# Movies that make you cry **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 26, 2001, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185 "2001-08-26T09:12:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Dale\_The\_Bold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/41988e/32.png) [@Dale\_The\_Bold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_The_Bold)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/121 "2001-09-21T02:47:43Z")
_Pay It Forward_ didn’t affect me. I wanted to cry at a movie, that oen let me down, I just felt disappointed with it. _Somewhere in Time_ moistens my eyes. _Titanic_ moistened my eyes. _Family Man_ (no one mentioned this one). Opened the floodgates. I bawled at this one. I think because Nicholas Cage played the part of me. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![brickiebee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@brickiebee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickiebee)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/122 "2001-09-21T15:19:33Z")
I love this thread. My friend and I have an ongoing conversation regarding how unfair it is that they show sad movies on airplanes. So there you are, next to a total stranger, sobbing your guts out over \*\* My Dog Skip\*\*. Once I was on a flight where they were showing **Notting Hill** and I wasn’t watching it (too cheap for headphones, plus I’d already seen it). But the part where Julia Roberts is telling off Hugh Grant in the bookstore … well, just watching their lips move, forming the words … sniff. And it’s not even a good movie. My friend is even worse than me, though. Get this, the flight attendant came over and asked her if she was ok (due to prolonged weeping) during … **Hope Floats**! (gaffaw) Once again have to agree with **The Iron Giant**. What a great flick. What a sobfest. Oh, and **LifeOnWry** , is that MacDonald’s commercial from the 80’s? Because I remember the one where the older brother is always running off having fun with his friends and his little sister is looking out the window, all sad and rejected feeling, and then he brings her some fries. _boo hoo hoo_ wah! And I don’t even eat fast food. I’m thinking …\* it may not really be about the fries! \* ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Cool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecb155/32.png) [@Joe\_Cool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Cool)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/123 "2001-09-22T02:44:25Z")
Old Yeller is so obvious I won’t even mention it. oops. But it’s got to be on every list by default. **Schindler’s List** , of course. And **Highlander** , when Heather dies. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SpazCat \* > \*\ ***Dumbo**. I have to leave the room when he goes to visit his mother in “jail.” > > **The Dead Poet’s Society**. “Oh Captain, my Captain!” \*\* Speaking of Robin Williams, let’s see… **Awakenings**. When Leonard realizes he’s going back into paralysis, then again when all the other patients realize that is what’s in store for them too. And I cried like a little girl the first time I saw **The Fisher King**. At the part where we see how his wife died. Thank God I was alone, I would never live it down. I bought the tape, but I can rarely bring myself to watch it, just because of that one scene. ---
**Author:** ![burundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@burundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burundi)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/124 "2001-09-22T02:51:45Z")
BREAKING THE WAVES, a lovely little art-house movie with Emily Watson (?). It’s beautifully done, but the emotional equivalent of being hit by a mack truck. ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/125 "2001-09-22T08:56:01Z")
I don’t believe it! I’m actually crying over this thread! I guess it’s all the references. Yes, I cry over Dumbo, “Baby Mine”-must be a Mom thing. I somehow never saw it until my older son was about a year old. Held him on my lap and bawled! I tear up over The Lion King too. Not Mufasa so much, but the beginning and end when they present the cub to all the animals.I get weepy over the part in Titanic when Rose sees the rescue boat and tries to tell Jack, only to realize that he has died. Okay, the old couple and the mother and kids too! Oh, allright, the shot where they show the pictures taken throught her life did it to me again! Here’s one I haven’t seen mentioned. Dark Victory 1939 Bette Davis. She’s a spoiled rich girl and discovers that she has a terminal brain tumer. Due to the type of tumer, she will appear perfectly healthy until moments before the end. She ends up falling in love with her doctor, cleaning up her act, and marrying him. At the end, she begins to lose her sight, which she knows is the sign that she is dying. She is determined to finish planting her flower bulbs so they will bloom in the spring. She sends her husband off to a medical conference without telling him, and asks her best friend to leave her alone so she can face death by herself. During the last scene she calls her dogs to her and tells them goodbye too. Oh Rats! Gotta go b-b-blow my nose! SNIFF! (Okay, I think I’m all right!) Another one- Has anyone see “Robin and Marian”? It’s Robin Hood as an old man. It starred Sean Connery and Audry Hepburn. The last speech of Marian’s as they were both dying… WHAAAAAAA!!! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![simply\_cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@simply\_cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simply_cats)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/126 "2001-09-23T02:20:09Z")
