Do you have favourite films which always make you cry?

I've watched Good Will Hunting on Sky at least ten times over the past year, and I still always cry when Will and Skyla break up, and when Will loses it big style towards the end.

And am I the only one who gets a kind of morbid pleasure from watching something I know will make me cry?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Answers

Are you kidding? Everyone loves to cry while watching sad movies, even the ones who deny it. As for me, I definitely get a lump in my throat, especially when I'm watching an old classic - Chaplin, Fred and Ginger dancing cheek to cheek, Marilyn singing 'I'm Through With Love', the final scene of 'Morocco' - with Marlene walking off into the desert - and, of course, 'Casablanca'..... could somebody hand me a handkerchief, please?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Say Anything. When Harry Met Sally. I have them both on tape and they always make me cry.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Oh, good heavens, I keep movies on hand for those times when I need a good, cathartic cry!

Casablanca, of course; I always lose it when they start singing "La Marseillaise" (sp?) in Rick's Bar.

I mention the following with some embarassment: Steel Magnolias. And Little Women. And Old Yeller. And Bambi.

I am *such* a sap.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

The Bridges of Madison County.

The end. When she's in the truck. And he's at the stoplight in front of her.

"This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime."

I weep.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Ah, but Tracey, did you cry at the end of Pocahontas?

Sigh.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

For a guaranteed cry - Steel Magnolias. I can just boo-hoo & sometimes you need that, right?

Top Gun - when Goose dies & Meg Ryan is sitting in the lounge...

An Affair to Remeber - When she's sitting on the couch with the wrap over her legs & he comes back & starts to leave & then goes to see the painting.

There are lost of others - I saw "East West" (foreing film in theatres right now - French w/English subtitles.) I spent the last 1/2 of the movie in tears. (Well, now that I think of it, almost the whole movie at different times.)

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Say Anything. West Side Story. Shawshank Redemption ("Brooks was here. So was Red."). Rain Man.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

My God. Terms of Endearment. Gives. Me. Fits. When the children come to say goodbye to their dying mother, and she tells one of them that it's okay that he didn't tell her he that loved her and that he was mean to her, because she knows that he does love her. She knows.

I always sob at this part, because it's such a gift that she gives to him, so that he's not fucked up later in life, believing that his mom died thinking that he hated her. Jesus. That movie kills me.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Field of Dreams, esp. at the end where the Kevin Costner character is having a catch with his dad...I know it's coming, and yet, I tear up ever single time.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

To be honest, I almost never cry at movies.

However. The Fox and the Hound just about killed me. I just sobbed.

It's a cartoon. And I was a puddle of tears by the end.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

If I'm in a certain mood, anything can make me cry. "They live in a big house and I don't! Booo hooo!" "Her mom is so loving and mine isn't! Waaaah!" I'm not in that mood very often, thank god.

Romantic movies don't make me cry or even sad. Especially ones where they nobly give each other up, like Casablanca. I'm just thinking, you people are fucking nuts. Leave your damn husband. Live happily ever after.

People dying don't get me either. I guess I'm just hard hearted.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

When Farmer Hoggett dances for Babe. When Kevin catches the pop-up in Parenthood. When Sally Field (of course) breaks down at the funeral in Steel Magnolias. When they sing the Marseillaise in Casablanca. Ooo, here's a nothing film that was one of my first grown- up films (I was 11): Running, with Michael Douglas, when he finishes the race with a dislocated shoulder. The end of Harold and Maude. Most of the last episode of MASH. When the Holocaust-surviving grandmother gets the carjacked baby back in that episode of ER. The "Love's Labor Lost" episode of ER, and any occasion of vaginal birth (not caesarian, though: it's the labor, not the new life, that pulls me). [There's a scene in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn where two maiden neighbors listen to a mother labor in the next apartment, and they hold hands and talk about that fear, the avoidance of which is one of the few advantages of their spinsterhoods.] Oh, this one I'm rilly rilly proud of: Dorothy saying, "Run, Toto, run! He got away! Oh, he got away!" In "The Fisher King" when Robin Williams asks Jeff Daniels, "Can I miss her now?" When the English sing "Non Nobis" in the Branagh "Henry V." When the angel chooses life and color in "Wings of Desire." When the mother says "More" in Jacob Have I Loved" (sorry, that's a book). The end of "Out of Africa" when the lions are on Dennis's grave and it says Karen von Blixen never returned to Africa, and when she kneels before the governor asking for sanctuary for the Kikiyu. When Natalie Wood chants "I believe" in the car, and when they find the cane in "Miracle on 34th Street." When Harry says, "To my brother George, the richest man in town" and everyone sings "Auld Lang Syne" at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life"--and I can't be the only one who sobs at *that* even if the rest prove me a big drippy sap. When Natalie Wood--that's two for her but only one for Sally Field; I must be watching the wrong movies-- prays "let it not be true" about her brother in "West Side Story." Oh, oh, oh, and when Willow touches his wife's braid tucked into his belt before going into battle, and when he comes home and they dash toward each other. (I've always thought that her giving him her hair is the most potent token of love ever.)

