in this purgatory of repetition. It could have been a month or maybe even a thousand years. While the repetition provides some funny gags, it also sets up a backdrop for Phil (and the audience) to be hit with a heavy dose of anagnorisis. From Phil’s plight we learn the only real change in life can only come from within us.

Best line: “I’m a god.” “You’re God?” “I’m a god. I’m not *the* God . . . I don’t think.”

Top Gun

Another childhood favorite. Remember how I forced my family to call me Peter Venckman for two years after I saw Ghostbusters? Well, after I saw Top Gun in Kindergarten, they were calling me Maverick. In the role that made him a blockbuster star, Tom Cruise plays cocky navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell who is selected to train with the best of the best at the prestigious Navy flight school called “Top Gun.” Yeah, the story is sort of cheesy and yeah, some of the battle scenes weren’t all that realistic, but Top Gun entertains from beginning to end. Plus, it has a killer Kenny Loggins theme song. What more can you ask for in an 80s flick?

Best line: “I feel the need . . . the need for speed!”

Swingers

We’ve all had moments in our life when our self confidence has been completely obliterated. Nothing goes right and it seems as though nothing will. But with time and some help from our buds, we get our swagger back. To me, that’s what Swingers is all about. John Favereu plays Mike, a crestfallen 20-something living in LA who was recently dumped by his girlfriend. His confidence hits an all time low, but with the help from his smooth talking buddy, Trent (Vince Vaughn), Mike slowly starts to come out of his shell. Swingers has some of the best dialogue I’ve ever seen in a film and is full of memorable quotes you can pull out when your buddy is feeling down on himself.

Best line: “You’re so money and you don’t even know it.”

The Longest Day

June 6, 1944 — the invasion of the Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy. One of the turning points in all of history. The film tells the story from both sides — Axis and Allies. For both, it will be the longest day.

Best line: “You can’t give the enemy a break. Send him to hell.”

This post was written as a collaboration between AoM and my good friend Cameron Ming.

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in July 2009.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

There are a lot of tasks that go into keeping your household running and your home ship-shape.

I keep a weekly maintenance list of these recurring chores and use the Todoist app to stay on top of them. I’ve made my Todoist home maintenance template available as a free download here.

Last year, I added two new weekly tasks to that list: blowing out my garage and cleaning out the interior of our family car. Both take just a few minutes. But they’ve turned out to offer a high ROI when it comes to improving my everyday quality of life.

Blow Out Your Garage

My garage doubles as my gym. Every afternoon around 2 p.m., you’ll find me down there hoisting the iron.

For a long time, though, the garage itself was a bit of a dreary place to train. Every time the door went up, leaves blew in. Dust settled over everything. Cobwebs collected in the corners. It wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t make the space as inviting as it could be.

So I started blowing out the garage every Saturday. I open the door, start at the back, and blow all the leaves, dirt, and dust onto the driveway with my Ryobi electric leaf blower. I can get some of the cobwebs out with the blower, but others are more stubborn or collect in nooks I don’t notice. I take care of those by sucking them out with a shop vac twice a year.

The job only takes 5–10 minutes. The key is doing it weekly. When I only cleaned out the garage a couple times a year, the mess had months to build up, which made the clean-up jobs big and time-consuming. A quick weekly blowout means things never accumulate much in the first place. Now the garage stays respectable year-round.

A clean garage has made my workouts a lot more pleasant. It’s easier to get into a session when I’m not stepping over leaf litter on the way to the barbell rack.

Even if you’re not using your garage for workouts, a grimy garage subtly weighs on the mind. Your garage is typically the threshold you pass through to get into your house several times a day, and keeping it clean sets the right tone for your return home.

Clean Out Your Car

Left to its own devices, our family car turns into a rolling garbage can. I’m sure yours does, too. Soda cans and protein bar wrappers pile up in the cupholders and door pockets. My kids treat the backseat like an annex of their bedrooms, leaving behind shoes, brushes, books, backpacks, headphones, and random articles of clothing.

