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3%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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9!!Female Examples:
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11[[AC: Animation]]
12* ''WesternAnimation/{{Balto}}'': Rosy is one of the children who falls ill from the epidemic in Nome, and this acts as a catalyst for Balto to strive to get the medicine.
13* In the second half of ''WesternAnimation/SongOfTheSea'', Saoirse's health starts to fade the longer she goes without her [[SelkiesAndWereseals selkie coat]]. She gradually becomes so weak that she's on the brink of dying [[spoiler: before she's finally reunited with her coat, which enables her to sing the Song of the Sea and restores her health in the process]].
14* Downplayed in ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'': one of Meilin Lee's classmates has a glucose-monitor patch on her arm, indicating she is an insulin-dependent diabetic. However, she appears healthy, attends a regular school, and has a normal social life, all indications that her diabetes is well-controlled.
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17* ''Film/AssaultOnWallStreet'': Jim's wife Rosie is recovering from a near-fatal brain tumor and requires expensive medication, forcing him to work around the clock to provide for her. This is also why he tries his darndest to keep their dire financial situation hidden from her. When she does find out, [[spoiler: it drives her to kill herself.]]
18* ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'': Just like [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries her animated counterpart]], Nora Fries, Mr. Freeze's wife, suffers from a rare disease, [=MacGregor=]'s Syndrome; she would be kept into cryostasis by Mr. Freeze until he discovers a cure. Alfred also suffers from the same disease, but his was in Stage 1, which is curable, while Nora's was in an advanced stage.
19* ''Film/BoysOnTheSide'': Robin collapses at a local diner and has to be rushed to hospital for pneumonia, at which point Jane and Holly learn she has AIDS.
20%%* ''Film/{{Charly}} '' based on the book by Jack Weyland.
21* In ''Film/TheConstantNymph'', Tessa suffers from severe stitches and fainting spells caused by running or too much emotional stress...and when you're 14 and in love with a family friend who's much older, you have lots of stress.
22* ''Film/{{Damage}}'': Sarah Reynolds, the daughter of the man that protagonist John Brickner killed, has heart problems that will kill her if she doesn't get a heart transplant. But her mother is poor and her Medicaid doesn't cover such operations. She arranges John's parole so that he can raise the money needed for the operation, which he does by fighting in an underground circuit.
23* Grace in ''Film/Excision2012''. Her cystic fibrosis is the main reason why her sister Pauline wants to become a surgeon, [[spoiler: which in turn gets Grace and another girl killed as Pauline tries to perform a lung transplant]].
24* The Doctor's wife in ''Film/TheFountain'' from 2006. She's dying from a brain tumor, which drives him to obsessively try to find a cure for not only her illness, but death itself (i.e. a FountainOfYouth, so to speak).
25* ''Film/TheHandThatRocksTheCradle'': Claire (Annabella Sciorra) is an adult Ill Girl who suffers from chronic asthma. [[spoiler: And Payton (Rebecca De Mornay), the CuteAndPsycho VillainProtagonist, uses said illness to her advantage... among ''other'' things. She still loses in the end.]]
26* ''Film/TheKillerThatStalkedNewYork'', a 1950 film {{Very Loosely Based|OnATrueStory}} on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_New_York_City_smallpox_outbreak 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak]], has Walda, a 6-year-old with pertussis who contracts smallpox from PatientZero Sheila Bennet. Dr. Wood takes it upon himself to check in on her every night to calm her mother.
27%%* Maggie Murdock's role in ''Film/LoveAndOtherDrugs''.
28* [[http://www.lovehkfilm.com/ LoveHKFilm]] uses the term "terminal beauty" to refer to romance movies that feature one of these girls as the primary love interest, and features a good number of reviews of such Hong Kong movies in general.
29* Jennifer Cavelleri, in ''Film/LoveStory''. Probably one of the {{Trope Codifier}}s in Western modern media, as her struggle with cancer [[spoiler: and eventual death]] are still very iconic.
30* ''Film/MercenariesFromHongKong'' has the young daughter of Sergeant Lei, who is suffering from cancer and only has months to live unless she has transplant surgery in the United States, which Lei cannot afford (hence the reason why Lei is willing to accept a SuicideMission for the money).
31* Satine from ''Film/MoulinRouge,'' as mentioned above. An unusual example is that she remains ignorant of her condition until 2/3 of the way through the movie, and then tries to keep it a secret from everyone until the last possible second. (Everyone but [[LoveInterest Christian]], [[BigBad the Duke]], [[TheDragon the Duke's man Warner]] and possibly Toulouse and the Narcoleptic Argentinian knows she's doomed.)
32* Kate from ''Film/MySistersKeeper''. She has leukemia (blood cancer), and her illness drives almost everything in the plot since [[BillyNeedsAnOrgan her sister Anna struggles not to become her forced donor]].
33* Bastian's mother in a flashback in ''Film/TheNeverendingStoryIITheNextChapter''. And her death has driven a huge wedge between Bastian and his father.
34* ''Film/OctoberSky'' features a kind and encouraging schoolteacher, Miss Riley, who is revealed to suffer from Hodgkin's Disease during the third act of the film, giving the Rocket Boys that extra emotional push to pull off their last, climactic, rocket launch. Seeing as how ''October Sky'' was based on the autobiography ''Rocket Boys'' (complete with the actual aforementioned Ill Girl), that automatically makes this trope into TruthInTelevision.
