Well, just to show what kind of movie geek I am…
(and we’ve already mentioned Chaney Jr)
There’s a devestating moment in 1920’s The Penalty with Chaney Sr-
Our villain discovers that the girl working the pedals of the piano for him is a spy, but cannot bring himself to kill her because of the music- she’s the best pedaler he’s ever had. Even the title cards are moving. 
Gallipoli had a similar effect on me and I had the advantage of watching it at home, alone, so no one could laugh at me.
AL
I don’t know if this has already been mentioned. I haven’t the energy to search through 70ish replies…
I think the saddest ‘moment’ in a movie was at the end of ‘the pledge’ where, despite being the hero for most of the film (except at the end where he crosses a line) the killer is never found and the star becomes a drunk.
The Royal Tenenbaums - Ben Stiller’s line at the end: “It’s been a rough year, Dad.” gets me every time. It’s a beautiful moment.
Man. No one mentioned the “We have all the time in the world” line from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.
Sure, Lazenby wasn’t the best bond, but after seeing all the others, with Bond ruthlessly hunting down so many people…
Him having his wife killed moments after the wedding… Still gets me.
– When Thomas More’s family visits his prison cell in “A Man For All Seasons.”
– The suicide of Neil Perry in “Dead Poet’s Society” and the subsequent reaction to it, leading up to the triumphant yet bittersweet ending where the students stand on their desks.
– There’s a British gay-themed coming-of-age movie called “Get Real” that involves two young students coming to terms with their homosexuality; towards the end, they are embracing in a locker room and the “jock’s” friends see them. Eager to maintain his disguise, the “jock” character shouts out something like “Queer bastard!” and shoves his lover to the floor, then runs off, effectively ending their relationship. That was pretty depressing.
– When the Mimi Rogers character shoots her daughter in “The Rapture.”
Anyone for just about the whole of “A Beautiful Mind”
Damn that was a good film.
Merrin
Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964). The horse Marnie (Tippi Hedren) has been riding has just broken its leg, and is in great pain. Marnie, who psychologically identifies with the horse, begs a bystander for a gun, and shoots the horse. Then whispers through her tears, “There… there now…”
Charles Foster Kane tearing up his wife Susan’s bedroom in a fury when she leaves him, only to stop when he sees the snow globe that had been on her dressing table the night he met her. And as he holds it, he mutters only, “Rosebud,” acknowledging everything in his life he had loved and lost.
Another moment from Schindler’s List, not mentioned, that literally choked me up was the epilogue showing the real-life Schindler’s Jews one by one each placing a small rock in tribute on Schindler’s grave in Israel. It just moves me even now to think about it.
Oh, so so many. To acknowledge a few already posted:
Zoff, that scene in A Simple Plan is utterly heartbreaking. He’s so matter-of-fact about it. The scene at the end where Jacob (Billy Bob) meets his end is awful too.
Nope, definitely not. Although I tend to get more teary at the really happy moments, like when he says “It’s my family. It’s small, and broken, but still good. Yep, still good.”
And Legomancer – I’ve seen Royal Tennenbaums four times now, and the “It’s been a bad year” line has me bawling every single time. You’d think I would’ve seen it coming by now…
In retrospect, I think Forrest Gump is pretty manipulative and pandering, but there’s one scene that got to me hard when I saw it: it’s when Jenny and Forrest are in one or the other’s dorm room, and she helps him come (I’ve forgotten the details, and I can’t think of a better way to put it). In any case, that was just so bleak and miserable that it had me crying through the rest of the movie.
I couldn’t even cry during Grave of the Fireflies; that movie was so relentlessly horrible (in subject matter, not in the quality of the movie itself) that I couldn’t feel anything other than that I wanted it to be over.
Oh, so so many. To acknowledge a few already posted:
Zoff, that scene in A Simple Plan is utterly heartbreaking. He’s so matter-of-fact about it. The scene at the end where Jacob (Billy Bob) meets his end is awful too.
Number Six: The Grant/Bergman scenes in Notorious slay me every time. I had goosebumps just remembering them as I read your post.
Labdad: That final scene of The Third Man is a killer. We’re watching her walk closer and closer, and thinking The Good Guy is going to Get The Girl, and very slowly we realize she’s not stopping.
