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Scientists agree: 'The Champ' is the saddest movie of all time

According to Smithsonian, scientists have found in laboratory situations that 'The Champ' -- the bathetic 1979 remake with Ricky Schroder, not the fine 1931 original with Jackie Cooper -- is the most effective producer of tears. Is that the saddest they've got?

23 comments

Scientists agree: 'The Champ' is the saddest movie of all time

POSTED: Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 12:00 PM

Carrie Rickey, Film Critic

Ricky Schroder with Jon Voight in "The Champ"

According to Smithsonian (hat tip, Vulture) scientists have found in laboratory situations that The Champ -- the bathetic 1979 remake with Ricky Schroder, not the fine 1931 original with Jackie Cooper -- is the most effective producer of tears. Is that the saddest they've got?

According to the article:

"The Champ has been used in experiments to see if depressed people are more likely to cry than non-depressed people (they aren’t). It has helped determine whether people are more likely to spend money when they are sad (they are) and whether older people are more sensitive to grief than younger people (older people did report more sadness when they watched the scene). Dutch scientists used the scene when they studied the effect of sadness on people with binge eating disorders (sadness didn’t increase eating)."

Which all goes to show that a bad movie is useful for something.

As I've noted before, I'm not sure that there's a universal tear-wringer. But I have anecdotal evidence that for American men, sports films involving terminal illness or death (Brian's Song, Bang the Drum Slowly, Pride of the Yankees) are more effective than raw onions in producing the tear response.

And I know that for anyone who's nursed an ailing relative through illness that Dark Victory, Hanging Up, Away from Her, Hanging Up, Iris, The Notebook, Shadowlands and Stepmom do the trick.

The death of the family pet (The Biscuit Eater, Marley and Me, Old Yeller, Sounder) always works for me. As does loss of/reunion with parent or child (Antwone Fisher, Forrest Gump, To Each His Own, your favorite movie here________).

The Smithsonian article also cites All Mine to Give -- a very fine 1958 film about immigrants who die and whose eldest child has to parcel out his siblings to other families (on Christmas Eve) -- as a reliable tear inducer.

Tell me why you cry in movies.

23 comments

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Comments (23)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:13 PM, 07/26/2011

If I see a film about a dying father and a son growing up to be a writer, I'm totally inconsolable. AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER destroyed me. And I don't even LIKE the film (good performances by Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent aside). I read the book, and barely shed a tear, but I saw the TRAILER for this film months after I'd seen the film and wept uncontrollably. It pushes my every emotional button. Likewise, C.R.A.Z.Y. an outstanding and rarely seen Canadian film (NETFLIX IT AT ONCE!) does me in as well. It's 127 minutes long, and the first time I saw it, I was totally absorbed, until the last 7 minutes and then waterworks. I saw it again a few months later, and 7 minutes in, I started sobbing, and continued for the next two hours. I am reminded of Gilda Radners' line about THE WAY WE WERE. "I saw the film 5 times, but cried 6 times, because I knew it so well, I started sobbing in the car on the way over to the theatre!"

— garymk

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:57 PM, 07/26/2011

I don't have a favorite sad movie but I do have a favorite sad scene... Rex Harrison's monologue as he's parting from the sleeping Gene Tierney in THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. It also has a "cry happy" scene at the end when their ghosts are reunited. I once had the opportunity to speak to Joseph Mankiewicz at a screening of this film and told him that I always cry even though I'd seen it at least 10 times. He replied, "So do I, and I directed it."

— greenbox91

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:57 PM, 07/26/2011

Hi Carrie, Don't forget Leo McCarey's 1937 "Make Way for Tomorrow," which will have even the most cynical melting in puddles

— Jeff Weinstein

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:14 PM, 07/26/2011

"Brian's Song" (original, not the 2001 Disney hack job) is the only movie that men will volunteer that they cried watching. I saw "The Champ" again about two years ago, and the most impressive thing is seeing how easily Ricky (uh, "Rick") Schroder can start bawling. I admit to four waterworks moments: (1) "Return to Me," when David Duchovny's wife dies (he breaks down crying in their house, with blood from the car accident still on his shirt) and then Minnie Driver gets the wife's heart transplanted. (2) "Sophie's Choice," when she makes her choice; and (3) "The Remains of the Day," when Emma Thompson is standing on the bus driving away from Anthony Hopkins, and through the rain we can see her start to cry; (4) *criminally* underrated "Hachi: A Dog's Tale": not manipulative like "Marley," but just shattering to anyone who's ever owned or wanted to own a dog. And "Brian's Song," of course.

