10 Most Unexpectedly Depressing Movies
9. Million Dollar Baby
Nothing in the marketing for Million Dollar Baby led audiences to expect anything other than a contemporary, gender-flipped remix of Rocky, as an underdog boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), seeks to make it as a pro.
Yet at the end of the second act, Maggie is seriously injured when an opponent illegally sucker punches her after the bell, causing her to fall and hit her head on her corner stool.
Maggie suffers a broken neck and is rendered a quadriplegic who requires a ventilator to live, at which point this rousing sports drama transitions into a relentlessly bleak character piece about euthanasia.
There's no miracle cure or salvation for Maggie, who ultimately convinces her trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) to give her a fatal adrenaline overdose, ending the story on a devastatingly tear-jerking note.
It's a brilliant switcheroo, no question, yet was the furthest thing anybody expected to see from this seemingly down-the-line - albeit well-crafted - boxing movie. In another universe, this is how Rocky's story turned out.