Movies "Guaranteed" to Make Me Cry

Silje:

Another touching movie! I thought it was wonderful. Also, Whalerider - catch this one if you get a chance! Bring some kleenex!

Movies about animals, especially dogs, always make me cry. One that comes to mind is Homeward Bound; just thinking about that white-faced Golden Retriever brings tears to my eyes....

Another one is Old Yeller; I saw it as a kid and haven't been able to bring myself to see it again since. I know I'd lose it all over again - probably even worse than when I was a youngster.

I only show up on the movie threads...

E.T.
Life As a House
Life Is Beautiful
The Miracle Worker
Steel Magnolias
Fried Green Tomatoes
Saving Private Ryan
Sounder
My Girl
Deep Impact (Doesn't seem a likely choice, but I bawled like a baby.)

Some old movies that qualify as major tear-jerkers:

Imitation of Life--When I was fifteen, I thought this movie was the ultimate in great drama and John Gavin was the most handsome man alive.
Stella Dallas--the original, with Barbara Stanwyck
In Name Only
Back Street--More John Gavin, but there was Charles Boyer before him
Madame X

Great call Grannyfan, "Deep Impact" brought me to tears also. The scene where they are busing Elijah Wood off and Sobieski is chasing...and then the one at the end when the tidal wave is coming and Sobieski's parents give her the baby! AHH!

I also get choked up when Shelly Winters dies in "The Poseidon Adventure".

Others:
Dying Young (The music alone is enough!)
That TV movie about Steven Stayner "I Know My Name Is Steven" (?)
The Mission

I wasn't aware I had a fan (Grannyfan).

CartDi said:

rgirl- have you read Requiem for a Dream? i don't know which is more intense, the book or the movie, lol. Ellen Burnsteyn is amazing. And the music score was amazing and fit really well with the movie, too.

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CartiDi,
I'm a huge Selby fan and have been reading his work since 1977, including "Requiem for a Dream," as well as listening to a couple of his works Selby put together specifically to be read on audio. ITA agree with everything you say about "Requiem for a Dream." I have the soundtrack and am so impressed with composer Clint Mansell. I liked his score for the film "Pi" but I felt it was with "Requiem" that he really took himself up to the level of greatness. I've been a big fan of Michael Nyman's music since the early '80s and Mansell seems influenced by Nyman but with his own distinct style. Combined with the Kronos Quartet and I think you've got pure brilliance.

As for Selby's writing, MAN! what a voice. It's as if the words come straight from his gut. I think the film and the book are equally intense in different ways. With the film, the way director Aronofsky uses film techniques and overlapping shots to create the increasing chaos of the characters' lives is so brutally effective visually. In the book, it's the words and the way Selby makes you (or at least me) feel that these are voices you hear, people you know, people that could be you or someone you love but for the chance of birth.

You probably already know these, but here are a couple of websites on Selby:

http://www.exitwounds.com/Selby.htm
http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/selby/

So glad to find others to appreciate a movie like "Requiem." Whether it makes you cry or your jaw drop, the film and/or the book of "Requiem for a Dream" as well as others of Selby's best work are not things you can get out of your heart. Selby is a truthteller and makes you relate deeply to his characters because, IMO, he writes about them as equals. He doesn't approch them as "other people" or "different." They are Selby; they are us. As he shows so beautifually in "Requiem," we all have our addictions, our "fixes"--they don't have to be drugs. And it's so easy for a life to slip out of control, whether you're the daughter of wealthy parents, were brought up in the inner city, or middle class "good, respectable" people, we all have the same needs and will do what we have to do to fulfill those needs.

Well, got kind of carried away, lol. BTW, I think also like the film version of "Last Exit to Brooklyn," though I think "Requiem for a Dream" is the superior film and really captures the essence of Selby in a way that the film of "Last Exit" didn't quite do. Still good though, IMO.
Rgirl
PS I went back and corrected "Ellyn" to "Ellen Bursteyn." I knew there was a "y" in there, just wasn't sure where it was, lol.

BronzeisGolden said:

"Requiem for a Dream" was a great movie. And I also thought Ellen Bursteyn should have won an Academy Award for that performance...who knew that a classic actress could play a diet-pill junkie with such amazing precision and emotion! This film really didn't ever make me cry...especially the unedited version, that just made my jaw drop!

