Film/CG/Tear Jerker: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Calendar Girls]]'' generally keeps an upbeat tone, despite one of the main characters having to deal with the death of her husband. Then, near the ending, comes this line.

{{quote|''Annie'': I'd rob every penny from this calendar if it would buy me just one more hour with him.}}

*** This all qualifies as a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Tom Hanks, who not only managed to carry a movie by himself for two hours - no music, no other actors, just him - and to top it all off, he made you ''cry'' for a ''volleyball''.

* ''[[Chariots of Fire]]'' is a slow build, beginning with the opening credit scene on the beach and Vangelis' score, but culminates in the scene where Ian Holm' Sam Mussabini, barred from the Olympic stadium, only learns that Abrahams has won the 100m when he sees the British flag rise over the stadium from his dingy hotel room. *Hat punch!*

** [http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cfU75KEPV_U That song] is haunting.

{{quote|'''Charlotte''': ''How very special are we...for just a moment to be...part of life's eternal rhyme...''}}

** Serge's death, as well as the picture his daughter drew for him...

* The excellent ''[[Crash (film)|Crash]]'', has a few of these moments but none jerk tears more than the scene in which {{spoiler|the locksmith's 5-year-old daughter, believing herself to be wearing an invincible armour cloak, runs in front of her daddy as he's being held up by an angry, disillusioned gunman. The handgun accidentally discharges just as the girl leaps up to hug the father. Cue horrific closeup of the father's face after he realises that he made his daughter think she was impervious to bullets}}. {{spoiler|''Crowning Moment of Heartwarming'' occurs when you realize the ammo in the pistol was craftily loaded by the gunman's daughter with blanks, knowing her father would get into a situation like this.}}

* {{spoiler|Li Mubai and Shu Lien's [[Last Kiss]], followed by Mubai's [[Famous Last Words]] and his death in Shu-Lien's arms}} in ''[[Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon]]''.

* ''[[Crow]]'' has a scene that gets me everytime. As Eric leaves Albrecht's apartment and Albrecht asks "Are you gonna disappear into thin air again?", Eric turns to him, the heartbreaking look on his face and says "I think I'll just use your front door." It told me that that he misses the simple pleasures of living.

** The proverbial "curtain call", when we see a final zoom in to every central character.

** {{spoiler|The deaths of Benjamin's crewmates after their battle at sea. Captain Clark's death is especially hard-hitting, as well as Pleasant's.}}

* The end of ''The Dambusters'' where Richard Todd, as Guy Gibson, says he has to write some letters and the scenes of the empty rooms and empty seats in the dining hall as the travel clock slowly ticks to a stop. Made even more poignant by the fact Richard Todd was an officer in the Paratroopers during World War II (he declined the offer to play himself in ''The Longest Day'') and so had personal experience of having to write letters to the families of those that had died under his command.

** Also Gibson's dog being hit and killed by a car and him looking at the scratch marks on the door and dropping the lead into the wastepaper basket, and knowing (perhaps from the book) that he was going to have his dog buried at the same time as he was due to be going into the attack against the dam, so that if he was shot down they would both be going into the ground at the same time.

** Also, this movie is so emotionally devastating that some people admit to not even being able to finish the movie because it is ''just that heartbreaking'' to watch.

** Speaking of dancers, ''The Dancer Upstairs'', especially the suddenness of the extremists machine-gunning the wounded schoolgirl they had seemingly left behind. They had left her so that they could take them both out when the investigator was over her. He backed up in time but felt guilty for doing so. The entire movie is principally how charismatic cult/extremist leaders recruit and target young children specifically for the things law enforcement will sometimes overlook because they're under age. The cult leader himself is a Mansonite hippy, and I'm sure we all remember what eventually happens to the Manson family members themselves...

* The final scene of ''[[Dances with Wolves]]'', Dunbar and Stands With A Fist leave the tribe to protect them from searching U.S. soldiers. As they depart, they hear Wind In His Hair, one of the Lakota tribe members most hostile to Dunbar when he initially made contact with the tribe, shouting proudly from a hilltop that he is Dunbar's friend and always will be. The final text doesn't help the tear flow, either.

