Ghost World, while never moving me directly to tears, had me real goddamn depressed for at least 24 hours straight. No joke.
Huozhe (“To Live”) had me crying like a colicky baby.
Goodbye Mr. Chips
This is quite obscure, but Christine Fugates documentary The Girl Next Door is one of the saddest, most tragic stories I’ve seen in a long while. It follows 2 years in the life of Oklahoma housewife Stacey Baker who decides to become a porn star and renames herself Stacey Valentine. She is a woman who makes so many bad decisions over the course of 2 years you end wondering whether you should feel sorry for her or not. Everything she does is voluntary, not enforced, so at times it is difficult the have any sympathy for her.
I think I saw a copy of Housewifey McPornstar at my local Blockbuster once. It certainly didn’t look like it was intended to be a dark drama sobfest. Are you being some sort of prude or was the movie actually depressing?
Oh dear heavens yes. I didn’t just teared up–I was a crying mess for the last 45 minutes of this film when I first saw it. Still guarantees a good cry from me whenever I rewatch it.
Not even close to being a prude. The movie was genuinely depressing. This was a woman who, before she became a porn star seemed quite normal. After 2 years in the industry she was almost unrecognizable. Repeated plastic surgery and a number of very, very bad relationship decisions certainly took their toll on her very quickly.
** SPOILERS **
2 scenes really stand out as depressing as hell. In the first she and her boyfriend have to do a 3 some with another guy and she decides to screw the other guy first. The distraught look on her boyfriends face, and her consequent interview are very sad. In the second a rich guy in France offers her money to sleep with him and she accepts. Her reasoning behind doing this is also very sad but her reaction when she returns is even more depressing.
** END SPOILERS **
By the way, how do I do the ** SPOILERS ** thing with that black box all the clever people use.
Just like any other vB tag (use square brackets, not the curly ones shown here)-
{spoiler}They all die at the end after finding out he was a cheetah, after all.{/spoiler}
becomes
They all die at the end after finding out he was a cheetah, after all.
All that coding stuff can be found in the ATMB forum.
Beat me to it, except I’ve watched it a dozen times. The first time, I started crying as soon as Merrick started speaking, and I stopped crying about the time we pulled up in the driveway of our home, and I am perfectly serious.
This is going to probably seem strange, but Minority Report made me bawl in the theater, so much so that I almost threw up.
I had a few drinks at dinner before the movie which probably contributed to its effect on me, but the whole story line about his son being abducted absolutely killed me. I was depressed for days afterward, and am still incredibly paranoid that someone will try to take my 2 year old daughter.
The original movie version of CHRISTMAS MEMORY starring Geraldine Page and narrated by Truman Capote. (The Patty Duke remake doesn’t pack 3% of the emotional wallop.) The bond between Buddy (the 7 year old Truman) and his retarded aunt, Sook, is just heart wrenching.
A.I. I cried like a baby several times.
I don’t think one person has mentioned Requiem for a Dream. How can this be? I felt sick after watching that. The most depressing part was what happened to Ellen Burstyn’s character. JoeyHemlock reminded me that Julia Roberts won the Oscar for Best Actress that year. Travesty!
Also, Dancer in the Dark. Wow. Urgh. What an amazing movie, though.
[sort of off topic]
I hate watching sad movies. Why would I want to make myself upset/cry.[/sort of off topic]
That’s why I hate The Lion King. The majority of it is sad. 
I thought I Am Sam was pretty dang sad, I cried for a bit over that one.
But my vote goes to 8 Seconds for the all time saddest. It just gets to me how everything Lane and his wife have worked for gets shattered when he dies.
speaking of Sad Sad Films About Retarded Folk™, I see nobody’s mentioned that seminal late-80s tearjerker, Rain Man.
To add another film to the pantheon of depressing nuclear-warfare films: “Testament”.
Very moving film about a small town in California dealing with the aftereffects of a nuclear war. It centers mostly around a mother who has to take care of her children even in the almost certain knowledge of her husband’s death during the attack (she never finds out for sure) and the widespread panic, social malaise, and eventual radiation poisoning that spreads throughout the town.
The grim determination and stoicism of the characters to go on living even as they face unavoidable sickness and death is moving and sad beyond description.
Not a lot of Oscar moments, but very stirring touches of human realism…the scene where the mother, having just burned her child in a community funeral pyre, falls into the arms of a dazed and incoherent priest and kisses him passionately strikes a lot of chords…two people trying to remain human and sane.
The Cure
Truly, Madly, Deeply is terribly sad, but the ending feels right too.
Schindler’s List. Wow.
Avalon, a lesser-known Barry Levinson. The scene where
Old Sam is in the nursing home, his grandson visits, and all the kid wants to do is watch the goddamn TV gets me every time.
The delicate, haunting Randy Newman score helps a great deal.
One True Thing is the sadest one I’ve ever seen.
Thanks to all you gracious people who used spoiler warnings, I haven’t seen several of these. I am darn curious about Grave of the Fireflies now and will rent it in due time. My nomination for most waterworks during a movie has to be* La Vita e Belle* or Life is Beautiful, by Robero Benigni.