So once a week, the car gets a cleanout. First, I throw away all the trash. Then I gather up all the kids’ crap, dump it in a pile by their bedrooms, and tell them, “Sort this crap out and put it away in your rooms.” Finally, I vacuum out the interior with my shop vac.

It takes about 5–10 minutes. I spend the week driving around in a clean car. Less chaos. Driving is more enjoyable. And I’m never embarrassed when I unexpectedly need to give someone a ride. I can say “hop in” without sheepishly sweeping off beef jerky crumbs from the passenger seat while saying, “Sorry for the mess. Kids, am I right?”

Neither of these chores is going to change your life dramatically. But for less than twenty minutes of effort a week, two spaces I use every day stay cleaner and more pleasant. That’s some nice ROI.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

No hair transplants, pills or toupees. These men are embracing baldness. While plenty of guys are flying to Turkey for hair transplants, rubbing minoxidil into their scalps every night, or taking finasteride, this WSJ piece profiles men going the other direction: they’ve quit fighting their receding hairlines, shaved off all their hair, and embraced being bald. It’s understandable why guys want to hold on to their hair: we associate hair with youth and vitality, and a full head of it can enhance your attractiveness. But maintaining a waning mane takes a lot of time and money, and some of the treatments have pretty bad side effects like sexual dysfunction. Also, at a certain point styling thinning hair just doesn’t work anymore and starts to make you look older or oblivious to the fact you’re pretty much already bald. Shaving your head solves all those problems. I always enjoy reading posts in r/Bald from guys who finally decide to just embrace their chrome dome and all the comments telling them how great they look. It’s a surprisingly wholesome and supportive subreddit.

“I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman. When I interviewed Manoush Zomorodi a couple of months ago about her book Body Electric, I realized I had never read the Whitman poem the book’s title was inspired by. So I sought to rectify that, and am very glad I did. It’s an awesome poem and now one of my favorites. Whitman penned a sensual paean to physicality — to the human body’s wonder, beauty, and power. He celebrates each part of the body and exults in all its capacities, from working to walking to reproducing. Whitman admonishes us not to neglect the care of the body and to develop its full strength and health. He argues that “If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,” and that in some ways, the body is the soul.

Katadyn Hiker Pro Water Filter. If you’re getting out there this summer by doing some backpacking, you’ll need to think about a water filter. The Katadyn Hiker Pro has been my go-to backcountry filter for over a decade now. Drop the intake hose in the water, pump the handle about 50 times, and you’ve got a liter of clean, good-tasting water (the activated carbon core filters out any funky flavors). It weighs 11 ounces, packs down small, and connects right to Nalgenes and hydration bladders. It’s never let me down. 

“drop dead” by Olivia Rodrigo. I’m not a music snob. I don’t only listen to one genre, nor eschew any music for being too mainstream or pop-y. I’m down for a good banger from whatever source it cometh. So when Scout queued up “drop dead” — the lead single off Olivia Rodrigo’s new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love — while we were driving a few weeks ago, I wasn’t expecting much, but gave it a chance. And I’ll be danged, it’s great. It pushes all my pop music buttons: pop synth with a pop rock bridge. The lyrics are fun to boot. All about young love. I had the song on repeat for a week. The rest of Rodrigo’s album is surprisingly good as well. It’s become the McKay’s album of the summer. 

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: The Empty Niche and Why Is It So Hard to Admit You’ve Made a Mistake?

Quote of the Week

How great soever a genius may be, and how much soever he may acquire new light and heat, he will never shine in his full luster, nor shed the full influence he is capable of, unless to his own experience he adds of other men and other ages.

—Henry St. John Bolingbroke

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Many of us grow up believing that midlife is when things start going downhill. Your body’s breaking down, your best work is behind you, and you may fall into a full-blown existential crisis. But a lot of what we think we know about midlife turns out to be based more on pop culture than actual research.

