Y'ALL'S THE ONLY-EST FAMILY I GOT. I LOVE THE 54TH. AIN'T EVEN MUCH A-MATTER WHAT HAPPENS TOMORROW,'CAUSE WE MEN, AIN'T WE? WE MEN: As you may have already seen on the Internets today, scientists determined in 1988 that Jon Voight's death in front of son Ricky "Not Yet 'Rick'" Schroeder in The Champ (1979) was the most reliable sadness-inducing film scene to-date.
My question is: what's the saddest scene since? I will start the bidding at the first ten minutes of Up.
(Please spoiler-protect appropriately.)
SPOILER
ReplyDeleteEnnis looking at Jack's denim shirt at the end of Brokeback made me cry so hard I thought people at the theater would think my husband and I had a fight. Or Brian Cox's monologue in The 25th Hour.
That was me.
ReplyDeleteEven random moments of Running on Empty got me - there's just a profound sadness at the core of that movie.
ReplyDelete*****SPOILER*******************
ReplyDeleteI ALWAYS cry at the scene in Steel Magnolias when M'Lynn (Sally Field) is angry and gives an emotional rant after Shelby's (Julia Roberts) funeral.
SPOILER
ReplyDeleteAt the end of Field of Dreams - Ray and John Kinsella. Gets me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. And not just because I"m from Iowa.
Hey Dad. Wanna have a catch?
Final scene of Toy Story 3 hit me harder than beginning of Up.
ReplyDeleteIt's often not the sadness that does me in, though. WALL-E and EVE "dancing"? Gets me every time.
The last 20 minutes of Toy Story 3...oh boy.
ReplyDeleteThe end of Terminator 2. Yes.
ReplyDelete/no I'm not kidding
Like Tosy and Cosh, I tend to choke up more often at happy moments than sad ones. But Freddie Highmore and Johnny Depp on the park bench at the end of Finding Neverland? Snurfle.
ReplyDeleteThe end of E.T. "I'll be right here." "Be good." Every single time.
ReplyDeleteGuys, if you write "SPOILER ALERT" with no designation of what you're spoiling, it doesn't really help?
ReplyDeleteThe whole USS Kelvin segment in the latest installment of the Star Trek has me heaving every time.
ReplyDelete"Tiberius? That's the worst. Let's name him after your Dad. Let's call him Jim."
A few that come to mind:
ReplyDelete- the car making the slow drive up to the Ryan house about 30 min into "Saving Private Ryan". Because of the hell that preceded it, and because of John Fordian framing, that scene just kills me.
- the ending of "A Little Princess". Actually, ALL of "A Little Princess", as perfect and magical a family film I've ever seen. The ending makes me happy-sad, I guess... every time I've seen it, I've bawled.
- the ending of "Mulholland Drive". I don't think I've seen a movie that has affected me as profoundly as that movie did. The second time I saw it, at least, when I fully *got* it. It's not so much that the scene itself is sad, but it's the cumulative effect of all that came before it, so maybe that shouldn't count.
One more: the swimming competition at the end of Gattaca.
ReplyDelete"I never saved anything for the swim back."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZKZSiCmXLQ&feature=related
Maybe it's because I'm the youngest of five, but that one gives me tear of joy every single time.
The Terms of Endearment scene when she's saying goodbye to her kids.
ReplyDeleteI cry often at movies -- the point is to be emotionally involved, after all -- but I have never bawled like I did in 'Up.' There were several scenes where I cried (Carl setting aside his two chairs, Doug saying "I hid under the porch because I love you," Carl showing up to pin Ellie's grape soda cap on Russell), but that silent montage at the beginning makes me inconsolable in a way movies never have before.
ReplyDeleteOutside of 'Up,' I might say the ending of 'Atonement,' but that was completely designed and intended to make you weep. I think 'Up' has the upper-hand in this debate because it wasn't heavy-handed or manipulative. It was just honest.
Uhm, does ALL of 'Requiem for a Dream' count? Or just the final 5 minutes?
ReplyDeleteBut for me, the most harrowing scene in that whole movie is where Ellen Burstyn is talking to her son about how alone she feels in the years since her husband died.
