15 Best Movies To Watch When Bored That You Should Watching Update 04/2024

Best Movies To Watch When Bored

Boredom is a thing of the past, thanks to the availability of virtually anything, at any time.

The likelihood is that you’re bored right now or will be in the near future if you’re reading this. Fortunately, we now live in a time when boredom is a thing of the past.

In the past, these activities were regarded as wastes of time, but now they can be labeled as such because they are no longer considered worthwhile. Now that we have the ability to summon movies to our phones, laptops, aircraft seats, and bathrooms with the simple utterance or typing of a few phrases, boredom is a thing of the past.

Here are 15 movies that you can watch over and over again and never get tired of, no matter how many times you’ve seen them and how much of the language you’ve memorized, as a tribute to the wonders of modern technology and culture. If you’re feeling bored, check out our selection of the finest movies to watch.

1. Trainspotting

Trainspotting

Don’t succumb to the temptation of taking heroin because you’re bored. Trainspotting, a delightful rag-tag collection of Scottish petty criminal drug users, offers a way to live vicariously through them. Obi-wan Kenobi was Ewan McGregor’s first major role, but he had previously acted as Mark Renton, a drug-addicted young man in Edinburgh in the early 1990s, alongside his friends Begbie, Sick Boy, Spud, and Tommy. It’s quiet, but that doesn’t mean it’s dull. Pretty much nothing except small-time wrongdoing and dishonest activity in pursuit of a small bag of skag without any sense of regret or remorse. Makes you feel a lot better about your own difficulties (maybe).

2. Full Metal Jacket

What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you? That’s right, you’re just bored, as I suspected. Watch R. Lee Ermey’s eerie Gunnery Sgt. Hartman tear his boot camp battalion apart in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of a war movie, and you’ll be startled out of your coma in no time. Full Metal Jacket’s double-sided LP approach to the Vietnam conflict never disappoints, no matter how many times you watch it. It has classic, extremely repeating, and often quite offensive speech. Aside from Sgt. Hartman, the film follows the PTSD-ridden Private J.T. “Joker” Davis, played by Mathew Modine, as he trudges through “the shit” of the Vietnam war as a reporter for Stars and Stripes. Lawrence’s character, played by Vincent D’Onofrio’s Private Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence, is the victim of Sgt. Hartman’s hardline approach to preparing

3. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

You can never get bored watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off from John Hughes since the entire premise and plot revolves around three cool privileged students in Chicago who skip school to metaphorically smash boredom in the face. Classic scenes abound, as do the best-dressed youngsters of the 1980s. Compared to the masses of face-tattooed Li’l Peep admirers who have taken their place in the present day, they appear to be high society intellectuals. There are many reasons to see this film, but Matthew Broderick’s career-defining performance as Ferris Bueller is one of them. The film also has Mia Sara, Alan Ruck and Jennifer Grey, all of whom positively rule their characters in what may be the best high school comedy of all time. Charlie Sheen’s drug-addled cameo is worth the ticket price in and of itself!

4. Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max Fury Road

Tom Hardy’s displaced Max Rockatansky and Charlize Theron’s bionic-armed Furiosa carry the post-apocalyptic perfection of Mad Max: Fury Road, which is just one big, never-ending and wonderfully designed action sequence. As always, important and limited natural resources are at stake in this masterfully designed backdrop of post-civilization wasteland and tribal warfare. With Joe Joe’s blood-starved War Boys and their modified death-rods, Mad Max and Furiosa assist in the escape of Joe’s five previously imprisoned wives onboard Furiosa’s War Rig. In a word, it’s one of the greatest films of the last two decades.

5. Lost in Translation

A dismal film about loneliness, insomnia, and existential crises can be the perfect antidote to boredom while you’re in the midst of it. It’s hard to think of a better example of a picture that is both a comedy and a drama at the same time. Bill Murray plays waning American movie star Bob Harris, who takes a job in Tokyo filming a commercial because his marriage is falling apart back in the States. Charlotte, a new college grad who is disillusioned with her marriage to a celebrity photographer on assignment in Japan, visits him every day at his hotel. There is a strong but transient bond formed between the unusual duo as their relatability washes over one another in waves of boredom and disinterestedness.

6. Pulp Fiction

When it comes to the films of Quentin Tarantino, no matter how much you despise them, it’s impossible to suggest that Pulp Fiction is boring. In a manner that’s a little eerie, it’s watchable indefinitely. There are enough twists and turns in this three-part drama that even after a dozen viewings you might discover something new. Tarantino’s famous line, “It’s not what you know, it’s what you don’t know,” was first scribbled on the back of a VHS box or whatever the filmmaker was doing at the time. You’ve seen it, so you know what I mean. We think you’ll enjoy it. You have nothing to lose by watching it again if you get bored.

7. Half Baked

Half Baked

He was a comedy genius before the Illuminati got their hands on him (and he may even be better today, but that’s a subject for another day…). Gen Xers and Millennials will enjoy this film equally. The plot centers on four lifelong New York City friends whose friendship revolves almost entirely around marijuana, and it follows Thurgood Jenkins, played by Dave Chappelle, as he works as a janitor in a biomedical lab and discovers some seriously dank nuggets. A group of stoners bails out Thurgood when he is arrested, and the whole while they are high. To avoid becoming “bored,” there are a number of things you may do before, during, and after the film.