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ITA, BG. See my post to CartDi above. Jennifer Connelly also really impressed me. She was a great choice to embody what Selby shows as the pitfalls and downright dangers of being beautiful. Clearly "Requiem" helped Connelly deepen her acting so that when "A Beautiful Mind" came along, she could really imbue that role with a multitude of conflicting emotions while always coming from a place of deep love for her husband. Amazing that within two years, Connelly played a 20-year-old and then a woman who goes from her early 20s to her 50s.

But the gold medal goes to Bursteyn. Like I said, I think it's a master actor at work. To see her as everything from the lonely but positive middle class widow to the diet-pill addict to her delusion of herself of the "glamorous" woman on TV to the shell of a human being after being "treated" by an inhumane hospital beauracracy is one of the most stunning performances I've ever seen.

As I said to CartDi, glad to find others who appreciate this kind of work.
Rgirl

Re: re

B4. said:

Central Station- It's a Brazilian movie about friendship between a boy and a woman. Really a great movie.

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ITA, B4 and am so glad you noted it. It features the brilliant Brazilian actress Fernanada Montengra as Dora, which is a treat in and of itself just to watch her work. Another master actor. The young Vinicius de Oliverira as Josué, the orphaned child, keeps right up with Mentengra, IMO, and the development of their relationship is something I think is really special to watch. Also, it's a film for anyone and everyone--no violence, no swearing (well, a little, but nothing bad), so sex. I may not have cried during "Central Station" but I sure had a huge lump in my throat.
Rgirl

Grgranny, I'll gladly be your fan. We may be the only ones here who saw Bambi when it was new!

RGirl,

I completely agree with you about Connelly. Previous to "Requiem", all I can remember is her being in a string of terrible 80s movies about teen angst. "Requiem" proved that she had depth and more to offer than a pretty a face. She followed up with a terrific performance in "A Beautiful Mind" (although I'm not convinced it deserved the Oscar that year) and proved she could compete with the rest of the Hollywood actresses. Now, if she could only stay away from movies like "The Hulk"! A little off subject here, but does anyone have the "Requiem For a Dream" soundtrack? I remember it being such interesting music.

Grgranny:

Saving "Private Ryan" is on my list as well. There are just too many! Of course, there is the classic "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Harvey" (it's a comedy, but James Stewart reduces me to tears at the end - and I believe there is a Harvey!)

Thanks

rgirl- thanks for the websites on Selby. I have only read "Requiem for a Dream" so far, and am quite a recent fan, so most of his books are on my "books to read" list. i have a ton of books on that list, but i guess i have plenty of time to read, hah. ooh a fan since 1977?!?! that's cool. in 1977 i would not be born until 9 years later, by the way. thanks for your insight.

"Philadelphia." I had seen it a few years ago and remember completely sobbing at the end, and it was also on last night and I did the same thing. Tom Hanks was excellent in it.
Laura

Here's my list. I would give reasons why these films make me cry but the effort would only make me cry.

Grgranny and Grannyfan: I might not remember seeing the original release of Bambi and Dumbo but Mom took me to the shows and said I was a very well behaved baby, i.e., no crying. I do remember seeing the films in their first re-release though.

My list of movies that are guaranteed to make me cry, in alphabetical order:
An Affair to Remember
Bambi
Dances with Wolves
Dumbo
Cheyenne Autumn
Enemy Mine
Field of Dreams
Fly Away Home
Going My Way
Gorillas in the Mist
Imitation of Life
Ivanhoe
Lassie Come Home
My Dog Skip
Old Yeller
Robin and Marion
Stella Dallas
The Great White Hope
The Molly Maguires
The Natural
The Sandlot
The Yearling
White Fang
Yankee Doodle Dandy

4dk

Just remembered another one. Boystown. Mickey Rooney was really great in it.

As a kid, I didn't cry during Bambi, but I bawled like a baby at the end of Willy Wonka when Gene Wilder is yelling at Charlie. I also cried during the scene in Song of the South where the bull goes after the kid. I had been chased and attacked by a collie as a young child, which probably had something to do with it.....

As an adult:

Gone With the Wind (Hey, I'm from Atlanta. Like the book better, though)
Fried Green Tomatoes
Steel Magnolias
Driving Miss Daisy

Fiddler On the Roof
Schindler's List (gets me EVERY time)
The Pianist
Saving Private Ryan
Pearl Harbor (attack/immediate aftermath scene, not the stupid love story)
Holocaust (okay, a miniseries, but I cried my eyes out as a ten year old)
Band of Brothers (another miniseries, but cryworthy nonetheless)

Platoon
The Deer Hunter
We Were Soldiers. I teared up for two reasons - one being the movie itself, the other from watching my exhusband's reaction to it (tearing up himself. He was a gunner on a chopper for the 101st during Vietnam)

Forrest Gump
Philadelphia
Toy Story Two (during the song Jessie/Sarah McLaughlin sings "When Somebody Loves You")
City of Angels
Wings of Desire
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but Titanic
The Patriot (Mel's, not Steven Seagal's)

I know there's more.....

