Feel-Good Films for When You've Had a Bad Day

A small bear from Peru arrives at a London railway station with a suitcase, a label around his neck and a love of marmalade, and is taken in by the Brown family. Kind, funny and impossible to dislike.

Watch it if: you need to be reminded that people can be nice.

A failed rock guitarist fakes his way into a job as a substitute teacher at a strict private school and turns his class of ten-year-olds into a band. Jack Black was born to play this part.

Watch it if: you want to laugh loudly.

A family that can barely stand each other drives a broken yellow van from New Mexico to California so that seven-year-old Olive can compete in a beauty pageant. Funny, sad and finally joyful.

Watch it if: your own family has been getting on your nerves.

A shy waitress in Paris decides to secretly improve the lives of the people around her, and has to find the courage to do the same for herself. Every frame looks like a postcard.

Watch it if: you want to be charmed. It is in French, with subtitles.

A restaurant chef has a very public meltdown, quits, and starts again with a food truck, driving from Miami to Los Angeles with his young son. Do not watch it hungry.

Watch it if: work has been the problem.

A quiet photo editor at Life magazine, who lives mostly in his daydreams, sets off across Greenland, Iceland and the Himalayas to find a missing photograph. Gentle, good-looking and quietly inspiring.

Watch it if: you have been stuck indoors too long.

The legendary concierge of a grand European hotel between the wars is framed for murder and goes on the run with his loyal lobby boy. Wes Anderson’s most purely entertaining film.

Watch it if: you want something witty, fast and beautifully made.

Ruby is the only hearing member of a deaf fishing family in Massachusetts, and has to choose between helping the family business and her own love of singing. It won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Watch it if: you could do with a happy cry.