35* ''Film/{{Ondine}}'': Annie needs a new kidney and uses a wheelchair, though she can walk (presumably she's easily tired). She's a cute, very sweet young girl who doesn't seem affected by this much.
36* ''Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera'' has two of these as various points -- Marni, who died before the film started, and her daughter Shilo, who inherited the disease. [[spoiler: Until it turns out that she's not really ill -- her father was poisoning her so she would have to stay with him.]]
37* In Creator/AkiraKurosawa film ''[[Film/{{Scandal 1950}} Scandal]]'', Ichiro is convinced to hire third-rate attorney Hiruta as his lawyer after meeting Hiruta's sweet, innocent daughter Masako, who is bedridden and dying of pneumonia. Hiruta, for his part, is driven to betray Ichiro so he can get money to take care of Masako.
38* The female lead in the Taiwanese movie ''Secret''. This is not the titular secret.
39* ''Film/ShadowsOfForgottenAncestors'': Marichka is not very strong. She collapses during a festival from dancing too much, forcing Ivan to carry her away. She later loses her footing while trying to rescue a lamb and falls into a river.
40* In Creator/MNightShyamalan's film ''Film/TheSixthSense'', Kyra, a chronically-ill girl that visits Cole after she dies, was this during her lifetime for a reason: [[spoiler: her sickness was being prolonged by her mother, who was implied to be suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy and craving the attention that having a sick daughter gave her. She poisoned Kyra with a household cleaning agent and was beginning to do the same to her little sister following her death.]]
41* The Sandman's daughter, Penny, in ''Film/SpiderMan3'', who is suffering from a terminal disease. Her medical fee is what drove her father to crime in the backstory.
42* ''Film/SympathyForMrVengeance'' by Park Chan-Wook (of ''Film/{{Oldboy|2003}}'' fame) seems to follow this trope to the letter. The plot is driven by the fact that the deaf-mute main character cannot afford the kidney transplant that his sick sister needs to survive. [[ToThePain Abject]] [[CycleOfRevenge unrelenting]] horror ensues.
43* Alva in ''Film/ThisPropertyIsCondemmed''. This one is rather subtle, but apart from an occasional cough, you wouldn't know that there was anything much wrong with Alva, but when Owen finds out that Alva has died of TB in the final reel, it all makes sense. Alva was wild and headstrong ''because she knew she was likely to die!'' So the secondary meaning of the title is explained, Alva feels like everybody's property, but Film/ThisPropertyIsCondemmed.
44* Jamie in ''Film/AWalkToRemember''. She has leukemia and found out when she was little. She doesn't want anyone to treat her differently, which is why she doesn't tell anyone at school. Or Landon because she doesn't want him to be heartbroken if he falls in love with her.
45--> '''Jamie:''' (Before she tells him about her cancer) I told you not to fall in love with me.
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47!!Male Examples:
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49[[AC: Animation]]
50* The plot of ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'' revolves around Ms. Brisby trying to take care of her son Timmy, who has pneumonia.
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52[[AC:Live-Action]]
53* In the short ''Film/CacaMilis'', Paul proudly tells Catherine that when he was young, [[VerySpecialEpisode he was invited to a radio program specifically because he had a severe form of asthma]], "the worst case they'd seen," in addition to being blind.
54* [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Steve Rogers]] has a LongList of afflictions from asthma to rheumatic fever, in addition to general physical weakness and small stature. Then he signs up for the super serum experiment, and [[SuperSoldier the rest]] [[Comicbook/CaptainAmerica is history]].
55* In ''Film/ConAir'', Poe's best friend Baby-O is diabetic. One of the reasons Poe refused to leave the plane was getting the poor guy's insulin.
56* In ''Film/{{Harlequin}}'', Nick and Sandra's son Alex suffers from terminal leukemia, which a mysterious faith healer named Gregory Wolfe claims to have the ability to cure.
57* Chopin in ''Film/{{Impromptu}}'', although during the period in which the movie's set he's only a bit delicate, not dying.
58* Eric Cruise, the main character from ''Film/MacAndMe'', is a little boy who's confined to a wheelchair. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie not only he gets BackFromTheDead by the titular Mac and his family, but he's healed and able to walk again.]]
59* Nux, the sickly War Boy in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'', appears to be suffering from leukemia or lymphoma; he has tumors on his neck, gets fevers at night, and needs blood transfusions in order to even stand.
60* Tsarevich Alexei in ''Film/NicholasAndAlexandra'', afflicted with hemophilia, as was true in RealLife. He subverts the archetype since he thirsts for revenge against the Reds.
61* [[Film/{{Tombstone}} Doc Holliday]] and his friends were aware of his terminal condition (and the audience was reminded of his IncurableCoughOfDeath,) but it was less often cause for depression than morbid jokes and badassery. He also doubles as a RealLife example.
62* ''Film/UntamedHeart'': Adam is established as having a weak heart from [[AMinorKidroduction when we see him as a child]], though when he's an adult, Caroline ends up [[RescueRomance falling in love with him after he saves her from being raped]]. [[spoiler: At the end, he eventually dies of that weak heart]].
63* In ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'', Little Jimmy Logan, for the first two minutes of the movie until his mutation manifests.

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