Tear jerker films

Brianna inspired me by another recent thread, I got to thinking about movies that make me cry. There are some movies at which I've cried, in the theater, or at home. The ones at home are most often ones that I love enough to have purchased. Here's a list of movies that make me cry just about every time I watch them.

It's a Wonderful Life (absolutely reliable. every time)
Field of Dreams
What Dreams May Come
Big Fish
The Green Mile

That's a start. I'll check out the library at home to see if any others have slipped my mind. Of course, I'm sure there are movies I haven't seen yet that would move me. What films have you seen that are powerful, dramatic? Movies that get you again and again. Go on, I have the tissues right here.

The Notebook

Simon Birch

l123, you should check out Tuesdays with Morrie. To be honest, I read the book, and not this show, but the story is similar, and wrenching.

Grave of the Fireflies - I choked up within the first few minutes, the first time I saw it, and I'm a bit teary eyed just thinking about it now.

Lorenzo's Oil
That scene when she's holding her son and comforting him if he has to fly away.

Oh, and I've mentioned my love of this movie before, Truly, Madly, Deeply- the tears and struggle, and laughter of the lead actress amaze me. Its a performance I could watch and have watched many times.

I'll second "Grave of the Fireflies."

Also, and I'm embarassed to admit this, the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Signs." Overall the movie was pretty stupid I thought, but the scene with the wife all crushed by the car and calmly giving her husband instructions on what to tell the kids and how to go on living now that she's going to be dead... gets me every time.

i didn't get the tearjerker reaction from signs, but i really like that movie. i may have to go home and watch that now.

Cold Mountain
Love Actually - despite being a comedy
Big Fish
The Pianis

My ultimate tear jerker - The Cider House Rules - I pretty much cry though the entire movie.

Amazingly, despite being quite the avid movie-watcher, I haven't seen most of the above. Of course, my preference is for movies in which someone's head explodes ...

There are some movies, however, that do get me every single damn time. Even if I know it's coming. And they aren't even necessarily GOOD tearjerker movies.

E.T. (I have seen this movie only once, and despite my somewhat obsessive compuslive need to buy movies on video or DVD do NOT have this, nor do I plan to ... but I cried buckets in the theater. Luckily my friend's mom was prepared and started handing kleenex out at the proper moment, even without check to see if there was weeping going on)

You've Got Mail

I saw 3/4 of a horrid movie that my friend's daughter was watching, and got a bit weepy at the end ... First Daughter? Had that dude that played the army guy on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in it ...

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Amazing Grace on Bagpipes is GUARANTEED to get me.)

Backdraft

Ladder 49

Anger Management (yes, really. The Ballpark.)

I think I cried seeing Braveheart.

I know I did when I saw Gladiator in the theater.

Wild Geese
Sophie's Choice
Shadowlands

I'll third Grave of the Fireflies. That movie was traumatizing.

Moulin Rouge.

oooh, I forgot about Moulin Rouge... that movie also has me crying from the beginning to the end.

wolf wrote:

There are some movies, however, that do get me every single damn time. Even if I know it's coming. And they aren't even necessarily GOOD tearjerker movies.

I had completely forgotten about some of those scenes. Particularly Wrath of Khan. When I first saw it in the theater, I was all "Spock? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" /Darth Vader


Come to think of it, my lower lip gets wobbly at about half the movies I see. I'm a glutton for sweeping musical crescendos that correspond with things like dogs running towards their families, good guys winning, and gruff old men hugging their grandkids a la Robert Duvall in Secondhand Lions. Although that was a nephew I think.

And at the end of LOTR, when Aragorn says to the hobbits, "My friends. (pause). You bow to no one." (kneels)

I bawled. And my eyes just got wet writing it. stfu.

I also like heads exploding in a fine red mist, though.

mrnoodle wrote:

Come to think of it, my lower lip gets wobbly at about half the movies I see. I'm a glutton for sweeping musical crescendos that correspond with things like dogs running towards their families, good guys winning, and gruff old men hugging their grandkids a la Robert Duvall in Secondhand Lions. Although that was a nephew I think.

