Apologies for giving a movie snob type answer but it's definitely Lilya 4-Ever. Not only did I cry buckets when I saw the movie, but at random times during the next several months, I'd think of the movie and just burst into tears.
It's a tie between Brief Encounter and Meet Me in St. Louis (when Judy starts singing 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas') A movie that leaves me with a profound feeling of sadness (but usually without the tears) is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Robert --no shame in movie snob answers ? what's a movie snob? merely someone who loves the movies more than your ordinary folk. movie snobbishness 4ever
that movie is rough.
when i was a kid it was definitely WEST SIDE STORY
as an adult I'd have to go with PRIEST (1995) and DANCER IN THE DARK (2000)
I find that the more I watch All About My Mother, the sadder I find it. At this stage, the tears start to well up the moment the Pathé logo appears. I have the most overworked nasolacrimal ducts of anybody I've ever met - I cried at the SATC movie, much to the amusement of my sister. I've been known to cry at some dreadful rubbish, I even shed a tear at I Am Legend.
The worst movie I have ever cried at was Bobby. We went to see it as a family and it was one of the worst cinema experiences I've ever had. I started crying about ten minutes in and the tears literally did not let up for the whole duration of the film. I was still crying as we left the cinema, still crying while waiting on the street for my dad to get the car, crying all the (30 minute) drive home, still crying at home. It was ridiculous - I didn't even like the film.
Terms of Endearment - starting with Shirley screaming "give my daughter the medicine" and the little boy crying on Debra's bed until way after the movie ended I was crying and crying-
also the color purple, from the oment oprah gets beaten up ion the store till the end
ahh so many...some i've only seen once. A perfect world, joe the king, fried green tomatoes, braveheart, titanic (though i'm not really a fan of), platoon, AI or Pay it forward or both? can't remember...
Artificial Intelligence. Starts building when the kid is frozen staring at the Blue Fairy. Builds up when they "revive" his Mummy. Collapse into a pile of salty tears when he finally lies down to die. I'm sniffing 'em back just typing this...
I don't cry often at the movies, but several scenes in Requiem for a Dream (Sara Goldfarb's monologue and the telephone call and the ending) make me go there.
I'm not a big cryer in movies. A lot can make me tear up, but the only two movies to ever make me full-out cry are Pan's Labyrinth and Miyazaki's Spirited Away, both at the endings.
"The Color Purple" - still does it after the 20th viewing "Dancer in the Dark" - My poor sister had to pick me up in the parking lot. "A Mighty Heart" - Made me SOB! Private grief has never rung so true. "The Bridges of Madison Country" - the hand on the car door handle. Ugh! "Brokeback Mountain" - Of course "Watership Down" - Should re-title it Waterworks Down But the one movie I sobbed publicly over was "In America". It just really hit home.
Schindler's List - only saw it once in the theater. The entire audience was sobbing.
The Others - the reveal gets me every time (the first time I saw it I cried on and off for a week afterwards.)
The Joy Luck Club (my mom said, this isn't a tearjerker, is it?)
Moulin Rouge - Ewan's cry is so heart-wrenching that I generally have to turn the movie off beforehand.
Antonia's Line - *Spoiler* the scene where the man holds the woman he has loved for years and never spoken to (a woman who used to howl at the moon, and now he is howling in grief) gets me teary-eyed just thinking about it.
It may be a dreadful film, but nothing beats Bette Davis in Dark Victory.
Not leting George Brent know she's lost her sight, holding onto the furniture for dear life, Geraldine Fitzgerald running away from the vegetable patch and Max Steiner at his best...
LOTS of movies... but I can't remember them right now. Most recently though it was...
The Kite Runner
It didn't help that I read the book a month before the movie came out. From the FIRST scene I was tearing up and I proceeded to cry like a baby for 70% of the movie.
"Dancer in the Dark" and "Grave of the Fireflies", a double feature to make anyone want to die. I always get a little teared up by the final scene of "In the Mood for Love" too. They're all so sublime.
I've never actually cried at a movie (I have sobbed profusely over a couple of books, A Walk to Remember and Gone With the Wind, but not their respective movies) but the closest I ever got was with The Color Purple (the reunion scene), Atonement (the ending) and The Christmas Shoes (this awful TV movie that's absolutely shameless but still affecting). There was also this one day when I was feeling down in the dumps and the last 20 minutes of It's a Wonderful Life nearly had me balling like a baby. I've watched it before and after and it hasn't affected me that way either time.
Well let's see. The first ten minutes of WALL-E are perfect, but also elicit tears. For some reason, the scene from that film that really did it for me after the first viewing was where the "liberated" woman gazes out as WALL-E and EVE dance outside and she goes, "Wow! Look at all the stars!" Something about how much that communicated about the state that humans are at on this ship really worked for me.
But what else? Dancer in the Dark is an obvious pick. It all starts about the time Björk sobs while singing "Favorite Things" and just about continues on until the absolutely painful-to-watch finale.
Angelina Jolie's breakdown in A Mighty Heart and final dinner elicited a tear or two.
La Vie en Rose got the waterworks going at the end with its intercutting of old-and-haggard Edith alone in bed and one of her performances. The movie wasn't terribly great (needlessly confusing!), but Cotillard was.
