Film/AB/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

MOD: Please do not add more entries to this page. Instead, cut out the middleman and add them to Tear Jerker subpages for the individual films.

#

HAL: I understand now, Dr. Chandra. Thank you for telling me the truth.
Chandra: You deserve it.
HAL: I have one final question. Will I dream?
Chandra: (quietly sobs) I don't know.

    • HAL 9000: DAISY...DAISY...[1]
    • To quote (paraphrase) a YouTube comment about HAL's death: "It's like watching the execution of an invalid."
  • In 28 Days, when Andrea dies from a heroin overdose. It's just friggin' TRAGIC.
  • 28 Days Later, when Frank gets infected and desperately tells his daughter to keep away from him.
  • The finale of 300: the camera pans across the horizon and shows that the sacrifice of Leonidas and his brave 300 has inspired thirty thousand Greeks to fight against tyranny.
    • The final scenes of the movie 300, particularly when Delios says "Should any free soul come across this place, in all of the countless centuries yet to be, may all of our voices whisper to you from the ageless stone: Go tell the Spartans, passerby. That here, by Spartan law, we lie."
      • Completely Missing the Point: One of the Points of the Movie is to what a unreliable narrator can cause.
      • Another scene that deserves mention is the one where Leonidas is leaving Queen Gorgo for the last time. As Delios narrates with solemn dignity: "Goodbye my love. He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness, not in Sparta. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard. Only the strong."
      • And that tearjerker inspires another tearjerker near the end, when Leonidas, peppered with arrows, the only Spartan left standing as his comrades die around him, raises himself up, and declares his love for Gorgo just before the final rain of arrows fall.
  • The 2007 version of 3:10 To Yuma. Dan Evans has just had a Crowning Moment of Awesome when he alone escorts notorious criminal Ben Wade to the train leading to Yuma Prison, dodging several attacks by Wade's men along the way. Just when he's about to deliver Wade to the train, he is shot and mortally wounded by Wade's men. After Wade kills his own men, Evans' son, who had little respect for his old man for most of the film, comes running to his dying father's side, and whimpers "Pa..." as Evans dies.
  • Almost the entirety of 50/50. But among the many scenes, a few definitely shine.
    • The first is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Adam, at the house of Seth Rogen's character, Kyle. A few days before a significant surgery, he's staying at Kyle's house, pissed because his friend's attitude has been flippant (even using his condition to pick up women). But while sitting on the toilet, Adam notices a book entitled "Battling Cancer Together." Despite Kyle's attitude, Adam realizes that his friend was committed to fighting the disease with him the whole time. The most beautiful bro moment ever.
    • While in the hospital awaiting the life-saving/extremely-risky surgery, Adam is in bed, parents by his side. His father, who has fairly severe Alzheimer's, stands by, confused by the whole situation. Adam, already scared by the prospect of dying on the operating table, takes his father's hand and reassures him.

"I know this is all a little confusing, but I want you to know that I love you."
(Father's eyes focus and he nods, a worried look on his face)

  • Five Hundred Days of Summer
    • They don't end up together. That's a given. However, we find out near the end that Summer's gotten married to somebody else. This revelation is shown in split-screen: half of the screen shows what Tom imagined happening at a party and the other half shows what actually happens. At the end of the scene he runs out of the party and into the street, and watches as the world turns into a line drawing and then is erased into blankness. Because we only see the movie from Tom's point of view we have no idea how long Summer had been seeing her husband or why she didn't love Tom the way Tom loved her.
    • The difference between the numbers for the days of the break up and the engagement party was that of only several months.
  • The ending of 8 Seconds, the story of Lane Frost. Lane is butted by the bull, and it immediately changes scenes to his funeral.
  • 9
    • 2's funeral. The music makes it worse.
    • 5's death, because just when he finally gets some self-confidence and takes a level in badass, he gets killed desperately warning his friends and pleading for his life.
    • 6's death: seeing him just fall limply into the mist . . .
    • The Seamstress has been scared off and 1 isn't that enthusiastic about letting 9 save the dolls she's kidnapped after what happened last time, motioning over to 2's body . . . which 5 is sitting with, straightening it out and touching it.
    • The ending, where 9 says goodbye to the souls of 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8, especially when it shows 5 looking at the survivors at first not wanting to go but 9 reassures him.

