Tear Jerkers

[titan1968]

All four of my choices are four hankies:

Elephant Man (1980, David Lynch)

Brokeback Mountain (2004, Ang Lee)

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961, Blake Edwards)

Heaven on Earth (not sure about the title or who produced it, 1986 or 1987, Canada-UK): it's about orphans from the UK (Wales) who are deported to 1840s Canada to start a new life. A few have good lives whereas others are shamelessly taken advantage of. Although this story is fictitious, it is based on a few true stories and is an accurate account of the lives of the thousands of British children who came to Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

[DiscoBoy]

[PS: Disco - English Patient is a great film! - really amazing scenery.]

It's beautiful and just overall fantastic. One of very few cases where I enjoyed the movie as much as the book.

On topic:
Life as a House (2001) is heart wrenching.

 

[B_am12388]

I can't even say one to four hankies on my list, I had a meltdown at the end of all of these, lucky for me I was at home for the majority of them. (In the worst one my neighbor came by after a couple of hours to see if I was OK...):redface:
Truly Madly Deeply
The Notebook
It's My Party
An Affair To Remember
The End Of The Affair
Longtime Companion
Sophie's Choice
Terms Of Endearment
Steel Magnolia's
Titanic
Brief Encounter
Life Is Beautiful
Brian's Song
Backstreet
Imitation Of Life
Say Goodbye Maggie Cole (the song still brings a tear to my eye)
Old Yeller
Bambi
Oh and this is the one that I think my neighbor wanted to put me in a home for a little rest (I saw it right after my mother died)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0120776/

You also cried during The Notebook ?! And you're guy !? YAY, I'm not alone! :biggrin1::biggrin1:

 

[justmeincal]

My 4 hankie movies are:

Imitation of Life
Madame X
Penny Serenade
Old Yeller
Stella Dallas (the original)

 

[nudeyorker]

My 4 hankie movies are:

Imitation of Life
Madame X
Penny Serenade
Old Yeller
Stella Dallas (the original)

Oh I forgot about that one. *spoiler alert* I lost it when the little girl died!

 

[Fleur]

The Notebook
PS I Love You
Seven Pounds
Marley and Me
Wall-E
You've Got Mail

I'm a dork. :redface:

 

[2322]

Each of the films I list here are good movies, unless otherwise noted. Some are among the greatest movies ever made. I'm listing films which caused me to cry, not necessarily films I've seen which have caused others to cry so yeah, there are some notorious titles omitted. Some, like Cast Away and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir get me teary just thinking of them.

You'll see a lot of Bette Davis films in the list because she was one of the few actresses who could take the most ridiculous pablum and make it believable so when she had good material she frequently made it great.

I'm susceptible to great scores, I admit it. I'm not sure I would have cried during Edward Scissorhands were it not for Danny Elfman's incomparable music all through the film and particularly the ice dance scene.

Don't let the Chaplin titles fool you. Charlie Chaplin was not just a comedian. He was one of the great directors of all time.

Some of these films cause serious emotional indigestion. Beware of The Passion of Joan of Arc, Sunrise, Breaking the Waves, and especially Chunhyang. I'm sure Bambi scarred me for life too.

I hated AI because I found it too emotionally manipulative for the insubstantial plot. Spielberg took the easy way out deciding a mass of tissues would substitute for Kubrick's trademark ambiguity.

There are more recent films missing as I tend to only watch movies after they've aged a bit. I like the perspective of time when choosing what to watch or not.

So here's the list and let me also add a fantastic trailer for a Tear Jerker month on TCM done by RAYGUN. The images are iconic.

Broken Blossoms (1919)
The Kid (1921)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1929) Best performance of an actress ever.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Best anti-war film ever made.
The Champ (1931)
City Lights (1931) Chaplin's ending is astonishingly moving. Genius.
Lady For A Day (1933)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
The Good Earth (1937)
------------------------------------
A few of the reasons 1939 is considered the greatest year in film history:
Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Intermezzo (1939)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Dark Victory (1939)
The Old Maid (1939)
Wuthering Heights (1939)
------------------------------------
The Way of All Flesh (1940)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Now, Voyager (1942)
The Pride of the Yankees (1942) -"Today, I consider myself..."
Bambi (1942)- Should have been rated R.
Mrs. Skeffington (1944)
Brief Encounter (1945)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Pather Panchali (1955)
Old Yeller (1957)
Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
Imitation of Life (1959) - Mahalia singing Trouble Of the World.
Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Charlotte's Web (1973)
Ordinary People (1980)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Gallipoli (1981)
The Color Purple (1982)
The Snowman (1982)
Terms of Endearment (1983)
The Killing Fields (1984)
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Au revoir, les enfants (1987)
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Ghost (1990) -I hate to admit it.
Edward Scissorhands (1990) -Oh that score and Vincent Price!
Schindler's List (1993)
Breaking the Waves (1996)
Titanic (1997)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
The Iron Giant (1999)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Cast Away (2000) -"You're the love of my life!"
Chunhyang (2000) -The end is horrific
Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) -Awful movie.
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -I lose it at the illumination of the Dwarrowdelf. You have to read The Silmarillion to get it. Shore's score here is one of the finest in film. Obviously, he's read The Silmarillion.
The Two Towers (2002) - "Where is the horse and the rider?"
The Return of the King (2003)
Grey Gardens (2009)

 

[HazelGod]

I'm susceptible to great scores, I admit it. I'm not sure I would have cried during Edward Scissorhands were it not for Danny Elfman's incomparable music all through the film

Absolutely. Hans Zimmer's score (not to mention Lisa Gerrard's voice) is what really gives Gladiator its visceral punch.