IMHO, that sequence is the best part of the whole movie.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it should be more like:
ReplyDeleteIn [Movie X], SPOILER ALERT, it's when ....
.
.
.
.
.
[That sad thing happens.]
I just cried a little right now, reading that.
ReplyDeleteThe end of 'Big Fish.'
ReplyDelete'Sophie's Choice.'
I'm with you 100 percent on that one. It got me when I was single and I saw it from the kid's perspective; now that I'm a Dad and see it from the father's eyes, it hits me even harder.
ReplyDeleteThe moment in Toy Story 3 that gets me (in those 20 minutes) is when Buzz or Woody (think it's Buzz) shakes his head, as in no, nothing else we can do to save ourselves, and then reaches out to hold hands with the toy next to him. And they all hold hands. It made me flash on people holding hands and jumping off of the towers.
ReplyDeleteIt's a terribly manipulative movie and I can't even watch it anymore but I SOBBED at the end of Simon Birch. The book is a bazillion times better and I love it but that movie was just mean.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I watched My Girl (I was 13), I cried so hard I broke blood vessels in my eyes. I had to be led out of the theater after Titanic b/c I cried so hard my eyes swelled.
Perhaps I'm not a good judge at this b/c I'm a weepy mess.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one with Up though. I cried so hard that my partner offered to turn the movie off.
Some fat bastard who looks just like me cried for the first 5 minutes of saving private ryan and the final scene in the cemetary.
ReplyDeleteI love that scene in WALL-E. The music, the passengers watching them (and eventually holding hands!).....wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAnother entry in the subcategory of Loneliness: The final scene of Mike Leigh's Another Year, in which [SPOILER]
ReplyDelete... the desperately lonely, mostly awful Mary sits at the table, surrounded by people connected to one another in a way that she longs for but will almost assuredly never have, grasping, perhaps, that this family's tolerance and generalized pity are the closest thing to love she will ever know.
So glad to see someone else who loves A Little Princess. I just adore that movie and think Cuaron made it truly magical. Sometimes I hate changes to beloved books, but all his changes work (I didn't even really mind them moving it to New York, surprisingly). The green color palette, making Becky more of an equal,
ReplyDeleteSPOILER
Making her father survive should have enraged me, as it did in the horrid Shirley Temple movie, but Cuaron made it work. I do think it would've worked with the original ending, with Mr. Carrisford finding her and adopting her, but this worked - maybe because her father didn't recognize her at first and it was so sad. And yes, the ending with Becky and Sara in India is SO lovely. (Though I hope it's a visit, not a permanent move, or Ermengarde and Lottie will never see her again.) And the moment when Lavinia embraces her, shown three times in sequence as in a dream, is marvelous.
It's meant to be a tearjerker, but, my God, My Life killed me. I went to see it with two friends and at one point we were all out in the hallway. Friend A because a recent death in her family made it too hard to sit through, Friend B to comfort Friend A, and then I left because I was sobbing so loud I was afraid I might disturb other the other viewers in the theater.
ReplyDeleteThe montage at/near the end of Cinema Paradiso.
Related: any scene in which an adult has to be fed kills me - see My Life (above) or Driving Miss Daisy.
And, whatever, I cried at Bubba Ho-Tep.
The final scene in Toy Story 3, and the must-discussed Up montage, and Ray's catch with his dad, and most of The Tree of Life, are perfect examples of movie moments that make me cry not because they are sad but because they are lovely.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember someone crying during the operatic soliloquy in Philadelphia.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised that a scene in "Deathly Hallows" made me bawl, as I don't think I've ever cried at a Harry Potter movie -- I've been a little teary sometimes, but this was out-and-out sobbing that took me by complete surprise.
ReplyDeleteSPOILER
It was just a version of the scene we've seen several times before, when Lily is in Harry's room to save him from Voldemort. But this was just before Voldemort arrives, and Lily was saying softly, "You are so loved, baby. Mama loves you so much." It knocked me down -- a mother trying to make sure that what could be her son's last moments are filled with the kind of loving words that a mother says to her child all the time.
