The final scene of Manon of the Spring. The rich old man is sitting on a bench next to an old blind woman, and she tells him the complete story of what happened to the woman he once loved after she left him.
In Funny Games, the scene in the living room after the killers play eenie-meenie-minie-moe.
In Night Shift morgue worker/pimp Henry Winkler has just spent the night with hooker Shelley Long. He comes to work the next night with a spring in his step from his new found love, expecting her not to show up. She does. Co-morgue worker/pimp Michael Keaton takes her out for her first customer of the night leading to this exchange:
“Don’t worry about him. He probably thought you guys were in love or something.”
“So did I.”
In Notorious Cary Grant has been ordered by a higher up to have Ingrid Bergman marry the Evil Nazi. They are in love with each other by this point, but neither is sure if the other is in love with them, and they both use this as a test, her wanting him to tell him not to go back, and him wanting her to refuse. Both end up devestated and convinced the other doesn’t return their affection.
There’s a fantastic little movie called Daikaiju Tokyo ni arawaru or The Great Monster Came to Tokyo, a semi-parody of the Godzilla/Gamera genre. The characters all live in a quiet rural town where the only news they get are sporadic, conflicting reports that Tokyo has been destroyed by a giant monster (which we never see) that is now wandering through Japan, after which the film follows how they all react even though their town is untouched. The movie’s last scene, of the festival the town holds years later, never fails to choke me up.
Hell, the entirety of Terms of Endearment is sad, but the saddest thing I find in that movie is Emma’s marriage, or more exactly, Emma’s husband.
Even though nobody will admit to it today, I have nothing to fear in saying that I pretty much was wracked up for the last 45 minutes of Titanic. Blatantly manipulative? Hell, yeah! That’s what I go to the movies for!
Anybody here see the movie Testament? A relentlessly depressing movie about the slow breakdown of civilization after a nuclear war. There was no big scenes: no shots of bombs exploding, no riots, no rapes, just a quiet movie about a woman who’s world and family are coming apart on her and her efforts to keep the threads from unravelling. A shot near the end, showing a playground that has been converted to a cemetery is quite heartbreaking, as is Jane Alexander’s final speech.
Damn, there’s just too many…yeah Liam Neisom in Schindlers’ List gets me everytime. I don’t know if it’s the acting, the movie or the knowledge that it’s not fiction.
(911 still gets to me too though)
I haven’t seen “Brian’s Song” in awhile, but I remeber it as being pretty damned tearjerking itself.
I don’t know how many people remember this one but for me it’s the end of SILENT RUNNING when the last little droid is left all by himself in space to tend to the last remaining plants from earth. I know he was only a robot but I felt so sorry for the little guy, all by himself, forever in space.
Apparently this submission is too powerful as the hamsters wouldn’t let it post last time.
Thescene in Gallipoli when the order comes through that the final group of soldiers are to attempt to take the enemy position. They have just seen the two previous waves of attacks slaughtered when they are ordered to go. The sergeant tries to rally them with his reminder that they are members of the British Empire, etc. The men, knowing that they will all die, begin quickly writing notes, removing wedding rings and other tokens, and stick them into the sandbags lining their trench. Aaaggghhh. Kills me every time I see it. The first time was in a history class in college. Thankfully, the professor left the lights off for a couple of minutes when it was over so that we could all compose ourselves.
The scene in Last of the Mohicans when Daniel Day Lewis kills his rival - who is being burned at a stake - so he doesn’t have to suffer the pain of being burned alive. Gets me every time.
The climactic scene of Of Mice and Men, specifically the version directed by Gary Sinise. So simple yet so sad.
The end of Dancer in the Dark. I was pretty much useless for a day after I saw that. I start to cry even listening to the soundtrack.
The scene in Jude in which the little boy kills his siblings. It disturbed me so much that I can’t stand to ever watch that film again. “We are too many.” shiver
And the suicide scene in Dead Poets’ Society. Something about the simple, understated visuals and Maurice Jarre’s droning score really get to me.
I’m listening to Art Bell’s guest host talking to David J. Skal about Universal monster movies- and Lon Chaney Jr… and I thought about his Lenny in OF MICE AND MEN… “I can see it, George! I can see it!” BANG!
I was in college, my brother in high school the afternoon we saw it on TV- we didn’t exactly cry but we did shout “Noooooooo!” rather plaintively.
If you’ve seen the French movie “Tout le Monde Cherche Son Chat”, there is a slightly retarded guy in the movie who is in love with the protagonist (a woman). Everyone makes fun of him throughout the entire movie, for various reasons, and he always laughs it off. There is a scene, though, where it becomes too much, and he goes from laughing with them to crying in an instant. It is well acted and very sad.
The entire film of the French movie Ponette. I’m not exaggerating when I say I cried from the first scene to the last without a break. It’s about a little 4-year old girl who was in a car accident with her mother, and her mother died, and she spends the entire film trying to understand why her mother isn’t coming back.
*The scene in Slingblade when Billy Bob Thornton gives the little boy his books, along with a bookmark he made that says “You will be happy” on it.
*Most of Ordinary People, but especially the last scene, when the father and son hug each other and cry. sniff
*One of the last scenes of Glory when Matthew Broderick’s body rolls on top of Denzel Washington’s corpse, and Broderick’s head falls on Washington’s chest.
*I saw The Mission many years ago, so I may be a little off on the details, but I remember sobbing in the theatre during the scene in which Robert DeNiro lies mortally wounded on the ground and looks through the flames of the burning mission and sees Jeremy Irons carrying the crucifix, undaunted.