Terms of Endearment. Call me dense, but I see the "Give my daughter the shot!" scene as more funny than sad. I feel like it's meant to be played for laughs. Bittersweet laughs, but laughs. I mean... Shirley MacLaine's going NUTS in that waiting room, so much so that I just thought it was a lightly comedic moment that highlighted how much she loved her daughter.
But yeah - from the point where Debra Winger tells her sons that she knows they love her until the end... Unstoppable waterworks. That's the only funeral/memorial service scene in film that's actually worked, and I don't know why. It's a very simple sequence, but something about it - maybe just feeling like you knew these characters - made it work.
I watched Terms Of Endearment for the first and only time about 4 years ago and I cried like a baby, I had to go to the bathroom to wash my face, and I don't even liked the movie that much!
A few that are reliable tearjerkers: end of It's My Party, Running on Empty, funeral scene in Out of Africa, Ordinary People and House of Sand and Fog.
It usually doesn't take too much to get my tears, but I can't remember anything doing it the way IN AMERICA did. I was a mess for a good 15 minutes after it was over.
The first movie that ever made me cry was To Kill A Mockingbird. I think it was the first time I ever really understood an adult movie. Three more recent movies come to mind:
Brokeback Mountain - From the flashback to Brokeback through the end I'm a mess.
Motorcycle Diaries - When Ernesto leaves the lepresorio. It brings me such nostalgia for South America. I love it down there.
Central Station - Dora's letter to Josue. Seu pai vai a voltar (You're dad will come back). Makes the tears flow.
I'm sure there are others, but those are the most recent.
Forest Gump, Step Mom (I can just watch that last scene by itself and be a wreck), The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Casablanca, and A.I. (so glad someone mentioned this one this is probably the biggest tear jearker of all).
Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever cried at a movie just because it's simply so good? For example, I sobbed when I first saw The Apartment.
Moulin Rouge. Every single time I see it, I have to cry. And I see it at least once a year, cause it's my boyfriend's and my "movie" (we don't have a song, we have a movie).
The Notebook also got me, which I so wasn't expecting. But just that end... I've only seen it once, so I don't know if it still has "the crying factor".
And (this one I'm a bit ashamed of) Armageddon. But only the first time I saw it. I was 14 then. I only started crying the moment the credits rolled and I heard I don't want to miss a thing.
I'm so fickle about when I cry at movies. It all depends what mood I'm in I guess. Some things will make me cry some days, others other days. I do well up a lot in the theater. I welled up at WALL*E in a few spots. And yeah I also welled up at Sex and the City during "I know I screwed it up, but I will always love you." Semi-embarrassing. Brokeback, if I watch the whole thing through, will certainly do it.
One movie I never really cry at is Dancer in the Dark. I just don't cry. I still experience everything, and LOVE it, but I find that I sort of bypass the crying and just go into this über-high from the sheer genius of it all. It makes want to sing and dance, not cry. Maybe that's weird...
For fucking years, I'd been told how "Terms of Endearment" is a can't-miss tearjerker movie and made EVERYONE cry. So I finally sat down to watch it two summers ago with my arms folded and an attitude of "Impress Me. Make me cry."
By the last ten minutes, I was in pieces.
Only other movies in recent years to make me come close are "Finding Nemo" and "House of Sand and Fog."
Mask. With The Bridges of Madison County a close, close second. (And I love that someone said The Portrait of a Lady. And Dark Victory, which is a totally great movie.)
Sobbed throughout the entirety of LotR:Return of the King (and what a good, satisfactory sob it was). Couldn't leave the theatre right away after Hotel Rwanda b/c I couldn't stop the tears. Dancer in the Dark. For sure.
But I think I'll always cry at the end of Home Alone. It's Christmas morning. He's alone. But then Catherine O'Hara shows up and it's just about perfect (and she's SO great in that movie). BUT THEN the whole family barrels through the front door AND THAT MUSIC. Ugh. Hate to admit that Chris Columbus was behind it, but that's great stuff. Always produces tears.
Though, when it comes to movies, it really doesn't take much for me to cry (and I LOVE crying at movies...).
I cannot take Dark Victory seriously. I've cried plenty times at Now Voyager but that film just makes me laugh so hard. The funniest moment is when Bette sees the doctor's notes by accident. "What does...prognosis mean?" Beat. "What does...negative mean?" Oh, man.
YES about Stepmom. That's one of those films which I hate for manipulating my emotions, but love all the same (see: The Notebook).
I can't believe I forget the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like Matt, I bawled for the whole of the third film, but each one made me cry. The last half hour or so of The Fellowship is nearly unwatchable for me: Frodo attempting to set off on his own, Sam drowning, Merry and Pippin charging at th Urk-Hai, the lack of Gandalf, Boromir's death and Aragorn's farewell to him...*tears up*
A scene which always gets me weeping is the 'Everything Old Is New Again' scene in All That Jazz. The thought of Ann Reinking and Joe's daughter practising the dance, the mixture of pride, amusement and regret on Joe's face...argh.
Hard to believe the number of posts gets into the 60s and there is only one other mention of "Field of Dreams". Maybe not a lot of this crowd has father issues...