A

  • Adaptation at the end: So happy together, la la la, so happy together. The best part is that both you and the movie know that this is a cheesy, cliche and overused technique. Yet it works.
  • The ending of Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Not only for that awesome tearjerker scene of the Baron's funeral so gleefully up-ended and laughed at by the Baron himself, but the revelation that the invaders HAVE been routed, that huge cheer, and then Sally's sly "So...it WASN'T just a story, then?" Followed by the Baron's mock-glower and flinging of one last rose to her. Just beautiful stuff - a real happy tear-jerker.
  • The ending to An Affair to Remember yanks on the heartstrings, even though it all turns out okay.
  • Agora has several tear jerkers, which is perhaps not surprising considering its a movie about Hypatia, a Greek philosopher who was murdered at the hands of rabid Christians. There's several sad moments before that happens; just watch the movie.
  • A.I., which is one of the ultimate Tear Jerker Downer Endings.
    • Joe as he gets taken away. "I am. I was."
    • Joe recognising that his 'lover' is lying there dead and the subtle change in expression, or lack thereof.
    • The whole second hour of the movie, straight through the end. Post-movie, Allen Hobby's real fate and the great pains taken to cover it up.
    • The sobfest begins and lasts entirely throughout that one happy day he gets with his mother, knowing that after this, she will die and never, ever come back, which is made even worse by him following.
    • Professor Hobby's interactions with David, who was modeled after Hobby's dead son.

David: "I thought I was one of a kind."
Hobby: (holding back tears) "My son was one of a kind."

  • The scene in A.K.A. where Benjamin (a male prostitute who has fallen in love with the main character, Dean,) says "Could you marry me? A boy like me?" Also, the scene where he and Dean are having sex and Dean keeps telling him to "tell me I'm nothing" and eventually "hit me" (what he is saying stems from sexual abuse he had to endure from his father).
  • Hephaestion's inevitable death in Oliver Stone's Alexander is made all the more poignant when Alexander, who has become progressively disillusioned with his dreams throughout the film, starts speaking to him hopefully about all the great things they have yet to accomplish and how they will grow old together. Hephaestion dies in the middle of the speech. * sniffs* If only it actually happened like that...
  • Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou Chou is an all around somber and harrowing affair. This scene, in the context of the film, is unbelievably moving.
  • The "Valse Triste" scene from the film Allegro Non Trippo. It features a cat running through the ruins of its former living quarters and thinking there are people still there. After while, it realizes all the joyous moments were just an illusion and the reality was that everything was lost and gone forever. As a wrecking ball destroys the wreckage, the cat itself vanishes, as it was just a faded out memory itself...
  • All Quiet on the Western Front. Especially the ending.
    • I'd like to give a shout-out to the death of Katczinsky in the '79 version. Even when you know it's coming, there's still something about how understated it is.
      • Especially when you consider that the actor playing that role Ernest Borgnine was about 10–15 years too old for the part. It's just that he's such a good actor and plays the role so well, you come to care for him more than almost any of the others.
  • Zack's scene in the desert at the end of Alpha Dog when he realizes what's about to happen.
  • Amelie.
    • Every single moment, from where she helps the blind man walk and describes what she's seeing to the romantic chase scene with the arrows to the scenes where she gets revenge on Collignon for Lucien to where she makes tapes for the Glass Man to where she has the stewardess take the gnome all around the world to fulfill her father's dream of traveling the world...ah, well you could name scenes from the movie all day. The tears during this movie are of joy, never sadness. When Roger Ebert said that you see this movie, and then when you think about it later, it makes you smile, he wasn't kidding.
    • The scene where Amelie is watching TV and imagines that she's watching her funeral, and it's describing how she never really did anything in her life, and it makes her start crying. Also near the end when she's imagining her love interest coming up the stairs to her apartment and bursting into the room, then hears the rustle of her bead curtain and turns only to see that it's just her cat. So sad. But that makes the scene all the more heartwarming when she goes to follow him and sees that he's really there.
    • The scene in which Amélie gives the former resident of her apartment back his box of trinkets from when he was a little boy, the TV screen just became a blur.
    • The scene when Nino finally discovered the truth behind the mystery photo booth man. He was simply the repairman. Though this might not pass of as a tear-jerking moment at first glance, put yourself in Nino's shoes and think about what it's like trying understand an unusual person to the point where you're devoting your life to it, and then after many years realize the truth and satisfy your own curiosity.
  • The final scene in American Beauty.
  • The senselessness of Danny's death at the end of American History X, and Derek's reaction.
  • Angels in the Outfield is one of those feel good movies, in which angels help a down on their luck baseball team to win the championship. Their star player is completely worn out and beaten until he sees the entire stadium giving the signal for angels on the field. Deciding there must be an angel here to help him, he makes the shot and wins them the match -and then discovers there wasn't an angel there at all.
    • "Even if you can't see us, we're always watching."
      • And the real (or at least original) Angels in the Outfield, with Paul Douglas. "We're signing him up in the spring." ... And when Bridget-White-Eight-Years-Old looks up at the statue of Gabriel and says "Oh, that's St. Gabriel. He's our patron saint".
  • The '30s era gangster film Angels with Dirty Faces: The scene at the end, where Jimmy Cagney's character is being dragged kicking and screaming towards the electric chair is gutwrenching. Doubly so since the film implies that he may be doing it on purpose to discourage the teenage toughs that he befriended earlier from following in his footsteps.

