possibly the most undeserving Best Picture winner

Rating: 1/10 (6 June 2005)

"Chariots of Fire" has usually been regarded as showing human spirit and matters of overcoming obstacles. Maybe it was intended as such, but it doesn't come out that way: it ends up being a grandiose glorification of England. We hear about how someone "...fought and died for the English way." The English way?! Wasn't that colonialism?
The actual story involves some college students in 1920's England who want to race in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Among the characters are Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a Jewish student who has to face anti-Semitism, and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a Scottish Presbyterian who won't run on the Sabbath. Honestly, why must these things always come up in sports movies?
That said, the movie wasn't a total waste. The theme song, which you've surely heard, has often been used in movies, best of all in "National Lampoon's Vacation". But overall, the high point in this movie is when some cockneys look scornfully at the rich students and say: "We fought (in WWI) so that they could get an education." Otherwise, "Chariots of Fire" is downright awful.