My guest says the reality is much more encouraging. Her name is Margie Lachman. She’s a professor of psychology, the Director of the Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University, and the author of Primetime: A New Vision for Midlife. Today on the show, Margie discusses what age range constitutes midlife — and how it’s not just a matter of chronological age — and whether people really become less happy and experience a midlife crisis during these years. She explains the surprising ways your mind continues to improve even as some abilities slow down, and why this stage of life often represents a peak combination of creativity and judgment. We also talk about the real challenges that come with midlife and how adopting the right mindset and habits can mitigate those downsides while helping you make the most of what Margie argues can truly be a sweet spot in life — a time when you still have much of your physical and mental vitality, and it’s coupled with seasoned experience and wisdom.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Seasons of a Man’s Life by Daniel Levinson
• AoM series on Levinson’s research
• Transformations: Growth and Change in Adult Life by Roger Gould
• Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy
• AoM Podcast #598: Journeying From the First to the Second Half of Life With James Hollis
• AoM Podcast #776: How to Shift Out of the Midlife Malaise

Connect With Margie Lachman

• Margie’s website
• Margie’s faculty page

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Transcript Coming Soon

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

A few weeks ago, I met up with some Strenuous Life guys here in Tulsa for a book club meeting at a local brewery. One of the guys had a gift for me: a 1970s Avon aftershave in a bottle shaped like the bust of Teddy Roosevelt. Screw off Teddy’s head, and you get punched in the face with a pungent but masculine smell that burns the nostrils.

I started cracking up because my dad had similar Avon aftershave bottles in his bathroom when I was growing up in the 1980s.

He had ones in the shape of a pheasant and a duck. After you shaved, you screwed off the bird’s head, dabbed some aftershave on your hands, and slapped your face with it.

Your dad may have had some of these novelty cologne- and aftershave-filled Avon decanters in his bathroom during the 70s and 80s, too. For about twenty-five years, you couldn’t walk into an American home without running into them. They came in the form of cars, eagles, ducks, dueling pistols, spark plugs, and rearing stallions. In addition to the TR bust, they had one in the shape of a stately white bust of George Washington, whose head you unscrewed to get at the aftershave. How dignified for the father of our country.

So what happened to them? Why did this ubiquitous staple of American bathrooms disappear? Why doesn’t a man keep a glass Corvette full of cologne on his counter anymore? Today, we’ll chart the rise and fall of the manly-shaped Avon decanter.

The Rise of the Avon Decanter

To understand the rise of the Avon decanter, you need to understand the rise of Avon. Remember Avon? Maybe your mom was an Avon Lady in the 1980s while simultaneously hosting Tupperware parties so she could make extra cash to buy you back-to-school clothes at Montgomery Ward’s.

Well, Avon got its start in 1886, when a door-to-door book salesman named David McConnell noticed that the housewives on his route cared a lot more about the free rose perfume samples he handed out than the books he was actually trying to sell. So he dropped the books and got into the fragrance business. To increase sales, he built an army of women who sold perfume and soap to their neighbors out of a catalog, right there in their doily-covered parlors and living rooms. It was the birth of the Avon Lady. Hail, Avon Lady!

For the first part of the 20th century, the bottles that held the perfumes and colognes that Avon Ladies slung to friends and neighbors came in plain, standard shapes. Then, in the 1930s, Avon experimented with novelty-shaped decanters, releasing a Mickey Mouse bottle in collaboration with Disney. It was a hit, but a one-off. For the next 30 years, Avon kept using standard bottles for its fragrances.

By the 1960s, competition was getting fierce in the cosmetics industry, so Avon looked for ways to differentiate itself from the pack. I guess an executive remembered that the Mickey Mouse-shaped perfume bottle did well, so why not do that again? So in 1965, Avon released a decanter in the shape of a boot that contained a men’s “leather” cologne. It was a smash hit. They followed it up in 1968 with a decanter shaped like a Sterling Roadster. Also a hit.

Avon found a winning strategy to move their fragrances: put them in fun-shaped bottles.