I don't think it's a morbid pleasure; I think a good cry is healthy.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Whoops.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

These get me every time: Shadowlands

Lady Jane

Men Don't Leave

Anyone have any books they get a good cry out of?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

The end of Paths of Glory, when the soldiers make the barmaid sing.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

I'm a big sap. Huge, even. I will watch movies BECAUSE I think they might make me cry. Even if I hear they're terrible. For example, I just saw "Here on Earth" last night at the Dollar Theater. Cried like a baby at the end. Even though I knew what was going to happen, and even though I didn't really like the main characters that much, and every review warned me that the movie was a piece of crap. I didn't care. I went because I wanted to cry. I came out of there sniffly and puffy eyed, and very satisfied.

I cried during The Iron Giant, and still do every time I watch it. I cried during St. Elmo's Fire, but I think the music has a lot to do with that. I cry at any movie in which an animal's feelings get hurt. I cried at American Beauty, Message in a Bottle, The Sixth Sense, Titanic, Stealing Home, The Wizard of Oz, Benji, Stepmom and Untamed Heart. Oh, and any movie that has a couple which reminds me of my husband and I somehow, and then something tragic happens, the waterworks start. Ghost turned me into a blubbering bowl of jelly. I even cried during Pumpkinhead, so hard that I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to try and get control (when the little boy got killed). The older I get, the easier it is for me to cry at movies, and even television shows. I got choked up when I found out Chandler was going to ask Monica to marry him, because he looked so happy about it. I can totally get lost in the story, if I choose to. Doesn't matter how cheesy something is, I can cry to it. And real stuff on film? Forget about it. I once flipped channels to find a show about a little girl with the disease where she's 6 years old but has the body of an 80 year old, I forget what it's called. She was so sweet and smart and wonderful, and knowing what she was going through and that she would die soon made me cry so hard I couldn't breathe. But I wouldn't change the channel even when my husband begged me to. I won't however, watch anything on Animal Planet that looks like it will make me cry. If a mother animal has to leave her baby animal behind because it's lame or a runt, and I know a hyena or something is going to come along and kill it, I change the channel. I don't like crying over how cruel Mother Nature can be, that's not a fun cry.

I'm not all the time crying though. I know it would seem that way based on the above, but honestly I never cry about my own life. Movie cries are a just a good release.

Then again, I laugh at times I am supposed to cry too. During Return to Me, when David Duchovney is actually showing emotion because his wonderful wife died, I started cracking up. I laughed so hard that women were shushing me and giving me the stink eye. I couldn't help myself, I had the giggles, and when I try to stifle the giggles, I end up in a full-on laugh fest that only leaves once it has run its course.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Cara, re: tear-inducing books. Oh, my, yes.

When I need a real sob-fest, I pull out the dog-eared, battered copy of Little Women that my Grandma gave me when I was just a slip of a girl, and bawl my freakin' eyes out. The book takes longer than the movie (at which I also cry, see post above), so it becomes an even more emotional experience.

I get sniffly at a lot of things, but Little Women will make me sob.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Steel Magnolias. All 63 times I've seen it. Ghost, at the end. Titanic. I can't even watch it anymore. We bought it, I watched it twice, now it's packed away so I don't have bawl anymore.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

The English Patient, when the war ends, and Hana comes into the patient's room with that beautiful smile on her face, holding an umbrella, because it's raining, and "Cheek to Cheek" is playing, and they carry the patient out on his stretcher into the rain -- I, like, spontaneously burst into tears every time I see that. I also always cry during The Goonies when Mikey gives the speech that says: "Down here it's our time. It's our time, down here." Don't ask me why. I downright sob when the boys stand on their desks at the end of Dead Poets Society. Shit, I well up everytime Lucas smiles that little smile when Joe doesn't rat him out in Empire Records. I'm pathetic!