* The ending scene of ''[[Dark Water (film)|Dark Water]]'' (the original Japanese version), in which {{spoiler|Yoshimi sacrifices herself to save her daughter}}.

* The end of ''[[Das Boot]]'', where {{spoiler|after surviving twice to die being depth-charged by destroyers and to be marooned in the bottom of the sea, the captain of the U-96 and some crewmen die during the Allies' bombardment of La Rochelle.}}

* ''[[Dead Poets Society]]''

** Neil {{spoiler|committing suicide because his father won't let him act}} was bad enough.

** The final scene, where, after Mr. Keating {{spoiler|gets sacked}}, they defy the authority of the dean, standing on their desks to give him a farewell. "O Captain, My Captain!"

** When Neil's father has just finished chewing him out, and Neil is sitting with his mother. He has a completely spaced-out and in-the-clouds look on his face as he says, "I was really great, wasn't I?"

* There's a relatively little-known indie film called ''[[Dear Wendy]]''. In the last few scenes of the film, the group gets into an altercation with the law, and {{spoiler|each member of the pacifist group is individually shot dead, with the exact path of each bullet being nearly scrupulously detailed, up to and including each bullet's path through the body of each victim}}.

** Two symbolical scenes: At first Mike shots a deer. But after the war, he's unable to kill a living being.

** Russian roulette scene.

** Nick being unable to remind his parents names.

** An uneasy relationship between Linda and Mike (Mike loved her since the beginning, and Linda starts to love Mike in the end).

** Later in the movie, the Jews are enduring a harsh winter out in the forest where they've made their home. With no food, everyone is slowly weakening and losing hope. So Daniel Craig leads his beautiful white horse out away from the camp, pats its snout one last time, and [[Shoot the Dog|shoots it]].

* The ending of ''De-Lovely'' when Cole and Linda Porter sing "In the Still of the Night" as the camera pulls back and they fade to black. I'm not usually the person to cry at the end of a movie.

* ''Despicable Me'': when Gru reads the 'Three Little Kittens' book to the girls. Especially when he reaches the end of it.

* ''[[Dinner for Schmucks]]'', where Tim finds the pictures of the mouse dioramas of Barry and his ex-wife.

** The whole scene where Lizzie frees her younger self from where she was tied to the bed, then Fred tells her that she has to go now and he can't go back with her now. "Look, you've got you now. You don't need me, not anymore. So... goodbye."

* In ''[[The Duchess]]'', when Georgiana has to give her out-of-wedlock child to her lover's family, and has to be all but dragged away by her friend - who, incidentally, became the mistress of Georgiana's husband mostly because his power enabled her to get ''her'' children back from her abusive husband.

* ''[[Eastern Promises]]'': Not the only moment in what was overall a ''very'' dark movie, but the contents of Tatiana's diary (both translated by various characters and in voiceovers) are wrenching. {{spoiler|Also, just how damn pitiful Kirill is when he's about to drown his baby half-sister. It's at first kind of [[Narm]] seeing him break down, but-- damn.}}

* ''[[Edward Scissorhands]]''

** The ending from [[Danny Elfman]]'s [[Awesome Music]] to the final lines of dialogue.

** The scenes with Vincent Price. This was one of his lasts performances, and though he was pretty ill and frail when filming, he gave it his all. For a guy who did mostly science fiction and horror b-movies, he was dead serious about putting everything he had into his characters, and this movie is a very dignified final appearance for him.

** And then the scene where {{spoiler|Edward accidentally cuts his hands apart}} as the {{spoiler|inventor crumples to the floor}}.

* ''[[Ed Wood (film)|Ed Wood]]'' has many tearjerking moments focusing on [[Bela Lugosi]]'s [[White Dwarf Starlet|descending parable]]:

* ''Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas'' has a number called "When the River Meets the Sea." It's a hymn-like song about death, which is already bad enough, but the instrumental coda is somehow even more depressing still. Which is far more powerful effect than they probably intended for the scene where Emmet puts the fateful hole in his mother's washtub, which is definitely ''worrysome'' but should not ''make the audience cry''.

** And then we cut straight to Emmet and his friends practicing their upbeat number for the contest. [[Mood Whiplash]] that would give that spring song from ''Bambi'' that [[That Guy With The Glasses|the Nostalgia Critic]] joked about a run for its money.

