D’Oh! You’re right.
And don’t forget Paths of Glory !
Whereas I find that scene completely irritating because it was an over-the-top invention by the Master Manipulator himself. I think it cheapened the movie completely.
My vote goes to ** The Elephant Man, ** pretty much all the way through. Which is how long I cried. Literally. I started crying the minute he recited the prayer and did not stop until I was all the way home.
If you wish a movie chocked full of very sad scenes, that leaves you so depressed and borderline suicidal, well at least has an impact there is nothing like:
On the Beach. My God that movie was depressing. Good, but depressing.
I’m sad to see that Schindlers List ending scene was completely fabricated but that was also a scene that got to me.
Saving Private Ryan ending scene where the man was asking his wife if he was a good husband and father was very touching.
Field of Dreams seemed to have everyone leaving the theater glistening in the eye.
I also remember Gallipoli and the scene that someone else mentioned where they knew they were going to die and reacted accodingly. I saw that one young also and it was powerful IMHO.
Andy
As for the Green Mile (I can’t believe I forgot that one) the movie was good but reading it in the book was even sadder.
The final sequence in the original production of Truman Capote’s A CHRISTMAS MEMORY. Oy, so ferklempt I’ve never been as when seeing the Geraldine Page version.
I recently saw a stage show that combined THANKSGIVING MEMORY with CHRISTMAS MEMORY and the actress who played Sook was phenomenal. I was one of several grown and not particularly sentimental men who couldn’t talk for a few minutes after leaving.
Beware the remake that stars Patty Duke- it doesn’t pack 1% of the emotional wallop of the original.
If I may chime in, I have a coupla more nominations…
In The Mummy, after the fighter crash lands, and Rick goes to wake up Winston. Especially the music when the quicksand draws in the plane. 
And, The Mummy Returns, the reaction shot of Imhotep when Anuksunamun abandons him.
Word.
Also, in a wonderful Canadian film about the end of the world called ** Last Night **, after an amusing scene between a the main character and his best friend, the main character says soething like “See you later,” out of habit, and his friend reminds him “No you won’t.” That and the very last sars, and I do not cry.
Computer…too…slow. The missing words are “scene had me in tears.” Also, my “M” key isn’t very sensitive. That is all.
Not really the “saddest” moment in a movie, but one that was pregnant with meaning:
In the original “Fail-Safe,” General Bogen (Frank Overton) is talking to his Soviet counterpart, chit-chatting while they hope the bombers can be shot down.
He asks him “Are you in Moscow?” To which the Soviet general says, “No–I was ordered out.”
At this time, General Bogen is looking over the dossier on his counterpart, seeing that he has a family–which is almost certainly still in Moscow, and doomed to perish.
Man! I can’t believe nobody mentioned the scene in Dumbo where he goes to the cage where his mother is locked up and his mom caresses him with her trunk and then rocks him…Oh man, Im totally crying just thinking about it! and when I see it,we’re talking huge, shoulder shaking sobbing!
La Bette in Belle?s bedroom at her vanity table. He touches the brushes, the chair, he picks up a veil of hers and smells it, and his anguish is heartbreaking.
Murky, yes, I was a sucker for Ohana
The end of City Lights: ?Yes, I can see now.?
Roy Batty is a fav of a lot of people. I like.
> [Mother] Quick to the thicket! Run! Faster, faster! Don’t look back!
(BLAM!)
[Bambi](after reaching their den) We made it mother! Mother?
(Bambi wanders through the snow in the dark forest) Mother! Mother!
Mother!
[Great Stag of the Forrest] Your mother can’t be with you any more.<
Ok, I?m having another ?episode? now and they are sure to increase my meds.
>The reading of the poem in Four Weddings and a Funeral.<
What is that poem, anyone?
>John Merrick removing the pillow from behind his head in The Elephant Man.<
Yes, to Adagio for strings. Just shoot me now.
HAL being lobotomized by Dave Bowman stuck me as necessary but tragic.
The end of Schindler?s List. I feel that way if I forget to recycle. Sun in Virgo.
The end of Gladiator: ?Go to them.? Rhapsodic music.
Yeah, kudos to Bruce Dern and Huey, Dewey and Louis in Silent Running.
Jackson crying for the death of young Jane Beale from Scarlet Fever in Gods and Generals.
Excalibur: Arthur to Gueneviere at the end: ?It is my dream, that in the hereafter of life, when I owe no more to the world, and can be just a man, that you will come and spring to me and claim me for your husband. It is a dream I have.?
Billy Bigelow to Julie Jordon in Carousel: ?Believe, Julie. Know that I loved you.?
Sean Connery in ?The Wind and the Lion.? ?Have never known anything worth losing everything for??
Jeremy Irons in ?The Time Machine? ?We all have our time machines. Those that take us to the past are called memories; the ones that take us to the future are dreams.?
The mural inside the dome at the end of Bram Stoker?s Dracula.
?My name is Wind in his Hair. Do you not see that I will be your friend forever??~Dances with Wolves
?If I ever raise my hand against you, may God strike me dead.?~Richard Jordon, who was dying of a brain tumor in his last film, as General Armistead in ?Gettysburg.?
Boromir clutching his sword to his chest.
Wow - some powerfully sad stuff here -
Here’s my choices:
Spock’s death from Wrath of Khan
entire orcs attack/Boromir’s death/Frodo leaves sequence in FOTR
“Superman” from Iron Giant
The whole miserbale story of Paths of Glory
The ending of Sophies Choice
When we learn of Tom Robinson’s death in To Kill a Mockingbird
Testament - all sad
Truman Capote’s final narration in Thanksgiving Memory (the version with Geraldine Page)
I’m tearing up now, thinking of it.
XiuXiu the sent down girl. All of it, but the end was so tragic, it was like a punc in the stomach.
*punch
Okay, so I’m easy to manipulate.
The end of Titanic, when Rose tries to rouse Jack to tell him there’s a bost coming. When she realizes he’s died and lets go of his hand I just lose it.
Oh, I love this line!!! Gets me every time. Another moment that makes me cry is Lancelot, when asked by Guenevere who he loves, saying “While you live, I will love no other.”
I’m glad to see this thread resurrected, I missed it the first time; lots of great moments mentioned. Isn’t it amazing that these stories can touch us so deeply?
One I’m surprised to not have seen so far is Fearless with Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez. The part where they decide to go to the mall and buy Christmas presents for her dead son and she sees a baby being held by his mother. She walks over and thinks about touching him, but instead just watches him and breathes in the scent. The moment and the music is just devastating and beautiful.
I was also watching About a Boy the other night and found myself crying at the plight of poor Marcus, who thinks he has lost his one and only friend when Hugh Grant goes back to being a self involved jerk for a few scenes. Marcus is so sad and alone, it just made me cry. What a surprisingly great movie! (ending is a bit happier)
Oh, by the way, Mothchunks the poem in Four Weddings and a Funeral is referred to as “Funeral Blues” by W. H. Auden.
You can find the entire poem here
Definitely a sad moment in film.
AI where the little android is crying and wailing and begging his mother not to leave him behind in the woods because “I’ll be the best boy ever” or the scene at the end when he’s waiting for the Blue Fairy in the water.
I needed a mop for those scenes.
I have to give my saddest moment to in Dancer in the Dark (suprise suprise) but not at the end, but when she is up against the vent and looking so helpless.
To add to the Lord of the Rings people, saddest moment is with the trees, and all of his friends have been cut down (sorry for my lack of literary knowledge…i just know that makes me cry)
And lastly im suprised noone has pointed it out
the lion King
“Come on Dad, we have to go home now”
Broke every childs heart around the world