Thirty years later, the friend I saw it with still tells the story about me watching Reds. Warren Beatty’s obsequious paean to Communist organizer John Reed was nothing I’d expected to like, having little regard for the ideology or its adherents. The story proceeds throughout his youth, with heavy emphasis on the love interest with Diane Keaton, all set to repeated snatches of “their song”: the children’s ditty “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard.” I don’t think I’m spoiling anything–it’s a matter of historical record, and foreshadowed from the opening scenes–when I say that the action progresses to his early demise, with requisite tearful deathbed embrace…and the background swells with a full orchestral arrangement of “I DON’T WANT TO PLAY IN YOUR YARD…” And at that moment, I broke up laughing so loudly and hysterically that the entire audience was buzzing. I couldn’t stop throughout the rest of the movie. I think a lot people didn’t like me anymore…
Inland Empire scared me worse than any movie I’ve ever seen in the theater. No specific scenes jump to mind, just the general atmosphere of relentless terror that permeates the entire second half or so of the film. (Walking home alone afterward, a mile in the dark, didn’t help. But I did go back to see it again almost every day for a week after that.)
Hard question to answer so I will answer an easier question.
The movie that gave me the most immediate response and where I cried the most was Barry Lyndon when his son died and the music was really good at that scene
During The Dark Knight, I jumped out of my seat and clapped when Gordon removed his mask and arrested The Joker. It was a packed theater in a midnight showing. I was the only idiot standing and clapping. My friends still like to laugh about it. Hey, I thought he was dead!
Philadelphia with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. The scene that got to me: Hanks character has AIDS and has been fired because of it. He asks Denzel to represent him in suing his former employer and Denzel declines. (This was in the '80’s when many people didn’t know anything about AIDS and how it was transmitted.) Hanks leaves Denzel’s office, walks out of the building and onto the sidewalk and then just stands there. The camera moves in slowly for a closeup. God, the hurt, pain, hopelessness, sadness – all manner of emotions could be seen in his face and I hurt for him. His academy award for best actor was well deserved.
Ayup. There’s this one part where she’s in a hall and there’s this dude next to an open door, I think, and his mouth is all weird. Freaked me the fuck out. I am creeped out just thinking about it.
Watching “Up” about a year after my first husband died was not the best choice I’ve ever made. I’m glad I wasn’t at a theater, since I was pretty devastated.
One of the most powerful reactions I’ve ever had at a theater was “City of Angels” which made me so angry I could have punched Meg Ryan in the face. I would have said Nicolas Cage, but that’s not that unusual.
I feel for you. That scene wrecked me, and I was only imagining losing my wife. But I did have a similar experience seeing All That Jazz with my mom a few months after my dad died. Not a good film for the widow of a charismatic workaholic.
This is the one I came in here to mention. Only movie I’ve seen that left me shaken afterward.
I just sat there for a few minutes when it was over.
Pixar got me good twice in a row.
I watched Toy Story 3 while home from college with my family and that got me pretty good, as someone who kinda grew up along with Andy.
But much worse was watching Up very shortly after my younger brother was stillborn. 
I don’t know your story, but I am going to guess that you have a personal connection to the story of Brokeback Mountain. If you didn’t…if you are a straight man or a woman who watched that movie with no personal connection to the story…then you have just written the single most persuasive review for a movie that I have ever read in my life. I have seen the movie and your post still makes me want to rent it and watch it again!
I thought I was the only one
Boys Don’t Cry left me filled with a horrible combination of grief and rage for weeks.
Pan’s Labyrinth captivated me pretty much from moment one. When it finally ended, I felt gutted, absolutely physically and emotionally exhausted. I went home and went right to bed, I was just completely drained. It’s the only movie that’s had such a profound effect on me, it totally wrung me out.
Although… that montage in the beginning of Up… I was in bed with my husband watching that movie for the first time as a rental. I totally broke down weeping all over him. It actually made me angry, because it was so beautiful and so damn calculated and manipulative.
“The Gift”. Katie Holmes’ boobies, finally. Up there in massive-o-vision.
The Deer Hunter had me stand up in the cinema and yell *“NOOOOOOOOO!!!” * at the Russian roulette scene, and I cried for about 3 days after that movie. Serpico had about the same effect. (Maybe more since I was in love with Al Pacino at the time.)
Suspiria scared the crap outta me; Misery had me literally on the floor of the movie theatre when she smashed his ankles with the sledgehammer; and Silence of the Lambs shook me so badly I was frightened walking to the car. (In broad daylight. Somehow it just felt dark…)
ET had me sniffling snot like a toddler; along with Life is Beautiful (only with more gusto.)
A Clockwork Orange had me feeling nauseous, and I walked out of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover for similar reason.
The Three Musketeers and Dangerous Liaisons just made me horny.
Yes, this is stealth bragging, but whenever a movie succeeds in eliciting a strong emotional reaction, it also gets me going on analyzing how it pulled the trick off.
Coming from an Irish-American family that made the Ducky Boys look like Darby O’Gill and the Little People, I’m the prime target demographic for Long Day’s Journey Into Night. I’ve seen various productions, most of which get one thing wrong: Mary’s wedding dress speech, which ends the play with her sinking back into drug addiction, comes out only a few minutes after Jamie’s “I love your guts, kid” speech. If done right, Jamie’s speech tears the audience’s hearts out.
Too many actresses seem to think Mary’s monologue, not Jamie’s, is the big curtain wringer, and overdo it. But, of all people, Katherine Hepburn knew to underplay it, and let its impact rest on everyone’s reaction. All the characters have been bitching and yelling for over two hours, on one last fit of this won’t make a difference. What works at the end is Mary as the figure of desolation.
The ending of Raising Arizona always has me in tears of happiness.
District 9 for me. There were moments in that movie when I very nearly left the theatre because I was having trouble coping with the casual brutality (especially going in knowing who the creator was and what he was drawing from).
On a lighter note, the only other movie I’ve ever almost walked out of was The Dark Knight Rises, because the second act was just that terrible.
I saw Return of the King on opening night, first showing, and the scene where Eowyn faces down the Witchking, chief of the Nazgul, had me and the rest of the theater cheering and screaming on her behalf. I still love that scene.