** For that matter, {{spoiler|the tragedy of all the war had done to him, and how that fact is brutally driven home in that moment, because for all that they find each other again, in a very real way he isn't the kid they lost at the beginning of the war. The child they remember, the child he once was, is lost forever.}}

* At the end of [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146675/ End of Days], {{spoiler|Satan possesses Jericho's body and attempts to rape Christine. With some encouragement from her and from Jericho's own looking for redemption for not protecting his wife and child, he impales himself on a sword from the statue of Saint Michael, which stops Satan long enough from consummating with Christine till after midnight. Just before he dies, Jericho sees a vision of his wife and child waiting for him on the other side.}}

* ''[[Ever After (film)|Ever After]]'', a Cinderella movie during the Renaissance:

** Drew Barrymore's character had to pretend to be a noblewoman to save the life of a servant. While doing this, she caught the eye of the prince. At the climax of the film, she had just escaped from the room her stepmother had locked her up in and managed to get to the ball. But just as the prince reached her and was about to introduce her to everyone as his new wife, her stepmother revealed to everyone that she was actually just a servant and not a noblewoman, horribly humiliating her in the process. The prince, shocked and angry at being deceived, publicly rejected her, humiliating her even more. Left with no choice, she quickly fled the scene in tears. It always yanked my heart during that scene because of everything that she had went through during the whole movie, fighting against the enormous odds to go to the ball and tell the prince the truth, only for all her efforts to be wasted.

{{quote|'''Baroness:''' How could anyone love a pebble in their shoe?}}

** As if the look on Danielle's face isn't enough, ''seconds'' later she is {{spoiler|sold to a creepy older man who has previously implied how he'd love to spend some quality time with her}}. Her screams as she's dragged away and the other servants try to save her... its absolutely heartbreaking.

* The end of the second ''[[Evil Dead]]''. After everything Ash has gone through, from being forced to kill his girlfriend, to having to cut off his own right hand, you'd think he'd get a break. Cue him being thrown into the past, wailing pitifully as he's being regaled as a savior from the sky and realizing he still hasn't escaped.

* The breakdown of the [[Mickey Rourke]] character in ''[[The Expendables]]''. You hear him talking about the leadup to his [[Heroic BSOD]], and a part of you just goes numb.

* In the Tarsem movie, ''[[The Fall (film)|The Fall]]'', with Lee Pace, after Alexandria falls and encounters her dream sequence, she wakes up to Roy sitting by her.

** Odious beats up {{spoiler|the Masked Bandit/Roy, shoving him in the water repeatedly, all while doing this in front of the Bandit's ''daughter''}}. Just the way {{spoiler|Alexandria was repeatedly screaming for him to get up, as tears streamed down her face}} makes it so heartwrenching. He {{spoiler|lives, though}}.

* Once the situation of Robin's character in ''[[The Fisher King]]'' really sinks in, it's heartbreaking.

* The death of {{spoiler|Weebo}} in ''[[Flubber]]''. Think the death of a {{spoiler|non-humanoid robot}} isn't heartwrenching? Think again.

** The Wikipedia article stated the mutated dog scene disturbed a lot of viewers when the movie came out in theaters.

** The remake with Jeff Goldblum qualifies: the bit where at the end he's just desperately trying to cling to his fleeting humanity, getting a few screws loose in his head while he's at it, so he tries to [[Squick|absorb his wife and unborn baby into his being]], ending with him a [[Body Horror]] and ''pulling'' the shotgun onto his forehead as a mutant fly creature, doesn't help there's like ''no epilogue'' and the film ''ends there''.

* {{spoiler|Sparrow's death}} in ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]]''.

* ''[[Forrest Gump]]'':

"Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." }}

** When Forrest meets his son for the first time, and he asks Jenny, looking frightened, "Is he smart, or is he...?"

** And oddly (or perhaps not, all things considered), that final shot of the Whistle Stop Cafe, dilapidated and weathered and abandoned, with the whole town gone. It just seemed to encapsulate everything Idgie lost, everything we loved about her town.