I'll add "Saving Private Ryan" and "Memphis Belle" to those who mentioned "The Best Years of Our Lives", I think because I tend to identify with the characters as a (non-combat) disabled veteran myself.
Still, my true by-the-bucketload tearfests are reserved for books. The night I finished Charlotte's Web the first time I cried all night. Pissed my dad off something fierce.
Oh man, there are tons of movies that reduce me to a tear covered quivering mass on the floor but the one that can do t hat without me even having to watch it? Love! Valour! Compassion!
Usually I cry by the musical score. Braveheart, Glory, The Phantom of the Opera. etc.
Movies that made me cry recently: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (when Aragorn and Arwen finally see each other) **************SPOILERS************** Wall-E - when Wall-E hypothetically dies Hotel Rwanda Reign Over Me Crash - you think he killed the girl Brokeback Mountain Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Black Hawk Down Cast Away Harry Potter and the Goblet Fire - the reaction of Cedric's father when he Cedric is dead A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Has a hair. She can see her boy one last time The Lion King - ENTIRE opening scene. Best film by Disney EVER. The Pianist A Mighty Heart - do I even have to explain? Pan's Labyrinth Memoirs of a Geisha The Color Purple Bobby Million Dollar Baby Children of Men - when the baby is crying and TIME stops. Even the bloodshed. I Am Legend - When Will Smith's character has to kill his dog
I'd say definitely "Stepmom" which makes me sob like a little girl multiple times.
"The Lion King" is a rough one' but when I was a kid it was "Bambi and "All Dogs Go to Heaven," I mean, "Charlie" dies TWICE, not once, but TWICE! Disney can be really mean sometimes.
Requiem for a Dream, during Ellen Burstyn's monologue and at the end when her two friends visit her in the institution. I can't get over how good Burstyn was in that role.
The Royal Tenenbaums. To this day, I can't watch Ben Stiller deliver the line "I've had a rough year, dad," without tearing up.
Silkwood. Hearing Meryl Streep sing Amazing Grace, seeing the lights of the car behind her, followed by the image of Cher crying softly in the diner always gets to me.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Particularly the scene where Kirsten Dunst's character confesses her love for Tom Wilkinson's character.
The most out-of-control, I-want-to-stop-crying-but-I-just-can't movie was Dancer in the Dark. I remember going to the bathroom afterwards and all women in there had swollen red eyes and everyone was still sobbing.
And the airport scenes in Love, Actually get me everytime. Even seeing real people reuniting at airports makes me teary-eyed because of that movie.
And I cried during Lilo&Stitch (that long forgotten Disney movie). As far as I remember (I was crying really hard) Lilo had some fight with her big sister but then realised she loved her. Maybe it was because I just had had a huge argument with my sister that ended with the same realization... Anyway, the little kid sitting next to me actually asked his mother to hand me a tissue which only made me cry harder.
Gallipoli (1981), dir. Peter Weir About the massacre of Australian troops in WWI in the battle of Gallipoli in Turkey. They just used colonial troops as cannon fodder, The Australians are still mad about this one. And I think you can guess what happens to all the characters you care about in the movie. So beautiful, so idealistic, so brave, so dead.
And I definitely agree about the Disney movies, Dumbo, Bambi...OMG.
Simon Birch had me bawling when I first saw it. Love Actually had me distraught when I watched it on television a few months ago for some reason, especially the scenes with The Lovely Laura Linney.
And how could anyone forget Muriel's Wedding, when Muriel's mother steals the shoes from the supermarket.
Lilja 4-Ever and the von Trier filmography don't make me cry, they make me suicidal.
omg....i can be such a girl. it's a wonderful life....starting w the drug store scene in which the druggist starts beating up george..."welcome home mr. bailey"....the telephone scene...i could go on & on.
lots of ww2 movies....the last scene w deborah kerr & donna reed in "from here to eternity"; & "the best years of our lives" when myrna knows her husband is home and they hug in the hall.
2 fantastic tv movies...."Love is never silent" - mare winningham's big scene. and toward the end of "The dollmaker" in which jane fonda let's her husband have it.
the scene w meryl streep and ed harris in "The Hours"....that's what friends do.
"Marvin's room" - diane keaton's great scene w meryl streep....
i'll probably think of several others....night night.
sorry, just thought of 2 more. "ordinary people" - mary tyler moore and timothy hutton in that very awkward scene in which she attempts to go talk w him in the back yard - it's heartbreaking. they just can't click. plus - cloris leachman in that last scene in "The last picture show"
Films with musical scores that I can't even hear the music to or else I tear up: -Terms of Endearment -E.T. -Little Women (Winona version) -Brokeback Mountain -Gone with the Wind
Other Tear Jerkers: -Dumbo -Phenomenon -Out of Africa (funeral, lions on grave) -Love Actually ("All You Need is Love" surprise at wedding) -The Notebook -Hope Floats -Forrest Gump -In the Gloaming -Running on Empty -Stealing Home (obscure, yes, but great) -Mr. Holland's Opus (him signing "Beautiful Boy" to his son is classic)
Oh yeah,...and I unabashedly cried the entire way through Before Sunset. :)
After all, I'd kinda been waiting for that one for as long as the characters, and I found it deliciously stressful just savoring each moment Celine and Jesse had left to spend together.