"All right, fellas . . . let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could."

  • Hardly a tragic scene like most of these examples, but the end of Annie Hall: He narrates that he ran into Annie several years later, and had a good time catching up as old friends, and closes by recounting that like the punchline to an old joke, we need these irrational things called relationships because "we still need the eggs", and then plays a montage of Alvy and Annie's relationship while she sings "Seems Like Old Times".
    • There's a similar scene at the end of "Prime", in which the two characters run into each other a year after breaking up (they loved each other, but knew that their differences would ultimately prove insurmountable). To the tune of a beautiful version of "I Wish You Love", they wordlessly flashback through their relationship before exchanging smiles and parting ways for good.
  • Apollo 13
    • The splashdown: a combination of happy tears and "Oh yes! Oh yes, yes, yes!"
    • As they are first taking off, there's that shot of the rocket blasting away from the Earth . . . and we then cut to two of the astronauts' wives, who are openly weeping with fear and anxiety over their husbands' safe journey.
    • The music in that film is James Horner Awesome. Various points where the ground crew and the astronauts' families are waiting and can't do anything. And, okay, the part where Lovell has an Imagine Spot and pictures himself landing on the moon. He really wanted that.
    • In an early scene, Jim is attempting to explain the tragedy of Apollo 1 to his youngest son Jeffrey, and ends up saying that one of the main problems with the ship was that they couldn't open the door. And then scenes later there's Marilyn, trying to explain to Jeffrey what's happening to his father's mission:

Marilyn: Something broke on your daddy's spaceship. And he's going to have to turn around before he even gets to the moon.
Jeffrey: Was it the door?

    • They unmercifully use the kids as Tear Jerker material. When news of Apollo 13's critical malfunction breaks on television, we cut to a classroom scene in a military school where one of the astronaut's teenage sons is sitting upright at his desk, along with the rest of his class, watching the broadcast. It looks very military, and very disciplined, and very cold ... until a teacher whose face we can't see walks past the astronaut's son, and, in silence, puts a hand on the boy's shoulder as the broadcast continues.
  • The ending of Armageddon.
  • Atonement Especially coming after the almost unbearably tense first act.
    • When Robbie is arrested and taken away, his mom coming and beating on the hood of the police car with her umbrella screaming "LIARS"
    • The Tea Room scene.
    • Every time the letters were read aloud.