In the Television medium, the last 10 minutes of the series finale of six feet under was, I think, the saddest thing I ever saw. Effect lasted for days.
ReplyDeleteMaret, totally agree on "Big Fish." As the SPOILER ALERT parade of mourners begins, it gets me every time. Really underappreciated movie.
ReplyDeleteMaggie, you beat me to that one. What's so good about that scene is how angry her oldest boy is, and how Debra Winger's character is so fierce in saying that someday he's going to feel guilty, but it's okay, because she's telling him now that she knows he loves her.
ReplyDeleteToy Story 3 gets me EVERY time. And in starts with that scene when they're about to go into the incinerator fires and Buzz gives Woody that look of fearful, but calm, acceptance, and they all clasp hands. And continues right through that final scene, when the little girl takes Woody out of the box and Andy gasps, and then sadly gives Woody up - and when he talks about Woody, how he's loyal and brave and the best friend you'll ever have.
ReplyDeleteStar Trek II: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know the movie Zero Effect, with Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller? It's wildly uneven, but I love its mix of buddy comedy/detective movie/mystery/romance. (I seem to be the only one, but that's okay.) Anyway, late in the movie there's a scene in a retro diner with Bill Pullman and Kim Dickens where he opens up (very, very rare for this character) and tells her his horrifying childhood story. And she has her own horrifying childhood, so she understands. And she says, "What doesn't kill you... defines you." And then the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song "Into Your Arms" plays on the soundtrack, and it's all incredibly sad and lovely.
ReplyDeleteGattaca is such a great, under-rated movie. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteOh yes -- Six Feet Under was sad, touching, and triumphant, and one of the best series finales I've seen. And yes, I wept like a baby.
ReplyDeleteAs I also did at the end of Buffy, Season II.
And since my example above is sad but not weepy, here's two of my favorite weepy scenes:
ReplyDeleteSPOILER - FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
When Ruth is dying and she asks Idgie to tell her the story about the ducks, and she dies as Idgie is telling it. And as Idgie cries over Ruth's body, Sipsy stops the clock.
And of course, Beaches (does this really need a SPOILER?)
Just after Hilary dies and CeCe is talking to her daughter, saying that Hilary wanted the daughter to come live with her, and the girl says, "Can I bring my cat?"
Yes! that got to me too. And in the same movie (latest Harry Potter -- SPOILER ALERT)
ReplyDeletewhen (and this wasn't in the book) Snape was cradling Lily's dead body. I was disappointed in the movie, but that image just killed me.
Agreed re: Brokeback. I remember sitting in the theater, and that scene is followed by that beautiful Willie Nelson song over the credits (Friend of Mine?) and I could NOT stop crying. My husband kept looking at me, asking "Are you all right?" And the tears were just streaming. I'm feeling a little damp around the eyes just thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteOh god . . . movie scenes that have made me cry uncontrollably:
ReplyDelete1. Throughout my childhood edition: The scene in Wizard of Oz when the balloon leaves without Dorothy.
2. Throughout my teenage years: Dead Poets Society
3. Other points in time: Toy Story 3. Time Traveller's Wife. Camille Claudel. Titanic. The entire "Circle of Life" opener in "Lion King."
Yes, yes, yes, re: Cinema Paradiso, though those were, as The Other Kate categorized them above, tears brought on from the perfect loveliness of that sequence.
ReplyDelete1982 was after 1988, right?
ReplyDeleteSince my neighbor chimed in, I'll follow suit.
ReplyDeleteThe Notebook comes to mind...every moment that Gena Rowlands is on screen unable to recognize her own life and family.
As for TV, I will NEVER forget watching the final episode of MASH with my mom and anticipating that Hawkeye and Trapper would be the last two standing for the final goodbye...I was sobbing!
Back to movies...
The Way We Were...totally remember sobbing through that.
Schindler's List: I don't recommend seeing that movie right after a break-up. I lost track of why I was crying.
In general...if the directors are thinking "Let's make this a tear jerker," I'm there for them. I even cry at previews. And animated films are not off limits.
