Release Year: 1985

Genre: Biography, Drama, Romance

Director: Sydney Pollack

Writer: Kurt Luedtke

Stars: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford

Here's a story for you.

There's a woman in Denmark in the early 20th century. She has money from a wealthy family, but she's not an aristocrat. So she marries a guy who doesn't have much money, but has a title—and seems honest and decent enough.

Then she moves to Kenya to run a dairy farm. Natch.

Except the dairy farm turns out to be a coffee plantation, which her new husband didn't tell her about before she was stuck there. Oh yeah, then he gives her syphilis—because he's been tomcatting around like the human race is dying out and he's the only hope for propagating the species—and she loses the ability to have children.

So then there's this other super cool guy with a biplane and everything, and he really seems into her, but he's also got restless feet. Every once in a while he heads off into the darkest bush to hunt heffalumps and whatnot, leaving the gal alone for months on end while her coffee plantation burns down.

Oh, did we mention this was a true story?

Karen Blixen—who had to use her father's name as a pseudonym because women authors couldn't get published back in the day—took all of that and produced some of the most incredible memoirs ever written. So good, in fact, that director Sydney Pollack moved heaven and earth to get a movie made out of them—and won a fistful of Oscars as a result.

When it comes down to it, Out of Africa is just the kind of movie that Hollywood used to make. By the time it came out in 1985, the box office was dominated by summer blockbusters with "directed by Steven Spielberg" at the end of the opening credits.

Back in the day, Out of Africa was the kind of movie that cost a fortune and showed every dime of it onscreen. Big spaces, gorgeous cinematography, larger-than-life romance, a spirited, principled heroine, and a few tear-jerking moments to wrap it all up.

Pollack resurrected the kind of old-fashioned spectacle that had been missing from Hollywood's playbook since the 1950s. Casting Meryl Streep and Robert Redford—both iconic movie stars at the peak of their careers—didn't hurt, either.

The result? A whopping $227 million worldwide box office count on an expensive-but-not-excessive $28 million investment.

Audiences flocked to the theaters, but not all critics loved it. The critical consensus was that it was gorgeous to look at, Meryl Streep was amazing as usual, but it was just…too long, too slow. Oh, and Robert Redford was dull as dirt.

But that didn't stop the Academy from giving the film seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director (both for Pollack) and four more Oscar nominations (Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer, editing, and costumes). What's up with that?

Well, could be that the members of Academy, an older Hollywood bunch, remembered the days of the lush, epic romances that took their sweet time and didn't have car chases, explosions, and quick edits. Obviously, they adored Pollack's film.

At the very least, you can't say the film didn't leave its mark on cinema history.

Plus, it's got flamingos.

If you binge-watch travel shows, this movie has your hook-up: all the lush savannahs and African critters you could ever hope for, presented under the stirring strings of composer John Barry. You could turn it on and start planning your Kenya safari stat.

But beyond that—and beyond all the Oscars and dump trucks of box-office money—the film is a striking example of Girl Power in action.

It's based on actual events, and you won't find a better example of showing just how marginalized women were back in the day. Karen (Meryl Streep) is a brilliant, principled, educated woman trying to make her way in a world that insists she merely look good at her husband's side and run the household while he spends all his time on hookers and blow.

When she finds another man—someone who seems to actually respect her independence—he ends up flaking out too, pulling the "Freebird" excuse and refusing to commit, even though she adores the guy.

But that's not the end.

In fact, it's barely even the beginning.

Rather than let all of that beat her down, Karen takes it standing up: staying true to herself and refusing to give in to despair. Though she left Africa filled with loss, she turned those experiences into a glorious writing career that influenced people like Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway, and Truman Capote.

And she did it in a world where women were pretty much forbidden from expressing themselves at all.

That's something worth celebrating, and director Sydney Pollack knew it. His movie captures everything she went through—but also the calm, steely way she took it all in, bent where she had to, and resolutely refused to break.

We can all take some lessons from her example, and not just women fighting to express themselves in a world that still isn't that friendly all these years later. The film speaks to anyone who's ever had to look epically terrible times in the face and say to themselves, "This isn't going to beat me."

Oh, and did we mention the flamingos?