I frequently cry over sad movies, but the one that is most bizarre and sticks out most clearly in my mind is Nutty Professor (yes, the one with Eddie Murphy). I was seven months pregnant at the time, and when they started making fun of his weight, I couldn’t stop crying. Several times my ex leaned over and said “Do you want to go now?” And I would sob, “No, it’s really f-f-f-funny…” I am also frequently touched by commercials, and I wailed at the end of the ER episode when Lucy died. Any kind of childbirth scene will open the floodgates, too. ---
**Author:** ![Skijumper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3e96dc/32.png) [@Skijumper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skijumper)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2001, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/127 "2001-09-23T02:47:04Z")
Dead Poets Society - ditto the last scene. Also when the boys trudge out into the early morning snow after Neil dies. Fried Green Tomatoes - when Ruth dies. 84 Charing Cross Road - when Frank dies. The Little Mermaid - when Ariel meets her father at the end. (Don’t ask.) ---
**Author:** ![meyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ccd318/32.png) [@meyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meyer)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2001, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/128 "2001-09-25T10:40:55Z")
1. The Land Before Time - I am embarassed to admit this, but when the little dinosaur’s mum dies and he sees his own shadow on the rock face and thinks it’s her. “Mama, mama, where are you?”. It’s waterworks time at this point in the movie, even as an adult. 2)Pharlap - Am I the only person who has seen this movie? It is hands down the saddest thing I have ever seen, including real life. 3)The Philishave commercial with the song ‘Can’t Hide the Man Inside’ where the guy hugs his Dad - I have no idea why, but this commercial just gets me. ---
**Author:** ![vivian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3e96dc/32.png) [@vivian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/129 "2001-09-25T17:52:04Z")
A.I haley joel osment REALLY freaked me out, but made me really sad at the same time. What Dreams May Come i have yet to see a film that moved me emotionally as this one. it still amazes me how one can convey something as difficult (at least i think so) as the emotion as truly loving someone and not make it look mushy. Forest Gump \ it just is. that movie with that Rob Schneider guy and that survivor guy…my boyfriend and i couldn’t agree on a movie to see, so we wasted valuable sex time watching that garbage…that made me cry… ---
**Author:** ![RufusB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8491ac/32.png) [@RufusB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RufusB)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2001, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/130 "2001-09-26T02:13:49Z")
I just saw this posted, but I just had to post it again. **Awakenings**. What makes me a bit teary-eyed the most is the fact that it’s a true story… ---
**Author:** ![Blacksheepsmith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@Blacksheepsmith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blacksheepsmith)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2001, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/131 "2001-09-26T21:41:18Z")
I never cry, and haven’t done so in almost twenty years, when I was little shaver and I slipped and fell on a broken bottle, sat up, and actually saw what a knee looks like when the skin’s been slit open and peeled back. There is one movie that got me real close. I’ve watched it a dozen times on tape, to trying to get over the edge. Almost, almost, but never quite there. No one’s mentioned it yet. **Jerry McGuire**. The idea of a lousy guy, determined to remake himself into a good person–at almost any cost–resonates very strongly with me. At the end, when what’s-his-face-the-football player gets up, and Jerry realizes what he’s gotta do, and he goes running back to his wife. Maybe its 'cause my wife looks like the actress in that movie. Maybe its 'cause I feel sometimes like I’m a lousy guy and I’d like to remake myself. It gets me real close. ---
**Author:** ![GreenEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f9ae1b/32.png) [@GreenEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenEyes)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/132 "2001-09-27T00:54:14Z")
Romeo and Juliet… no matter how many times I see it… it gets me every time. Titanic… but only the first time. A move called Revenge with Kevin Costner… excellent movie btw… but the last two minutes is KILLER. ---
**Author:** ![Kritter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@Kritter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kritter)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2001, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/133 "2001-10-18T06:54:29Z")
I very rarely cry at movies actualy there is only two that I cry to one is **Armegeddon** -“I’ll check in on you from time to time gracey” and then the one movie that makes me cry every time even if I only see this one sceene is **The War** with Kevin Cosner- “Whyd they hafta take my daddy” ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/134 "2001-10-19T03:13:32Z")
