I just finished watching the 1959 Ben-Hur. The next to last scene, where Judah sees his mother and sister restored to health, always gets me teary, and I’ve seen it dozens of times.
And in Robert Heinlein’s story The Man Who Traveled in Elephants there’s the moment during the Big Parade when the veterans are passing in review, and some must ride, because “merciful Heaven forgive us, they could not walk” It never fails to get me choked up. That story, if I had to choose may be my favorite, I can’t count how many times I’ve read it, and I leak a tear at each reading.
One more, when E.T. is being left alone on the bathroom floor. I don’t cry when he dies, but there he is, dying far from home, and thinking he’s being abandoned. sniff
It’s funny that this was your example film, as it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. In my case, it’s not really an emotional scene of the type you are probably looking for; it’s the chariot race. It’s the awesome awesomeness of the scene itself, the horses, the rumbling of the hooves, the people, the awe, they make me tear up every time.
The first time I saw Goodbye Mr. Chips (1969 version with Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark) I cried when she died. In subsequent viewings, I started crying earlier and earlier in the film, when I remembered that she was going to die. Now it’s just one big bawlfest all the way through.
One of the first records I ever remember listening to was the original Broadway soundtrack of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Even now, I always get weepy when Hodel goes to Siberia to join her love Perchik.
“Hey, Boo” in the movie (To Kill a Mockingbird) had no where near the heart-rending impact that it had when you hit it for the fist time in the book. It’s a shame that so many great moments of literature are completely unknown to people who only know the films.
I can’t even think about Bernhard Schlenk’s “The Reader” without tearing up, remembering how I sobbed at one point. And I can’t even recall at exactly what point that was. I have not seen the movie.
“Sunrise, Sunset” struck me as kind of sappy and stupid as a kid, but the last time I watched the movie, I was almost unable to watch that scene. WAAAAH!
That scene in Saving Private Ryan where the medic, Wade, gets shot. Maybe it’s because Giovonni Ribisi completely sold that scene for me. Phenomenal acting job.
That moment where it’s just all chaos as they’re trying to patch him up, and they put his hand where the entry would is. The way he says “oh my god, my liver!” And Upham says “tell us how to fix you.”
I think I didn’t include this on my list because I’ve only seen it all the way once, not multiple times. I couldn’t do it again. As I type this I’m looking down at the floor, at my dog Nathan, and thinking of six to eight years in the future, and, well, sniff.
When M’Lynn is breaking down at her daughter’s funeral in Steel Magnolias
I have read the entire Narnia series to myself countless times and aloud to each of my children. A page before the last scene of the last book I start crying and can barely get through it.
At the age of 10, I was home for several weeks with the hard measles. My eyes were affected and I was ordered to stay in a dark room and not to use my eyes. Because I was dreadfully bored after a day or two, my mother brought home a stack of books to read to me. Among them were such cheery classics as Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Black Beauty in which the animal heros either die or are terribly mistreated. To this day I shun animal stories and made sure not to traumatize my own boys with these stories either.
Disney, I am talking to you, too. Why do all your animal mothers always die??