Certainly Babe. I started crying in the opening credits, and couldn't stop sobbing until the end. I sometimes cry watching trailers too. www.escrevalolaescreva.blogspot.com
I always cry at Thelma & Louise. Even if I walk in and it's on the TV, if it's at the end I'll start bawling. Also, Dancer in the Dark, that moment in Requiem for a Dream where Sara's friends are sitting at the bus stop gets me every time too. Also, The Elephant Man. I've cried plenty of times at movies that I've never rewatched so I can't say whether I'd cry again at them (most recently would be Bridge to Terabithia). I well up plenty of times though. Oddest was, perhaps, the end of Monster.
I must say, the thing that gets me crying more than anything isn't just something sad happening, but the grieving by other people. Like, I dont know what it's like to be convicted of a crime i didn't commit, but when I see Catherine Denueve or Siobhan Hogan in the final scenes of Dancer in the Dark I lose it.
oh the reservoir dogs blood soaked moment between tim roth and harvey keitel gets to me. and it's a good reminder that Tarantino was never only about his hipsterism ---which all the imitators missed. There's always hardcore character and emotion in the movies too. Well, Death Proof excepted.
I have never cried at a movie, the closest I have been is the ending of Babe, when farmer Hogget tells Pig "that'll do, pig, that'll do" and you see Pig's pinky face, full of... happiness.
I'd have to say that Running on empty made me bawl, not a silent tear down the cheek, but heaving and downturned mouth sobbing, it hit hard . . . can never listen to "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor without thinking of River Phoenix now
106 comments:
Recently?
The end of...
Once.
I watched it because of you.
Marcelo - Brazil.
Apologies for giving a movie snob type answer but it's definitely Lilya 4-Ever. Not only did I cry buckets when I saw the movie, but at random times during the next several months, I'd think of the movie and just burst into tears.
Yeah... that was a rough one.
Imitation of Life--"Oh, Annie, I didn't know you had friends!"
The Best Years of Our Lives. Showing the fiancee how he goes to bed after he takes off the claws? Oh Lordy, I well up thinking about it.
It's a tie between Brief Encounter and Meet Me in St. Louis (when Judy starts singing 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas') A movie that leaves me with a profound feeling of sadness (but usually without the tears) is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Honestly?
Deep Impact.
I'm not ashamed. Well, not entirely ashamed.
The Fountain.
Caroline? (1990; *ing Stephanie Zimbalist; made for TV)
Salaam Bombay
Afterlife
Robert --no shame in movie snob answers ? what's a movie snob? merely someone who loves the movies more than your ordinary folk. movie snobbishness 4ever
that movie is rough.
when i was a kid it was definitely WEST SIDE STORY
as an adult I'd have to go with PRIEST (1995) and DANCER IN THE DARK (2000)
OMG! I can't believe somebody else just happened to say Deep Impact! That's been my goofy, tearjerker title for years. Glad to see I'm not crazy.
Central station and Brokeback mountain!
Mine are 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.'
Used to be Steel Magnolias ("I want to know WHYYYYY!!!") but I've seen it too many times now, so now it's just comic to me.
Nat, off topic, but please comment. La Lohan admits lesbian love. Now we all knew. But ain't it great to have it in words?
I find that the more I watch All About My Mother, the sadder I find it. At this stage, the tears start to well up the moment the Pathé logo appears. I have the most overworked nasolacrimal ducts of anybody I've ever met - I cried at the SATC movie, much to the amusement of my sister. I've been known to cry at some dreadful rubbish, I even shed a tear at I Am Legend.
The worst movie I have ever cried at was Bobby. We went to see it as a family and it was one of the worst cinema experiences I've ever had. I started crying about ten minutes in and the tears literally did not let up for the whole duration of the film. I was still crying as we left the cinema, still crying while waiting on the street for my dad to get the car, crying all the (30 minute) drive home, still crying at home. It was ridiculous - I didn't even like the film.
Terms of Endearment - starting with Shirley screaming "give my daughter the medicine" and the little boy crying on Debra's bed until way after the movie ended I was crying and crying-
also the color purple, from the oment oprah gets beaten up ion the store till the end
Edward Scissorhands. First the ice dance, then Vincent Price's final scene, and from then on it's all over.
Oh, catherine, me too with Bobby. Every little moment gets me all misty.
ahh so many...some i've only seen once. A perfect world, joe the king, fried green tomatoes, braveheart, titanic (though i'm not really a fan of), platoon, AI or Pay it forward or both? can't remember...
Artificial Intelligence. Starts building when the kid is frozen staring at the Blue Fairy. Builds up when they "revive" his Mummy. Collapse into a pile of salty tears when he finally lies down to die. I'm sniffing 'em back just typing this...
The color purple, Steel magnolias...
Wit.
When Dumbo's caged mother rocks him in her trunk while "Baby Mine" is heard on the soundtrack, it floors me every time, and the tears flow like wine.
bridges of madison county
brokeback mountain
a league of their own
...suddenly they're all old!
omg. i haven't thought of that movie in so many years (LEAGUE) but i used to love it. good call
This is going to lose me ALL of my cinephile street cred...Crash.