I cried until my shirt was wet with the tears that slid silently down my face when I saw Boys Don't Cry. I cried as I walked out of the theater, and I cried all the way home. I heard a song from it on the radio today, months later, and I cried some more. I think I need help.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

A second vote for the end of "Paths of Glory." Ohh that is so sad. Everyone on earth must go watch that right now.

I also cry during "Edward Scissorhands." "Mask" was sad too. And "The Elephant Man." And who could keep a dry eye throughout "Dumbo"? Not me.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Books: Little Women of course, and The Outsiders. The dumbest thing that made me cry recently was a commercial. You know the Yahoo one with the family in the igloo and they order a hot tub? They let the sled dogs in the hot tub, too. I thought it was just because I was hormonal, but I'm getting a bit teary about it now. I think I'm just a wimp.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

I don't generally cry in melodramas ... in fact I'm not that fond of melodramas generally. Anything where the main character is dying of cancer, count me out.

But... oh... the end of Purple Rose of Cairo. That gets me every damn time. It's the saddest thing in the world. I can't watch that movie anymore. Nor can I see Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, but that didn't make me cry so much as depress me for a week.

And I cried and cried and cried after seeing the recent remake of A Little Princess (the one set in WW1-era New York, with Eleanor Bron). Surprised the hell out of me. I'm not sure why I found that movie so sad, but I guess I did.

I loved that bit in the movie Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion where the two women cry every time they see Pretty Woman. "It's so sad! She wants to shop, and they won't let her shop!" Oh, that's hilarious.

I would much rather watch a funny movie that has me laughing until I cry. Those are the movie tears I prefer.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

I mention "Love Story." (because no one else has) "Love means never having to say you're sorry". Okay, I never actually saw the movie. Was it sad?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Cory, yes, Love Story is fairly fucking sad. Even though I think that's about the stupidest tag-line for a movie or book that I've ever heard in my entire life. Love means being able to say you're sorry, and saying it all the time, and forgiving and being forgiven. At least IMHO. It's still a decent book, though. I really liked it when I was younger, and I remember crying a lot at the end.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Several different moments in the Joy Luck Club make me lose my mind.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Beaches -- still gets me every time and Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Love Story was the big tearjerker movie when I was in high school. I went with a friend, and there was a row of girls behind us just blubbering into their Kleenex. This gave me the giggles. I didn't think the movie was sad, because the acting wasn't so good.

I'll confess that The Friendly Persuasion makes me tear up a bit.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Steel Magnolias the movie never makes me cry. But I've seen about 11 different versions of the stage play, with all levels of talent, and it always makes me cry. Something about seeing it on stage.

The Joy Luck Club has the distinction of being a movie I love to mock, but makes me cry anyway. When Ming-Na Wen's mother says, "You take worst quality crab...because you have BEST QUALITY HEART!" I howl! I quote that all the time. But when her sad, lost- looking older sisters meet her in China and discover that their mother is dead, and hug their long-lost little sister, I bawl my eyes out.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2000

Hmmm. Not a lot of guys posting here... wonder why?

Whenever I want to have a good cry I get out my videotape of "Miracle On 34th Street," the original black & while version. At the end, when they dump all that mail on the judge's desk, I bawl like an infant. Every time.

And that, my friends, is about the only holiday tradition around this house.

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2000

It would be much easier to answer this question if I had to list the movies that *don't* make me cry. I cry at it all. ER makes me cry each week, along with those damn AT&T commercials. Movies? Steel Magnolias and The Color Purple and Beaches are guarantees. Why watch them if you're not going to cry? Truly, Madly, Deeply. Magnolia. Grief. A Woman's Tale. Muriel's Wedding. Totally Fucked Up. The Sixth Sense. Yep, I cry at it all.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

I cry all too easily while watching movies and even sitcoms. Lately, I've been avoiding movies that I know will make me cry. A few nights ago I was watching the re-run of "News Radio" where they say their good-byes to Bill McNeil (Phil Hartmann)after the funeral. I had seen it once before and just boo-hooed all night long. I loved Phil Hartmann. When I saw it was that episode I told my husband I thought I'd be able to handle it this time. Boy was I wrong. I cried through the whole thing again. I'd actually like to tape it the next time. Not to be masochistic, but to have that tribute to Phil Hartmann.