Robbie:Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. I will find you, love you, marry you and live without shame.

    • The long, continuous scene at Dunkirk.
    • The last scenes in the belly of the factory. I'm turning into mess only typing this:

Robbie: You won't hear another word from me. I promise.
Nettle: Cheerio, pal.

    • When it switches to the present, and 79 year old Briony is being interviewed, and you find out what really happened.
      • It's a close-up of Vanessa Redgrave's face with all these emotions whirling over it, wondering if she has done enough to atone herself, kind of knowing that it isn't.
  • Avatar: The Na'vi desperately fleeing Hometree as it gets bombarded by missiles and crashes down amidst smoke and flame. By itself, we've seen the likes of this before...but then you see the faces of all the personnel back at the base who seem to be having a collective My God, What Have I Done? moment...
    • The massive Does This Remind You of Anything? moment.
    • There are so more moments that just those... like where Jake is accepted into the Omaticaya, or after the battle when Neytiri is holding Jake's human body.
    • Jake running. You know the scene.
    • Grace's death, and her final words.
    • The attack on the home tree. The entire scene is so devastating, watching the incredibly gorgeous and enormous tree being blown up, all the Na'vi running in terror, the humans in their airships laughing at the mass destruction they were causing, Trudy refusing to do so and turning her ship around, proclaiming, "I didn't sign up for this shit", the faces of all the humans at the base who watch in horror, Neytiri's father, the fire and smoke and ashes and screams, everything slowing down, Grace and Jake being ejected from their Avatars and Grace struggling as she was taken away, punching a man in the face and screaming, "you murderer" at Parker, and the slow fade to black as you realize the full extent of what just happened, of what humans have done and are capable of doing...
    • The final battle before Eywah steps in, as T'sutey's Crowning Moment of Awesome is also his Dying Moment of Awesome/Heroic Sacrifice, Trudy is blown to pieces, but not before apologizing to Jake for failing, Norm is shot and is possibly seriously injured, and Neytiri watches as her people are all dying around her, with that striking image of the horse galloping for its life while its entire backside is on fire...
      • ...followed by tears of joy as Eywah saves them all, and the creatures of the forest help them.
    • An unconventional one, but a quick line by Jake at the end: "The aliens went back to their dying world." Suddenly, you remember that, while Jake and Neytiri are happy, tens of billions of humans, the vast majority of whom have done nothing wrong, have nothing to look forward to except misery, starvation, disease and finally death, and the same for their children, and their children's children, until however many generations down the road humanity finally goes extinct.
  • Awakenings:
    • The scene where Dr. Sayer (Robin) watches the home movies that he and Leonard Lowe (Robert DeNiro) filmed, which show Leonard's gradual deterioration back into his catatonic state.
    • "You told him I was a kind man. How kind is it to give life, only to take it away?"
    • Dancing in the cafeteria: if you've seen it, you're crying now. The barely contained anguish on Paula's face almost obscures the fact that, as Leonard dances with her, his symptoms completely subside.
  • The A Word. It's a short documentary done by Lindsay Ellis, otherwise known as The Nostalgia Chick, about what she went through when she had an abortion in December 2009. It's a pretty huge shock to see this Badass, in control, dark-humored woman suddenly lay herself bare and look actually quite lost and uncertain throughout the movie. (It also makes you smile even harder when you see her around and know that she's A) alright and B) can joke about it.)
  • The President's speech in Babylon 5: In the Beginning.
    • Especially this part: "To buy time for more evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for the support of every ship capable of fighting to take part in a last defense of our home world. We will not lie to you: survival is not a possibility. Those who enter the battle will never come back. But for every ten minutes we can delay the enemy advance, several hundred more civilians may be able to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people. But I ask you now to step forward one last time, one last battle to hold the line against the night."
      • Made especially poignant when you realise that she's asking for the ultimate sacrifice of tens of thousands of people on the minute, off chance that a few hundred people may be saved. That even with the best possible outlook, mankind will be decimated anyway.
    • Londo's description of humans. "The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. Where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage. Their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns, when they ran out guns they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage, but in the end, they ran out of time."