What was great about this strategy was that Avon didn’t have to come up with new formulations for their fragrances. They would take the same fragrance, offer it as both cologne and aftershave, and simply vary the bottle it came in. Avon would put out the same product in a new crazy-shaped bottle every year, and people would buy it, even though they had a full bottle of the same cologne or aftershave unused at home. The TR aftershave my friend gifted me smelled exactly like the aftershave in my dad’s pheasant-shaped Avon decanter. Basically, Avon was no longer in the fragrance business, but rather in the novelty bottle biz.

Which is probably smart because the aftershave didn’t smell very good. This was Avon, after all, not Creed. Avon was pumping out a mass-market product, and so it smelled like a lot of mass-market fragrances in the 1970s. These fragrances, to quote anchorman and cologne aficionado Ron Burgundy, had “a formidable scent. It stings the nostrils. In a good way.”

Over the next 20 years, Avon partnered with a New Jersey glassmaker, Wheaton Glass, to crank out figural bottles by the hundreds of thousands. The perfume bottles for women came in shapes like shoes, slippers, purses, and handbags. The men’s line got the rugged stuff like cars, trucks, fishing reels, shotgun shells, spark plugs, footballs, dueling pistols — and busts of George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt.

The 1970s were the peak of the Avon decanter. Avon’s catalog filled up with glass owls, deer, kangaroos, station wagons, and just about every car Detroit ever rolled off a line. They even made a 32-piece chess set out of the things.

It was during the 70s that the Avon novelty decanter became a collector’s item, sort of like Beanie Babies or Department 56 Christmas houses in the 1990s. Avon saw this as a money-making opportunity to exploit, so they leaned into this consumer-driven trend. They released bottles in limited runs and started a club for collectors. People started printing price guides telling folks what their bottles were worth. There was even a National Association of Avon Collectors with national conventions and a newsletter called The Avon Times.

Basically, you had people buying a glass Corvette full of aftershave, never opening it, and stashing it in a closet still in the box, certain it’d be worth a fortune someday and would pay for their kids’ college education. The TR bottle my friend gifted me was in a pristine, original box and still full of aftershave. Some guy in Oklahoma probably bought it in the 70s and never used it, thinking it would be worth thousands of dollars in 2026.

The Fall of the Avon Decanter

Eventually, the fun-shaped Avon decanter went away.

Why?

Well, two things killed it: 1) Avon nearly went bankrupt, and 2) consumer preferences changed.

By the late 1980s, Avon was buried under more than a billion dollars of debt and fending off hostile takeovers, having spent its flush years on a strange business shopping spree that included medical-equipment makers and nursing homes. It spent the ’90s digging out, and in 1999, it brought in Andrea Jung as its first female CEO with marching orders to drag the brand into the modern beauty business and compete with the department-store labels. The folksy “Ding Dong, Avon Calling” image had to go, and so did the glass pheasants full of aftershave.

Consumer tastes changed, too. By the 1990s, people wanted less junk in their houses, and a shelf full of glass animals was gauche. Dad’s Avon bottles got hauled off to Goodwill. Avon was hep to this change and started putting their fragrances back in a plain bottle with a plain label. Men today buy fragrances for the smell, not for the bottle it comes in (though a suave-looking bottle is a nice bonus). 21st century man is smellmaxing; not bottlemaxing.

The Avon Decanter Is Dead. Long Live the Avon Decanter!

If you’d like to have one of these manly-shaped Avon decanters sitting on your dresser, well, you’re in luck! Because the market was flooded with them during the 70s and 80s and because people babied them, thinking they’d pay for their retirement, you can usually find mint-condition Avon decanter bottles in antique stores or at estate sales still full of cologne or aftershave. My friend found the TR one in an antique store in Guthrie, OK. eBay has a bunch of them, too. Your dad probably still has a couple sitting on his dresser. Ask him if you can take them off his hands. My dad’s pheasant and duck aftershave bottles are still in his bathroom. Maybe it’s time for him to pass them on to his son. The making of a venerable tradition.  

Buy the decanter bottles for the decoration and for a connection to an interesting part of kitschy American history. But don’t wear the cologne. It smells pretty bad. And burns. In a good way, I guess.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Teasing has almost entirely negative connotations these days. It is the word evoked by sullen-faced parents to describe a misfortune befallen their child: “Jimmy is being teased at school.” It is largely associated with bullying. It is thought of as a form of expression that divides.

