This should be fun…
Give your saddest movie nomination, and why.
I have to go with “The Story of Us” Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeifer.
Unfortunately, I cried my eyes out during this one, because it reminded me way too much of my parents while I was growing up. I think it was healthy though.
Fail Safe (Henry Fonda - 1964) or On The Beach (Gregory Peck - 1959)
Losing humanity seems pretty sad to me.
I thought Leaving Las Vegas was very depressing.
“Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl”
I can’t think of a saddest movie per se, tho SYBIL with Sally Fields was pretty heart & gut-wrenching.
The most depressing movie I’ve seen is JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (please God, make them put it back into print!)
What dreams may come ~
Robin Williams
Antarctica. The story follows a team of abandoned sled dogs as they slowly freeze and starve to death.
Also in the category of “losing all humanity”, the somewhat overlooked Miracle Mile, with Anthony Edwards.
Just happened to see Casino again last night and found myself thoroughly depressed by the end, although it is unclear whether this was because of the complete unlikability of the characters or simply its interminable length. What a catalogue of self-inflicted misery, though.
“Breaking The Waves” in which Emily Watson suffers horribly at the hands of a cruel religious community, has to be one of the most moving films ever (despite director Lars Von Trier’s constant ironic devices). Von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark” is also quite moving, but a bit more contrived.
“Sling Blade” (in which Billy Bob Thornton is a simple-minded murderer) also had me crying loads. As did “The Royal Tenenbaums”, though neither are primarily tearjerkers.
(On the other hand, “Terms of Endearment” has to be the least tragic intended-weepie ever.)
I’ll repeat what I said last time this topic came up:
“Grave of the Fireflys”
It’s about two Japanese war orphans starving to death. Unrelentingly heartbreaking. An order of magnitude sadder than any other movie I’ve ever seen.
“Artificial Intelligence” - for two reasons. Neither is enough to nominate it by itself, but both together is depressing:
David spends all of eternity praying to the blue fairy in vain. That is the end of the movie. Ignore the spielburg-esque alien scene. That’s just a mass hallucination.
The second reason is because of spielburg’s desecration of what would otherwise have been a half-decent movie. Everytime I think of it I get depressed.
Simon Birch is pretty sad, and one of only three movies I remember crying during. One of the others was The Iron Giant, so I guess I’m a sucker for
sacrificing your life/existence to save others.
I am going to second what ** Pochacco ** said; “Grave of the Fireflys” made * me * cry, and I am a heartless, insensative bastard.
I nominate Sophie’s Choice, though I cried more when I read the book.
“Butcher Boy,” directed by Neil Jordan, based on the novel by Patrick McCabe. The film, by the way, is a regular light-hearted comedy compared to the book (or any of McCabe’s other books).
Brian’s Song gets my vote.
Since Grave of the Fireflies has been said already, I’ll nominate my second choice, Awakenings.
Powder…watched that one and Leaving Las Vegas in the same night. Ugh.
Also, the following chick-like-flicks
Boys on the Side
Moonlight and Valentino
Playing by Heart
When a Man Loves a Woman
And Schindler’s list
6th Sense ending made me weepy too
farewell my concubine was really sad
Whoa, I was just thinking of “Farewell My Concubine”…
I thought “The Pianist” was pretty damn depressing.