The scene with the little girl running out to her dad. You know the one.
Scott
he-shot-cyrus.blogspot.com
I don't cry often at the movies, but several scenes in Requiem for a Dream (Sara Goldfarb's monologue and the telephone call and the ending) make me go there.
I'm not a big cryer in movies. A lot can make me tear up, but the only two movies to ever make me full-out cry are Pan's Labyrinth and Miyazaki's Spirited Away, both at the endings.
-Jonny
Oh, and the first time I saw The Deer Hunter. You know which scene.
Million Dollar Baby
Lordy. So many.
"The Color Purple" - still does it after the 20th viewing
"Dancer in the Dark" - My poor sister had to pick me up in the parking lot.
"A Mighty Heart" - Made me SOB! Private grief has never rung so true.
"The Bridges of Madison Country" - the hand on the car door handle. Ugh!
"Brokeback Mountain" - Of course
"Watership Down" - Should re-title it Waterworks Down
But the one movie I sobbed publicly over was "In America". It just really hit home.
Disney's "The Fox and the Hound" (1981)... I found it more depressing than "Bambi".
while it's not much of a "classic", the ending of "Sisterhood of the traveling pants" gets me everytime
Schindler's List - only saw it once in the theater. The entire audience was sobbing.
The Others - the reveal gets me every time (the first time I saw it I cried on and off for a week afterwards.)
The Joy Luck Club (my mom said, this isn't a tearjerker, is it?)
Moulin Rouge - Ewan's cry is so heart-wrenching that I generally have to turn the movie off beforehand.
Antonia's Line - *Spoiler* the scene where the man holds the woman he has loved for years and never spoken to (a woman who used to howl at the moon, and now he is howling in grief) gets me teary-eyed just thinking about it.
Steel Magnolias ("laughter through tears is my favorite emotion") & Dancer in the Dark.
Bambi does it every time!
It may be a dreadful film, but nothing beats Bette Davis in Dark Victory.
Not leting George Brent know she's lost her sight, holding onto the furniture for dear life, Geraldine Fitzgerald running away from the vegetable patch and Max Steiner at his best...
I'm welling up just thinking about it.
LOTS of movies... but I can't remember them right now. Most recently though it was...
The Kite Runner
It didn't help that I read the book a month before the movie came out. From the FIRST scene I was tearing up and I proceeded to cry like a baby for 70% of the movie.
All of the above have made me cry...
I'll add BEACHES, BILLY ELLIOT, WHALE RIDER, and RABBIT-PROOF FENCE
Grave of the Fireflies
BraveHeart actually.
Field of Dreams
Grave of the Fireflies... that's more of a slit your wrists than feeling than out and out tears for me. damn that's harsh.
Dancer in the dark and Portrait of a lady
The Apartment
The Dreamlife of Angels
Wall-E
"Dancer in the Dark" and "Grave of the Fireflies", a double feature to make anyone want to die. I always get a little teared up by the final scene of "In the Mood for Love" too. They're all so sublime.
I never cry in movies but the scene in Once when Marketa and Glen play "Falling Slowly" made me spontaneously burst into tears.
Before Sunset... just the sense of loss makes me embarrassingly emotional
I've never actually cried at a movie (I have sobbed profusely over a couple of books, A Walk to Remember and Gone With the Wind, but not their respective movies) but the closest I ever got was with The Color Purple (the reunion scene), Atonement (the ending) and The Christmas Shoes (this awful TV movie that's absolutely shameless but still affecting). There was also this one day when I was feeling down in the dumps and the last 20 minutes of It's a Wonderful Life nearly had me balling like a baby. I've watched it before and after and it hasn't affected me that way either time.
Well let's see. The first ten minutes of WALL-E are perfect, but also elicit tears. For some reason, the scene from that film that really did it for me after the first viewing was where the "liberated" woman gazes out as WALL-E and EVE dance outside and she goes, "Wow! Look at all the stars!" Something about how much that communicated about the state that humans are at on this ship really worked for me.
But what else? Dancer in the Dark is an obvious pick. It all starts about the time Björk sobs while singing "Favorite Things" and just about continues on until the absolutely painful-to-watch finale.
Angelina Jolie's breakdown in A Mighty Heart and final dinner elicited a tear or two.
La Vie en Rose got the waterworks going at the end with its intercutting of old-and-haggard Edith alone in bed and one of her performances. The movie wasn't terribly great (needlessly confusing!), but Cotillard was.
Terms of Endearment. Call me dense, but I see the "Give my daughter the shot!" scene as more funny than sad. I feel like it's meant to be played for laughs. Bittersweet laughs, but laughs. I mean... Shirley MacLaine's going NUTS in that waiting room, so much so that I just thought it was a lightly comedic moment that highlighted how much she loved her daughter.
But yeah - from the point where Debra Winger tells her sons that she knows they love her until the end... Unstoppable waterworks. That's the only funeral/memorial service scene in film that's actually worked, and I don't know why. It's a very simple sequence, but something about it - maybe just feeling like you knew these characters - made it work.
I watched Terms Of Endearment for the first and only time about 4 years ago and I cried like a baby, I had to go to the bathroom to wash my face, and I don't even liked the movie that much!
