Ah, the dream job. When we’re young, we’re often told that dreaming of something will be enough to make it happen, if we really want it. However, most job hunters will know that it’s a little more complicated than this. Landing that job you really want can be very difficult, as the marker is getting tougher and the competition has never been higher. But we’re here to tell you that it’s not impossible. Of course, many things can get you a little closer to landing the role, from making sure you arrive to job interviews prepared to using search engines and aggregators like the website Jooble, which gathers job postings into one site. But if you’re looking for some inspiration, these movies are here to help! We made a list of 5 great films whose protagonists are chasing their dream job. Read the list below, ranked in no particular order.
1. Jerry Maguire (1996)
Cameron Crowe
In this all-time classic, Tom Cruise is the titular Jerry, a sports agent who one day feels particularly inspired and writes a heartfelt company-wide memo of his own initiative that gets him fired. Jobless and desperate not to lose the athletes he represents, he decides to start his own firm. All he has as he’s starting out is the help of another employee at the company, single mother Dorothy (Renée Zellweger), and only one client to make them any money, football player Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). But Jerry and Dorothy soon starts falling for each other, and everything changes.
Jerry Maguire works both as a gripping, inspirational film about business success and as a charming love story between two charismatic leads. It’s from director Cameron Crowe, who also gave us Almost Famous, another gem about a young man chasing his dream job that you should absolutely check out. But first, don’t miss this heartfelt film about second chances: it might not deliver any shocking twists, but it has fantastic performances and a lot of heart. We guarantee your eyes will be glued to the screen the entire time.
2. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
David Frankel
There couldn’t be a more timely movie for this list than The Devil Wears Prada, since the sequel is coming next year! This beloved 2006 classic follows a young aspiring writer named Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) who knows absolutely nothing about fashion when she arrives at the headquarters of glamorous magazine Runway for an interview. After all, she’s only hoping to get the job as new (second) assistant to the Editor in order to gain valuable experience for her CV and work toward her goal of being a more serious journalist. On top of this, Runway’s Editor in Chief is Miranda Priestly, who’s famously difficult to work with and very tough on her employees.
But Andy happens to reach Runway at the best possible time, and something unfathomable happens: she gets the job. Not only that, but she’s good at it, and she even starts to enjoy it. After a week of getting snarky comments from her colleague Emily (a flawless Emily Blunt), who’s Miranda’s first assistant, she decides to take matters into her own hands and start caring about fashion. What happens next is an inspiring journey for our protagonist, who really has it all… Or so it would seem. The Devil Wears Prada is the perfect film for this list because (without going into spoiler territory) Andy does get her dream job, but it’s not in the way you’d expect. The film has a supremely clever ending that will make you see the whole movie in a new light and look forward to the sequel even more.
3. Hidden Figures (2016)
Theodore Melfi
Hidden Figures is based on the true story, Hidden Figures is about three African-American mathematicians who worked at NASA’s Langley Research Centre in Hampton, Virginia the early 1960s: Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). These brilliant women, often referred to as “human computers,” were pivotal in the success of one of NASA’s most important achievements in the Space Program: Project Mercury, which aimed to send the first US astonaut into space.
Though all three women already have a job at the start of the movie, their struggles are with managing to achieve success in the task at hand while facing systemic racism on a daily basis. Through this, and by focusing mainly on the figure of Katherine and her struggles, the film shines a spotlight on an important real-life story that is still timely to this day. It’s also a fantastic movie with incredible performances, and it’s not to be missed.
4. La La Land
Damien Chazelle
Damien Chazelle is another director who often approaches the theme of people achieving their dreams. The filmmaker’s view is more pessimistic than that of Jerry Maguire’s Cameron Crowe, as instead of showing us success stories, Chazelle prefers to explore how, in order to achieve our dreams, there are sacrifices we need to make. 2014’s Whiplash, one of Chazelle’s most acclaimed films, revolves around a jazz drummer prodigy whose teacher pretty much tortures him in order to get him to reach the level that would enable him to succeed – and succeed he does, but he becomes a completely different person in the meanwhile.
La La Land is a less cynical film than Whiplash, but it does take an original approach to the classic story of two young people with dreams who fall in love while following their path to success. Our protagonists are Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a gifted jazz pianist who dreams of owning a jazz club, and Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress who can’t seem to land the right audition. Throughout the film, we follow both characters as they fight to get what they want, with the gorgeous backdrop of Los Angeles, California. There’s plenty of beauty and poetry in the film, but as always with Chazelle, there’s also a poignant analysis of what it really means to get what we want.
5. Ratatouille (2007)
Brad Bird & Jan Pinkava
What can a film about a rat who wants to be a chef tell us about chasing our dream job? Quite a lot, actually. Ratatouille has a simple premise: a young resident of Paris named Remy (Patton Oswalt) loves food, and dreams of one day becoming the best chef around. Though he had little to no professional experience, he appreciates good food and is surprisingly able to create incredible, sophisticated dishes. But Remy is a rat, which makes everything more complicated.
The film truly takes off when Remy randomly finds himself in the sewer beneath Paris’s most renowned restaurant, where his culinary idol, chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), works. There, Remy stumbles upon a young apprentice, Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano) who’s the opposite of him: he’s hard-working – not to mention, human – and means well, but he’s not gifted at all. When Remy and Alfredo starts to work together in secret, they both learn a valuable lesson about not judging a book by its cover.
In true Pixar fashion, Ratatouille is gorgeous, hilarious, full of heart, and filled with quotable lines. But for all job seekers out there, it also serves as a much needed reminder that, sometimes, dreams actually do come true, if we’re patient enough to keep trying.
The 5 films listed above all feature protagonists chasing their dream job, and are all entertaining, feel-good movies with something to say. Whether you’re looking to be cheered up, distracted, or inspired, these five picks should do the job. Enjoy!
