This Best Picture winner left me stunned.

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2020)

I just finished this movie and I am stunned. Million Dollar Baby must have the saddest ending in a movie that I have ever experienced. This is kind of ironic, considering the rest of the movie made me feel so good and excited.
The movie may remind you of Rocky, which won Best Picture as well, 28 years prior. While I do agree that this was the best of the nominees(though I have not seen Finding Neverland), I personally love The Passion of the Christ and Spider Man 2(by one spot) a bit more.
This stars Hilary Swank as Maggie, a poor waitress who struggles so much that she has to take hardly eaten steak home to eat for dinner.
She asks Frankie, a trainer played by producer-director-composer Clint Eastwood, to train her. He refuses at first since she's a girl, but with the help of his friend, played by Morgan Freeman, he agrees.
She gets good, but tragedy strikes, and Frankie, who grows to like her, has to make a very difficult choice.
I have already mentioned my emotions while watching this movie. That pretty much summarizes what makes this movie so great. It put me through a ton of emotions, and the story was so well told.
The ending made me tear up and cry a little, and few movies make me do this. Million Dollar Baby has the saddest ending since The Green Mile, assuming few sadder movies were made in the next 5 years.
(Besides The Passion of the Christ, which came out earlier that year-though that makes me tear up throughout, so that doesn't count in this scenario.)
As I watched the movie, I thought that this must be a true story-it seemed very realistic, and the kind of true story that would be adapted to film. But as I looked at the special features, I found out that it was fictional. Isn't amazing how great of a story humanity can tell to others?
If I had to have one gripe about the movie, it would have to be something that may not apply to you. I have partial hearing loss, and it was hard to hear the actors most of the time, so I watched the movies with subtitles. Though that's a minor complaint.
These aspects now makes this one of the best movies I have ever seen! Million Dollar Baby is a priceless masterpiece.
4 quick cool movie facts I want to share:
1. This was the first Best Picture winner to be released on HD DVD and Blu-ray.
2.It was in theaters for 6.5 months.
3.Roger Ebert also called this the best movie of the year.
4. This is the 2nd Clint Eastwood movie to win Best Picture-the other is Unforgiven from 1992. Morgan Freeman stars in this, as well.