— J H

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:18 PM, 07/26/2011

I will give "The Champ" credit for one thing, though: the theme music by Dave Grusin really is one of the most moving instrumental themes I can recall, along with "Terms of Endearment" and the opening credits to "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."

— J H

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:44 PM, 07/26/2011

I would only cry today when observing the ticket prices.

— barneygoogle

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:48 PM, 07/26/2011

Hi, Carrie. Interesting. For me it's Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella meeting and playing catch with his dead father John in "Field of Dreams." Gets me big time every time.

— californiafan

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:12 PM, 07/26/2011

"Aside from my kid being born, this is the greatest night in the history of my life. Yo, Adrian, I did it!"

— doo dah man

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:13 PM, 07/26/2011

when that little girl in the movie "andre" is out in her little boat during the bad storm looking for her stupid seal and the seal saves her. i know it's stupid. but i cry during almost any movie. when adrienne tells rocky, "win," from her sickbed? i'm getting ferklempt just writing about it.

— eaglesfillthesky

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:55 PM, 07/26/2011

My first movie tears were brought on (strangely) by that 1975 classic Cooley High. I vaguely recall the movie, I guess someone sympathetic died an unfair death.

— bobcitydoc

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:56 PM, 07/26/2011

"My Life" with Michael Keaton or "American Flyers" with kevin kostner always do it to me.

— lemming

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:58 PM, 07/26/2011

As long as we're all embarrassing ourselves, here's my list:

Brian's Song (original);

Up (I thought I was going to watch a comedy, and in the first five minutes, the guy meets the love of his life, grows up, gets married, finds out they can't have a family, his wife dies, and he's all alone. And then the kid comes into the movie, and you find out that his Dad abandoned him and he's looking for a father figure. Literally tearing up as I'm typing;

My Dog Skip- when his dog dies at the end of the movie, I was bawling;

Steel Magnolias- the end when the mom dies and leaves her baby behind. Always gets to me.

Feel free to make fun of me. Only in the anonymity of the Comments section can I admit to this.

— mjc1

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:37 PM, 07/26/2011

I'm crying reading the comments. I think the opening montage of Up is probably the best tear-inducer of them all.

— carrierickey

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:53 PM, 07/26/2011

Im not gay. Crying to a movie...come on.
-not bob levy

— remyy

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:25 PM, 07/26/2011

Might as well chime in...

1) Brian's Song (original)
2) Million Dollar Baby
3) Old Yeller (come on, who cried when Old Yeller got shot?)

— Joe

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:59 PM, 07/26/2011

Sophie's Choice

— factcheck

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:01 PM, 07/26/2011

The scene in From Here To Eternity where you hear taps being played after the death of Sinatras character Angelo Maggio and eventually you see that its his friend Pruitt (Montgomery Clift) playing with tears streaming down his cheeks. That kills me.

— Norf77

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:22 PM, 07/26/2011

I cried when I realized there were 2 more hours left in "Out of Africa".

— 2ndNlong

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:32 PM, 07/26/2011

I break down after:

2010 Eagles season ending loss to GB
2009 Dallas lose
2008 Arizona lose
etc etc etc etc

— The Philly Shadow

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 11:08 PM, 07/26/2011

Yeah Million Dollar Baby is a movie you can only watch once.

— hipdaddy

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 11:47 PM, 07/26/2011

Science may declare The Champ to be have the saddest scene in movie history. But one word brings a scene to mind for most people: "Mother?"

— cft

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:00 AM, 07/27/2011

For me:

The still topical and little-known 1937 "Make Way for Tommorrow" is a poignant reminder of how society deals with the plight of the elderly.

As far as animal movies: "Biscuit Eater" (original), "Old Yeller" and "The Yearling".

Lots more I can't think of right now but Fellini's "La Strada" and "Nights of Cabiria" are both soul stirring and definitely tearful.

And who can forget "Brief Encounter"

robjared

— robjared

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:31 AM, 07/27/2011

As a little girl "Charlotte's Web" was a cry fest. As an adult, I cry at so many movies, it is crazy - call me sentimental. However, the opening of "Up" got me good - totally unexpected. There was an elderly couple in front of me and my kids. They were holding hands and crying. At the end, she turned and told me that it was their 3rd time seeing the movie.

In my family, it is the war movies that get the guys. "Saving Private Ryan" turns my huge tough brother into a ball of mush.

— lulu