Wow, could those French guys ** be ** any more upbeat?
I remember another recent French film of happiness, joy and whimsy, lauded by critics and panned by lowbrow jerks… I believe it was called “Trois Hommes et un Couffin”.
I’ve got a couple of slightly obscure ones that get me every time:
Stella, starring Bette Midler–when she gives up her daughter to the rich father so she can have a better life and she’s standing out in the rain, watching her wedding from the outside and says, “I just want to see her face.”
Without a Trace, starring Kate Nelligan and Judd Hirsch–when the cop (Hirsch) find her (Nelligan’s) missing boy in another state and brings him home with all the cop cars escorting them and they pull up in front of the apartment and the mom’s coming home with a bag of groceries. She sees her son get out of the car, drops her bag and runs to him. That whole scene makes me sob!
And most recently, Monsters, Inc.–not only the scene where Sully brings Boo back to her room, but when Boo is scared by Sully (the look on her face is heartbreaking).
Aaaaand, of course, chalk me up as another Terms of Endearment crybaby. When the Crunch 'N Munch kid starts crying, I lose it!
It would have been sad except that Han utters one of the coolest movie lines (IMHO) ever:
Leia: Han I love you!
Han: I know!
The entire ending of Last of the Mohicans was pretty sad.
Top Gun When Goose dies (and Mavarick goes into his spiral of self pity and depression)
I can’t remember the title, but there was this cheesy made-for Sci Fi Channel movie a couple years back where this pilot is delivering vital drugs to some space colony in some kind of cheap disposable landing vehicle loaded with just enough fuel to reach its destination. Anyhow, there’s this girl stowed away on board which sets off the weight just enough that the ship won’t be able to land. So basically the entire movie is the two of them scrambing to jetison enough crap from the ship (which is pretty sparse in the first place) while the pilot must face the moral delema of killing the girl or x number of colonists. In any event, it ends badly and its pretty sad I guess if you can get past the mediocre acting and the ridiculous premise of the plot.
Sounds like Leinster’s The Cold equations.
The end of The Third Man, as Holly stands under a tree waiting for Anna, and she walks toward him, past him, and out of the frame, never acknowledging his presence. And the camera just keeps rolling as Holly lights a cigarette and throws away the match. He’s just crushed. It is brilliant and heartbreaking.
I’d like to add one:
The end of “Billy Budd” where Billy Budd, after being convicted by Capt. Veer of a murder he knows Budd didn’t committ (and for which Veer has finally decided to let Budd hang for the good of the Royal Navy), cries “God Bless Cap’n Veer” as he is hanged.
Another one occurred to me last night as we were watching “The Devil’s Advocate” with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino:
In the mental hospital, when Mary Ann barricades herself in the room, then stabs herself in the throat with a piece of broken glass, as her husband is frantically trying to break in to stop her.
Okay, don’t shoot me.
Pearl Harbor. The attack is over, and the sailors are frantically trying to drill through the hull to get to their buddies out before the water completely fills the ship.
They have a hole, but only large enough for hands to get through. The water is splashing, they can’t get them out in time, and the sailors grab the hands of the soon to be dead sailors, so they don’t die alone.
Damn, I’m crying as I type this.
[nitpick]I thought the line was “Every day since has been a tie.”[/nitpick]
Regards,
Shodan
Nope. The saddest movie ever is **The Biscuit Eater **(Not the Disney version, or course). When the little boy calls his dog a no-account biscuit eater and makes him break his point, and Promise (the dog) looks at him like his heart is breaking, when the kid betrays the dog’s love to help his father, your heart can’t help breaking. Then later on, when Promise is shot by the kennelman while he’s trying to climb into his mate’s kennel and he dies in his boy’s arms…I get tears just thinking about it.
Dog movies - they’ll get me every time.
StG
Then if it’s not too late, StG, do not see My Dog Skip. I don’t even want to get into Skip curling up on the bed when the kid finally leaves home. I lost it completely.
And whoever mentioned the scene in the woods in A.I., that was exactly what I was thinking of.
Hit submit too soon.
I wanted to mention the end of Brassed Off, when the band takes a spin around London in a double-decker bus after winning the trophy, and they begin playing. Ouch.
You should see John Malkovich playing Lenny in Sinise’s version. Wow. It’s such a remarkably sudden moment, too. I knew it was coming and yet I didn’t see it coming… you know?
Kirby’s line is definitely “Same day.” I think Stern’s line might be “Every day since (his wedding day) has been a tie (for his worst day).”
One of the saddest moments I’ve ever seen wasn’t in a movie, but in a commercial. This little toddler is taking his first steps away from his mother and toward his grandfather and the grandfather’s smiling and urging him on. Then the little boy walks right through him, because the grandfather’s died of cancer and there’s this massive look of realization and regret on the grandfather’s face. Kills me, just thinking about it.
Oh, and the cemetary scene in “Torch Song Trilogy”.
Can’t watch that anymore, either.
as much as i dislike the rest of the movie the scene at the end of “The Green Mile” where all the prison guards are crying as they put the big black guy (cant remember his or his characters name) to death made me cry. which is amazing in itself as i generally dont do that.
i guess it was the whole knowing youre killing an innocent man but having to do it anyway thing that gets me.
There’s a lot of scenes here that I absolutely agree with, especially *Schindler’s List. * But I have actually cried in movie theaters only twice.
Once was at a scene in *Barry Lyndon, * of all things. It’s the time when the spoiled little boy has been mortally injured trying to ride a horse too strong for him. As he lays dying in his bed, he says there is only one thing he wants, for his parents to stop fighting. They nod and the scene cuts to his funeral procession. His little coffin is on the toy cart he used to drive, with the goats pulling it. The way the music well up at that point made me lay my head on my husband’s shoulder and sob.
And in *E.T. * I cry when, having had the alien revealed to her, the mom, in fear, pulls all the kids out of the bathroom. ET is lying there sick to death, and now it looks to him as if he is being abandoned. He reaches out his hand and cries. I sobbed at that too. And I didn’t even cry when he died(we all do that), just at the despair he must have been feeling.
The entire movie The Elephant Man had me in a blue funk for days. The “I am not an animal!” scene is therapy couch material. Great movie. I’ll never watch it again.
The ending of The Crucible when John chooses his good name over his life. 
The scene in Titanic where they show a young mother reading a book to her kids as the ship is sinking. And it hits home so clearly that these people knew they were going to die.
And of course, Old Yeller and the wolf (and horse) shootings in Dances With Wolves. Gawd, I hate animal violence.
I’d like to second the ending of Glory Great music IIRC. Always makes me cry.