The films

Worth the evening.

A shorter list than the books and a lighter obligation. These are here for the same reason the books are — they show men under weight, deciding — and because a film is something a group can sit through together on a weeknight and argue about afterward.

• A Man for All Seasons · Fred Zinnemann, 1966What a conscience costs when every reasonable man advises surrender.
• The Motivation Factor · Doug Orchard, 2016The program the color ladder is transcribed from, told by the men who lived it.
• Lawrence of Arabia · David Lean, 1962Command at the frontier, and what it does to the man who holds it.
• The Bridge on the River Kwai · David Lean, 1957Discipline severed from purpose becomes its own kind of ruin.
• Twelve O'Clock High · Henry King, 1949Still taught as a leadership text. Deservedly.
• Seven Samurai · Akira Kurosawa, 1954Duty owed downward, to people who cannot repay it.
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance · John Ford, 1962The passage from force to law, and the lie that carries it.
• Andrei Rublev · Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966Faith and craft held together through an age that deserves neither.
• The Mission · Roland Joffé, 1986Two answers to injustice, both costly, neither dismissed.
• Chariots of Fire · Hugh Hudson, 1981Two men run for reasons that are not the same reason.
• Master and Commander · Peter Weir, 2003Authority exercised well, at close quarters, over a long time.