I concur on Toy Story 3, Steel Magnolias, Up, and My Life. One not previously mentioned, Out of Africa. The scene with the lions on the grave and the voiceover ("Denys would love that. I'll have to remember to tell him.") gets me every.single.time. God, I'm a cry-baby.
ReplyDeleteSPOLER ALERT for THE FAMILY STONE
ReplyDeleteI kept remembering a moment with Rachel McAdams that made me cry and when I read this I thought, "Of course, The Time Traveler's Wife!" But then I realized that the one i was thinking of was the very end of The Family Stone, when they're decorating the Christmas tree, and her boyfriend asks if she's okay, and they start to kiss as the camera pans to the shot of Diane Keaton on the wall. Gets me every time, even if I just flip to the movie for the last scene. There's something about the fact that they can't find the stockings that just makes the loss start to hurt.
I cried for like half of BIG FISH. Totally agree it's underappreciated. Loved that movie.
ReplyDeleteOh, if we're going to talk about TV, how about the one-two punch the night the WB aired the Buffy episode where (SPOILER)
ReplyDeleteBuffy kills Angel (sends him to Hell)
And THEN aired the Dawson's Creek ep where (SPOILER AGAIN)
Joey visits her dad in jail for the first time.
Oh, Big Fish. I had forgotten how much that movie got to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's the bagpipes.
ReplyDeleteIn the TV arena,
ReplyDeleteThe death of Dr Green on ER. The SOB's managed to get me to cry for 2 consecutive episodes.
Thank goodness someone else mentioned Circle of Life - makes me teary-eyed every single time.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's the last scene in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I" when...
ReplyDeleteSPOILER
When Harry buries Dobby on the beach behind the Bill and Fleur's cottage. The scene in the book killed me, but I didn't expect to become a blubbering mess during the movie.
I think I'll go and knit a pair of socks now.
I third Cinema Paradiso -- but you're right. It's just so sublimely lovely, not sad.
ReplyDeleteMy go-to-gotta-cry movie is Gallipoli, an early Mel Gibson movie directed by Peter Weir. The ending is utter annihilation, emotionally speaking. Such an underrated and little-seen film. I've seen this movie a half-dozen times, at least, and I always finish it with my heart pounding outside of my hollowed-out chest,
Lots of love above for Toy Story 3 (which I did NOT like -- way too dark for me), but what about Toy Story 2?! The Jessie montage with Sarah Maclachlan's "When She Loved Me" is heartbreaking.
Add my votes to:
E.T.
Up
"Love's Labor Lost" episode of ER
When Sawyer can't save Juliette/When Sun watches the ship & Jin blow up on Lost
Guest above was me.
ReplyDeleteLoveliness, but also sadness as so much has been lost before that moment. Like finding silly photographs of a loved one not too long after their death.
ReplyDeleteSue - I love Zero Effect. I'm glad Kim Dickens is finally getting the career that movie promised.
ReplyDeleteSue, we're in a groove today on movies - I really, really liked Family Stone - was sad that it got marketed as a "Meet the Parents" comedy when it's really something quite different and interesting.
ReplyDeleteI was reading the Onion's "Films that make us cry" and the comments reminded me of some more:
ReplyDeleteShadowlands - Another one that made me excuse myself from the theater to regain my composure.
(TV) Blackadder Goes Forth: final scene, last episode
My never-not-make-me-cry from Terms of Endearment is when Shirley MacLaine just loses her shit when Debra Winger doesn't get her shot fast enough. "Give my daughter the shot!" Every single time I sob. Every single time.
ReplyDeleteTo this day I tear up just thinking about the last couple minutes at the end of Dead Poet's Society.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm another vote for Toy Story 3 - both the incinerator and the end - I'm tearing up right now just thinking about them.
You'd have to be made of stone not to cry during the "goodbye to the kids" scene. And just as I start to regain my composure, she dies. And every single time, Shirley MacLaine's "I thought it would be easier" kicks me in the stomach again.
ReplyDeleteMy Girl - "Put on his glasses! He can't see without his glasses!" brings on the ugly cry for sure.