I've read "Message In A Bottle" which made me cry so I'll have to psyche myself up to see the movie. If I have a feeling that a movie might be sad or I've heard it is sad, but still want to see it, I have to prepare myself ahead of time so it won't affect me so badly.

I hate to cry, but I do it so easily.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

In James Hall's Under Cover of Daylight, Thorn watches his mother and a priest watch Miracle on 34th Street together on television and cry and get shitfaced. A holiday tradition.

The Country Girl, with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly made me cry, because Crosby reminded me of my father, and anything with Judy Garland, especially The Wizard of Oz. I think of the studio feeding her uppers to keep her weight down.

Interiors made me laugh, in several places. In fact, the whole situation was a hoot, with Maureen Stapleton being high-hatted by those snooty, screwed up women.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

Anybody seen Gladiator? Yes indeedy, there are lots of blood and guts spilled out, killing and maiming, but in the end (which I will not give away-it is too new of a movie) I had a hard time trying not to bawl out loud in the theater. I was so emotionally moved.

Another movie I love watch and squirt tears over is Jerry McGuire. When Cruise as the shallow sports agent finally wakes up and realizes how much he really does love his wife and he goes to her... wow, I'm getting goose bumps right now thinking about it.

Beth will think I have no taste when I bring up the next movie. She has mentioned in so many words on occasion that the following movie sucks: Mrs. Doubtfire. Now I love her journal website: Bad Hair Days but I also loved Robin Williams as the drag-nanny. I was going through my divorce at the time and when Robin says good-bye to his kids as he had to go live elsewhere, I swear my heart burst in my chest. I could so relate to that scene.

And it didn't help that my ex-wife looks plenty like Sally Fields and treated me in much the same fashion as Sally did Robin. (No judgemnt passed on her here though. She's not perfect. I'm not perfect. Although, at one time in our lives I thought she was.)

And then there is It's a Wonderful Life. I remember watching that one Christmas and my stepson asking me, "Papa, didn't you cry at that last year?"

Yes, and I have cried again each time I saw it since then.

The final movie I must mention is E.T. I saw it several times and it got to me each time. Several years after it was first released they released it again and I wanted to take my younger son to it who wasn't much bigger than a toddler. Sure enough upon this showing my emotions ran amuck and the tear floodgates opened. Luckily the theater was dark and nobody could see me.

That is until my son started sobbing himself... LOUDLY... and it seemed like everyone in the damn theater turned to look at us.

Yes, ladies, men do cry too. And it is okay for boys to cry. (Isn't there another cross-dressing movie that actually has something about this in its title?)

So don't make fun of me, okay. If you do, I just make get hysterical and go throw myself on my bed and kick my legs furiously.

And I don't have to put on a dress to do this.

Nanny-nanny.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

Beth, there is a line I wrote in this current thread that is suppose to read: "I just may get hysterical" not "I just make get hysterical". Could you fix it?

And please don't tell me to have Robin Williams to fix it, because he is too busy making more sappy movies for us to cry at.

(I will admit Robin needs to move on and do something different. Perhaps he could star in Pulp Fiction Part 2.)

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

I'm with Patrick, in that I cry much more easily at a play than I ever do a movie. The last on my theatre-tears list is Arthur Miller's "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan."

Movies, though. Dog Fight, The Way We Were, and The Joyluck Club (know your worth)always make me cry. Yep, I cried at Titanic. The last on my list of movie-tears is High Fidelity.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

I always cry at the end of Untamed Hearts, after the funeral. Every time. And I feel so manipulated, but I can't help it.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

I don't generally like watching movies that make me cry.

Beaches makes me sob, Hook does too.

Yesterday I saw Boys Don't Cry and thanked my lucky stars that I opted to wait until it was on video, because I bawled through the entire thing. I hope I never see that movie again. It was excellent but my emotional well-being couldn't take it.