A few that are reliable tearjerkers: end of It's My Party, Running on Empty, funeral scene in Out of Africa, Ordinary People and House of Sand and Fog.
It usually doesn't take too much to get my tears, but I can't remember anything doing it the way IN AMERICA did. I was a mess for a good 15 minutes after it was over.
-Val
up close and personal
when michelle pfeiffer gets out of the prison riot and starts to cry.
that one really embarrasses me...
Iron Giant, and Where the hell is Matt?
The first movie that ever made me cry was To Kill A Mockingbird. I think it was the first time I ever really understood an adult movie. Three more recent movies come to mind:
Brokeback Mountain - From the flashback to Brokeback through the end I'm a mess.
Motorcycle Diaries - When Ernesto leaves the lepresorio. It brings me such nostalgia for South America. I love it down there.
Central Station - Dora's letter to Josue. Seu pai vai a voltar (You're dad will come back). Makes the tears flow.
I'm sure there are others, but those are the most recent.
The Color Purple where Celie and Nettie are reunited at the end.
Titanic. The very end back on the boat and during the sinking part with the Irish mother and her children.
Forest Gump, Step Mom (I can just watch that last scene by itself and be a wreck), The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Casablanca, and A.I. (so glad someone mentioned this one this is probably the biggest tear jearker of all).
Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever cried at a movie just because it's simply so good? For example, I sobbed when I first saw The Apartment.
Moulin Rouge. Every single time I see it, I have to cry. And I see it at least once a year, cause it's my boyfriend's and my "movie" (we don't have a song, we have a movie).
The Notebook also got me, which I so wasn't expecting. But just that end... I've only seen it once, so I don't know if it still has "the crying factor".
And (this one I'm a bit ashamed of) Armageddon. But only the first time I saw it. I was 14 then. I only started crying the moment the credits rolled and I heard I don't want to miss a thing.
I'm so fickle about when I cry at movies. It all depends what mood I'm in I guess. Some things will make me cry some days, others other days. I do well up a lot in the theater. I welled up at WALL*E in a few spots. And yeah I also welled up at Sex and the City during "I know I screwed it up, but I will always love you." Semi-embarrassing. Brokeback, if I watch the whole thing through, will certainly do it.
One movie I never really cry at is Dancer in the Dark. I just don't cry. I still experience everything, and LOVE it, but I find that I sort of bypass the crying and just go into this über-high from the sheer genius of it all. It makes want to sing and dance, not cry. Maybe that's weird...
I cry at the drop of a hat, but the movies I can remember that called for a whole box full of Kleenex:
"E.T." (when E.T. "dies," when he comes back to life, when he goes home...basically the last quarter of the movie has me filling a bucket)
"My Girl" (trigger line: "Where are his glasses? He can't see without his glasses!")
"Million Dollar Baby" (oh my lord, I was sobbing so uncontrollably I was embarrassed to walk out of the theater afterwards)
For fucking years, I'd been told how "Terms of Endearment" is a can't-miss tearjerker movie and made EVERYONE cry. So I finally sat down to watch it two summers ago with my arms folded and an attitude of "Impress Me. Make me cry."
By the last ten minutes, I was in pieces.
Only other movies in recent years to make me come close are "Finding Nemo" and "House of Sand and Fog."
Mask. With The Bridges of Madison County a close, close second. (And I love that someone said The Portrait of a Lady. And Dark Victory, which is a totally great movie.)
TOP 5 WEEPIES
THE COLOR PURPLE
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
ET
ATONEMENT
TITANIC
Sobbed throughout the entirety of LotR:Return of the King (and what a good, satisfactory sob it was). Couldn't leave the theatre right away after Hotel Rwanda b/c I couldn't stop the tears.
Dancer in the Dark. For sure.
But I think I'll always cry at the end of Home Alone. It's Christmas morning. He's alone. But then Catherine O'Hara shows up and it's just about perfect (and she's SO great in that movie). BUT THEN the whole family barrels through the front door AND THAT MUSIC. Ugh. Hate to admit that Chris Columbus was behind it, but that's great stuff. Always produces tears.
Though, when it comes to movies, it really doesn't take much for me to cry (and I LOVE crying at movies...).
Little Women (Winona Ryder version): first when Beth sees the piano, then when we see her empty bed.
Away from Her: the whole damn film.
Ditto on "Where the hell is Matt?" - gleeful tears.
< movie snob alert >
The Long Day Closes - here's what I wrote about it on Mother's Day:
http://leftundone.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/songs-for-my-mother/
< / moviesnobalert >
Bad movies I've bawled through:
Rent. (Great show, mediocre movie. Still bawled throughout.)
Pay It Forward. (~Embarrassed~)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I lose it every time I see it, specifically when they burn the house down.
I cannot take Dark Victory seriously. I've cried plenty times at Now Voyager but that film just makes me laugh so hard. The funniest moment is when Bette sees the doctor's notes by accident. "What does...prognosis mean?" Beat. "What does...negative mean?" Oh, man.
YES about Stepmom. That's one of those films which I hate for manipulating my emotions, but love all the same (see: The Notebook).
