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Film/CG/Tear Jerker

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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.

C

  • 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.
 

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

 
  • Almost all the scenes with the titular character in Carrie: especially the scene where broken down for having killed her mother who had tried to kill her, she uses her powers to make the house crash into the ground, killing herself, and tries to hide in the same closet her mother used to throw her in.
    • Sue Snell's dream. One can't help but feel choked up seeing Sue walk to where Carrie's house once stood and leave a bouquet of flowers for her. It gets me every time. This is disregarding the fact that Carrie's arm pops up from the rubble to grab Sue's arm, waking Sue up with screams of terror.
  • Overlapping with Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and Crowning Moment of Awesome (for Lazlo), the famous scene in Casablanca where Victor rallies the patrons and the band to play the French National Anthem, "La Marseillaise", drowning out the Nazis' "Wacht am Rhein". During the filming, there were several actors who cried in that scene, being European refugees themselves.
  • Casino Royale: Bond's desperate, futile attempts to to rescue and revive Vesper after she's drowned and the way he cradles her in his arms when it's obvious that she's gone. Daniel Craig displays so many emotions on his face within a few minutes that your heart feels as broken as his when it's all over.
  • Quite a lot of moments in Casper can definitely qualify here, but particularly when Kat falls asleep:
 

Casper: Kat?
Kat: Mm-hm?
Casper: Can I keep you?
Kat: Mm-hm.
Casper: -kisses Kat's cheek-
Kat: Casper? Close the window. It's cold.

 
    • Casper then curls up at the bottom of Kat's bed and falls asleep too.
    • When Kat finds out about Casper's backstory and how his Mad Scientist dad went nut trying to revive him , and again when Casper becomes a real boy for some hours because he chose to revive Kat's dad rather than himself. Bonus points for the appearace of Kat's Missing Mom's soul.
  • The "death" of Wilson in Cast Away, for no reason that makes sense.
  • 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!*
  • The death of Charlotte in Charlotte's Web. As the Nostalgia Critic put it in his Top 11 Saddest Nostalgic Moments, "I'll never use a can of Raid again."
 

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

 
  • Cheaper By the Dozen (the remake)
    • When Mark runs away because he feels out of place in his family - something his siblings have only made worse throughout the movie up till this point.
    • The line at the end about "There are times when l want to kill Sarah...but l'd kill for her all the time." brings on the tears.
  • The documentary Children Full of Life, about a Tokyo school teacher whose two priorities are "everyone should be happy" and that his students learn empathy because he fears "people respect life less and less every day".
    • Part one A boy's grandmother recently passed away, and his "notebook letter" encourages another girl to talk about her deceased father.
    • Part two A bullying incident (which the teacher cannot abide) prompts another girl to talk about being the target of bullies.
    • Part three The kids are building rafts, and when one of them gets in trouble for being too noisy his friend sticks up for him even though he is terrified of standing up to authority.
    • Part four A boy's father passes away suddenly, and the students, remembering their classmate's experience in losing her father, write letters of condolence and encouragement.
    • Part five In the last days of the school year (and anticipating going to separate classes when they return for the next grade), the kids use their schoolyard to write a giant letter to their classmates' fathers in heaven, telling them that their children are going to be okay because their friends are with them.
  • Children of Men had also quite a number of tear jerkers. Particularly the scene where the hippie played by Michael Cain says goodbye to his catatonic wife. Or the scene where the soldiers and resistance both stop fighting when they hear the cries of a baby.
    • Jasper (Michael Cain's character) being shot by the Fishes. And Theo's reaction. "You tell me the fucking reason in that."
    • In the first scene mentioned above there is a woman with a clearly fatal stomach wound and what is she doing? Singing to calm the baby down..
    • Making the scene particularly memorable and heart-wrenching was the incredibly human reactions of the refugees and the soldiers. The refugees - of all races, colors, and creeds - were letting it all out, crying and rejoicing at the same time. The soldiers, meanwhile, mostly stare at the baby with silent amazement. A few get down on their knees to pray. A couple try to hide tears with sniffles. Another guy looks on completely oblivious to his commander squawking on the radio. And yet it seemed as though every one of them was saying "Oh God. Our lives were not wasted." A great performance by the movie's "extras".
    • That scene with the soldiers is all the more awful because of what happens a few seconds later. Someone from the building starts shooting, the spell is broken, and as Theo and Kee run for their lives the soldiers obliterate the building in a hail of bullets.
      • A sign of the significance of the birth. That rocket flew close enough to them that had there been any shrapnel, it might have killed them. The rebels didn't get any more shots off after someone fired that rocket.
  • Chinatown.
 

Walsh: Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

 
  • The Chipettes singing "My Mother" to the baby penguin in The Chipmunk Adventure.
  • Citizen Kane. The ending of the film. It's certainly sad because it features the death of the protagonist, but it is also strangely happy because it shows that he really wasn't the heartless monster that people spoke about for most of the film; he had a sentimental side to him, after all.
    • It's even more depressing once you understand that Kane died alone and miserable. All he ever wanted in life was to be loved. That's why Rosebud was the most important thing to him; it was the last time he was truly happy.
  • The expression on the Tramp's face, at the end of Chaplin's City Lights.
  • The first few lines in City of Angels, between Seth and the little girl, especially the "Someday she'll understand" part.
 

