Kundun (1997)

For someone who's known as the guy who makes great mob movies, Martin Scorsese has had a wonderfully diverse career. The Color of Money, Cape Fear, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Age of Innocence—he's been all over the place. And then there was Kundun. The story of the 14th Dalai Lama, a young man who has to deal with a) figuring out what it means to be the Dalai Lama and b) aggression from his Chinese neighbors to the east, the movie is pretty, tender and wise.