I can't believe I forget the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like Matt, I bawled for the whole of the third film, but each one made me cry. The last half hour or so of The Fellowship is nearly unwatchable for me: Frodo attempting to set off on his own, Sam drowning, Merry and Pippin charging at th Urk-Hai, the lack of Gandalf, Boromir's death and Aragorn's farewell to him...*tears up*
A scene which always gets me weeping is the 'Everything Old Is New Again' scene in All That Jazz. The thought of Ann Reinking and Joe's daughter practising the dance, the mixture of pride, amusement and regret on Joe's face...argh.
Hard to believe the number of posts gets into the 60s and there is only one other mention of "Field of Dreams". Maybe not a lot of this crowd has father issues...
I'll add "Saving Private Ryan" and "Memphis Belle" to those who mentioned "The Best Years of Our Lives", I think because I tend to identify with the characters as a (non-combat) disabled veteran myself.
Still, my true by-the-bucketload tearfests are reserved for books. The night I finished Charlotte's Web the first time I cried all night. Pissed my dad off something fierce.
So many, I am such a weepy pile of weep. But BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. For real. Heaving racking choking snorting sobbing out of control.
Oh man, there are tons of movies that reduce me to a tear covered quivering mass on the floor but the one that can do t hat without me even having to watch it? Love! Valour! Compassion!
*************SPOILERS***************
Usually I cry by the musical score. Braveheart, Glory, The Phantom of the Opera. etc.
Movies that made me cry recently: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (when Aragorn and Arwen finally see each other)
**************SPOILERS**************
Wall-E - when Wall-E hypothetically dies
Hotel Rwanda
Reign Over Me
Crash - you think he killed the girl
Brokeback Mountain
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Black Hawk Down
Cast Away
Harry Potter and the Goblet Fire - the reaction of Cedric's father when he Cedric is dead
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Has a hair. She can see her boy one last time
The Lion King - ENTIRE opening scene. Best film by Disney EVER.
The Pianist
A Mighty Heart - do I even have to explain?
Pan's Labyrinth
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Color Purple
Bobby
Million Dollar Baby
Children of Men - when the baby is crying and TIME stops. Even the bloodshed.
I Am Legend - When Will Smith's character has to kill his dog
When I was younger, ET and Titanic just killed me. Nowadays, I'd have to say The Fountain and Dead Poets Society (but definitely more the latter).
I know it's a made for television movie but the movie that made me cry the hardest was "Wit", by Mike Nichols. I was sobbing at the end.
Oooo...a tough one..
I'd say definitely "Stepmom" which makes me sob like a little girl multiple times.
"The Lion King" is a rough one' but when I was a kid it was "Bambi and "All Dogs Go to Heaven," I mean, "Charlie" dies TWICE, not once, but TWICE! Disney can be really mean sometimes.
Requiem for a Dream, during Ellen Burstyn's monologue and at the end when her two friends visit her in the institution. I can't get over how good Burstyn was in that role.
There are 3.
The Royal Tenenbaums. To this day, I can't watch Ben Stiller deliver the line "I've had a rough year, dad," without tearing up.
Silkwood. Hearing Meryl Streep sing Amazing Grace, seeing the lights of the car behind her, followed by the image of Cher crying softly in the diner always gets to me.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Particularly the scene where Kirsten Dunst's character confesses her love for Tom Wilkinson's character.
David Lynch's "The Elephant Man" and "Au Revoir, Les Enfantes", a famous French movie directed by Louis Malle. Also "The Bridges of Madison County".
A recent one: The scene where Jörgen dies in "After the Wedding." I saw that film a dozen times in the cinema and it broke me up every time.
The most out-of-control, I-want-to-stop-crying-but-I-just-can't movie was Dancer in the Dark. I remember going to the bathroom afterwards and all women in there had swollen red eyes and everyone was still sobbing.
And the airport scenes in Love, Actually get me everytime. Even seeing real people reuniting at airports makes me teary-eyed because of that movie.
And I cried during Lilo&Stitch (that long forgotten Disney movie). As far as I remember (I was crying really hard) Lilo had some fight with her big sister but then realised she loved her. Maybe it was because I just had had a huge argument with my sister that ended with the same realization... Anyway, the little kid sitting next to me actually asked his mother to hand me a tissue which only made me cry harder.
Gallipoli (1981), dir. Peter Weir
About the massacre of Australian troops in WWI in the battle of Gallipoli in Turkey. They just used colonial troops as cannon fodder, The Australians are still mad about this one. And I think you can guess what happens to all the characters you care about in the movie. So beautiful, so idealistic, so brave, so dead.
And I definitely agree about the Disney movies, Dumbo, Bambi...OMG.
Simon Birch had me bawling when I first saw it.
Love Actually had me distraught when I watched it on television a few months ago for some reason, especially the scenes with The Lovely Laura Linney.
And how could anyone forget Muriel's Wedding, when Muriel's mother steals the shoes from the supermarket.
Lilja 4-Ever and the von Trier filmography don't make me cry, they make me suicidal.
omg....i can be such a girl. it's a wonderful life....starting w the drug store scene in which the druggist starts beating up george..."welcome home mr. bailey"....the telephone scene...i could go on & on.
lots of ww2 movies....the last scene w deborah kerr & donna reed in "from here to eternity"; & "the best years of our lives" when myrna knows her husband is home and they hug in the hall.