B

  • Bartleby was advertised as a zany comedy. Well, it started out funny, but it slowly became clear that Bartleby wasn't just eccentric, he was desperately mentally ill and helpless. His co-workers torture him, his boss's inability to deal with him wrecks everyone's life, and when the boss finally does manage to get rid of him it feels rather like taking the family dog out for a car ride and leaving him by the side of the road. When the boss experiences a guilt trip and tries to help him, he's just slightly too late, and Bartleby dies of neglect and exposure.
  • Several of the scenes with Mr. Freeze and his cryogenically preserved wife Nora in Batman and Robin, especially the one where Mr. Freeze is told by Poison Ivy that she's dead, and he sheds a single tear which freezes on his cheek. The fact that those are the only good scenes in that movie only makes it worse.
    • And it becomes even worse for the Batman: The Animated Series fans who know that that scene was the planned ending of the episode "Heart of Ice".
    • In Batman Returns, the Penguin's funeral. His own penguins bury him at sea, and it somehow works.
    • In Batman Begins, when Bruce's parents are murdered in front of him.
      • Turned up to eleven in the two or three scenes after that. That little kid—Gus Lewis—inspires Tear Jerker after Tear Jerker. And Gary Oldman and Michael Caine contribute unmercifully (well, to the audience, not to Bruce). If your bottom lip isn't trembling by the time Jim Gordon has tried—helplessly—to comfort young Bruce, then it won't matter; the "a little dinner" scene between Michael Caine and him will rip the waterworks from you anyway. He breaks down gutwrenchingly, and the arc of Caine's performance against that is just perfect:

Bruce: If I hadn't wanted to go ... if I hadn't ... gotten scared--
Alfred: Oh, no, no, no, no. It was him. And him alone. Do you understand?
Bruce: ... I miss them so much, Alfred!
Alfred: ... (choking up) So do I, Master Bruce. So do I.

      • Alfred has a lot of really moving dialogue in Begins that shows just how loyal and attached he really is to the Waynes.

Bruce: "Why do you give a damn, Alfred? It's not your family.
Alfred: "I give a damn, because a good man once made me responsible for what was most important to him in the whole world."

      • And for that matter, in the 1989 film.

"I have no wish to spend my few remaining years grieving for the loss of old friends. Or their sons."

    • Let's be fair. A lot of The Dark Knight- what wasn't Nightmare Fuel or Foe Yay - was designed to set off the waterworks. Some of it's due to the Funny Aneurysm Moment factor, but... fans didn't even like Rachel Dawes, but they still cried
    • Two words: Harvey freaking Dent. Anyone with even vague knowledge of the character from any of the adaptations knows what's coming, but that won't save you from every scene of his transformation into Two-Face punching you in the gut and then spitting on you for good measure. The horrifically realistic facial burns do not help.
      • When Harvey Dent, a fundamentally decent human being, points the gun at his own head for being one of the people responsible for Rachel's death and says with resignation "My turn."
        • When Batman shows up, insisting that Harvey doesn't want to hurt Gordon's son and asking him to put the gun down. Harvey spends a moment genuinely showing regret, and then yells that it doesn't matter what what he wants, it's about what's fair; he truly doesn't want to kill the kid, but feels he must anyway. And that's when you know just how hard Harvey's fallen into madness.
        • Gordon pleading with Dent not to hurt his son.
      • The exchange between Batman and Harvey at the end. Harvey screams at Batman: "You thought we could be decent men, in an indecent time! You were wrong." Then, Harvey: "The Joker chose me!" Batman: "Because you were the best of us!"
      • Harvey in the hospital bed, reaching over and grabbing the coin he'd given Rachel, and then turning it over to see the burnt side. The look of sheer, horrifying anguish on his face, followed by the silent screaming and shaking breakdown right afterward hits hard.
    • The part with the bombs on the ferries, where the huge convict and the random, seemingly stoic and pragmatic man are holding the detonators for the bombs on each other's boats. The convict takes the detonator from the police officer, and casually hurls it out the window, completely ready to accept his fate, while the man on the other ferry tries to trigger the bomb, looks down at it, and with his hands trembling, he puts it back down. The scene right there is so powerful, human, and heroic for the ordinary citizens of Gotham.
      • The huge convict's line before it: "Give that remote to me, and I'll do what you should have done ten minutes ago."
      • A very subtle one that a lot of people miss, right when the convict throws the detonator out the window he goes to sit down in... not shame, but resolution. A group of convicts circles him as if to say "it's all right, you did the right thing" and all look as if they are comforting him. That says so much right there...
    • And how are we not including Gordon's final monologue, set to the scene of Batman running from the cops, "because we have to chase him"?
      • [[spoiler:And Batman taking the blame for all of Harvey's murders, even though Batman had nothing to do with them; it was all to preserve the image of pre-Two Face Harvey Dent.
        • Am I the only one who thinks that the Joker's demise in Batman was tearjerkery? I mean when he had his leg tied to the gargoyle as it was about to fall, you could even hear him groaning. Just listen to it Best Death Scenes: The Joker.

