# Most depressing movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 12, 2000, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912 "2000-09-12T18:04:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MagicalSilverKey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@MagicalSilverKey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicalSilverKey)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2000, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/81 "2000-09-15T06:25:12Z")
_ **What Dreams May Come** _ This movie really bummed me out. It was very morbid, and disturbing for me. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone. It’s just too depressingly uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![JamesCarroll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@JamesCarroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JamesCarroll)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2000, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/82 "2000-09-16T06:36:50Z")
If you want depressing, for my money, you hafta go off shores. \*\* Live, Freeze, Die, Come to Life\*\* The “heart warming” story of a boy in a Siberian work camp. \*\* Toto, the Hero \*\* The story of a boy who is switched at birth, falls in love with his “sister” who falls in love with her own brother, but gets blown up. And that’s just the beginning. It gets worse. **White** You’re married to Julie Delpy, but you can’t get it up. That right there should be enough, but what do you do? Plan your own death, frame HER for the murder, and send her to jail. Oh, and don’t forget to shoot your best friend in the head 'cuz he asked you to. The only really depressing American film I’ve seen is **Where the Day Takes You** I just don’t know which is better: seeing so many “young” stars in one film or watching them all destroy themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Malarky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@Malarky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malarky)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2000, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/83 "2000-09-17T01:27:34Z")
2 words…American…Beauty…I cried my freaking eyes out BOTH times I saw it…the only other time I cried like that at a movie was at the Green Mile \*_snniffffs_ ---
**Author:** ![hypergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/49beb7/32.png) [@hypergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hypergirl)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2000, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/84 "2000-09-17T18:38:01Z")
Romeo and Juliet and Titanic both made me cry.One of my friends said that Monty Python’s Meaning of Life made her suicidal. ---
**Author:** ![vandal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/858c86/32.png) [@vandal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vandal)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2000, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/85 "2000-09-17T18:44:44Z")
**Arlington Road** - What a downer this one is. Downer not in the sense that it was a bad movie, but just the ending, totally out of left field. **Leaving Las Vegas** - I know it’s been mentioned numerous times already, but I just have to say it again. This is just a damn sad movie. **A Simple Plan** - And yes, that speech from Billy Bob about his depressing life with women – so depressing. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/86 "2000-09-18T19:47:37Z")
_Midnight Cowboy_. ---
**Author:** ![StompyGodzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@StompyGodzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StompyGodzilla)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/87 "2000-09-18T21:33:34Z")
What was that one with Sally Fields about 15 years ago? Crimes of the Heart or something? John Malkovich was in it too. Damn, was that depressing. Glory was probably the saddest film I have ever, ever seen. That final image will haunt me all my days. And what about Parenthood? I know it was supposed to be a comedy, but I thought it was so sad…I couldn’t understand why people around me were laughing at things I found heartbreaking. Oh! And what about Harry and Tonto with Al Carney? I couldn’t even bear to finish that one; I was certain that the cat died, and I just didn’t want to see it happen. Saving the Tiger with Jack Lemmon. Brilliant portrayal of a man whose options are slowly running out. Deeply depressing. And I can’t believe no one has mentioned Midnight Cowboy. For a fun night in, rent them all! Keep razor blades and sleeping pills handy. Stompy ---
**Author:** ![Tymp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Tymp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tymp)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2000, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/88 "2000-09-18T22:19:50Z")
My list of absolutely depressing films that will leave me in a melancholy funk for days and days is topped without challenge by Lars von Trier’s [Breaking the Waves](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0115751). Just typing the title while I think about the plot makes a lump swell in my throat. Also, I have to give another vote to **Once Were Warriors**. ---
**Author:** ![Broken\_Doll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@Broken\_Doll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broken_Doll)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/89 "2000-09-19T02:33:15Z")
Don’t laugh, but Titanic had me almost bawling my eyes out at the end. And yes, Edward Scissorhands makes me cry waterfalls every single time! I just wanna take him home and care for him myself…aww…_sniffles_…now I’m verklempt. There are a few more that depresses me, but I can’t remember then right now. ---
**Author:** ![tennents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/fbc32d/32.png) [@tennents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tennents)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/90 "2000-09-19T03:09:33Z")
TRAINSPOTTING Its not a bad adaptation of the novel, and sure it all ends happily enough but the rest of the movie depresses the hell out of me ---
**Author:** ![Space\_Vampire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Space\_Vampire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Space_Vampire)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/91 "2000-09-19T06:30:40Z")
Any of Takeshi Kitano’s Yakuza films. Ouch! I have to say, though, that films ending in suicide are starting to get on my nerves. Sometimes it just seems like an easy way to push the audience’s buttons, rather than a logical conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Aghris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@Aghris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aghris)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/92 "2000-09-19T07:25:01Z")
**Spoiler ahead for those who still want to see Soylent Green** > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by jab1 on Soylent Green:_\*\* > But that wasn’t sensational enough, so they changed it and a story that was intended to get the reader to think about overpopulation and what we might have to do to prevent it became just another melodrama. Most people went home thinking, “Well, that was tragic, but it’ll never happen! We’d NEVER resort to cannibalism.” \*\* I don’t agree there. Although I never read the book (I didn’t even know there was one) I think the fact that the world running out of food and people resorting to use the bodies of suicidees (is that a word?) to produce food was very believable. It was just that fact that made the movie so depressing for me. I don’t think it would have the same effect on me when the character ended the film with “Oh my God! Soylent Green is SOY BEANS and LENTIL!” Just a quick question, how **does** the book end if it is not the chopping up of the main characters best friend? ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912/93 "2000-09-19T17:40:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aghris \* > **Just a quick question, how does the book end if it is not the chopping up of the main characters best friend?** The novel is a slice-of-life story and doesn’t really HAVE an ending _per se_. By that, I mean, the situation at the end of the story is pretty much the same as in the beginning. But since you asked… The police detective’s (the main character) friend dies of natural causes, but he doesn’t get turned into crackers. The hero falls in love with the woman who was once an executive’s mistress (it was the murder of the executive that was the center of the story, if you recall), but the city forces them to share his apartment with a really low-class family, so she leaves him. He eventually solves the murder that started the story, and it ends on New Year’s Day, 2000. IIRC, the population of the U.S. is given as 350,000,000 with the world’s pegged at 10,000,000,000.\* There is absolutely no hope that things are going to get better any time soon. A depressing, but realistic ending. - Check [http://www.census.gov](http://www.census.gov) to learn what the estimated population really is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-depressing-movie/32912.md?page=4)