Spoliers:
All throughout the film it tears at your soul but then when little Ricky is putting his dads hand around him at the end and trying to bring him back to life, holy cow bring on the water works. I used to think Lonesome Dove was the biggest tear jerker but not anymore. It's second.
Soldiers are dumb stupid animals used as pawns in foreign policy
-Henry Kissinger Sec Of State
I just saw where they talked about this movie tonight on ABC Nightly News with Diane Sawyer. She reported on a recent poll in which "The Champ" was voted the saddest movie of all time.
wow, that's neat to hear. I guess I'm in pretty good company. Thanks for the info.
Soldiers are dumb stupid animals used as pawns in foreign policy
-Henry Kissinger Sec Of State
[deleted]
[deleted]
This article outlines the study that was done:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Saddest-Movie-in-the-Wo rld.html
I can't understand how more people cried over this than over The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) which is by far the most depressing film I've ever seen, I cried my eyes out with that but I honestly didn't feel that sad with this film, maybe because what happened to the Frank family really happened.
sharenever seen it, lol
i'll have 2 check it out for sure
Soldiers are dumb stupid animals used as pawns in foreign policy
-Henry Kissinger Sec Of State
This movie (The Champ) is definitely up there and at least in my top 10 list of the biggest tear jerkers (probably #2 at that). It's all relative since some movies people list don't even seem to be in the same league of tearjerkers as "The Champ" I would probably place it second on my list closely followed by "Something for Joey" "Brian's Song" and "Where the Red Fern Grows"
But, still topping the list for me (in my own opinion so far) is Misunderstood (remake to Incompresso) and give Misunderstood the same ending and it wins hands down. To me, Henry Thomas's acting was so believable. His body language, facial expressions and script just stole the movie. Unlike The Champ, his mom dies at the beginning of the movie and all though the movie he craves the love and affection from his father and is totally neglected. His acting is flawless and certainly far better than his acting in ET or in fact any child's acting I've ever seen. Although the movie is bit slow and certainly depressing, his acting as well as everyone else in the movie in my opinion was great. But, like The Champ, it's not a high rated movie. The movie just rips your heart out as you suffer along with the boy in his loss and pain and agony for love and affection. (partial spoilers from here) The movie is actually now on you tube and can be found on VHS as well. Let the tears start flowing when he says he's not afraid to die a little more than 5 min in and his acting is paramount from there. At 7:28 or so in the video (part 9) tears will start flowing again as he asked to be held and it goes ignored: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvSj9VdtTQA&feature=related Part 10 just gets it flowing more...
Because "The Champ" takes a more accessible subject to the general audience, children included, it's just a boy who loses the person he idolized the most his whole life, and the sight of an incontrolably weeping little boy inconsolable to the loss of his hero is 'universally' saddenning ...
... or maybe an article said it better : "Sports, fathers and death have long been known to be the holy trifecta for tears"
"Darth Vader is scary and I The Godfather"