The List: Movies Not Ruined by Cheering

If you’re a moviemaker, a cheering audience is the ultimate validation. Is that why every uplifting, “feel good” movie has to have a scene in which the plucky underdog/person of integrity wins an ovation from everyone in the stadium/courtroom/classroom/assembly hall? In a recent flop, Pirate Radio, the heroes are on a foundering ship in the middle of the North Sea, but wouldn’t you know it, a cheering crowd miraculously appears on hundreds of small boats bobbing around in the water.

In their typical overblown form, with triumphant music thundering on the soundtrack, these scenes send me running for the exit or the “off” button. But there are many worthy movies that include a scene where the hero is applauded or cheered. Here are a few:

• Rushmore
• The Return of the King
• This is Spinal Tap
• Bull Durham
• Election
• Raging Bull
• Apollo 13
• Sullivan’s Travels

(Hat tip to the writers of the Onion A-V club, whose brilliant book of lists, Inventory, includes “6 Keanu Reeves Movies Somehow Not Ruined by Keanu Reeves.”)