The end of Chaplin’s Modern Times always gets me too, manipulative and sappy as it is. Chaplin has raised the money to get the blind girl the operation to restore her sight, but now, because she can see, she’s going to find out he’s a tramp instead of a rich guy. He goes to see her, and we can almost hear (in a silent film) his heart pounding. He sees her, she sees him, and she figures out he’s the one, and…
She accepts him and loves him anyway! And the look on his face, and his body language as he takes a deep, shuddering breath, just make me fall apart no matter how many times I see them.
One more: A few months ago I watched The Sixth Sense. There was a scene in there with the little kid and his mom when she tells him she’ll always love him no matter what that had me sobbing (possibly because of the similarity between his situation and my own at his age).
You’re thinking of City Lights (1931).
In the film The Longest Day. THe U.S. pathfinders have landed in the wrong place right in the middle of the town of St Mere Eglise. We watch as PFC John Steele (Red Buttons) parachute lands on the church steeple and the horror in his eyes as he watches what enfolds below.
When a Man Loves a Woman when the little girl asks, “What’s an alcoholic?” and her sister tells her it’s when the mom is sad and cries a lot in the shower and bumps into things…while Andy Garcia looks on and realizes how painful it must be to live in that house…
The scene I just CAN’T watch is Greg Kinner getting beaten up in As Good as it Gets. As soon as the music gets turned up and the dog gets kicked out of the room, I skip to the next chapter…
worse than Mimi Rogers shooting her daughter…
The daughter at the Gates of Heaven begging Mimi to love God & come in… and Mimi refuses.
Ok, cheesy movie, but always gets me: The end of The Seventh Sign when Demi Moore is trying to give birth in the middle of the apocalypse and has to choose between her life and the life of her child to save the world. Every time I’m bawling.
And also, pretty much the whole movie My Life. I just can’t watch it at all anymore.
And of course the funeral in Steel Magnolias where Sally Field is going back and forth from being sad to angry.
WarGames
[David Lightman wasn’t able to convince Dr. Falkien to stop World War III. He and Jennifer are now trying to get off of Falkien’s island.]
David: I can’t swim.
Jennifer: You can’t swim?
David: No, I can’t, OK, Wonder Woman? I can’t swim.
Jennifer: Well, what kind of an asshole grows up in Seattle and doesn’t even know how to swim?
David: I never got around to it, okay? I always thought there was gonna be plenty of time!
Jennifer: Sorry.
David: I wish I didn’t know about any of this. I wish I was like everybody else in the world, and tomorrow it would just be over. There wouldn’t be any time to be sorry about anything. Oh, Jesus! I really wanted to learn how to swim. I swear to God I did.
The Count of Monte Cristo
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT, IF YOU CAN’T SEE A REALLY OBVIOUS SCENE APPROACHING.
Richard Harris’ death scene. Not because it was great or anything, but because I watched it the day after he actually died. Not a great movie, but he was great as always.
I guess the book, where he hangs only himself, wasn’t amazingly depressing enough for Hollywood?
For me, the one scene where tears were uncontrollable was in The Waterdance, where William Forsythe finds out he doesn’t have a chance of winning his lawsuit, the one hope he had. He is a character who acts really tough so to see him break down was so sad.
Also, I know it’s corny and manipulative, but I always get chills and teary when the crowd shows up on the beach at the end of Longtime Companion.
Oh, and when Jack Nicholson is brought back lobotomized in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and the Chief can’t get him to respond.
Also, killings or executions when you are on the victim’s side:
–Gallipoli
–Let Him Have It (truly heartbreaking and frustrating)
–Breaker Morant
–Braveheart
An old Cary Grant, Irene Dunne movie Penny Serenade.
They can’t have kids, they adopt a baby girl and she dies.
Relentlessly sad. Extremely tragic. Nobody in the movies has ever been sadder than these parents when this happens.
I used to think maybe someone really did die to make them act this sad.
Do not have new moms watch this one.
The Green Mile
Come on, John Coffey really isn’t gonna be executed. Not after what he did to save the wardens’ wife. He’ll be saved at the last minute.
No. Nuts…