 

[Dave NoCal]

What great picks! Also, so many of you have seen so many more movies than I. Here are some of mine:

Not mentioned in this thread is Enchanted April. I've only seen it once and it was during a very difficult time of my life but I thought it was incredibly touching in a very sweet way.

Another not mentioned is The Sum of Us starring a very young and briefly nude Russel Crowe. At the end, when his father starts crying, I inevitably lose it.

Ordinary People: The last line. The father (Donald Sutherland) says "Be careful who you look up to (himself). They'll disappoint you." The son (Timothy Hutton) responds "I'm not disappointed in you. I love you." The camera pans and you see them embracing in the back yard in mid-winter.

Truly Madly Deeply.

Brokeback Mountain. Especially the scene in which Heath Ledger's character visits the parents of Jake Gyllehal's character's parents, is shown the bedroom and finds the shirt and jacket with the blood still on them. YIKES! My presumably straight actor/model nephew, his father, and I were discussing movies and he commented that he cried all the way through it.

Enough for now. Gotta cook dinner.

Dave

 

[2322]

Absolutely. Hans Zimmer's score (not to mention Lisa Gerrard's voice) is what really gives Gladiator its visceral punch.

And the acting. Crowe could have so easily been Charlton Heston and Joaquin Phoenix could have so easily been Basil Rathbone, yet they weren't. I really liked Gladiator as it could have so easily been just another sword & sandal flick. And it wasn't!

 

[HazelGod]

Agreed. Joaquin Phoenix got shafted on the BSA award that year.

 

[Flashy]

Ordinary People: The last line. The father (Donald Sutherland) says "Be careful who you look up to (himself). They'll disappoint you." The son (Timothy Hutton) responds "I'm not disappointed in you. I love you." The camera pans and you see them embracing in the back yard in mid-winter.

Dave

perhaps my favorite tearjerker of all time and one of my favorite films...a devastating movie that is shattering emotionally...

but you got the lines a bit wrong, my friend...the last line was "I love you too" (which Donald Sutherland says, his eyes tearing up before he says it, and as he says it his voice starts to crack at the end of the "too")

it was in response to Conrad telling him that he admired him for always making them feel like everything was going to be okay...

"well don't admire people too much...they''ll disappoint you sometimes"
"I'm not disappointed...I love you"
"I love you too"

(here is a cut of solely the final scene" simply amazing, and the panout with pachelbel in the background is just so devastating, with them sitting there hugging)

YouTube - Ordinary People - "I'm not disappointed....I love you"

 

[Dave NoCal]

Sorry to have messed it up a bit! Oh well, it's a great movie and a great scene. Thanks for the link. Her character is somehat unsympathetic, at least initially, but Mary Tyler Moore is astonishing!
Dave

 

[justmeincal]

I'm surprised I forgot Brokeback Mountain in my list. I remember reading a small blurb in the paper years ago that Ang Lee was going to make a movie about two gay sheep herders. I was interested enough to go to my local book store and pick up Annie's collection of short stories which included BBM. I went out to my car and thought I would read the first page of BBM. Half an hour later I finished with tears streaming down my face. Nothing had yanked my chain so hard in years.

I thought there would be no way the movie could capture what the short story did, but I was wrong. Heath Ledger made it work. I'm still in awe of his performance.

Oh and Jason_els, you are right. Nobody could take a piece of sentimental drek and make it work like Bette Davis.

 

[justmeincal]

Also forgot 'Waterloo Bridge'. Another 3 or 4 hankie film.

 

[DiscoBoy]

You'll see a lot of Bette Davis films in the list because she was one of the few actresses who could take the most ridiculous pablum and make it believable so when she had good material she frequently made it great.

I recently watched Of Human Bondage and while not necessarily a tear jerker, that one scene where she metaphorically rips Leslie Howard a new one really hurts my heart:
"You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin' a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!"

 

[YoungHungMachine]

Rudy

 

[2322]

I recently watched Of Human Bondage and while not necessarily a tear jerker, that one scene where she metaphorically rips Leslie Howard a new one really hurts my heart:
"You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin' a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!"

You mean this scene?

Compare that to Davis and Howard playing lovers in this scene from The Petrified Forest. This film made Bogart a star. It is also a look into the psychology of anti-heroism and America's fascination with it. It's a great movie.

 

[HazelGod]

Compare that to Davis and Howard playing lovers in this scene from The Petrified Forest.

TIPPING IS UN-AMERICAN.
PLEASE KEEP YOUR CHANGE.

:lmao:

 

[DiscoBoy]

You mean this scene?

Compare that to Davis and Howard playing lovers in this scene from The Petrified Forest. This film made Bogart a star. It is also a look into the psychology of anti-heroism and America's fascination with it. It's a great movie.

Yes, that exact scene! Though, it's even more powerful if you watch the full film. Howard is nothing but good to her and is rewarded with that :frown1:.