Your favourite acts of kindness on screen

If you keep your eyes open, you’ll catch small acts of kindness taking place around you. These moments occur quickly, and can seem to flash by in an instant. But it’s like Jimmy Stewart’s character exclaims in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939): “I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella too.”

13 November was World Kindness Day, so we asked our followers on Twitter and Facebook to nominate their favourite acts of kindness in film. From Charlie Chaplin’s charitable Tramp to the villagers who stand strong together in Chocolat (2000), here are some of the highlights from your suggestions.

Graham Robertson: “Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch defending Tom Robinson – although knowing it is futile – in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Katy Joyce Naylor: “Beaker giving Scrooge his scarf in The Muppet Christmas Carol.”

Esraa Vorenus: “Valentine helping the old woman who cannot reach the hole of the container to put the bottle in … unforgettable memory from the Three Colours trilogy.”

Marita Blake: “When Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life leaves George his copy of Tom Sawyer with the inscription ‘Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends’ – gets me every time.”

Speeros Jannotis: “Kindness is Setsuko Hara as Noriko Hirayama in Tokyo Story.”

Pippa Harris: “Andy buying a harmonica for Red in Shawshank.”

De Ecnered: “The Little Tramp adopting the kid.”

Gabriel Garcia: “The town helping Juliette Binoche in Chocolat.”

Mike Caplan: “Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp anonymously paying for a blind flower girl’s operation to restore her sight in City Lights.”

Martin Laidlaw: “I really hate to say it, but Bill Murray in Scrooged, when he saves the hobo at the end.”