Top 10 comfort films

By Betsy Sharkey

Comfort films -- admit it, we all have them. Those movies you've seen so many times you can whisper the lines along with the actors, the images nearly as familiar as the faces of your friends.

They are powerful -- able to tear friendships apart, damage marriages with just the mention of a name. It's like a relationship Rorschach: If "Deliverance" tops the hit list of your significant other and "The Devil Wears Prada" (pictured) tops yours, well, just don't book that couples cruise you were considering.

Comfort films rarely have a pedigree. But then cinematic greatness is not what you're in search of. These are back-room movies, behind closed doors along with other necessary vices -- that box of Kraft mac and cheese, the pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey -- while the best movies of all time, those loved and judged for their soaring artistic, cinematic and intellectual feats, live in an entirely different space in your psyche.

But need a laugh right now? A cry? To escape? Or just to feel better? Comfort films are there to fit, and fill, whatever the emotional need of the moment, able to lift the shade on even the darkest of moods (or deepest of recessions). You don't even have to consume the whole film to enjoy the benefits; they're like munchable movie snacks for the mind, and catching a scene or two as you're channel surfing can usually satisfy the cravings.

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