2 fantastic tv movies...."Love is never silent" - mare winningham's big scene. and toward the end of "The dollmaker" in which jane fonda let's her husband have it.
the scene w meryl streep and ed harris in "The Hours"....that's what friends do.
"Marvin's room" - diane keaton's great scene w meryl streep....
i'll probably think of several others....night night.
It's great to cry in movies. Here is my list, and I'm sure that I'm leaving some behind:
My Girl
West side story
Terms of enderment
Braveheart
All about my mother
Wit
Pan's labyrinth
In America
It's my party
House of sand and fog
And the 3 that nobody has included
The persuit of happyness
Breaking the waves
The Orphanage
sorry, just thought of 2 more. "ordinary people" - mary tyler moore and timothy hutton in that very awkward scene in which she attempts to go talk w him in the back yard - it's heartbreaking. they just can't click. plus - cloris leachman in that last scene in "The last picture show"
Cuaron's A Little Princess. It's those damn daddy issues.
who knew that y'all liked to cry so much. what a response.
i wish i could predict it but i can't. sometimes the tears are appropriate. sometimes huh?
but i do find it easier to cry at movies than in real life which is...
OVERSHARING. sorry
let's not get caught. let's keep goin'
what d'you mean?
go...
thelma & louise
Films with musical scores that I can't even hear the music to or else I tear up:
-Terms of Endearment
-E.T.
-Little Women (Winona version)
-Brokeback Mountain
-Gone with the Wind
Other Tear Jerkers:
-Dumbo
-Phenomenon
-Out of Africa (funeral, lions on grave)
-Love Actually ("All You Need is Love" surprise at wedding)
-The Notebook
-Hope Floats
-Forrest Gump
-In the Gloaming
-Running on Empty
-Stealing Home (obscure, yes, but great)
-Mr. Holland's Opus (him signing "Beautiful Boy" to his son is classic)
Unexpected:
-Venus
-The Family Stone
-Heartburn
Oh yeah,...and I unabashedly cried the entire way through Before Sunset. :)
After all, I'd kinda been waiting for that one for as long as the characters, and I found it deliciously stressful just savoring each moment Celine and Jesse had left to spend together.
par --gah, that moment. I love that movie so much. Easily the best of 1991 say I... (yes, over the BP nominees)
Big Fish. I have father issues.
I randomly started crying at moments in Once (especially the ending because it was so perfect), and Wall-E (beginning and end).
Dancer in the Dark though... I just bawled through the entire ending scene. I don't think I can ever watch that movie again because it's so sad.
The end of "Thumbsucker" when Audrey (Tilda Swinton) says to her son, "I've been watching you your whole life."
beautiful.
West Side Story gets me every time.
Cinema Paradiso
When Alfredo moves the projection across the room and into the square... gets me every time. And so does the brilliant kiss montage at the end.
Certainly Babe. I started crying in the opening credits, and couldn't stop sobbing until the end.
I sometimes cry watching trailers too.
www.escrevalolaescreva.blogspot.com
Stop Loss (2008).
I don't generally cry over sad stuff, but for some reason, I get teary when the subject is patriotic.
dear frankie
never have i sobbed so hard
Aah! I'm late.
I always cry at Thelma & Louise. Even if I walk in and it's on the TV, if it's at the end I'll start bawling. Also, Dancer in the Dark, that moment in Requiem for a Dream where Sara's friends are sitting at the bus stop gets me every time too. Also, The Elephant Man. I've cried plenty of times at movies that I've never rewatched so I can't say whether I'd cry again at them (most recently would be Bridge to Terabithia). I well up plenty of times though. Oddest was, perhaps, the end of Monster.
I must say, the thing that gets me crying more than anything isn't just something sad happening, but the grieving by other people. Like, I dont know what it's like to be convicted of a crime i didn't commit, but when I see Catherine Denueve or Siobhan Hogan in the final scenes of Dancer in the Dark I lose it.
C'mon people, you know that part in Toy Story 2... jeez, as a teenage guy, should I be ashamed?
What's Eating Gilbert Grape I cried at when little, Hotel Rwanda, Bridge to Terabithia, and... Reservoir Dogs was slightly emotional.
MJ - US
oh the reservoir dogs blood soaked moment between tim roth and harvey keitel gets to me. and it's a good reminder that Tarantino was never only about his hipsterism ---which all the imitators missed. There's always hardcore character and emotion in the movies too. Well, Death Proof excepted.
I cry at any movie that touches me ... some are sad movies, but many are happy ones.
Splendor In the Grass never fals to make me cry...
I have never cried at a movie, the closest I have been is the ending of Babe, when farmer Hogget tells Pig "that'll do, pig, that'll do" and you see Pig's pinky face, full of... happiness.
La Strada, Dancer In The Dark and Colour Purple
same here...deep impact...sigh
Brokeback Mountain
Moulin Rouge
Artificial Intelligence
The Lion King
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Ratatouille- only out of pure joy though.
-Joey.
I'd have to say that Running on empty made me bawl, not a silent tear down the cheek, but heaving and downturned mouth sobbing, it hit hard . . . can never listen to "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor without thinking of River Phoenix now
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