Not Babe, but this reminded me of another pig-based movie that never fails to get me: Charlotte’s Web. Not because of the pig, but because of the spider. Charlotte’s death always makes me cry. Every time I watch that movie I’m nicer to spiders for quite a while afterward. And I do not like spiders. 
That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do. 
Which reminds me of The Incredible Journey. I would consider it a perfect perfect movie and would buy it and watch it once a month, except the ending…it’s a happy ending, they keep you waiting a bit, but when the last one comes bounding out of the woods…
I cry BUCKETS, every time, smilin’ through my tears.
Does it make it better or worse to think that what’s shown on screen is a very tame version of an execution? No matter how lurid the film is, you couldn’t make a movie that showed exactly how casually brutal Roman society was — how casually brutal most societies were at the time actually. After putting down rebellions, major roads into and out of the regions would be festooned with crucifixions. Imagine seeing soon-to-be-corpses hanging from every single utility pole on your drive to and from work.
The remarkable thing about the crucifixion wasn’t that it happened (if Jesus even existed; that’s questionable). The depiction in the bible text wasn’t more brutal than the norm for a crucifixion. It was blown up into a big thing by the later Christians, but translating it into modern terms Jesus’s sentence would be about as noteworthy as a drug dealer getting 20 years, which is a standard sentence for trafficking — sometimes a mandatory minimum, depending on amount and jurisdiction. Accused of inciting rebellion? Flogging, public humiliation, and crucifixion. <bangs gavel> Next case!
That scene had me sobbing in a way which made my then-husband concerned. My grandfather was dying of cancer at the time and the Nazgul was sort of the personification of death, disease, and growing old.
Someone else upthread mentioned Deep Impact. I saw that movie in the theater by myself. I sobbed and sobbed. Partly it was thinking of what it might be like to have something like that actually happen. And partly it’s that I’m always deeply affected by self-sacrifice. So the folks in the ship going to their doom to help save the planet really got to me. And I love Robert Duvall, so there was that. 
When it was over, I NEEDED to go out and be with other people. Just to know that the world was still whole, and that we’re all still ok. So I went to a pub and talked to strangers, just for consolation.
“Well, look on the bright side. We’ll all have high schools named after us.”
Scenes of self-sacrifice always move me deeply as well.
The one I immediately thought of was Ordinary People. I saw it when it first came out, or shortly after; I was about 20, and I identified very strongly with Conrad, the teenager who is at the center of the movie. Same age, very much the same interests, same mom (well, his was much worse, but mine has many of the same qualities), some of the same hangups.
(No, I didn’t have a brother who died, and I never tried to kill myself.)
It seemed like me up there. I particularly remember the scene where he breaks down with the shrink. I felt flooded. And I’d read the book (and liked it too), so it wasn’t as though I didn’t know what was going to happen.
Saw it again a few years ago. It still packed a wallop, though not as much as it had back in 1980 or whenever it was.
One nice thing: I saw it first with my then-girlfriend, who patiently and lovingly dried my tears and listened to me ramble on afterward about how the movie made me feel and how I was JUST LIKE CONRAD GODDAMMIT. She is now my wife, and when I saw it again I saw it with her, and she did the same for me as she had almost 30 years before. Sweet, huh?
The last 10 or so minutes of Beasts of the Southern Wild make me into a puddle on the floor.
My wife saw Shoah in the theater. All nine hours in one day. I have no idea how she did it, other than the fact that she is a better person than I am.
Just wanted to say that for those who don’t have Netflix, “Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father” is on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVAzioPSKm4
Don’t read anything about it. Just watch it.
Also, I have to say that I don’t personally like the Eowyn scene in “The Return of the King”. The whole “I am no man! Hyaaah!” thing was a bit too Girl Power for me. I thought it took away from her characters quiet dignity in that scene in the book. I loved the LOTR movies overall, though.
Of course Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice, Saving Private Ryan, Gump, etc.
And then, there’s My Dog Skip.
Final scene.
Cried myself to the point of hiccups watching the original “An Affair to Remember.”
Meaning the Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant version.
All About My Mother was a tear-jerker for sure.
That little part in Up that explains Carl & Ellie’s life had me pretty choked up. My wife was bawling like you wouldn’t believe, it was so well-done.
I think I welled up a little when Nestor gets killed in The Mambo Kings.
In terms of other emotions, I got spooked enough to not be able to go to sleep after watching Spoorloos.
I’m not exactly the type to spend time getting emotional about films, but I saw Four Lions a few weeks ago and I have to admit it really has left quite an emotional impact.
Its a film about four wannabe Muslim suicide bombers in London, following them in their bumbling attempts to engage in Jihad and kill themselves in the name of their faith. I guess its supposed to be played for laughs, with the men getting involved in surreal situations like putting suicide vests on crows, and accidently getting the taliban killed by drone strikes while in Pakistan on a training excercise.
At least, I think its meant to be played for laughs, but it honestly left a deep sense of sadness watching these men to the end of the film.
The main character at least is an intelligent young man, with a young son and a wife who seems very much an equal. To see them casually talking at the dinner table about when their husband/father is going to blow himself up was profoundly sad to me. At the end their plan goes wrong, but they do actually all die, with the main character going into a chemist and detonating his bombs after he realises he is surrounded by police.
But whats worst, is that still I cannot tell WHY they were doing this? WHY were they prepared to die, what were they fighting against? Their loud words were full of generic “fight for our muslim brothers, rise up and cast off the chains of oppression” rhetoric , but I never once could understand just exactly why this guy was so prepared to leave his loving family behind.
What troubled me most was the realisation that there is no understanding of this. That most of these people prepared to kill themselves probably have no solid reasons for what they are doing, just a load of fuzzy anger at “The West”, and that it is all a terrible waste.
A few already mentioned resonated with me, but for initial, gut-wrenching impact I’ve two that haven’t been mentioned:
*The Nutty Professor *(Eddie Murphy edition). I was pregnant with my first child at the time, and I sobbed through the whole movie because people were SO MEAN to him because he was fat. That was definitely the hormones.
The one movie that has ripped me apart emotionally while I was in a more sane frame of mind was Pay It Forward. At the very end of the movie, when Spacey and Hunt are in the apartment and hear the noise outside I completely lost it, and could not regain my composure for a good fifteen minutes.
Yep, that’s mine.
Made me nauseous.
Not a movie but the documentary series The World at War DVD set has, among it’s additional episodes, The Final Solution: Parts One & Two. Combined with the episode Genocide, it’s harrowing stuff.
I was just talking about this the other day. I don’t watch many movies because they can put me in a funk for days.
The movie that had the most impact on my life was Baraka.
I saw that whole series on Armed Forces TV when I was in Korea, in 1976. And the episodes you mention are the ones I vividly remember. As in the aftermath, when piles of emaciated bodies are being dumped into a mass grave, shoveled in by an earthmover.
At that point one other gal in my barracks who saw that went “Ewww! That’s gross, why do they have to show that?” I didn’t say anything but I was thinking “So maybe it doesn’t ever happen again, you bitch!”
When I went to see E.T. at 12 years old I remember cheering when E.T. “died” and hoping they’d kill Elliot too. My mom was pretty pissed (it turned out to be one of her favorite movies), but I hated that movie with a passion and still do. I’m not sure I can articulate why.