Highest-Rated Movies about 'Dying Young'

Goodfellas (1990), Saving Private Ryan (1998), They Shall Not Grow Old (2018), Come and See (1985), The Elephant Man (1980), Platoon (1986), The Battle of Algiers (1966), The Wages of Fear (1953) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Dying Young movies.

#16. Finding Neverland (2004)

Storyline: 1903 London. Renowned playwright J.M. Barrie (James)'s latest effort has garnered less than positive reviews, something he knew would be the case even before the play's mounting. This failure places pressure on James to write another play quickly as impresario Charles Frohman needs another to replace the failure to keep his theater viable. Out for a walk with his dog in part to let his creative juices flow, James stumbles upon the Llewelyn Davies family: recently widowed Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (the daughter of now deceased author George L. Du Maurier) and her four adolescent sons. James and the family members become friends, largely based on he and the boys being able to foster in each other the imagination of children, James just being the biggest among them in this regard. Sylvia also welcomes James into their lives, he who becomes an important and integral part of it. Among the six of them, the only one who does not want to partake is Sylvia's third, Peter Llewelyn Davies, who is ...

Plot Keywords: stage play, author, england, reference to peter pan, based on play, based on true story, costume ...

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#17. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)

Storyline: In this story of the early days of daylight bombing raids over Nazi Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a "hard luck" bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets. Actual combat footage is used in this tense war drama.

Plot Keywords: american abroad, reminiscence, world war two, airplane shot down, leadership, exhaustion, fighter plane ...

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#18. Fox and His Friends (1975)

Storyline: Working class and middle-upper class worlds come together in this interesting look at class conflict within the gay world from the German director Reiner Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder plays Fox, he is working class, a former circus performer who wins the lottery of DM 500,000. His life starts to look up and doesn't have to struggle financially. Fox can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. He begins a new relationship with Eugen, creates a business partnership, and his life is looking bright. While he wants to climb up the social ladder, it isn't without turmoil, and being torn between his old working class roots, and the shiny new facade of middle class consciousness.—Nathan Niessen

Plot Keywords: munich germany, class differences, brother sister relationship, businessman, loan, money, quarrel ...

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#19. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

Storyline: Biopic traces the life of Lou Gehrig, famous baseball player who played in 2130 consecutive games before falling at age 37 to ALS, a deadly nerve disease which now bears his name. Gehrig is followed from his childhood in New York until his famous 'Luckiest Man' speech at his farewell day in 1939.—Jerry Milani <jmilani@ix.netcom.com>

Plot Keywords: baseball, athlete, chicago illinois, hospital, retirement, terminal illness, hero ...

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#20. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)

Storyline: The Final Days is the true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine brought to life. Sophie Scholl is the fearless activist of the underground student resistance group, The White Rose. Using historical records of her incarceration, the film re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl's life: a journey from arrest to interrogation, trial and sentence in 1943 Munich. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to her comrades, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility that is both haunting and timeless.

Plot Keywords: 1940s, nazi uniform, nazi flag, secret police, resistance fighter, decapitation, father daughter relationship ...

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#21. The Thin Red Line (1998)

Storyline: U.S. Army Private Witt (AWOL) is found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by his company First Sergeant, Welsh.The men of C Company,1st Battalion,27th Infantry Regiment,25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field and seize the island from the Japanese. They arrive near Hill 210, a key Japanese position. Their task is to capture the hill at all cost. What happens next is a story developing about redemption and the meaningless of war. Regardless the outcome.

Plot Keywords: battle, tropical island, jungle, world war two, u.s. soldier, multiple narrators, multiple perspectives ...

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#22. Christiane F (1981)

Storyline: This movie portrays the drug scene in Berlin in the 1970s, following tape recordings of Christiane F. 14-year-old Christiane lives with her mother and little sister in a typical multi-story apartment building in Berlin. She's fascinated by 'The Sound', a new disco with the most modern equipment. Although legally she's too young, she asks a friend to take her. There, she meets Detlef, who's in a clique where everybody's on drugs. Step by step she gets drawn deeper into the scene.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

Plot Keywords: drugs, drug addiction, dying young, heroin, heroin addict, hustler, injection ...

