5. Sophie Chooses Between Her Children - Sophie's Choice
You know how when you were a kid, you would always try to get your mother to admit that she had a favorite, and she would insist that she loved all her children equally? As it turns out, that's actually true most of the time. Parents might get along with one kid better than another, but they usually love their kids equally. Sophie's Choice takes the universal theme of parental love, and follows it to its logical yet devastating conclusion. Sophie is a Polish woman with two children, and the three of them are sent to the Auschwitz death camp. But when Sophie gets there, she is faced with a harrowing decision: which child does she keep with her, and which does she essentially condemn to death? In order to save one, she has to sacrifice the other, and then live with that choice every day for the rest of her life. It's every parent's worst nightmare, played with remarkable honesty by Meryl Streep.
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