SkateCynic, now you know I love you more'n my luggage (and your first 4 picks are just too wonderful - being a fellow Southerner)...

"Somewhere in Time" is such a boo-hooer.

I have seen no more than 10 seconds of "Forrest Gump", because of...

"Philadelphia". Can anyone play less gay than Tom Hanks (wink wink nudge nudge I'm this tolerant straight guy playing a gay man with AIDS)? Conversely, I thought Antonio Banderas was wonderful as his lover (for goodness sake, at least the character showed some emotion - was Hanks' character supposed to be on Prozac?).

"To Kill a Mockingbird" makes me tear up every time I watch it because of Gregory Peck as Atticus. One more Southern movie to add to the list.

Rgirl said:

I have the soundtrack and am so impressed with composer Clint Mansell. I liked his score for the film "Pi" but I felt it was with "Requiem" that he really took himself up to the level of greatness. I've been a big fan of Michael Nyman's music since the early '80s and Mansell seems influenced by Nyman but with his own distinct style. Combined with the Kronos Quartet and I think you've got pure brilliance.

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Bronzeisgolden,
You asked if anyone had the soundtrack for "Requiem for a Dream." I love it. I got mine on www.half.com. I figure somebody bought the CD thinking it was something else and when they listened went, "What the?" So their problem was my gain. Five bucks. This was over a year ago, but if you're interested, check out the CDs on half.com. They may have it. Also Amazon has used CDs for good prices. Hope that helps.


Cynic,
I think Mel's "The Patriot" is a great movie too. First film that ever made the Revolutionary War seem real to me. A drop or two of sap here and there, but it's so beautiful and the battle scenes are so great, who cares?

And I just saw "The Piano." Now Adrien Brody really did deserve that Oscar. It's one of those movies that if you didn't know it was a true story, you wouldn't believe it. The scene where Szpilman plays for the officer (don't want to give anything away) I think is just stunning. I thought it was so brilliant that Polanski knew to take the time to show Szpilman playing the entire piece, in that bitterly cold room, with the officer just sitting there. You, at least I, had time to feel the full gravitas of what was happening. Most directors would want to "fill in" a scene like that. Polanski went through it himself and throughout the film I got that incredible sense of being a hair's breadth away from death for years and just waiting, waiting. Amazing thing for a filmmaker and the actor to convey. I didn't cry, but I was so emotionally drained by it.

Great list, btw.
Rgirl

Rgirl,

ITA with your comments regarding The Pianist. As disgusted as I am with Roman Polanski's irresponsibility in handling his personal life, that movie is a masterpiece.

My only major criticism of The Patriot is that is was too Braveheart-esque. Had Mel Gibson not made BH prior to The Patriot, I have a feeling it would have been met with much better reviews and success. On its own, it's one of the few portrayals of the Colonial/Revolutionary War era of US history. The only other movie I can think of in recent years from this time period is Last of the Mohicans (with Daniel Day Lewis).

VA, right back atcha, Clairee!!! Half of Chinquapin Parish would love to take a whack at Ouiser...

"Philadelphia". Can anyone play less gay than Tom Hanks (wink wink nudge nudge I'm this tolerant straight guy playing a gay man with AIDS)? Conversely, I thought Antonio Banderas was wonderful as his lover (for goodness sake, at least the character showed some emotion - was Hanks' character supposed to be on Prozac?).

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IMO Tom Hanks playing a less flamboyant gay man was what really made the movie. It showed people that not all gay men were flashy, drag queen types. I can't watch past the scence where Denzel Washington is trying to go over Tom's court answers while Tom is playing the music from the opera. After that, the tears really come.

Another one I thought of:

"Born Too Soon" - I can't rememver who's in it or when it was made, but it SO sad . Its about a family who's daugter is "born too soon" (at about 5 months I think.) It pretty depressing seeing the familys struggles in the PICU and watching all the families around them take their children home. Towards the end, things start to look up but then...
I won't give the ending away
Laura