No, lieu, it really was Patton**:** War can be exceptionally sad if you think about the men just killed (or wounded).
I confess that I cried during Bambi, too, but didn’t mention it since I was only 4 or 5 when I first saw it. I suppose that it should count too. (I had just lost my best [and only] friend, a dog, and my older brother had been badly wounded in war just a couple of years earlier, so . . . . 
)
I’m moving this to Cafe Society, folks.
Philadephia, when Tom Hanks dies.
How has nobody mentioned Magnolia?
God, when I saw that movie it immobilized me. I saw it in a little theater in Quebec. I went out behind the theater and sat in behind a pile of snow so I could sob in peace. I have no idea how long it was, but it seemed like forever before I could get it together. Damn, I still love that movie though.
Also:
Life Is Beautiful
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Steal This Movie
Edward Scissorhands (shut up!)
Romeo + Juliet
LC
i agree with joy luck club, i own it on video and i still bawl like a baby all the way through it.
but i’m a huge sap. i even cry at the dog food commercial where the little girl and her dog are running up the stairs, first as a puppy, then as a dog, then as an old dog and the girl’s college age. i actually have to leave the room when that commercial comes on, and my husband just howls with laughter.
others: every damned disney movie ever made. especially jungle book, at the end, when baloo is lying in the light after the fight with shere khan- i know baloo’s not dead, and i cry anyway!!!
i can’t believe nobody mentioned breakfast at tiffany’s. the end of that movie reduces me to a tear-sodden kleenex covered mass of blubbering protoplasm every time i watch it.
man on the moon- the movie about andy kaufman. the end had me sobbing uncontrollably.
any movie where someone on screen in crying. i don’t care how bad the movie is, if someone in it crying, so am i.
but, i’m also a sympathic vomitter. if someone onscreen is puking, so am i. maybe i’m just very easily manipulated.
I have been known to sob through McDonald’s commercials (you know, the one that shows the boy and his sister sharing french fries throughout their childhood and then he looks up and she’s the homecoming queen and…and… he salutes her…snif …with a french fry?)
I am the butt of much teasing hereabouts because I leak nearly constantly. However, movies that required an entire box of tissues:
Of Mice and Men (the Sinise/Malkovich version)
It’s My Party (Eric Roberts & a huge ensemble… this one positively WRECKS me)
It’s A Wonderful Life
Steel Magnolias
Tim
Threesome
In general, I can’t stand Richard Dreyfuss; he just irritates the hell out of me for some reason. But that scene in Mr Holland’s Opus where he’s signing “Beautiful Boy” to his son gets me.
And Schindler’s List. All of it.
tavalla, it would take less time for me to list the scenes in that film that don’t make me cry!
Mask
Brian’s Song
If you can get through THE YEARLING and THE PLAGUE DOGS without the waterworks, you’re not human, you’re a robot.
Ditto to a lot of the ones already posted.
Here’s one that’s kind of embarrassing–> Lonesome Dove
Why did Gus have to die, that cantankerous old bastard???
Grave of the Fireflies will always be the definitive sad movie for me. I can barely think about now without tearing up.
Space exploration has a strong effect on me as well (real space flight, not SF stuff). Both Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff create a big lump in my throat. I’m sure the IMAX film others have mentioned would have the same effect.
The Miracle Worker (original movie, no remakes).
TV miniseries from the 70’s, Rich Man, Poor Man. I watched this with a real he-man Marine who needed a hanky at the end - as did I.
The movie version of Godspell, from the 70’s, which seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. This was an eerie, empty musical; very enjoyable, but odd because the cast sang and danced all over NYC which was, well, empty, as though a neutron bomb had gone off. Anyway, of course I cried at the end at the death of Jesus, and then NY got repopulated to the tune of Day by Day…
There are quite a few movies on other people’s lists that make me teary-eyed, but one not mentioned is Glory.
Although the rest of the movie is highly annoying, there is a scene in Simon Birch, after Simon’s friend’s (what was his name?) mother has died where he says that when someone dies their prescence slips away gradually, much like their scent from clothes or linens. Quite touching.
OK, here goes. I’ll try to limit it to movies I haven’t seen, but I warn you, I leak a lot.
“The Lion in Winter”, at the very end when Eleanor’s boat is pulling out. Also just before, in the dungeon. “I would have been a very great fool not to have loved you.” Sob.
“A Man for All Seasons”, when More is in the tower and his family visits. That scene gets me.
I admit it, I cry at ET. I know someone mentioned it, but I had to as well.
“The Shootist”, several places. Yes, John Wayne. Especially the last scene where Ron Howard throws away the gun he has just used to kill the man that shot Wayne in the back. Wayne gives a little nod, then dies. By far his best performance ever.
That’ll do it. I just had to chime in.
I’m another one that cries at the drop of a hat. Sitcoms and commercials routinely make me cry. But we’re talking about movies here, so…
Already mentioned:
Life is Beautiful
Braveheart
Titanic (the old couple is what got me…the rest of it I couldn’t have cared less.)
Sommersby
Deep Impact
Armageddon
My additions:
The Seventh Sign (Ok, I know it’s a crappy movie, but at the end when she’s having the baby…and she chooses to die so the world will be saved? C’mon!)
My Life (chronicle of a man dying of cancer. You’re a robot if you didn’t cry in this movie)
I think what gets me is people making choices where they suffer or give up their lives for the greater good. I mean, look at that list…hmm…I think that says something about me. (Don’t ask me what.)
Also, just about any scene where they show actual slo-mo footage of the space shuttle taking off. Seeing a man-made creation lift free from the earth…there’s something so amazing and tremendous about it that it gets me every time.
(And for a song that gets me every time, try Whitney Houston’s One Moment in Time that she sang for the um…'84 Olympics, I think.)
And just for the record so that I’m not a complete and total sap-of-all-saps…I HATED Rudy and Magnolia. With Rudy…I think I just hate that Astin kid so much I couldn’t appreciate the story. And Magnolia? I’m not sure I even understood it…we need an “Explain Magnolia” thread so I can see if I even got the point of that move. Either I got it but didn’t appreciate it, or I drew the exact opposite conclusion than I was supposed to.
Oooh, why didn’t I think of that! The scene where Colonel Shaw lets his horse go…and when the flag is dropped and someone picks it up…And the last shot.
I can’t believe nobody has named “City of Angels” yet. (I might have missed it.) Not the end where Meg Ryan very predictably dies, but the first 5 minutes, when the little girl dies and we meet Seth. I’ve seen it at least ten times and I cry like a little girl every time. I hate that they can do that to me so easily.
Pay It Forward
Didn’t want to, dammit. Knew it was manipulative. Cried like a baby anyway.
Joy Luck Club
Surprised myself for sobbing at the end, but after enduring so much suffering by so many, it all just finally came apart for me when I saw the look of hope in the sisters’ eyes looking for their mother.
E.T.
Every time Gertie breaks down when she thinks E.T.'s dying, I lose it.
My sister was a fountain watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but she cries reading Chinese fortunes.
…and my wife will walk out of the room when viewing The Green Mile at specific moments because she can’t bear to watch some scenes.