Even as the stoic male that I am, I’ve definitely teared up in a few movies over the years, probably more so than I have from real life events. There are just some situations that are orchestrated specifically to get that emotion out of you, and now Canadian scientists say they’ve discovered the absolute saddest movie on earth. It’s probably not one you’re expecting.
The winner is 1979 boxing film THE CHAMP, which starred Jon Voight as a fighter trying to get back custody of his son, a super young Ricky Schroeder. The scene in question that makes everyone burst?
In the scientifically proven heart-wrenching climatic scene Schroder pleads “Champ! Wake up!” after Voight’s character dies after a gruelling fight in the ring.
How did they come to this conclusion? It’s a quest they’ve been on for two decades, and this is the number one sadness inducing scene they found.
Two psychology professors in the U.S., James Gross and Robert Levenson, have been working since 1988 to find the perfect sad film clip so they can use it on test subjects in experiments on how sadness affects behaviour. “‘The Champ’ . . . produced levels of sadness that were much greater than any other emotion,” the researchers wrote in an article.
The movie itself is not acknowledged as very good (38% on RT), but it beat out all other contenders, including the runner up Kramer vs. Kramer. I found this article via Roger Ebert’s Twitter, with Ebert himself saying they must not have considered the animated Grave of the Fireflies, which he deems the saddest ever.
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