The end of Dogma makes me cry too, mostly because I hope God is infinitely kind and forgiving and silly like that.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000

Untamed Heart with Christian Slater always makes me cry, Bed of Roses with Christian Slater makes hysterical. I guess he just makes me cry in general. The English Patient when he can't get back to her is just heartwrenching and tears always fall when I watch that. Message in a Bottle is another one. That very old movie Random Harvest is a killer. And just yesterday I watched End of the Affair and that one choked me up too.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

I had just known my then-future husband a few weeks when he took me to a drive-in to see Franco Zefferelli's "Romeo & Juliet". I cried (loudly) from the moment they met. (His comment was "I guess it's a good thing we didn't go to an indoor theatre to see this.") I could cry right now...

As for books, I have read the book "Mrs. Mike" several times, starting when I was 15 and it makes me cry everytime. I think because it is a true story and for heaven's sake some of her children die at birth!! Incredibly sad...

I also cry (or at least tear up) at Hallmark commercials, obituaries for people I don't know, newpaper articles about selfless do-gooders and noble teens, just about any story having to do with animals, etc. I think it's healthy...

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Most recent - Gladiator. Yes, it's a chick flick. Very sad.

But Russell Crowe rocks, totally and completely, as a man who just wants to go home to his wife and son.

I've seen it three times, and I may go again tomorrow with my daughter (again) who I have now converted to being a real Crowequette.

I very rarely see a film in a theater more than once, much less three or four times in less than three weeks.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

I don't want the Macho Boomer to think he and Jack Saunders are the only guys who cry at movies -- The fourth or fifth time I saw Shawshank Redemption, the scene where Tim Robbins's character is preparing Morgan Freeman's character for the fact that he's going to escape Shawshank, the line about having to "either get busy living or get busy dying" killed me. I think I cried for about ten minutes -- greatly upsetting my wife, who up to that point hadn't seen me cry at all. I couldn't explain to her all the Ernest Hemingway things that line made me feel. Rilke was so right about marriage -- it really is two solitudes aligning with each other, and saluting. Any way, that and Sounder.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Well, folks have already mentioned two of my all-time favorite crying movies: "Joy Luck Club" (worst quality crab/best quality heart and the "I see you" part and the ending--gawd, I'm getting misty as I type this) and "Terms of Endearment" (which was recently on tv, and I sobbed through the final scene with Debra Winger and her sons--yikes!) Another good one for me is the ending of "A River Runs Through It," when Robert Redford narrates straight from the book. I can remember watching it on video with my family for the first time, and everyone sort of sitting in the dark in stunned, sniffly silence as the final credits rolled.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

"Camille", starring Greta Garbo. Four hankies, at least. also tge best damn acting. they don't make'em like her anymore.

"Ivan and Abraham" a french film about two little boys in 1930s Poland. the most gorgeous sound editing, full of multilingual whispers.

"Land and Freedom" I get choked up when people 'fight the good fight.'

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Tristan always cries at Cinema Paradiso. I always cry at El Postino.

I cry at everything though - I cried at the end of Armageddon, despite not having seen the rest of the film.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

the goodbye girl. everytime. it's supposed to be a comedy.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Worse than the AT&T commercials are the Hallmark ones.... Oh, my. Hallmark Hall of Fame movies are the worst because the movie usually makes you sad and you don't even get a reprieve during commercials!

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

I love the book "Mrs. Mike" and have read it about ninety times. But it doesn't make me cry, or even feel sad. I just think it's fascinating.

This topic is making me feel like a freak for not crying more...and I thought I was one of those overly emotional people!

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Cinema Paradiso. Yeah, that's a good one...

The Wings of the Dove. When Merton apologizes to Millie and she forgives him. I remember I actually REWOUND the video to watch that scene twice. Total forgiveness bestowed by a character who has been deeply deceived by the person she loves...very moving...oh yeah, and to top it off, she's dying, too. Bawl! I rarely cry at movies, but this one did it.

A Prayer for Owen Meany. This one made me tear up.

Gladiator. Ah...the noble Maximus. Why can't the guys I meet have integrity like him? Moving, but I didn't cry (too busy looking away from all the head-lopping). In the words of a fellow forum- respondent, I am now a Crowequette.

Re: movies and crying...it also seems to depend on your mood, and what recently happened to you before you sat down to watch the film....