Yet teasing has in fact long functioned to bring people together — especially in honor cultures, and especially among men. It is an act full of paradoxes: at its best, it both stings, and strengthens; affirms hierarchy, and levels it; promotes conformity, and autonomy; it makes a man sensitive to shame, but not too sensitive. Indeed, as Carlin Barton writes in Roman Honor: “teasing and mild shaming are among the most important socializing mechanisms of society.”

Below we’ll unpack how teasing produces these benefits, as well as the necessary conditions for teasing to function as a healthy form of “aggressive nurturing” that builds bonds, rather than a destructive force that weakens them.

Teasing as a Prompt for Personal Improvement

Just as we do teasing these days, we tend to think of shame in a wholly negative way, believing that all forms of it are bad, and that no one should ever be shamed.

Yet shame can be an incredibly potent prompt towards positive behavior.

While it is unhealthy to feel shame because of things one cannot help, or are undeserving of a shameful response, it is healthy to feel a prick of abashment in falling short of the honorable standards of society, your family, and yourself.

The trick with shame is the dosage: too much shame becomes toxic, debilitates, while a little shame spurs to action.

Healthy teasing delivers shame in the right, mild dose.

The word teasing comes from older words for pulling apart strands — which is why we still use the phrase “tease out.” Healthy vocalized teasing surfaces truths about someone’s foibles, but does so in a playful, good-natured way. Delivered right, a man is not crushed by it, does not feel the need to become angrily defensive; he laughs in the moment, but still hears the underlying message in the joke. Because he doesn’t feel attacked directly, he has the space to process that message, and decide how to improve the area in which he was ribbed.

Teasing as Training in Self-Control

Against a large part of the frictions and irritations and clashing of temperaments incident to participation in a community life, a certain toughening of the mental hide is a better protection than the law could ever be. —Calvert Magruder, legal scholar

It is often thought the male code of emotional stoicism — of keeping a stiff upper lip — developed for unknown, arbitrary reasons. But it directly arose from men’s universal, timeless role as protectors. In the heat of battle, breaking down, falling apart — giving way to either paralyzing panic or heedless rage — would sabotage the outcome of the fight, and endanger the lives of one’s comrades.

For this reason, young men in every culture, in every time, were given challenges that developed and tested their self-control. Teasing constituted one of these “trials.” For example, much ribbing took place as part of the ancient Spartans’ practice of syssitia — nightly dinners; the older warriors would pointedly kid each other, and call young men over to the table to endure some teasing from the group.

The idea behind this tradition was simple: if you couldn’t endure a little razzing from your friends, how could you maintain your composure in the face of humiliations from your enemies? Teasing from their comrades desensitized and inured young men to the taunts and insults of strangers and foes.

Teasing as a Solidifier of Group Bonds 

Good teasing was like being naked together in the baths or the gym — it expressed a willingness to be bound to one another. —Carlin Barton 

We typically think of teasing as a one-way interaction: the teaser is the actor; the teased is a passive recipient (or even victim). And this is in fact the dynamic that exists in the case of unhealthy teasing.

But healthy teasing operates within a two-way, reciprocal relationship which builds mutual trust.

Teasing acts like a form of mild hazing (yet another word for which we moderns have trouble imagining positive connotations). It often reinforces an explicit or implicit pecking order. Members of a group come to trust someone more when he acknowledges this hierarchy, and demonstrates his commitment to the group and loyalty to their standards, by accepting teasing, and feeling shame for the failures such ribbing indirectly point to.

The teased shows that he trusts other members of the group, by exposing his weaknesses in the first place. He trusts that the others may play with these vulnerabilities, but will not mishandle them in a way that seriously wounds — that they will joke, but not take their jokes too far. The teaser proves himself worthy of this trust by demonstrating this restraint; “I could destroy you with my words — I know which buttons to press — but I won’t.”