ReplyDeleteOne that always gets me is the scene at the end of Iron Giant where the giant closes his eyes and murmurs "Superman". There are probably sadder scenes--that initial scene from "Up" left me absolutely sodden--but the Iron Giant is memorable to me since 1) I would never have thought Vin Diesel could make me cry, and 2) some time ago there was a piece about it in the Onion and the comments--which normally range from snarky to scabrous--were uniformly things like:
ReplyDelete"That scene makes me cry like a little baby."
"Me too."
"Me too."
<p><span>Milk - The candlelight vigil</span>
ReplyDelete</p><p><span></span>
</p><p><span>Dear Zachary - Sobby, snotty mess pretty much start to finish.</span>
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p><span>Schindler’s List - The women in the camp chasing the trucks full of their children.</span>
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p><span>Forrest Gump - Meeting his son for the first time: “Is he...is he smart or is he...”</span>
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p><span>Philadelphia - </span>the montage of family pictures paired with that Neil Young song at Andy’s funeral
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p>Castaway - “Willllssoooonnn!” (Tom Hanks is apparently my kryptonite)<span></span>
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p>In America - “It’s your eyes Johnny. He had your eyes.”<span></span>
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p><span><span> </span>“Say good bye to Frankie, Dad.”</span>
</p><p><span></span>
</p><p><span>The last 15 minutes of United 93.</span>
<span>
</span></p>
Ditto on this one. Go
ReplyDeleteDitto on this one. It got more poignant when I had kids, and even more so when my dad died last year.
ReplyDelete"Dear Zachary" needs to be in its own category. I didn't just sob, I screamed at the "reveal" (ugh, for lack of a better word).That's the most gut-wrenching film I've watched in recent memory.
ReplyDeleteI always choke up over the part where Diane Keaton opens the gift from Meredith that's a picture of her very pregnant and says, "That's me and you, kid."
ReplyDeleteI re-watched this recently with my younger daughter (for me, probably for the first time since it originally came out on home video), and yeah, it got dusty (again) right at that moment. What a terrific, underrated gem.
ReplyDeleteDr Green's death was hard but Love's Labor Lost episode is the absolute worst. I howled.
ReplyDeleteKaren - every single time. Not to mention the Sports Night scene when Dana talks about it.
ReplyDeleteI think Adam won the thread with the headline. Especially on repeat viewing after you know how things actually went down the next day.
ReplyDeleteWatts - Yay! I'm so glad I've found someone else that loves Zero Effect!
ReplyDeleteI cried because my brilliant little brat immediately figured out
ReplyDeleteSPOILER
that he would self-repair, thus missing the entire point.
If I had had more presence of mind, I would have stopped the movie at the end of the statue scene.
See also: Spock's heroic sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteDon't hate me . . . .
ReplyDeleteThe first time I saw Terms of Endearment, I was a youngish teen, with a teen friend and my mother. I don't know why we were seeing this movie, which is not aimed at teens at all. I'd never seen a real tearjerker before. Well, at the time, I hadn't known anyone yet who'd died or been seriously ill, so the movie wasn't getting my emotions that way, and somehow, the experience of being in a theater when just about everyone around me was sobbing . . . made me and my friend giggle a little. Very softly, because we were embarrassed about it.
(A couple years later, West Side Story made me sob at the end . . . it just took a bit for the full empathy to develop.)
Nowadays I would probably want to glare at a teen giggling during a sad scene. If so, I'll have to remind myself that they might be embarrassed at others' crying and not relating to the sadness, through the sheer fortunateness of not having experienced much real sadness yet in their own lives or lives of their loved ones.
Cannot ever ever watch that again. In fact, that's the episode that made me watch hospital shows (after years of Trapper John and Chicago Hope and such).
ReplyDeleteI giggled when I went to see Dead Poets Society - and not because the story didn't grab me. I meant to cry, but instead hysterical laughter came out. Apparently, it's not that unusual for those wires to get crossed and I'm just glad the one time it happened to me was only in a movie theater and not at, say, a funeral or something.