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Okay -- don't know if Gladiator will _continue_ to make me cry, but I left the theater in tears after watching it.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Just about all of the movies listed above I have watched and cried to. A few more: Stepmom, Patch Adams, Up Close & Personal, and Simon Birch. But if I really want a good cry, all I need to do is go to the animal web sites: Humane Society, HUA.org, ARF, SPCA, and any rescue society, and just read about some of the animals that they have helped. Just kills me.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Sheesh...I NEVER used to cry at movies when I was a kid. As I got older tho, I experienced some of life's "odd" events (i.e. getting my heart broken, losing a loved one, having someone I care for get their feelings hurt, or just missing someone) I now cry like a lil baby at the movies. It's almost embarrasing at times b/c I can't stop even if I wanted to.

My sob-flicks are Beaches, Simon Birch (when he screams "I'm SORRY!" on the bridge *sniff* *sniff*), and the final 15 minutes of the Iron Giant. I've never been so moved by a cartoon in all my life.

This may sound velveeta cheesy, but I also cry at almost every episode of Dawson's Creek. Wish I could control those darned tear ducts of mine!

-Z

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

SHADOWLANDS always makes me weep. I don't like tearjerkers (I've never seen TERMS OF ENDEARMENT and I don't want to), but I love that movie. It's sad and joyous at the same time. The only reason I origianlly rented the video was because Edward Hardwicke was in it (excellent actor). I own it now.

There's a TV movie that was made in 1983 that makes me tear up, too. Memorial Day, starring Mike Farrell. I have it on tape and put it in when I feel like a good cry.

Then again, these days almost everything gets the waterworks going. It's really annoying, considering that I used to cry at very little and made fun of my mom for crying at Little House on the Prairie.

It's all my mom's fault.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

The funeral in Four Weddings and a Funeral - that excruciating Auden poem does me in completely. The end of Out of Africa when the lions are on Denys Finch Hatton's grave makes me AND my husband cry, every time. The scene in Brief Encounter when she's leaving her almost- lover for the last time and the horrible neighbor won't shut up. Carrington, when she's standing outside their house watching everyone go to bed and Michael Nyman music is playing; and then after the wrenching ending I can't stop crying for like, weeks. The end of Dr. Zhivago when he dies of a heart attack trying to reach Lara.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Forrest Gump, when Bubba dies. None of the other deaths in the movie affect me the way Bubba's does. It breaks my heart every time.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Oh no, sister.... I'm a big fan of 3-hanky cinema!

The best heaving, sobbing, snotty-nosed cry movie that I've seen was "Shadowlands" with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.

Of course, don't let the fact that I'm a total sap and (at given times of the month) can get misty-eyed watching a Hallmark commercial or any advertising using Gershwin music influence your decision to check this movie out. It's a good one for when you're needing to purge...

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Amen to the Shadowlands. It had me bawling.

Burned by the Sun, a Russian film, also did it for me. It was this really sad theme song which they kept playing throughout, and would elicit tears every time.

Boys Don't Cry also made me cry, but because it was so real.

ill-repute

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Fearless gets me every time. The opening. The cornfield. Bridges walking through the devistation holding the baby. Peter Weir is a genius. I'm serious. And Rosie Perez should just stop acting because she will never ever ever again be able to tap into the astonishing depth of saddess she so surprisingly did in this underrated film.

Also Joe Vs. The Volcano makes me cry, but then again maybe I'm just a big ol' pussy.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

"When A Man Loves A Woman," where Meg Ryan just keeps on drinking and her dishy hubby Andy Garcia can't help her. "Once Were Warriors," when the abused daughter hangs herself. "An Officer And A Gentleman"--lots of moments, especially when Gere says "I got nowhere else to go!" "Bridges Of Madison County" kills me--I will watch it to the end every time even though I know it's going to make me bawl.Oh that Meryl Streep! She tears me up in "Sophie's Choice" too, don't even get me started! On TV it's Oprah--it's like daily therapy, because every single day somebody is doing something grand for somebody or something terrible to somebody or somebody is overcoming their obstacles and I am reduced to a puddle within an hour. I'd forgotten about "Terms Of Endearment" until it was on cable again recently, and Deborah Winger gives the speech to the boys. Speaking of books, the author of "Terms," Larry McMurtry, wrote a novel called "Some Can Whistle" which I always thought should be made into a movie. It's about a reclusive middle-aged TV producer whose life is turned upside down after a sudden--and all too brief--reunion with his estranged 21-year-old daughter. Three quarters of the way in, this book will slice you up in little pieces and leave you emotionally bereft--and you won't even see it coming.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

It's embarrassing confession time!

