Interstella 5555.
For those who haven’t seen it:
It’s an animated film with no dialogue, drawn by Leiji Matsumoto to go along with the album Discovery by Daft Punk, which constitutes its soundtrack. It is generally a very bizarre and downright silly cartoon, but I couldn’t really help loving the characters.
For those who have:
I cried at the scene of Shep’s burial.
“Breaking Away”, during the final lap of the little 500, followed by the close-up shot as he crosses the finish line, sits up in the seat, stretches out his arms, and the music kicks in.
Shallow Hal, when he returns to the hospital. It hit me hard. That movie was not what I expected.
Well, the X-files actually made me get teary once. I mean the show, however, not the two movies.
It’s the episode(2-parter I believe) where Mulder learns that his sister is, indeed, dead. He goes out and sees these ethereal ghosts of killed children running around. He look, sees his sister’s ghost, and realizes for sure that she is dead and gone forever.
It’s the music, the acting, and the ghost effects. It’s so perfect and even though it is actually ridiculous that he would see “ghosts”, it worked for me and made me teary.
The Iron Giant.
When he says “Superman”.
Finding Nemo, hands down.
Our son had just died and we wanted to head out to the movies for some diversion. We didn’t even know what the story was. We just knew it was Pixar and must be great.
Damn.
It was great, but was so not the story I needed that day. The part where the dad says “I’ll never let anything happen to you” and then something bad does happen. Shit.
I gotta say that I went to see Gran Torino knowing nothing about the film at all, at the end I looked over my shoulder and pretty much the whole audience was shuffling awkwardly and pretending they had something in their eye. I definitely had a lump in my throat anyway.
The Wrestler. I saw it twice (love it)–first time was sad. But it was even worse the second time, knowing what was coming, and it hit me like a ton of bricks–I was weeping like a baby for a good 5-minutes, which never happens.
The Muppet Christmas Carol. I’ve seen dozens of Christmas Carols and remained hardened and cynical but something about the Muppets makes me tear up every time.
Strictly Ballroom
Me and my brother decided to watch it one evening for want of anything better to do. At the end of the movie we both sat there unable to speak, tears streaming down our faces, until he sniffed and said “think we’d both better turn in our Man Cards now”.
Damn. 
So sorry to hear that…
The Color Purple.
The first teary scene–Shug Avery’s reconcilitation with her father. Wow.
The waterworks–when Celie recognized her sister. From the moment she threw back her head and yelled, “Net-tieeeeee!” until the credits rolled, I was a complete mess. In fact, that’s the first time I can recall actually bursting into tears. Not sniffling and tears welling up–literally bursting into tears.
Oh, and Drum God–if we could count thread posts, yours would be right up there. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Dancer in The Dark was a cruel, cruel film - I felt utterly traumatized by the end.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I rented it because I thought it would be a silly teenybopper movie one summer day a few years ago and I bawled. I cried so hard I gave myself the hiccups. The scene where America Ferrera’s character is trying on bridesmaid dresses and none of them fit her. I yelled at the TV in support of America Ferrera because I’m fat too! I understand your pain, America Ferrara!
*“And you know what, Lydia? Just forget about the dress. We can tell everybody that Carmen’s Puerto Rican. And it never occurred to you she might be built differently. Or that, unlike you and your daughter, she has an ass that the tailor didn’t have enough bolts of material to cover, or better yet, just tell everyone there is no Carmen. Carmen doesn’t exist!” *
The scene in “Philadelphia”
where Tom Hanks translates the aria “La mamma morta” (They Killed my Mother) being sung by Maria Callas, from the opera “Andrea Chénier” by Umberto Giordano, to Denzel Washington, thus showing Denzel what it feels like to be dying of AIDS.
It filled me up, tightened my chest, nearly brought me to tears, which is hard to do.
Million Dollar Baby - I saw it on TV a few years after it came out and had avoided all the spoilers, so I expected it to be a standard sports movie with a gal boxer…
Not quite.
Ouch. Not nearly as bad, but soon after my friend was told by her husband of nearly a dozen years that he was leaving her, she went to see relatives for the holidays. They decided to take her to see what they all thought looked like a heartwarming goofy movie about a big, stubborn dog. Marley and Me.
They hadn’t read the book. Didn’t know that it was not a happy ending; the dog dies.
Slightly off-topic, but I once unexpectedly burst into tears during a (live) performance of La Boheme. By the end of Act 4 I was heartily sick of Mimi and happy to be rid of her but “Vecchia zimarra”, Colline’s farewell aria to his beloved coat, caught me completely off-guard.
Find her debut film Real Women Have Curves. It’s one of those small films that never got much attention, but it’s a well-acted and moving story about a girl wanting to go off to college and her garment worker mother not understanding.
hat would describe every single one of Lars von Trier’s films. I don’t know if he’s more misanthrope or misogynist, but he’s a right miserable bastard and I absolutely hated Dogville, walking out of that one spitting mad.
I read your post and was sobbing. I’m so, so sorry for your loss. Few things in this life more awful than a parent having to bury a child.
I had a similar experience after my father died. He was a powerful, brilliant, larger-than-life character and a workaholic, doing multiple jobs at the same time. A few months after he died of cancer, my mom and I went to see a film that we thought would be a diverting musical -
Not the film you need to see shortly after burying a charismatic workaholic.
If we never agree on anything else, we share this.
I get goosebumps just recalling this scene, and get all weepy watching it on YouTube. The part that destroys me is Woody saying “Jesse…I didn’t know.” and Joan Cusac’s brilliant acting as Jesse saying “Just go…”
The film that utterly came out of left field and emotionally wrecked me was Crumb
Learning that Charles succeeded in killing himself.
[Insert “Fail” picture for comparing a breakup to the death of someone’s child]