Top 10 Physically Disabled Film Characters

2. Ron Kovic - Born on the 4th of July

Ok, I know I said none of the films on this list were going to be a brutal watch. I lied. But you should still watch this film if you haven't seen it.

Oliver Stone's 'Born on the 4th of July' delivers a brutal view on the struggles of real-life Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) after he is paralysed from the chest down due to being shot in the chest.

Although the film is more a commentary on the injustice of the Vietnam war, the treatment of the wounded and the false political spin behind it all the scenes that really stick in your head are the more personal ones to Kovic such as coming home to his friends and family in his wheelchair for the first time and dawning realization that the reasons for which he fought may have been false.

It's an excellent performance by Cruise (often polarizing at best) who goes from portraying a cock-sure young man keen to join the marines to a man in an obvious state of deterioration both physically and mentally.

As I said this is a difficult watch but also a necessary one which shows the brutal cost of blind patriotism and war yet ends with Kovic regaining purpose by using his voice to speak out against the war he was injured in.

A no-holds-barred portrayal of the personal cost of war if there ever was one.