Back in the heyday of Garfield mania, a TV movie came out wherein Garfield and Odie got picked up and shuffled off to the pound. The night before the scheduled execution of Odie, during a dark rainstorm, Garfield remembers frolicking in the tall white flowers with Odie and other such sentimental moments. I think it is the song: something about "so long old friend, I wish that I could see you once again" that got me, but I could not stop crying for hours. My eyes were nearly swollen shut the next day.

Luckily, we had taped the show, so my family could cue up the moment that killed me and play it for fun, to watch me weep hysterically. It worked for years, at least until I was well into high school. I'd probably still cry now, but thinking about it doesn't do much anymore.



-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

Every Christmas, my boyfriend and I watch It's A Wonderful Life and every year, without fail, we both cry at the end, right when Harry Bailey comes in. I don't know why it's always that part, but it never fails.

It's the only movie I've seen my boyfriend cry over. I'm a lot more likely to cry, so I won't even list all the movies that do it to me. Except to say, we went to see Little Women (the new one) in the theater (and I still don't know how I convinced him to go with me) and I started crying about halfway through and cried the rest of the way, because I knew what was going to happen. He still teases me about that one.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2000

I'm with stee for most of the way with what he says about Fearless, except that I think Rosie Perez should quit acting just because she's so fucking annoying. If you cut her out I'd like the film better

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

OK, OK....here's a new good cry movie:

Frequency, starring Dennis Quaid and some actor I've never seen before, but who I'm sure we'll see a lot more of after this.

If you had told me a week ago that *any* movie containing Dennis Quaid could make me cry, I would have laughed heartily. However, my beau and I were both hiccupping-crying, with tears streaming down our faces. (And by the sounds of it, the rest of the theater wasn't faring much better...) He (my squeeze) was definitely more subtle about his emotional egress than I, so I just surreptitiously passed him a napkin (one NOT stained with popcorn butter) so that he could clean himself up before the lights came back on.

Dang! I cried for about the last third of that movie. Good, if implausible, story and really quite decent acting. However, it's strength definitely lies in the boo-hoo factor. I was fully SPENT when it was over.

Check it out.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Movies do not make me cry. Or hardly ever, anyway.

Exceptions: Stand By Me, but only since River Phoenix died, and The Color Purple. I don't particularly like the latter so I'm not sure why it gets me, but it does, every time, in the scene where the sisters split up, and then again with Oprah Winfrey at the table.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

I wasn't going to admit it, but since Tracey did...Little Women made me cry, and so does Black Beauty (the last live-action one they made).

I cried when I read Romeo and Juliet, but the last version with DiCaprio and Danes left me cold. I think I shouted "bottoms up, damn it!" when Leo hesitates to drink his poison at the end. I dispise that boy. Ditto for Titanic. I cried the first time I saw it when they play "Nearer my God to thee" and all you can hear is the music like a silent movie, and it cuts to all these people who are going to die, like the old couple lying on their bed with the water rushing in and the Irish lady putting her children to bed. My friend and I made bubbly-sounding drowning-noises when Leo died.

The new movie Return to Me actually choked me up a bit, though I can't remember why. I wasn't even going to see it because I bear a deep-seated contempt for David Duchoveny (or however you spell it) but my mom loved it, and it was sweet, after all.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Of course! I forgot all about my most embarassing admission of all: Toy Story 2. The scene here the little cow-girl doll is remeniscing about when she had a little girl who loved her, and how she got eventually forgotten and discarded, and how sad it made her. I can't remember who sings the song, but it's called "When She Loved Me", if I'm not mistaken. I WEPT during this part, mostly, I think, because I have always been very sentimental about my toys, even after they had no real value besides sentimentality. I've always had a nagging feeling that I'm hurting their feelings and ruining their loves if I throw them away or sell them. That song and the scenes shown during it just totally dissolved me.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Three words. The Horse Whisperer. I cried several times during that movie. I think I even cried harder the second time around.