It was either spend the rest of his superhero life as a wanted man, or let the credibility of a district attorney turned murderer come crashing down.]]

  • * batteries not included aka "Miracle on 8th Street"
    • The whole concept of a bunch of unlucky everymen (consisting of an overworked old man and his delusional wife, a mute and aloof mechanic, a pregnant woman whose boyfriend fled and a starving artist with a drinking problem who are visited by a bunch of tiny UFOs and become absorbed in helping them while their house is demolished from above their heads is sad, but the relationship between the Mook Carlos who's been hired to evict the protagonists and the crazy landlady who mistakes him for his long dead son is the best example.
  • The Battle Royale movie adaptation. In the extended ending of the film, after all the teens have finished killing each other, there's a slow-mo flashback of a high school basketball game set to sad music. You see hints of how Ax Crazy psycho bitch was really just lonely (though in the book her back story is a lot more horrific than mere ostracization) and you see how all the students used to be happy and normal and...all that...
    • Ax Crazy Mitsuko's death was also surprisingly sad. No last words or close-ups. Her dead body falls over and the voiceover says "I just didn't want to be a loser anymore..."
    • The movie does flashback to a bit of modified backstory - before her death? - which is a lot more implicit than what she reveals in the book.
      • And Shogo's; the fact that its tearjerkiness makes sense doesn't really detract.
    • Also, the Reunion scene with Shuya and Noriko, supported by one of the most haunting themes in the film. Soaked, wounded and exhausted, Shuya can't even stay on his feet - but still he is devoted to his promise to protect his best friend's crush.
  • If you don't cry at the end of Beaches then you are dead inside with a piece of cold flint for a heart.
  • Regardless of what you think of Elmo basically ruling Sesame Street over the last 20 years, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey will make you shed Tears of Joy, don't even try to question that.
  • Ben-Hur.
    • Sure, it's 3-1/2 hours of pure awesomeness, but at the end when, during the storm following Christ's death, Judah Ben-Hur's mother and sister are miraculously cured of their leprosy by the blood of Christ washing down from the Cross...I don't care what your religion is, you should still be bawling like a kid after seeing that.
    • The last half-hour of the film counts as this, from Judah carrying his dying sister and mother into Jerusalem in hopes of bringing them to Christ, to Judah returning the life-saving act of kindness Christ had done him three years before by attempting to give Him water during the Way of the Cross, and finally, coming back to his old home, reconciling with Esther after hearing Christ's words of forgiveness, and suddenly seeing his mother and sister come in, completely cured. When Charlie cries, YOU cry.
  • Bent is a film about a gay man falling in love inside a concentration camp. This is inevitable.
  • The ending of Bicentennial Man.
  • The "Sweet Child of Mine" montage in Big Daddy, after Sonny loses custody of Julian. Though, this is immediately followed by the court scene, which turns out to be a Heartwarming Moment.
    • Julian's heartbroken "I want Sonny to be my daddy!" gets me every time.
  • Big Fish had everyone in the theater in tears. Everyone. But they weren't all sad.
  • Billy Elliot - when his father breaks down in Billy's brother's arms, sobbing, "Let's give him a chance! Give the boy a fucking chance!"
  • The climax to A Bittersweet Life is pretty devastating as a whole, but the tearjerking part comes when the main character awaits the silent gunslinger's judgment. He suddenly understands why he had to be punished, why he had to get his vengeance, why he was so determined despite his own confusion. He fell in love, and it cost him everything.

