There’s a host of tear-jerking movies throughout the history of cinema. Boxing is many times a cruel sport that results in sad ends to the careers and lives of its fighters. It shouldn’t be too surprisingly that an experiment started over 20 years ago at the University of California-Berkeley named the 1979 boxing movie The Champ as the saddest movie ever made.
Directed by Franco Zeffirelli, The Champ tells the story of a past prime boxer attempting an ill-fated comeback. Testing over 500 undergraduate students, the movie featured a scene with the deceased boxer’s nine year old son crying over his death. The results showed this scene invoking the most sadness from test subjects, beating out over 250 other films. The closest challenge came from the Walt Disney animated classic Bambi, which featured the shooting death of the protagonist’s mother.
Researchers continue to use the test results today. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the study has been cited in over 300 scientific articles since 1995.
Source: The Smithsonian
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Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 