**The Man In The Moon.** With Reese Witherspoon and Sam Waterston. I caught the last five minutes once and loved the little snippet of music so much I went out and rented it. The girl behind the counter was practically crying about it when she rang me up. It’s just one of those perfect little movies you never hear about. **You Can Count on Me** is kind of in that genre I was also caught by surprise by the **Joy Luck Club.** I had seen it before but had a sort of ho-hum reaction to it. The last time I saw it, though, it really hit me. I’m sitting there practically weeping and choking out answers to my wife thinking “this is ridiculous”. ---
**Author:** ![SolomonGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d07c76/32.png) [@SolomonGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolomonGrundy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/135 "2001-10-19T08:27:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chas.E \* > **I always cry at movies. Hell, I cried when I saw the IMAX film “Earth from Space” because it was too beautiful, seeing high resolution images of what I have always longed to see from orbit myself.** I’m glad you said that, Chas; all this time I was thinking myself a freak for being the only one. It was the first IMAX film I’d ever seen, and that first shot just had me crying but I couldn’t explain why. As for other movies, I’m a total sucker and to quote MST3K, will “cry at the opening of a bank.” But there are a few, usually the better-made Disney movies, that make me cry and I don’t feel embarrassed or manipulated afterwards. Two that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: The ending of **Mulan** , when Fa Mulan says “The greatest honor of all is having you for a daughter” gets me _every damn time_. The _Rhapsody in Blue_ segment in **Fantasia 2000** , where the henpecked husband starts dancing in sync with the monkey, and I can’t explain at all why that gets to me. ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/136 "2001-10-19T17:48:13Z")
The English Patient: “I promise I’ll come back for you” and the morphine scene Of Mice and Men - the “guys like us” scene Dr. Zhivago - when he’s running next to the bus and then drops dead Cinema Paradiso - during the photo montage The Way We Were - in front of the Plaza Shane - “Come back! Come back!” Breakfast at Tiffany’s - when she looks for Cat in the rain Really, there are too many to mention. I also cry at practically every movie about a lost or dying animal or if a movie has scenes of animals being hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Kent4mmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/34f0e0/32.png) [@Kent4mmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent4mmy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2001, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/137 "2001-10-19T19:48:27Z")
One not mentioned yet…The Breakfast Club…Where Emilio Estevez (sp?) is telling the group what he had done to get a Saturday detention… ``` "And afterward, sitting in Vernon's office, all I could think about was Larry, and how he had to go home and explain to his father what had happened to him, and the...the humiliation... he must have felt. All because of me and my old man. God I hate him. He's like this...this mindless machine I can't even relate to anymore. 'Andrew! You've got to be number one!! I won't tolerate any losers in this family! Your intensity's for shit!! Win!! Win!! Win!!' Sometimes...I just wish my knee would give out, and then he could forget all about me" ``` My tears come, not from Andrew’s dysfunctional relationship with his father, but from the realization that thousands, perhaps millions, of children suffer and struggle in vain trying to live up to their parents unrealistic expectations and all the while blaming themselves. Sucks ---
**Author:** ![JRT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3e96dc/32.png) [@JRT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRT)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/138 "2001-10-20T05:19:45Z")
Many of these have been said but I must share Family Man What Dreams May Come (SOBBING!) City of Angels Titanic (all the way home I cried, both times) Fried Green Tomatoes One I haven’t seen yet is **Story of Us**. A commercial I saw for the first time tonight: Couple is in bed, he’s asleep, she’s sitting up. “Honey wake up” Him:Whats wrong honey? She tells him how she is upset about how they never talk any more, like they used to. Now everything is about work or the kids or bills. Him:What do you mean we don’t talk, I’m talkin’ to you right now. (At this point you think the commercial is going to be some kind of jab at men.) Few moments pass… He leans over and in a duck voice “I love you, I love you very much.” Its so sweet and so cute, I’m crying just rememering it. I’m such a sap. Its a Disney commercial, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![vex77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@vex77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vex77)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/139 "2001-10-20T05:40:41Z")
Any Benji movie. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Big\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Big\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Big_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185/140 "2001-10-20T10:11:44Z")
**Philadelphia** - Just because, and because my brother died of AIDS **I Am Third** - though I haven’t seen it in a while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-cry/78185.md?page=6)