Autumn film, music, and literature
My ultimate guide for chilly weather.
Autumn is the most wistful time of the year, and with that comes the best film, music, and literature. So, here is a cozy list of art that is reminiscent of the warm feeling of fall.
“Even now I remember those pictures, like pictures in a storybook one loved as a child. Radiant meadows, mountains vaporous in the trembling distance; leaves ankle-deep on a gusty autumn road; bonfires and fog in the valleys; cellos, dark window-panes, snow.”
~ Donna Tartt, The Secret History
When the leaves are shaking
There’s a specific day every summer where fall silently sneaks in through the door. I think it has the most bashful entrance of all of the seasons. It teases you as it sticks a leg out of the door and pulls it back in. But one day, you wake up and it’s standing outside of the door, standing face to face with you, pulling on a fleece lined jacket. And so as fall does, we must transition slowly and bashfully into the atmospheric, melancholic art.
MOVIES
Matilda
Pride and Prejudice
Good Will Hunting
Past Lives
Almost Famous
BOOKS
The Gold Finch by Donna Tartt
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
When the leaves are falling
It’s October and my favorite cable knit sweater is bunched up around my torso as I dangle my feet over the porch swing, reading my favorite autumnal novel. Bright orange and red leaves are spiraling through the air as my breath expands in front of me like smoke. Fall is in front of me, unabashedly, just as my favorite cozy books and movies are.
MOVIES
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Dead Poets Society
The entire Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Practical Magic
When Harry Met Sally
BOOKS
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Bunny by Mona Awad
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
When the leaves have fallen
All of the leaves have gone to rest upon the ground and the crunch underfoot is more and more intense with each passing day. I’ve dragged my warmest coat from the storage closet and lug it around everywhere I go. The melancholy is slowly slipping away as the crisp bite of winter and yearning seeps in. There’s nothing better than a cozy movie to coincide with the burning cold.
MOVIES
Coraline
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Virgin Suicides
Twilight
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
BOOKS
The Shining by Stephen King
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
