4. Sophie's Choice (1982)
The movie's narrator - Stingo - moves to Brooklyn in 1947 in order to write a novel. He gets caught up in Sophie and Nathan's relationship which is tempestuous to say the least. Nathan is jealous and possessive and constantly badgers Sophie about being unfaithful to him. His brother reveals to Stingo that Nathan is a paranoid schizophrenic and prone to grandiose delusions - for example he is about to win the Nobel Prize for research he has done in pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile Sophie is an ex-Auschwitz inmate whose father was a Nazi sympathiser. When Nathan fires a gun over the phone, Stingo and Sophie flee to a hotel where she tells him about the horrible choice she had to make at Auschwitz - choosing which child she should send to death. Nathan and Sophie eventually commit suicide by cyanide leaving Stingo to finish his novel. There is little doubt that when Sophie's choice is finally revealed, the film packs a disturbing, powerful, emotional punch to the viewer's gut. As a German speaker - her lines "Ich kann nicht wahlen! Ich kann nicht wahlen!" ("I can't choose! I can't choose!") reverberate through my skull whenever I think of this film. To ask a mother to send a child to death is an horrific concept but probably depressingly common in the death camps. By the time Sophie and Nathan commit suicide, it is almost a relief. Sophie will be free of her guilt and Nathan free of the demons that torment him. Meryl Streep as Sophie does a fantastic job and as usual masters the accent of her character. She deserved the Oscar.