Kim Sun-Woo: This is too cruel...

  • The gorgeous 1994 film Black Beauty is absolutely heartwrenching from start to finish. Most notable are the scenes where Beauty, Ginger, and Merrylegs spend their last day together (especially the dance), Beauty reunites with a broken and beaten Ginger and is almost glad when she dies because her suffering is ended, Joe finally finding Beauty at the horse fair and openly weeping over the little white "star" mark, and Beauty daydreaming that he is with his two friends again.
    • The credits, with that beautiful, haunting music playing and it shows Beauty, Ginger, and Merrylegs cantering and rearing and bucking, looking for all the world like children playing tag... Anyone who's ever loved and lost a horse can't not cry when they watch that.
  • Josh Hartnett's goodbye speech to his dead comrade at the end of Black Hawk Down, all the way through to the pre-credits list of all the men who died in the real operation. The accompanying music only serves to drive the feeling home.
    • As the above list runs, you can actually hear one of the soldier's farewell letters to his wife. It ends with the heartbreaking words "So, in closing my love, tuck my children in bed warmly, tell them I love them, and then hug them for me, and give them a kiss goodnight for daddy."
    • Also, at the end when Captain Steele is talking to the dying Ruiz, who says "Do not go back out there without me," and Steele cannot even say anything so simply clasps hands with him.
    • Shughart and Gordon securing the crash site of Super 64. Likewise the agonizing scene where a Delta medic performs first aid on Corporal Smith's leg wound.
    • The exact moment when the Delta Commander asks them to verbally acknowledge their request, for the record, knowing that they're voluntarily going to their deaths to (maybe) save a fallen comrade.
    • And Corporal Smith's subsequent death scene.
    • And then just when you think you're safe, they play "The Minstrel Boy" over the closing credits.
  • Blade Runner. You know the scene.

Roy Batty: "I've... Seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams... Glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those... Moments - will be lost... In time... Like - tears... In rain. Time... To die."

    • Oh yes. The studio-forced narration made me want to strangle the filmmakers when Deckard's voice-over says, "I don't know why he saved me." Thank all that is powerful that they took off that stupid narration for the director's cut.
    • When Gaff confronts Deckard on the roof. It really drove home the point (in the Director's Cut, anyway)that Deckard may be a replicant and what that means for him and Rachael.

Gaff:"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"

    • The poor replicants had just discovered love when they (somehow) found out that they'd been constructed with a four year life expectancy.

Leon:"Painful to live in fear, isn't it?"

  • The ending of The Blind Beast, despite squickiness and the voluntary nature of it. It's psycho, a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, Nightmare Fuel, tearjerker, all in one.
  • The ending of Emilio Estevez' Bobby.
  • The Boondock Saints: Rocco's death is terribly sad, getting shot while tied to a chair, with the brothers tied up as well and powerless to save him. But the scene is also very touching, what with Murphy throwing himself, chair and all, to the ground, crawling to Rocco, resting his head on his cheek and crying while Connor screams at Rocco, God, Yakevetta, and anyone else who will listen. And Rocco's last words are pretty badass.

Rocco: (to Connor and Murphy) You can't stop. You get out of here. Don't ever stop.