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#23. Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011)

Storyline: For decades, Diana Vreeland was one of the leading authorities in fashion through eccentric self-taught skill and a bold stylistic audacity. This film guides you through this fashion pioneer's long career from her youth in Paris until she became a leading magazine fashion columnist and editor. In this medium, Vreeland challenged its preconceptions to present a new definition of beauty and vivaciousness where nice clothes were just the beginning for something deeper. Even when that vocation ended, Vreeland managed to gain a new museum profession to present clothing's history in her own inimitable way.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Plot Keywords: archive footage, money, wealth, harlem manhattan new york city, celebrity, model, nudity ...

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#24. Many Wars Ago (1970)

Storyline: In Northern Italy, WWI has turned into a bloody stalemate. Bogged down in their trenches on a barren highland, the men of an Italian infantry division have been given one objective: retake a commanding height from the enemy. Unfortunately, the tactical ingenuity of general Leone, the unpopular division commander, consists of supplementing frontal attacks against machine-guns with medieval fighting schemes. His dispirited troops must be prodded with ever harsher measures into storming the Austrian positions. As casualties mount, indignation spreads amongst the rank and file. Disturbed by the decisions of his superiors, lieutenant Sassu is progressively led to question the purpose of the war and to reconsider where his real duties lie.—Eduardo Casais <casaise@acm.org>

Plot Keywords: carabinieri, coercion, dead soldier, stupidity, italian soldier, trench warfare, military officer ...

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#25. Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Storyline: Charlie Kohler is a piano player in a bar. The waitress Lena is in love with him. One of Charlie's brother, Chico, a crook, takes refuge in the bar because he is chased by two gangsters, Momo and Ernest. We will discover that Charlie's real name is Edouard Saroyan, once a virtuose who gives up after his wife's suicide. Charlie now has to deal wih Chico, Ernest, Momo, Fido (his youngest brother who lives with him), and Lena...

Plot Keywords: pianist, based on novel, paris france, nouvelle vague, female nudity, french new wave, piano player ...

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#26. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Storyline: En route to visit their grandfather's grave (which has apparently been ritualistically desecrated), five teenagers drive past a slaughterhouse, pick up (and quickly drop) a sinister hitch-hiker, eat some delicious home-cured meat at a roadside gas station, before ending up at the old family home... where they're plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals who more than make up in power tools what they lack in social skills...

Plot Keywords: cannibal, chainsaw, chainsaw murder, psychopath, massacre, skull, murder ...

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#27. Dark Victory (1939)

Storyline: Judith Traherne is at the height of young society when Dr. Frederick Steele diagnoses a brain tumor. After surgery, she falls in love with Steele. The doctor tells her secretary that the tumor will come back and eventually kill her. Learning this, Judith becomes manic and depressive. Her horse trainer Michael, who loves her, tells her to get as much out of life as she can. She marries Steele who intends to find a cure for her illness. As he goes off to a conference in New York failing eyesight indicates to Judith that she is dying.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Plot Keywords: based on play, friendship, gardening, heiress, hospital, housekeeper, jealousy ...

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#28. Keith (2008)

Storyline: Natalie has it all: yearbook editor, scholarship to college, star athlete, reigning social queen. Then Keith enters her life. Secretive and enigmatic, he slowly lures her from her comfort zone. The more Keith holds back, the more Natalie becomes intrigued with figuring him out. In her head, she's determined to keep him at arm's length, but in her heart she can't resist him. As Natalie's world slowly unravels, both their lives are changed forever in this powerful love story.

Plot Keywords: love, friendship, death, teenage girl, teenage boy, high school, depression ...

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#29. Before the Fall (2004)

Storyline: In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) - high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls, seeing this as his ticket out of factory life to university and a good salary. During his year in seventh column (fifth form), this innocence is altered as Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education; a night in the forest hunting for escaped Russian POWs brings things to a head.

Plot Keywords: boxing, male objectification, nazi germany, suicide, teenage boy, boarding school, year 1942 ...

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#30. A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Storyline: The true story of Operation Market Garden, the Allies attempt, in September 1944, to hasten the end of World War II by driving through Belgium and Holland into Germany. The idea was for U.S. airborne divisions to take the towns of Eindhoven and Nijmegen and a British airborne division, reinforced by a Polish airborne brigade, to take the town of Arnhem. They would be reinforced, in due course and in turn, by the British XXX Corps, land-based and driving up from the British lines in the south. The key to the operation was the bridges, as if the Germans held or blew them, the paratroopers could not be relieved. Faulty intelligence, Allied high command hubris, and stubborn German resistance would ensure that Arnhem was a bridge too far.

Plot Keywords: year 1944, river crossing, river, ss, armor, parachuting, plan gone wrong ...

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