3. Teddy Duchamp - Stand By Me
Stand By Me is filled with great pre-teen characters. Gordie Lachance feels invisible after the death of his beloved older brother, and Chris Chambers is the kid from the wrong side of the tracks who struggles to be seen as anything other than trouble. Then there's Teddy Duchamp, the wise-cracking smartass with a huge amount of pain below the surface. But while we learn a lot about Lachance and Chambers throughout the movie, Teddy's backstory remains more or less unsaid. We know that he's got issues with his father, who was in a psychiatric hospital after returning home from the war, but it feels like there's so much more going on there. There's so much pain and anger in the way that Teddy screams at the junkyard man who's taunting him, I'm left wishing that I knew more about this sad little boy.