  • The ending of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.
  • The end of Boys Don't Cry.
  • The ending of Terry Gilliam's Brazil will do a number on your tear ducts. Be sure to see the Director's Cut - apparently the American version was butchered by the studio and the ending was wallpapered over with sunshine and lollipops.
  • The Breakfast Club. The whole movie. When Andy and Allison are talking and he says "What do they do to you?" and she says "They ignore me." and the climax where they all open up to each other and Brian breaks down and cries when he's talking about the elephant lamp. AND when Bender and Claire fight at the end at Bender talks about getting a carton of cigarettes for Christmas.
    • "Oh god, are we going to be like our parents?" "Not me, never." "It's unavoidable. When you grow up, your heart dies."
    • "Look at him. He's a bum. You wanna see something funny? You go visit John Bender in five years and you'll see how goddamn funny he is. What's the matter. John? Gonna cry?" Also, any scene where Bender's homelife is brought up. When Andy tells him he's lying about his father's abusive behaviour he freaks out and goes off to sit by himself. When Vernon threatens him he looks like he's about to cry. To anyone who's suffered from abuse at the hands of a parent these moments are definite tearjerkers.
  • Bride of Frankenstein: the meeting of the Monster and the blind hermit.
  • Bridge to Terabithia
    • Leslie's death.
    • Jesse squeezing the watercolours into the river.
    • The moment when Jess's teacher took him outside and told him she understood. Something about the fact that Jess had only thought of her as mean and her barely having any screen-time and then, suddenly, she has all this depth about her husband being dead and . . .
    • When Jess was with his father right after, blaming himself and crying in his father's arms.
  • Brians Song. Oh, yes, you will cry. It's okay, guys. Really.
  • Brokeback Mountain. The final scene with the shirts in the closet may not have me crying, but I'm certainly feeling sad about it.
    • "Jack, I swear..."
    • The saddest part in Brokeback to me, by far, is Jack's flashback to Ennis holding him.
    • The line "Tell you what... truth is, sometimes I miss you so bad I can hardly stand it." That actually pre-empted later tear-jerking.
  • A '30s film called Broken Lullaby was about this young Frenchman who killed a German soldier of about his age during WWI. Consumed with guilt, he went to visit the dead soldier's elderly parents, only to end up pretending to have been a close friend because he didn't have the heart to tell them the truth. Near the end, he tearfully confessed his deception to the deceased's fiancee while playing one of the saddest violin pieces ever. She talked him into keeping up the pretense.
  • The Brothers Lionheart has it in spades.
    • "We jumped... I made it... Jonatan didn't."
    • The death of Mattias.
    • "Jonatan... Nangilima... I see the light!"
    • The scene in the town square of Briar Rose Valley, when Tengil's soldiers start rounding up men. Jonatan telling Skorpan what will happen to them ("They'll drag rock to his fortress until they can't work any more. Then he gives them to Katla.") and the man who stands up to Tengil.
    • The teacher's eulogy at Jonatan's funeral.
  • The scene where Jennifer Aniston prays to God in Bruce Almighty.
    • I see your Jennifer Aniston prayer and raise you Jim Carrey's prayer.
  • A combo Tear Jerker and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in Bubble Boy, where he finally reaches his crush's wedding, having travelled for days to reach it - and he removes the bubble-suit. She's protesting his actions, knowing that he'd die due to his lack of immunity, to which he replies, while hugging her: "I'd rather spend one moment holding you, than the rest of my life knowing I never could." And he collapses. Don't worry, he gets better.
  • The Butterfly Effect: The hero is trying to commit suicide but realizes he can't even do that.
    • In the director's cut there was a completely different ending in the original cut Evan tells his childhood friend, Kayleigh as a child never to see him again to undo all the terrible events that happen when he attempts to change time. Thus apart from that first meeting they never meet again This can be a tearjerker but the director's cut has the following ending: Earlier in the film Evan's mother mentions how she tried to have a baby but each died and Evan was the lucky one. At the ending Evan decides he must go back in time when he was just a baby in the womb. He strangles himself willingly with the umbilical cord and kills himself. As a result he never existed. One might say this is a bit Narm but a tearjerker nonetheless.
Back to Film
  1. ↑ as he was dying."
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Film/AB/Tear_Jerker?oldid=1932616"