The overarching theme explored in each of the following films is the uncertain ordevastating fate of a child. When we are forced to bear witness to the abuse, suffering, or in worst case scenarios, death, of someone who is by nature without defense and innocent, it sharply needles something primal in all of us that screams to be unleashed to protect that child.
These are the films that we must compel ourselves to finish when we’ve hit the midway point, or perhaps even sooner than that, because we want to look away but are unable; the ones that mark us forever with a sadness that reappears every timethe memory of what we sawrevisits us, like a tender spot on a fractured bone that just won’t quite heal. These films feel more like mutually lived experiences rather than pictures moving across the screen.
10Sophie’s Choice (1982)
This movie is harrowing for more than just the act of desperation behind the title.Set against flashbacksbetween 1947 New York, and Nazi-occupied Poland, 1982’sSophie’s Choicetakes us down one of the darkest paths in history.Narrated by the main characterStingo (portrayed by Peter MacNicol) and Sophie herself, portrayed by the ethereal Meryl Streep, and based on William Styron’s novel of the same name, the film takes us through Sophie’s story as told to and through Stingo after she has immigrated to the United States. Title character Sophie was married with two children when she and her family were captured by the Gestapo. Her husband was killed right away, with herself, her son Jan and daughter Eva being imprisoned at Auschwitz.
The choice being referenced in the title is unthinkable, as Sophie is forced to decide which of her precious children will be sent to the gas chamber, lest they both should perish. Choosing Eva to die immediately, her son Jan was sent to the children’s camp where he would ultimately perish, even after Sophie’s unbearable decision. The heaviness of Sophie’s experience doesn’t end with her escape to the U.S., as she brings this tale of inconceivable sorrow to a close with her suicide. One can interpret this act as a final freedom, or as one more woeful detail in a life marked by tragedy.
9The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
Another film set in a time in history when all hope seemed lost,The Boy in the Striped Pajamasis the story of two families on different sides of the fence in Nazi-occupied Poland. Young Bruno is the son of an SS officer, while Shmuel, a boy Bruno’s age, is a prisoner in the concentration camp located behind Bruno’s family’s house, which Bruno innocently believes to be a farm. The two boys meet coincidentally as Bruno heads into the woods and comes to the barbed wire fence, happening upon Shmuel. They continue to meet and become friends, each unaware of the truth behind the camp, and the uniforms those within the wire are forced to wear. Bruno believes the uniforms are merely pajamas, and poor naïve Shmuel believes his situation to be temporary. The boys get the idea to dress Bruno in the “pajamas” so he can assist Shmuel undetected in locating his missing father.
The cruel twist is the kindness and care Bruno tries to extend to Shmuel is exactly what leads to his own demise. It’s enough to untie every knot in one’s throat as we watch Bruno suffer the same fate as Shmuel and so many other souls who never deserved to endure such savagery.
Related:8 Haunting Films About the Holocaust
8The Lovely Bones (2009)
If ever there were a movie that rattles the need for a happy ending in us,The Lovely Bonesfits the bill. Unfortunately, we are given no such reprieve. While its ending tries to wrap the details into a somewhat satisfying package, this film is nothing short of disheartening in its subtle justice with no justice for our predatory, murdering, creep next door. In 1973, Susie Salmon, portrayed here by Saoirse Ronan, is just 14 years old when her neighbor, George Harvey, portrayed by an eerie Stanley Tucci, lures her to her doom in his underground bunker, designed by him especially for this purpose. We watch her family struggle with her loss, without the benefit of a burial for her as Harvey has kept her body and hidden it so as not to be incriminated. We must watch as Susie exists in a place called “the in-between”, not on Earth and not crossed over as she wrestles with moving on, or with trying to help her family solve her own murder.
This movie hits home in part because this story, we see all too often on the evening news in our own very real realities. It’s both infuriating and unimaginable the level of anguish this fictional family, and the real-life families of victims of these types of crimes must go through.
7Dear Zachary (2008)
Dear Zacharyis a cinematic love-letter/scrapbook for baby Zachary, comprised of interviews from family members and friends, to get to know a father he would never have an opportunity to in this life. Created by Zachary’s father’s best friend, Kurt Kuenne, the film is a consequence of the real-life murder ofZachary’s father Andrew Bagbyby none other than Zachary’s mother, Shirley Jane Turner. Turner discovered she was pregnant only after having been accused of murdering Andrew. Andrew’s parents had custody of their beloved grandson for a time while Turner was imprisoned.
However, upon her release, they were forced to return Zachary to his mother, retaining visitation rights. Sadly, Turner decided to end Zachary’s life and her own. She strapped the 13-month-old to her chest and jumped into the Atlantic Ocean, drowning them both. Devastated beyond measure, Andrew’s parents, David and Kathleen made it their mission to create reform in the justice system regarding the laws surrounding issuing and posting bail so that no harm could come to additional children due to the system’s failure to protect them. The film’s coda is Andrew’s family reminiscing on the love they shared for Andrew and Zachary.
6My Sister’s Keeper (2009)
Childhood cancer is never an easy topic to address and sit with. No one, parent or otherwise, is likely to be able to consume media wherein a child must suffer the countless indignities of disease while carrying the weight of the hope of everyone that loves them, and not feel like there’s an elephant’s foot on their chest.My Sister’s Keeperis a bit of a surprise as it tells the story initially from the point of view of 11-year-old Anna, portrayed by Abigail Breslin, as she fights for bodily autonomy from her distraught parents, Brian and Sara (Jason Patric and Cameron Diaz respectively), who created her using in-vitro fertilization as a savior sibling for her elder sister Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who is dying from acute promyelocytic leukemia.