I think we are very alike, although I haven't seen Secondhand Lions.

Plucky side-kicks and partners who get killed halfway through an action film to provide motivation for the star to go kick some major ass despite his reticence to do so for the prior 47 minutes also make me cry.

You know, like Dirty Harry's partner, or the hardworking, disadvantaged youth that Chuck Norris always seems to know?

Pay It Forward.

i don't even like that annoying child actor, but i was so effing pissed that i had tears in my eyes for an hour. i was ready to go find the offending youth and disembowel him in public - and yes i'm aware that he was also just acting. i was seriously pissed.

Pay It Forward.

Yep, forgot that one on the list, but it's first tier/tear. Unquestionably. Dammit.

opening scene of Lion King, in the theater (the whole live musical)
Phantom of the Opera
just saw The Notebook - wow
Bridges of Madison County
definitely the ending of Gladiator

I don't believe you people! Come ON! Crying! At the movies??? I never cry! Maybe once, when I was little, I cried at Snow White, but that's only because I was afraid of the evil stepmother. Very little makes me cry.

I'm a heartless bitch.

Here's a picture story for you. If you don't cry by the end of it, you truly are a heartless bitch. I'm crying right now, and I haven't even made the story yet.

The first thing that came to mind was, "what the hell kind of name is Jenny Duty?"

i didn't read the stone, it was the first entry on a google image search of "pet cemetary"

Ice. you're pure ice.

I felt sad that poor Jenny has to spend eternity with some other dog's face carved on her stone.

This, this is why I declined in the other thread. Sheesh.

Ok. ET made me cry, too. I remember I had on a turtle neck and was trying to hide my blubbering in the theater, cause it was so uncool. I've pretty much learned to give up the attempts at coolness. I can be played like a cheap violin.

I cried when reading the novelization of Return of the Jedi, when Vader died. Not during the movie, though. There was some sappy imagery about Luke's tears and summer raindrops or something of the sort.

i remember that! i didn't cry though - pussy.


whoooooooaaaaaa! was i just channelling sycamore? :worried:

I well up in sports movies, those feel-good tales of underdogs persevering and coming to a triumphant and mostly psychological victory:

Again, Field of Dreams
For Love of the Game
Rudy (big time - I think I even shed a tear or two)

Can't think of others.

Whatever age I was when it came out (I think about 8 or 9), I bawled at the end of My Girl. Poor Anna Vadar - I just wanted to give her a big, dirty, groping hug. ;)

Secondhand Lions is worth seeing for sure - a good comedy too. I had never heard of it until a co-worker recommended it. I don't sit through a whole lot of movies but I did like that one.

Brian's Song

The Joy Luck Club

Million Dollar Baby

The Champ

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Forrest Gump

Of Mice and Men

I second Rudy too.

lookout123 wrote:

Pay It Forward.

Oh, crap. That has Kevin Spacey in it, which means that I eventually have to see it.

Stand By Me. Superior film. Maybe not actual tears, but moving.

Shawshank Redmeption Same comments as above. Must be having a Stephen King moment this morning...:eyebrow:

Ugh, Mr. Holland's Opus made me get a little teary.

How about Stand and Deliver?
Lean on Me?

Tommy Boy still gets tears from me every time. that is probably because it makes me laugh so stinking hard though.

Men of Honor. i didn't have any tears, but i do get a little choked up when he does manage to take the appropriate number of steps.

Did I mention anywhere that a week or two ago I watched two movies that were not only insufferably cute, but enjoyable and made me sniffly?

The Pacifier and Daddy Day Care.

I'm doomed, aren't I?

wolf wrote:

The Pacifier

A-ha! It's your secret love of the Vin Diesel, isn't it?

Vin Diesel once told a joke that was so funny that God laughed.

(btw - the original site is not working, maybe because of bandwidth issues. Says its had 26 million hits!)

breakingnews wrote:

A-ha! It's your secret love of the Vin Diesel, isn't it?

I don't think it's actually that secret ...

But yes, that's the reason I bought the movie.

