I wonder if people here have examples of great movies or books that feature protagonists making big moral decisions to save many people?
I find such examples inspiring. Those can be historic or fictional.
This was inspired by this comment by Benjamin Todd, who was interested in:
"In-depth stories of people who had a lot of impact, and the rules of thumb they used / how they navigated key decision points, with the intention of drawing lessons from them.
E.g. Interview Holden or Bostrom about each key moment in their career, challenges & decisions they faced, and how they navigated them.
In this case, it would not be "in-depth" but rather a good movie related to what they did. There are probably a lot of superhero stories (after all, it's their job saving the world!), which is fine if the movie is really good and inspiring, and if the hero is particularly smart and altruistic.
Examples include for non-fictional stories the Schindler's List. Fictional ones may actually involve Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or similar.
They don't have to be as dark and sad, though! I'm looking for good movies to watch with friends to get an extra boost of motivation.
(please note: this is slightly facetious in tone)
I would say Harry Potter is not exactly an EA example. The super-powerful almost-immortal physical embodiment of evil has a huge beef with him (a not-very-skilled not-very-smart teenager??). Though he knows that Evil Embodied is constantly trying to assassinate him in inefficient baroque ways, Harry Potter puts hundreds of other wizards in danger (resulting in a few dozen deaths) by going to Hogwarts versus, eg, insisting on homeschooling. Why is Harry the sole person who can save the magic-world? Why not hedge your bets and explore other methods? Pinning the survival of your entire society on one teenager seems like a particularly ill-advised move. Tangentially, why not study (and later attempt to reproduce) what makes Harry immune to a ton of otherwise-lethal magic stints?
Then, after defeating the Most Evil And Worst Person In Wizardom, Harry takes his wealth of insane experiences and decides to become... a magic cop (if you're really The Very Special Main Character maybe you should write and share your experiences/insights with everyone instead of issuing wizard parking tickets?).
Lord of the Rings: absolutely moral heroism/altruism in protagonists. Two hobbits et al. walk from Florida to Michigan, push themselves very far outside of their comfort zones, and risk death/torture in order to protect literally everything on (middle) Earth.