The film showcases some of the happier, most supportive moments in the family’s life, while also giving way to the abject sorrow they are faced with in losing their little girl to a disease that can no longer be fought. The pain is in the unwillingness, the absolute refusal to relent and in the final release when it is made clear that it was actually Kate’s request for Anna to refuse any further procedures, as she is exhausted from watching her loved ones suffer and of her own suffering.
Related:These Are Some of the Most Depressing Movies of the Last Two Decades
5Gone Baby Gone (2007)
This film has been a bone of contention for many who have watched it since its release in 2007. When neglectful parents are mixed in with drugs and kidnapped children, emotions are bound to run white-hot.Gone Baby Gonetells the story of the abduction, purported death, and relocation of four-year-old Amanda McCready, portrayed by Madeline O’Brien, and the events that surround her disappearance and reintegration with her mother. Amanda’s mother and father are mules for local drug lord Cheese, portrayed by Edi Gathegi, as well as addicts themselves. When Amanda goes missing, so does $130,000 of the king pin’s money, leading P.I. Patrick Kenzie, portrayed by Casey Affleck, and police Captain Jack Doyle, portrayed by Morgan Freeman, to believe that Cheese was involved in the kidnapping.
The plot twist here is that the captain himself has actually taken the young girl to raise, having lost a daughter himself years earlier, and witnessing the shameful condition the child was being raised in. The real gut punch to this film is the emotional tug of war being played onscreen and within the heart of the viewer as we watch helplessly as Amanda is delivered back into the hands of her neglectful mother, and the man who wanted so desperately to rescue her and love her as she deserves to be loved is arrested. It twists the knife with no real relief as we are torn between wanting the mother to be a mother, wanting to believe a child should be with their parent, and knowing that the sad truth is Amanda’s mother was never fit and the life she could have had with Doyle is now nothing more than ashes of memory.
4Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Bridge to Terabithiabegins happily enough, with our bullied main character Jess, portrayed by Josh Hutcherson, finding a best friend in his next-door neighbor Leslie, portrayed by AnnaSophia Robb. The two 11-year-olds explore the woods and creek near their homes and happen upon an abandoned tree house that they, in turn, create a fantastical world of their own around. They call this world Terabithia. We get to watch Jess open up and experience happiness outside the financial struggles his family faces, all thanks to this bright new friendship. It’s that build-up of warmth and safety that makes the ending such a potent source of despair.
Sadly, while Jess is away on a trip to the art museum, Leslie tries to cross the creek by swinging from a rope and falls to her death, hitting her head and drowning when the rope breaks. Being privy to the death of a child, so full of life with so much ahead of her and watching the agony Jess must wade through after the loss of his best friend, makes this film particularly difficult to digest.
3The Mist (2007)
One word-infuriating. Based on Stephen King’s novella of the same name (so we already know we’re in for something disturbing), 2007’sThe Mistis a lot of what you might expect in a creature feature horror flick. It gives us people losing their minds, losing their lives and plenty of tension to push the narrative forward. It’s a solid scary movie. What brings it to this list, however, is the very end. Our hero David Drayton, portrayed by Thomas Jane, believes there to be no hope left. In an act of mercy, he ends the life of his 8-year-old son and the remaining survivors. Just as he exits the car to end his own life as well, the Army arrives in rescue and the mist retreats. The realization that if he had just waited a few moments longer and his son would still be alive flays all of us open as we see him fall to his knees and release a sound only an aggrieved parent can make.
2The Kite Runner (2007)
Told in a flashback from the year 2000 into 1978, 1979, and 1988,The Kite Runnertells the story of two 10-year-old children growing up in Kabul, before and after a military intervention. Amir, portrayed by Zekeria Ebrahimi, is a kite fighter, with his best friend and the son of his father’s servant, Hassan, portrayed by Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, serving as his “kite runner”, or one who retrieves a kite after it has been fought and won or defeated. The film deals with feelings of helplessness and guilt and what these emotions can lead one to do. After a battle, Hassan goes to retrieve Amir’s kite, at which point he is beaten and sexually assaulted, with Amir witnessing it and being too afraid to stop it or call for help. After this incident, Amir is unable to face Hassan and frames him for theft in order to have him and his father removed from his home, unable to cope with his own guilt in not defending Hassan. This act ripples into Hassan’s life forever, as Amir is made aware of in 2000. We later discover that Hassan was more than just the servant’s son, but in fact was Amir’s paternal half-brother.
Sadly, upon the Taliban’s rise to power, Hassan was murdered, along with his wife. While the end is tied together with Amir and his wife welcoming Hassan’s son, Sohrab, as their own, and in turn Amir becoming Sohrab’s “kite runner”, the emotional journey explored within this film will haunt us long after the story has concluded.
1Collateral Beauty (2016)
There is no greater sorrow a parent can experience than the death of their child. 2016’sCollateral Beautytakes us down a path of ultimate self-destruction as Will Smith’s Howard Inlet spirals deeper and deeper into a depression he cannot rise from since the death of his 6-year-old daughter. He refuses to eat or sleep, instead spending all his time building intricate domino structures. His business partners have begun to worry. They hire actors to pretend to be the three abstracts to which Howard has written angst filled letters: Love, Time and Death. The plan is to prove Howard unfit so that they can ensure his and their own financial survival.
Throughout the course of this artfully acted drama, we experience Howard’s grief as our own; we watch his last moments with his daughter, his interactions with the actors – who we never really know if they are indeed simply hired actors, or if they are the spirits of Love, Time and Death in the flesh – and with his estranged wife who suffers as intensely as he but is unwilling to succumb to it. We get to see all the rage that anyone who hasn’t lost a child can imagine is palpable; and anyone who has lost a child will undoubtedly relate to viscerally.