* An old Spencer Tracy movie called ''Fury''. His character had been arrested in a case of mistaken identity and a lynch mob stormed the town jail and set it on fire, killing his dog and narrowly missing killing him as well. Then again at the end, when his girlfriend talked him out of {{spoiler|framing them for his "death"}} and he gave an impassioned-but-bitter speech about how he'd always thought of America as a place where you could find justice.

* ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'', when Sarris' minion [[Kick the Dog|shoots Quellek]]. For Quellek, [[It Has Been an Honor]] to serve Alexander Dane, whose [[Proud Warrior Race|culture and philosophy]] he had emulated for life. For Alexander, watching the only one who respected him [[It's Personal|die in his hands]] spurs him to deliver the line he hates the most as an actor: "[[Badass Creed|By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!]]"

* ''[[Gallipoli]]''.

** There's a few similar scenes in the sequel, ''Gettysburg'', in which the officers discuss those on the opposing side with whom they had previously served, some even being close friends, which are very moving.

** The river scene where Union and Confederate soldiers trade coffee and tobacco elicited this so subtly, words cannot describe it.

* The end of ''[[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah]]'': {{spoiler|Godzilla dies a slow and painful death due to a nuclear meltdown}}. That and {{spoiler|when Godzilla mourns the death of his own son and cries in agony}}. It's perhaps the saddest [[Godzilla]] movie ever made.

** [[Two Words]]: "Goodbye, Yoshido." ({{spoiler|This is what Kiryu ([[Mecha Godzilla]]) says to one of the main characters right before sacrificing himself to save Japan from Godzilla at the end of Tokyo SOS.}})

*** A good portion of the the original ''Gojira'' can bring you to tears. The children crying in the hospital, the leveled landscape of Tokyo, the mother and her children on the side of the street, the school children singing 'Oh Peace Oh Light Return', and finally ({{spoiler|Serizawa's heroic sacrifice and last words}}).

** One scene in ''[[Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah]]'' (1992): A Japanese WWII veteran turned mega business mogul comes face to face with Godzilla, who had saved his troops from an American Attack during WWII before he was even Godzilla. As the sad music starts to swell, you can see the recognition in Godzilla's Eyes amid the flashbacks to said time in the past. It looked as if Godzilla was cherishing said memories. And then, after the businessman nods, as if saying "yes, it's me", Godzilla roars (mournfully?) and ({{spoiler|promptly blasts the man into oblivion with his breath weapon}}).

** Why is there not even one mention of {{spoiler|Godzilla plunging into Mt. Mihara}} at the end of "Godzilla 1985," followed by Raymond Burr's ending monologue?

* The death of {{spoiler|Bonnie}} in ''[[Gone with the Wind]]'', made all the more tragic by the fact that it could have been prevented entirely had Scarlett remembered an event from the beginning of the movie before the last second.

** What, let him die? Seeing as it was a choice between [[Complete Monster|him]] and the kid who was more of a son to her than he was, then.....

* One of the more memorable scenes from ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'' is when The Good, Blondie, comes across a dying Confederate soldier {{spoiler|and wordlessly covers him with his coat and gives him [[One Last Smoke]].}} [[Manly Tears]] big time.

* ''[[Gorillas in The Mist]]'' - After watching Diane Fossey (brilliantly played Sigourney Weaver) gradually gain the trust of the mountain gorillas, to see her sobbing over the decapitated corpse of her favorite gorilla Digit is heartwrenching. "They took his hands... they took his head... ''They took his '''HEAD!'''''" Tears everytime.

* ''[[Gran Torino]]'', when Walt ([[Clint Eastwood]]) tricks the gang members who have terrorized the neighbourhood into {{spoiler|murdering him, thus galvanizing the community into breaking their code of silence and sending the gang to jail, allowing Walt's young friends Thao and Sue to grow up properly.}}

** Paul's final monologue: "We each owe a death - there are no exceptions - but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile seems so long."

** The revelation of how the two little girls Coffey supposedly raped and murdered ''really'' died: {{spoiler|[[Complete Monster]] Wild Bill did it, and he had kidnapped them by threatening them that if one of them made a sound, then he'd kill the other one}}.

** The whole movie is just one long blur of tears.

*** When Paul says, "On the day of my judgement, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That is was my job? My job?"

* The ending of ''Gwoemul''.

 

[[Category:Film/Tear Jerker]]