As part of this mutual dance, Barton observes, the teased gave a part of himself, while the teaser held that part as a kind of loan; the teaser took part of someone’s humanness as “a trust that they needed to treasure and guard and give back.” In this way, “Allowing someone to tease you was like opening your house to a guest; if the teaser accepted your hospitality as a gift, then you, the person teased, were the richer for it.”

Richer, because healthy teasing always requires a phase of reintegration. That is, teasing temporarily separates the teased from the group, but this slight separation is followed by behaviors on the part of the group which reincorporate him back. The message is: “We’re aware of your flaws, but don’t mind. We recognize your foibles, but like you anyway. You may have fallen short, but you’re still one of us.”

Healthy teasing then, rather than being ostracizing in nature, makes one feel both more known, and more accepted. The teased experience the liberation of having one’s shameful weaknesses seen, yet indulged. What can sound like an insult, really says, “Hey, you’re all right.”

Teasing is not only a two-way street for building mutual trust, but one in which the direction the “traffic” moves isn’t fixed.

To Barton’s observation that “teasing and mild shaming are among the most important socializing mechanisms of society,” is added the important caveat: “provided that trust is there and that the teaser is prepared to exchange roles with the teased.” Sometimes it’s someone else who messes up and gets razzed, and sometimes it’s you; and you can’t be willing to dish it, but not take it. Even in hierarchical groups, it’s a sign of mutual trust, and deference on the part of superiors, when teasing can be given both up and down; the officer can tease his men, and they can tease him back; the teacher can tease his students, and they can tease him in return.

Those who have missed the fundamental reciprocity of teasing — including the giving of seemingly insulting nicknames — have often found its central place in male socialization to be bewildering, if not toxically boorish. Yet amidst the trading of good-natured barbs, real camaraderie is born.

As Barton puts it, “When reassurance and reintegration are part of the process, teasing and mild shaming are not only forms of communication, they are forms of communion.”

Teasing as a Strengthener of Autonomy

Modern Westerners are afraid of the emotions of shame and intolerant of expressing them; as a result, the fear of shame intensifies the experience of shame. Modern Westerners become ashamed of feeling ashamed and thus are swept into a spiral of shame. —Carlin Barton

The ironic thing about learning to take teasing is that while it signals one’s longing to be accepted and willingness to conform to a group, it also strengthens one’s ability to deviate from collective opinion.

As mentioned above, teasing is training in managing shame, so that it isn’t experienced as overwhelming.

Those who cannot handle even mild shaming, who do experience it as overwhelming, are more willing to do whatever it takes to avoid that feeling — including conforming at any cost. They can readily be, as Barton puts it, “shamed into acting shamefully.”

Ironically, those most prone to acute shame, and thus to conformity, are also the least able to recognize this fact, as they cannot handle the shame of being overly sensitive to shame.

This was demonstrated in the famous experiments of Solomon Asch, in which participants in a group were asked to judge the length of certain lines, and were influenced to pick the wrong answer by study confederates who were planted in the group and intentionally gave incorrect answers. Yet, Barton writes, when the study’s actual participants were told they had been swayed by the confederates, they tended to respond with vehement denial:

Asch emphasized . . . that those who had most frequently succumbed to the pressure to blend invisibly into the group were precisely the ones who, when confronted with the purpose of the test, were likely to deny or radically underestimate the extent of their collaboration and exaggerate their independence. In other words, those excessively sensitive to shame were, paradoxically, those most likely to deny that they felt ashamed at all and to insist on their autonomy. . . . Those who could not bear the shame of exclusion also could not bear the shame of inadequacy implied by their collusion. It was clear both from Asch’s experiment and the subsequent interviews with the subjects that those who most feared and rejected the emotion of shame were least capable of acting in accordance with their own will.

Being able to tolerate and feel comfortable with a little shame actually leads to greater autonomy. And this inoculation effect is created well through learning how to take a little teasing.

Why We Flee Teasing

One who cannot trust cannot endure shame. —Carlin Barton

If teasing can have such healthy, pro-social effects, why do we so flee it these days?