Happy Monkey wrote:

Grave of the Fireflies - I choked up within the first few minutes, the first time I saw it, and I'm a bit teary eyed just thinking about it now.

Clodfobble wrote:

I'll second "Grave of the Fireflies."

Articrono wrote:

I'll third Grave of the Fireflies. That movie was traumatizing.

Thanks, guys. It took me a while to track this one down, but it was well worth it. I wanted to reach into the screen and choke the auntie. What an awful, sad movie.

There's more to say, but now is not the time for me.

Imitation of Life with Lana Turner, an oldie but goodie.

I will always be there for you.....with Laura Linney a newer film.

rudy
braveheart
and oh yeah,bambi

Betty Blue

Million Dollar Baby Which was essentially the same ending as Betty Blue

Also Angel Baby was pretty frigging sad

And The big Lebowski (seen 11 times at least) always has me in tears and convulsive laughter.

(Veer nihilists, vee don't care about anything! vee cut off you chonson)

The Cure
Hotel Rawanda

Philadelphia (people are really, really mean to Tom Hanks)

Its a Wonderful Life (every fucking time, and I've seen it hundreds of times)

Brian's Song (I would have forgotten this one if it hadn't been mentioned)

Big Fish (if you don't think of your estranged father when you watch this, you have no heart)

Star Trek III (when the Enterprise gets burned up)

I think I almost came close to a tear in The Green Mile & Forrest Gump. I think I'm desensitized :(

The Ice Princess...Yeah, you heard me, Disney's The Ice Princess. I got a little mistey. iYou wanna make something of it?! Huh?! I also balled at Beaches.

BRING IT ON!!!

ooh almost forgot I Am Sam

I also wanted to add
old yeller
the yearling
I was a bit of a sensitive child
still am to a point

Colour Purple..my wife bawled her eyes out,I didn't get it,I don't cry watching movies ***Sniff***

I thought that movie was overly long, boring, and pointless.

I do vaguely recall laughing inappropriately at some big family dinner scene after Oprah came home from prison ... I can't remember one darn thing about that movie. Danny Glover was mean, though, right?

Bullitt wrote:

ooh almost forgot I Am Sam

I think this one had me crying in the first 15 minutes.

Dead Poets Society.

Falling down.

The way he blasts that LAWS rocket into the crowd.....just tearfully beautiful man.

Seriously though, What dreams may come...great movie but I thought that I was the only one that actually SAW it. Watching it whiskey drunk also helps.

A.I.

Is someone renting a billboard(s) somewhere in Ohio advertising the cellar? Jesus H, there's a lot of new people from there.

Lord of the Flies

Pure Country

We Were Soldiers

ThreadHijackMan wrote:

Is someone renting a billboard(s) somewhere in Ohio advertising the cellar? Jesus H, there's a lot of new people from there.

dunno who you mean...slang and i are old people.

Awakenings

I am very sentimental and cry frequently at fiction (less so in real life). In fact I have been known to cry at adverts.....

However Manon des Sources (do NOT watch this if currently suffering unrequited love) and Moulin Rouge had me sobbing and gulping and barely recovering in time to leave the cinema.

And can I hijack slightly & add some books? The worst (best?) are children's books for some reason: His Dark Materials trilogy (Philip Pullman), The Wind on Fire trilogy (William Nicholson), The Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson).

ThreadHijackMan wrote:

Is someone renting a billboard(s) somewhere in Ohio advertising the cellar? Jesus H, there's a lot of new people from there.

I think it is just the default location for people who don't say where they are from.

Dayton,OH

Been there, done that.

Touching Horses

Where the Red Fern Grows

Of Mice And Men (the old and new version)

Welcome, Lastcall. Not very chatty, are you? s'okay, I compensate and balance is restored to the universe. Oom.

good to see you again lastcall!

just watched Million Dollar Baby. VERY good. And yes a tear jerker.

Thanks BigV and Capnhowdy for the friendly welcome. Not the first time in my life that i've been at the Neophyte level BigV...Ive learned to look and listen first...... chat later. I've heard all the hype on Million Dollar Baby capn. Now that I have confirmation....I'll have to check it out