Learn English step-by-step by watching movies

Improving your English by watching movies is not just a whimsical idea. In reality, it is a highly enjoyable and effective way to improve your language skills. In this blog, we will try to understand how watching movies can be a dynamic way to engage with the language and provide you with a list of 13 movies that offer an immersive learning experience.

Let’s Begin!

Can we improve our English by watching movies?

Undoubtedly yes!

You might be surprised at how much you can learn while being thoroughly entertained. We have a lot of resources around us which can help us in our language learning journey, but movies offer a real-world context, helping you understand how language is used in different scenarios. They can help you to understand the nuances of this language and improve your overall language skills such as grammar, vocabulary, listening, comprehension, accents, colloquial expressions, voice inflections, pronunciations and so much more.

How to learn English by watching movies?

The very first step is to watch English movies and the second step is to pay attention.

Just trying to add some humor.

It is a very common question that how can watching movies help to learn or improve ENGLISH?

The answer is pretty simple. They can help you – to understand the nuances of the language while listening to the native speakers, to understand the importance of voice inflections such as tone, pace and pitch, to improve your sentence-formation skills,  to expand your vocabulary, to improve your grammatical knowledge, to improve your pronunciations, to understand idioms, phrases and colloquial expressions, to understand different ways to communicate and to understand the importance of non-verbal queue. To improve your English using movies, learn as much as you can from them and then apply all of that to your spoken English. On the AceFluency App, you can practice spoken English every day for FREE with 1:1 live calls with co-learners. You can apply your learnings in these conversations.

Let’s dive in!

Tips to Learn English by watching movies

1. Choosing the right movie is indeed hard– It is essential to pick a movie that aligns with your proficiency level, culture and interest.

2.  Subtitles is the hero – You can use subtitles while watching the movies so that you can get clarity, understand the pronunciations and spellings.

3. Write it down- You can note down the new words, phrases and idioms that you come across

4. Explore- It is crucial to explore different genres and different kinds of movies so that you expose yourself to a wide range of accents, words and more

5. Act it out- You can reiterate the dialogues or the lines to understand the language better and register everything efficiently. Moreover, it just makes the learning process so fun and engaging.

6. Play! Pause! Play! – You can pause the movie whenever you come across something you don’t know and try to understand it or note it down before moving ahead.

Best Movies to Learn Spoken English

It is time.

Let’s explore 13 movies that can enhance your English skills across different aspects of language learning.

1. Forrest Gump-  

If you are a beginner, you can definitely choose this movie. The dialogues are very simple and iconic. The movie has references to historical events in America. From everyday conversations to more complex terms related to war, politics, and life experiences, you get a lot of exposure to different words and expressions.

2. Dead Poets Society-   

It is a classic movie which can help you to improve your vocabulary, grammar and public speaking skills. This movie is about poetic language, eloquent speeches and the astonishing power of words. This definitely should be on the list of movies to watch. 

3. The Harry Potter Series-

This has to be my favorite in this list. If you like fantasy adventure, then this series is for you. There are 7 movies based on 7 books. There are many different characters and elements in the series and that really helps to understand different types of speech patterns, communication styles, accents and storytelling.

4. The Shawshank Redemption-

This movie is again a classic and is regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time. The movie provides a social commentary on justice and corruption. It focuses on the conversations between characters and complex narratives. This movie can really help to improve your overall language skills and will also make you question a lot of things happening around us.

5 The King’s Speech-

This movie is an Oscar-winning movie. This movie is really inspiring and can help you to improve your pronunciation and public-speaking skills. This has to be on this list of movies which can help you to improve your language skills.

6. The Pursuit of Happyness-

This movie is inspired by real-life experiences and hence the communication style used is mostly real-life conversations. Apart from this the movie can help us to learn more about persuasive 

communication as the movie has many powerful speeches. 

7. Inception-

This movie should be on your list if you are focusing on advanced language learning. This is a fantastic science-fiction movie. The language and the plot both are really complex. You will be exposed to advanced vocabulary and narratives which are really thought-provoking.

8. Pride and Prejudice-

The movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice can help us understand how native speakers speak in different situations. You will come across societal norms, colloquial expressions, formal language and phrases as this movie is set in the early 19^th century England.

9. Home Alone-

This is again a great movie to watch if you are a beginner. It is a classic family comedy movie. The language used is really simple and will help you understand wordplay and descriptive communication.

This movie has many heartwarming moments and memorable scenes.

This is a perfect example of how you can learn while having fun.

10. The Social Network-

The movie provides exposure to technological vocabulary and industry-specific jargon, helping you improve your English language skills in the context of business and technology. I would say this movie is for intermediate learners as the speech pattern is fast-paced and can help you improve your comprehension skills. This movie is about Facebook and is indeed an interesting watch.

11. Good Will Hunting-

It is an intellectual drama with a complex theme. It has inspired many people to pursue their dreams. You should definitely watch this movie as it will also help you understand the natural conversation style and cultural nuances.

12. Life of Pi-

This movie is based on an award-winning novel and is both thrilling and thought-provoking. It is about a young Indian boy’s survival journey at the sea with a tiger. Apart from all the other benefits, you can learn a lot about visual storytelling which is one of the most impressive elements of the movie.

13. The Avenger series-

If you like fiction and superheroes then this movie series is for you. As we discussed the importance of watching movies from different genres, you can include this movie in your list.

You will get an idea about different accents, the importance of voice modulation, sentence formation because of witty dialogues. And the most important thing is that it is thoroughly entertaining and engaging.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. Which English movie is best for beginner English?

Ans. A movie with a simple plot, easy dialogues and beginner-friendly vocabulary would be an ideal choice for a beginner. Some recommendations would be –

• Toy Story
• Finding Nemo
• Forrest Gump
• Home Alone
• Slumdog Millionaire
• The Lion King

Q2. What is Netflix’s most-watched English-language show?

Apart from movies, series and shows on OTT platforms are quite popular and they can also help us to improve our language skills. The most watched English-language show on Netflix is ‘Wednesday’ which is a horror comedy show. Apart from this there are many popular shows that can help you in your language learning journey such as Stranger Things, Schitt’s Creek and many more. 

Q3. Do movies help students learn?

Absolutely! 

We discussed above how movies can significantly help the learner to improve their overall language skills. They guide us regarding so many different aspects of language and communication and is a great resource. However, watching a movie once will not improve your English instantly. Consistency is the key here. You have to use this method along with other methods, especially speaking English every day on the AceFluency App and resources to get the best result.