I always wind up fuming mad, though, when the credits roll at the end and I realize Kristin Scott Thomas' character has made the dumbest choice ever. Ugh!

Boys Don't Cry tore me up inside as well.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

Dr. Zhivago has always made me cry. I was glad to read that someone else has seen it! Boys Don't Cry tore me up more than any movie in my life -- sitting next to my hubby who could have the same thing happen to him didn't help at all. I went to Lincoln to the cemetary and had to sit in the car forever before I could not even get out.

What Dreams May Come, most Disney films, Stand By Me as River fades into nothingness, City of Angels, heck the movie Seven when the van drove up and I realized his wife was dead..geez.

Ok, I pretty much cry at everything too.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

Oh my gosh! I can't believe no one said Fried Green Tomatoes. Everytime I just hear the title of the movie I start bawling because its such a sad story. I start crying within the first 5 minutes of it and don't stop till after the credits have rolled.

-- Anonymous, May 26, 2000

I've just discovered this site and love it. Didn't know I'd be taken in with this question...though I do cry at many movies. While reading the responses, seeing the titles and actors flicker by my eyes, I replayed the lovely images of the "English Patient" pilot flying the body of his beloved to a new resting place. Then my movie screen teared over. While scrolling on this 'net, listening to a band called Wagon play "Broken Lines," the tears began to fall. One by one. Beautiful, Xeney. 'Scuze me while I compose my manly self. -- G.

-- Anonymous, May 28, 2000

ok crying at sad movies I frequently do and many have been mentioned here... but I didn't see forest gump, which always gets me... I'm a huge sucker for the romantic thing and when harry met sally is near the top of that list... and here's a weird one with a quaid... enemy mine... sf but with some really touching moments but for me the one which gets me the most...(gives me the mean reds...) is breakfast at tiffany's holly golightly is just..well just so lovely ok, so I'm a hopeless romantic!

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

What Dreams May Come always does it for me. Especially the parts like when Robin Williams meets his daughter for the first time -- just kills me. Or when he sees his wife again for the first time and decided to join her -- bwaaaaaa.

Back from 6 weeks on the road at The Road Trip

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

Not a movie, but there have been a few Buffy episodes that got to me -- the one where Buffy sends Angel to Hell, and the one from last season where Angel is trying to kill himself by waiting for the sun to come up, but it snows instead.

Yes, that later one is sappy, but it got me where I live.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2000

Oh, I just thought of another one... Sliding Doors, at the end where Gwyneth Paltrow and James Hannah reconcile on the bridge....gimme the kleenex.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2000

No one mentioned "Dumbo"? OH my GoSH!...I just have to THINK of Dumbo's mama rocking him gently in the crook of her trunk while she's jailed in that circus wagon and my eyes pool - that song "Baby of Mine" sheesh..it really tugs deep on my heartstrings.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

Jackie, I saw Good Will HUnting in the theater when it came out, and started crying in the scene where Robin WIlliams tells Matt Damon "It's not your fault."

I haven't been able to see it since. Got issues, I suppose. Excellent film though.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

I don't know if you're still collecting answers to this question, but how about these? The 1939 version of Wuthering Heights (Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon), Maytime with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald, Forrest Gump (the first time he sees his son, and after Jenny dies and he's talking to her), Shadowlands, Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment (any mother will identify with this one), Zefferelli's Romeo & Juliet, Old Yeller, Bambi, Lassie Come Home, geez, there's a ton! My husband considers himself the "manly man," but every week we used to cry at Little House on the Prairie. He also cried at the end of Sleepless in Seattle and The Color Purple, and tried to tell me he had a cold. Ha!

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Old Yeller.

If anyone can watch Old Yeller and not cry they are an inhuman monster.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

I'm with the ones who mentioned Terms of Endearment. How about the bathtub scene in Kolya ("Babushka!"))?

As for books, the first one to make me cry was Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing. I'll spare you the details.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Oops.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

oh, if we're talking about books, I have to add in _King_ by John Berger. incredible sad furious book.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

I know I'm terribly weird, but .... I cried (not sobbing, but misty-eyed) at the end of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut the first time or two I saw it.

But, on a not-weird note, the ending of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, manipulative as John Huges is being right at that moment, makes me mist up too.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001