# Why do we watch sad movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589 "2013-02-28T03:09:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/1 "2013-02-28T03:09:34Z")
So I just finished Terms of Endearment for the 25th time, and I look like I got punched in both eyes. I cry more now then when I first saw it 25 years ago! But, I will always watch it, and Beaches and Steel Magnolias and all of the sad movies that make me cry. Why? It must be cathartic, I guess, since it doesn’t bum me out for days or anything… Do you guys watch and rewatch sad movies? ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/2 "2013-02-28T03:52:00Z")
Sad ones, particularly when it’s a wrenching ending. I think it’s like heroin – the first experience of it was so strong and you go back to the movie again and again to see if you feel it as strongly. **Gallipoli** is my go-to movie for this, especially when I am showing it to someone who hasn’t seen it before. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/3 "2013-02-28T03:56:14Z")
I don’t. At all. ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/4 "2013-02-28T04:59:08Z")
Most movies that I consider to be “great” and worthy of a re-watch have the ability to make me feel a strong emotion. Whether it be sadness (Dancer In The Dark), awe (2001: A Space Odyssey) or happiness (Amelie). I don’t particularly care what kind of emotion it makes me feel, as long as it makes me feel _something_. There’s a lot of good movies out there that can make me think, but without an emotional connection they just don’t transcend into greatness. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/5 "2013-02-28T05:58:18Z")
> [@gladtobeblazed](#): > > Most movies that I consider to be “great” and worthy of a re-watch have the ability to make me feel a strong emotion. Whether it be sadness (Dancer In The Dark), I absolutely hated that fucking movie, probably the most negative reaction I’ve ever had to a film. Why? It felt emotionally exploitative, I was watching the dumbest totally lacking in basic smarts woman on earth be repeatedly and horribly victimized and she just keeps coming back for more when at any time she could have done something sensible. And it just kept getting worse and worse, god what a shit movie. And of course when she does fight back she does the dumbest thing imaginable, and then makes the dumbest possible move at every juncture so she further gets exploited by the state. They make the protagonist so pitiful it made me want to punch her at every bad decision. No one would believe a word you say, so if you don’t want your daughter to go to the corrupt home for kids where the attendants rape them three times daily you’d better suck my dick. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/6 "2013-02-28T06:02:17Z")
Lars von Triers is a pretty polarizing director. I understand that a lot of people hate his work, but I think he’s a genius film maker. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/7 "2013-02-28T06:44:48Z")
> [@gladtobeblazed](#): > > Lars von Triers is a pretty polarizing director. I understand that a lot of people hate his work, but I think he’s a genius film maker. Or, he could just be an asshole, and making movies is his way of bullying people and making them pay for the privilege. Much like [his fellow asshole director Michael Haneke.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808279/reference) Both of them can go rot in Hell. Leaving those people alone, I do enjoy some very sad films, but my wife is the person in the family who loves deeply depressing films, what I call “soul crushers”. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/8 "2013-02-28T06:49:05Z")
Bjork has a song about how she goes every morning, to the top of a cliff. And she throws things off. She waits for those things to crash at the bottom of the cliff, and she closes her eyes and imagines it is her, dashing against the rocks. She says she imagines how it would feel, hitting the bottom, feeling the pain. She tells her lover that she puts herself through that in order to relish feeling safe and secure with him when she goes back to her bed with him. Maybe it’s something like that. We put ourselves through the sadness of a heartbreaking movie so that we can feel safe and secure in our real life, knowing that we aren’t feeling the pain that the characters in the movie endured. I love sad movies. And sad songs. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/9 "2013-02-28T06:58:45Z")
What, has no one here heard of the concept of catharsis? ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/10 "2013-02-28T18:14:03Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I don’t. At all. Ditto. Oh sure, I have seen sad movies - but I don’t actively search them out nor watch them over and over. To be honest, if I know some film is going to be a weepy-weepy, I will most likely avoid going. ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/11 "2013-02-28T18:24:51Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I absolutely hated that fucking movie, probably the most negative reaction I’ve ever had to a film. > > Why? It felt emotionally exploitative, I was watching the dumbest totally lacking in basic smarts woman on earth be repeatedly and horribly victimized and she just keeps coming back for more when at any time she could have done something sensible. And it just kept getting worse and worse, god what a shit movie. And of course when she does fight back she does the dumbest thing imaginable, and then makes the dumbest possible move at every juncture so she further gets exploited by the state. They make the protagonist so pitiful it made me want to punch her at every bad decision. I have not seen the particular movie you are talking about, but this is my reaction to 90% of “tear jerkers.” The director is just playing a Visi-Sonor with a heavy hand, and the ham-fisted manipulation makes me wants to hurt somebody. Badly. When I see people cry in those movies I always think, “WTF is wrong with you? Do you have even one functioning brain cell or are you just a Pavlovian petri dish?” There are great sad movies, but they are very rare. ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/12 "2013-02-28T18:28:52Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Ditto. > Oh sure, I have seen sad movies - but I don’t actively search them out nor watch them over and over. > > To be honest, if I know some film is going to be a weepy-weepy, I will most likely avoid going. But is that because it’s weepy-weepy, or stupid-stupid? Rom-coms are a classic example of movies I skip not because of their genre but because they’re almost certainly going to be idiotic. There are movie genres that the audience is so undiscerning that the studio can put any crap in the trough and they’ll lap it up. Why would a studio spend money on a good director or worry through an intelligent screenplay when it can just squat on the counter and realize the same box office? ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/13 "2013-02-28T19:01:17Z")
Good criers are few and far between. _Terms of Endearment_ is one of the most powerful. I did a lot of crying at _Return of the King_ (those were tears of joy and triumph, though). \*Beaches \*seems to have lost its touch as I’ve grown older. \*Up \*is the most recent one I can think of that really punches you in the gut. _Schindler’s List_ was so bad for me that I don’t rewatch it. It’s not cathartic, just horrific. But an excellent, excellent film. ---
**Author:** ![Rollo\_Tomasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/14 "2013-02-28T23:09:49Z")
Among my favorite movies, there aren’t a whole lot of tearjerkers (except for certain scenes that always make me tear up, like Anton Walbrook’s monlogue about why he wants to immigrate to England in **The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp** ), but that’s just a coincidence, not a statement on tearjerkers overall. And the ones I do like, I like them simply because I think the film is well made and the characters and story are compelling. I know that a lot of people can’t watch sad movies without feeling depressed afterward, but honestly, that doesn’t really happen to me. I don’t really know why; if I have a bad day at work, there’s no saying that I won’t go home and watch a sad movie. Even if I cry buckets during a movie, I can still love it and want to watch it over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/15 "2013-02-28T23:16:47Z")
I rarely even watch happy movies more than once. Who the hell watches a movie 25 times? ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/16 "2013-03-01T00:29:18Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I rarely even watch happy movies more than once. Who the hell watches a movie 25 times? I do. I re-read books too. Netflix and Amazon streaming has been wonderful for me, since I watch almost no television. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-watch-sad-movies/651589/17 "2013-03-01T00:40:17Z")
I hate sad movies. I don’t find them cathartic or empowering or reassuring, just sad. Some are manipulative, too. There are a few I will rewatch, but that’s despite the sadness, not because of it.