8. Billy Madison

Like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison offers a new take on the story of someone who is devoted to whipping boredom’s ass to smithereens. After 27 years of trying to operate the family’s hotel company, 27-year-old Billy Madison’s father has decided to retire. Weaselly-faced executive vice president Eric Gordon (Bradley Whitford) takes over the hotel chain after Billy embarrasses his father at a public event and reveals that Eric would be taking over the business. Billy’s father reveals that he paid off his professors for passing grades throughout the years, and Billy must retake all of his schoolwork in order for his father to accept him as the real heir. If you don’t listen to it when you’re bored, you might as well call yourself Miles Davis and pee your pants.

9. Enter the Void

Enter the Void

Check out Gaspar Noé’s experimental arthouse mind-bender Enter the Void to get a taste of a psychedelic bender lasting seven days. The film is set among Tokyo’s most surreal nightclubs, where the goal is to get as twisted as possible rather than killing people…. An American ex-pat named Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and his younger sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta) are slumming it in Mexico on DMT and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Even the most tiresome ennui can be cured by smoking angel dust and ingesting psychedelics before watching this film. Never say that we didn’t warn you.

10. Being John Malkovich

To regain your trust in the world of esoteric odd art that is also quite wonderful, you only need to watch Being John Malkovich one more time. You should definitely check out Spike Jonze’s first feature-length film, which features a story by Charlie Kaufman that breaks the fourth wall in a completely unique way. Craig Schwartz’s marriage to Cameron Diaz’s pet-obsessed Lotte is doomed to failure. John Malkovich, the actor who portrays himself as a hyperrealized version of himself, hires him as a clerk at a weird building, and under the filing cabinet, he discovers a metaphysical doorway. However, if that description has you salivating from boredom, movies may not be the best solution.

11. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

In many ways, Peter Jackson accomplished the impossible by delivering an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings that was both critically and commercially acclaimed. This film, even if you despise all things fanciful, is an impressive piece of cinema, even if you don’t like it. The popularity of Game of Thrones is one thing, but will it still be relevant in 50 years? Amazon has paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the rights to Tolkien’s cranky progeny’s Middle Earth, making it a sacred land. J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe is one of the most meticulously researched and meticulously explained in literature, and Jackson had to prove it the hard way. In light of the fact that Jackson managed to bring Tolkien’s mythology to life on the big screen, it’s hard to understand why anyone would be bored. Like Tolkien, you should just get started writing!

12. The Holy Mountain

The Holy Mountain

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surrealist-fantasy mind-melter is what you put on as an unhappy teen when your parents are out for dinner and your buddies gather in the basement to smoke cloves. If you’re looking for something to keep you entertained while you’re bored, this is an excellent option. To begin, the story opens with a robber lying face down in the sand, covered head to toe in flies. Throughout the film, his persona resembles that of the Fool from the tarot deck. His friendship with the Five of Swords is quickly cemented, and the two of them band together to perform for a large crowd in a nearby city. In order to make money, people in the neighborhood start making wax casts of the thief and selling them together with life-size crucifixes. Once you’ve reached that point, the bizarreness of the situation just increases until you find yourself no longer bored.

13. Grey Gardens

An Albert and David Maysles-directed documentary is the only film on this list. It depicts an East Hampton estate abandoned by its owners, a mother and daughter who have sealed themselves off from the rest of the world. “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Beale’s claim to fame is that they are related to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (aunt and first cousin, respectively). The Beales have accumulated a lifetime’s worth of things and built a world of their own at their Grey Gardens estate, which is frozen in time and space as the rest of the world moves on. A testimonial to the power of just turning up and documenting what happens is Maysles and Beales’ patient and discreet approach as they are slowly dragged into the Beales’ twisted reality If you want to know what it’s like when boredom and indifference turn into psychosis, look no further.

14. The Big Lebowski

As a reward for not having seen The Big Lebowski, you’ll get to experience this legendary slacker-crime comedy from the Coen Brothers at their zenith of cinematic splendor. Jeff Bridges’ portrayal of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, a middle-aged marijuana and bowling fanatic, is loosely based on Raymond Chandler’s short stories. First, The Dude gets beaten by two goons at his bachelor pad in Los Angeles because of a case of mistaken identity (they were hired by the ex-wife of another—Big and rich—Lebowski to forcefully collect money). The Dude and his bowling buddies, brilliantly depicted by John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, descend into a rabbit hole they are not prepared for in their hopeless attempts to outmaneuver the orbit of larger-than-life ne’er do wells who have suddenly been injected into what was a ho-hum lifestyle. It’s another one you can watch a hundred times and still find enjoyable. A cure for boredom.

15. The Groove Tube

The Groove Tube

It’s a low-budget independent comedy sketch from 1974 that’s among the filthiest and most obscene of its kind. Pre-Saturday Night Live hot takes on the counterculture of the day, with exclamation points given by Chevy Chase and pre-homicide investigator Richard Belzer, make up the bulk of the material. It’s a time capsule that was probably never meant to be constructed in the first place. What makes it even better is that it’s so diverse. In 2001, there were a lot of parodies: Belzer as a Bozo the Clown-like send-up, silly imitation ads, Chase doing false news, a joke about a corporation named Uranus Corporation that manufactures the space-age polymer Brown 25… Probably too much for one person, but it’s got it all. Much, much, much more than is necessary. Nonetheless, you won’t get bored while watching. Angry, but not bored, perhaps.