ReplyDeleteUgh, yes. I even knew it was coming the first time I saw it and it still had me heaving.
ReplyDeleteThe combination of Lily's moment with baby Harry and Snape's moment had me in HEAVING SOBS.
ReplyDeleteBut then, I also refused to see UP for well over a year after it was out on DVD and tv because I knew I could not handle the first 10 minutes emotionally. I was right.
On the subject of TV, something about Community's stop motion X-mas episode gets me every damned time.
ReplyDeleteGlory. Every. Frigging. Time. If a character I'm invested in is willingly going into a situation that surely, inevitably, they are not coming out of? That'll get me.
ReplyDeleteThe Notebook was the only time I've ever seen my husband cry, during the end scenes with the older man and his wife. I sobbed.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Million Dollar Baby
-- spoiler --
I went in thinking it would be a feel-good movie about boxing and triumph, etc. (that'll teach me to try to avoid reviews before I see a movie) based on previews. Yeah, when she wants him to kill her, I pretty much lost it. My poor husband was sitting there with me and three of my female friends, and we were all sobbing.
-- end spoilers --
The others mentioned above that get me are the scene in the cemetery in Steel Magnolias, the shirt scene in Brokeback, and while the overall scene at the beginning of Up was especially sad, it really made me cry with the subtle suggestion that they were never able to have kids, although they wanted them. That made me cry more than anything, and I don't think a ton of people got that, at least that I talk to.
Also, they are so horrible they are good, but I always cry in Independence Day (the president's wife) and Armageddon ("<span>No, wait, Harry I love you! Harry don't do this! I love you!"</span>)
Terms of Endearment for me too. I didn't really care until a drunken heart to heart with my mother. We started talking about my dad's bout with cancer while I was growing up and she told me she can't watch that movie because she WAS Shirley McLaine screaming at the nurses because he was in pain. Now, every time that movie comes on, I only see my mom.
ReplyDeleteAlso- Dancer in the Dark made me almost physically sick. I must have started crying 10 minutes in and didn't stop for ten hours. I remember going back to my dorm room and turning on ABBA praying that it would make the tears stop. Didn't work.
ReplyDeleteMy dad had a stroke about 5 years before Big Fish came out I was loudly uncontrollably sobbing through well a lot of it.
ReplyDeleteDobby is a free elf!
ReplyDeleteWow yes, Glory makes me cry.
ReplyDeleteThe movie itself is, well it stars Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr and is what you expect, but the scene in Hope Floats when little bitty Mae Whitman is bawling her freaking eyes out sceaming for her dad, destroys me. And I know that the scene is cheating and pulling every heart string it can possibly grab a hold of even though it has earned almost none of it, but Mae Whitman is earning the shit out of my tears then.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's when she talks to the second son -- "we did good, didn't we?", and they both nod. It CRUSHES me.
ReplyDelete"Late for Dinner", the lesser known of the man-gets-cryogenically-frozen-and-comes-back-20-years-later movies. SPOILER
ReplyDeleteAt the end, Brian Wimmer sees his wife, played by Marcia Gay Harden, for the first time since he, um, defrosted. He runs up to her, and she can't believe what she's seeing -- not only that he's alive, but also that he hasn't aged a day. Her hands go to her face and hair, to somehow cover her wrinkles and the gray that is beginning to show, and he tells her how beautiful she is to him and how he wishes he had caused all the laugh lines on her face. It's a sweet little movie.
Oh, man, Shadowlands...I went to see that with a bunch of brand new friends when I was studying abroad. Coincidentally, I was also, about that time, starting to face up to the fact that my mother was not going to recover from her cancer. I remember being absolutely horrified by just how much I was crying, and indeed had to leave the theater for a while.
ReplyDeleteI'll cry at lots of stuff, but the opening sequence of Up is the only movie I've seen with him that my husband cried at.
ReplyDeleteOn TV, I never really watched Six Feet Under, but for some reason I tuned into the finale and it still had me crying for that whole ending sequence.
I thought the movie was a letdown and Eric Bana was miscast, but reading Time Traveler's Wife gets me every time.