Most fundamentally, it is because we lack the mutual trust that healthy teasing requires.

We do not feel able to presume upon the goodwill of others.

The cycle of mistrust begins with the fact that we try to cover up our weaknesses as much as possible. We mediate our lives through social media, in which we only present carefully curated versions of ourselves. We have less of the kind of intimate, face-to-face relationships where we can let our guard down and show all the sides of ourselves. Because we keep our flaws hidden, we feel more psychic stress, more shame around them.

Thus, if someone does tease us, they’re more likely than not to be in our out-group, to not have earned the privilege of joking about our foibles, nor possess the deference to pull back instead of going for the jugular; we thus unsurprisingly experience these barbs as genuine insults, rather than affectionate ribbing. It’s drive-by teasing, that isn’t followed by affectionate “reassurance and reintegration.” Hence, our association of teasing with asocial bullying.

Even if it’s an intimate of ours doing the teasing, our weaknesses are so weighted with shame, so foreign to the light of day, that their surfacing feels excessively painful. We cringe to hear our terrible secrets exposed, even in a light-hearted way. Rather than taking the kidding as a sign of trust, we interpret it as a sign of animosity. We are wounded, defensive, angry.

At the same time, the reciprocity of teasing is thwarted, because if we tease this teaser in return, they react the very same way!

In place of the elastic bonds of mutual trust, we have the brittle ones of mutual suspicion. Rather than swapping playful admonishments, we each set a stony, stoic face to one another: “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”

Yet while this distance, these ego protections, guard us against the potential sting of teasing, the refining scorch of shame, they deny us the relief that comes from dropping the pretense of perfection, the release of having one’s frailties spoken out loud — only to be followed by mirthful laughter, and an arm around the shoulder.

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in July 2019.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Every summer, millions of Americans head to pools, lakes, rivers, and beaches looking to cool off. But the water demands respect. More than 4,000 people die from unintentional drowning in the United States each year — an average of about 11 deaths every day — making drowning one of the nation’s leading causes of accidental death. And that sobering number is ticking up, making the above rescue tips even more necessary.  

The first step to saving someone from drowning is recognizing what drowning actually looks like. The signs are often much quieter and less dramatic than Hollywood would have you believe. A drowning person usually can’t wave, yell, or call for help; they’re focused entirely on trying to keep their mouth above water. Once you’ve recognized the emergency, resist the instinct to immediately jump in after them. A panicked drowning victim may instinctively grab, climb, and push down on their rescuer in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, putting both lives at risk. (Dozens of bystander/civilian rescuers perish annually for this very reason.) 

Water rescue professionals now teach a simple framework: Reach, Throw, Row, Go. In short, do everything you can to rescue someone without entering the water yourself. The illustrated guide above walks you through each step.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak 

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

George Washington is perhaps the most familiar figure in American history. But most people really only know the image of him they see in marble statues and patriotic paintings. Behind those symbols was a real man: ambitious, self-taught, intensely concerned with honor, and constantly wrestling with the immense responsibilities history placed on his shoulders.

In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, we’re taking an extended look at the life of the man more responsible than anyone else for the nation’s founding. Here to unpack that life for us is H.W. Brands, a historian and the author of a new biography of Washington, American Patriarch. Brands traces Washington’s journey from a young Virginia surveyor to military commander, founding father, and first president. Along the way, we discuss how Washington’s upbringing shaped his character, why he became a surprisingly effective military leader despite losing more battles than he won, how he held together a fragile revolutionary army, how he shaped the presidency through the precedents he set, and whether a leader like Washington could still succeed today.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• H.W.’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast:
  • Episode #696: Theodore Roosevelt, The Last Romantic
  • Episode #908: Would You Have Been a Patriot or a Loyalist?
• AoM Podcast #223: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Valiant Ambition
• AoM Podcast #366: Teach Yourself Like George Washington
• AoM Podcast #719: The Surprising Pessimism of America’s Founding Fathers
• AoM Article: George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

Connect With H.W. Brands

• H.W. on Substack
• H.W.’s faculty page

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This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.