Susie:' Are you God?
Seth: No. My name is Seth.
Susie: Where are we going?
Seth: Home.
Susie: Can Mommy come?
Seth: No.
Susie: She won't understand.
Seth: She will...someday.

 
  • The Chinese film CJ7: Near the end, when Dicky and his father Chow's lives finally begin to take a turn for the better, Chow is killed in a construction accident, prompting Dicky's alien pet, CJ7, to try and revive him over and over again. Finally, Chow appears at his house, unaware of what has happened and he and Dicky find out CJ7 sacrificed all of its energy to revive Chow. As they attempt to save its life, CJ7 gives Dicky one final message: Continue with your school work.
  • Click: When the main character died in the rain, trying in vain to tell his ex-wife he loves her after living only 3 days of his life made me blubber like a baby at a 'stay up all night' sleepover.
 

Sandler: [[spoiler: Family ... comes ... first. Promise me!
His son: I promise, Dad.]]

 
    • The moment right before when he pretends to give his ex-wife's new husband the finger, then mimes that he's only joking, and instead changes it to a "You're OK" symbol.
      • The part of that scene that really hits me is when his son, newly married, puts his head down on the main character's chest, crying some truly gut-wrenching sobs.
    • For me, the waterworks started probably around the point where the main character realizes his father is dead and finds out what happened the last time he saw him.
    • Also, when he tries to go back to the moment of his father's death, and Walken's character tells him "you can't go back. You weren't there."
    • The main character yells at his father that he knows how you do the magic trick that the father has been so proud of throughout the film, right after the father was trying to cheer the main character up with the same magic trick.
  • Cloverfield: the Mood Whiplash at the end of the "found footage" has caused its fair shore of sniffles.
  • Cocoon: When the old geezer who was against that fountain of youth the whole time takes his just deceased wife into the pool, but the power of the pool is gone.
  • The Color Purple's last act in general is both heartrending and heartwarming.
  • The Constant Gardener. Dear God, where to begin? Perhaps the Lost Love Montage where Justin remembers falling in love with Tessa while sitting alone in her garden, crying.
    • Poor old Tim Donohue trying to dissuade Justin from unearthing the conspiracy behind Tessa's death and the other related death; when Justin naturally refuses, Tim sadly remarks "We'll both be dead by Christmas. Mine's Cancer... my pain is controllable..."
    • The aftermath of the bandit attack on the village.
    • Ham's bitter speech at Justin's funeral, which also crosses over with his Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 

So who has got away with murder? Not, of course, the British government. They merely covered up, as one does, the offensive corpses- though not literally; that was done by person or persons unknown. So who has committed murder? Not, of course, the highly respectable firm of KDH Pharmaceutical, which has enjoyed record profits this quarter, and has now licensed Zimba Med of Harare to continue testing Dypraxa in Africa. No, there are no murders in Africa. Only regrettable deaths. And from those deaths we derive the benefits of civilization, benefits we can afford so easily... because those lives were bought so cheaply.

 
  • Say what you like about The Core, Brazzleton's death scene is wrenching. Something about a guy withstanding 400+ degrees and still pushing it for a cause he volunteered for...
    • Serge's death, as well as the picture his daughter drew for him...
  • The excellent Crash, has a few of these moments but none jerk tears more than the scene in which 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. 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.
  • Crossing, a film about North Korean refugees. Its depiction of how people live in that country actually managed to get a theater crying. It definitely succeeds in portraying Kim Jong-il as an Always Chaotic Evil Overlord with 0% Approval Rating...
  • 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 film version of The Crow is rapid-fire Mood Whiplash, alternating between tear-jerking and fist-pumping, but even if you've held it together through the whole movie, the final few minutes, in which Eric has to explain to Sarah that he can't stay and take care of her shortly before the final battle, which culminates in him finally killing Top Dollar by inflicting upon him Shelly's final "thirty hours of pain" after having been stabbed through the gut, moments before he finally collapses on top of his own grave, and Shelly appears to bring him to Heaven is impossible to keep a dry eye through.
  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was full of them toward the end. For instance, Daisy came back to the nursing home, and saw Benjamin at the piano. She said, "I'm Daisy," and he said, "I'm Benjamin".
    • The first ten minutes of the movie (i.e., the Gateau anecdote) can leave you in tears.
    • Toward the end of the movie, when Daisy is walking with 80-year-old Benjamin, who now looks like a toddler and has become so young he can hardly walk.
 

"I watched as he forgot how to talk...how to walk..."

 
    • When Benjamin (appearing to be in his early 20s) walks into Daisy's dance studio and sees her again for the first time in a decade, then sees their 12-year-old daughter. Especially the part where all he can do is just shake hands with her and say hi.
 

Caroline: "This Benjamin was my father? And this is how you were going to tell me?!"

 
    • An aged Daisy reclines on the bed with Benjamin, who looks 6 and is in his pajamas, as she reads to him the same children's book that had been to read to them 60-something years earlier by Daisy's grandmother.
    • Benjamin's death scene, when he dies as an infant in Daisy's arms.
 

"At that moment I knew... he knew who I was..."

 
    • The proverbial "curtain call", when we see a final zoom in to every central character.
    • The deaths of Benjamin's crewmates after their battle at sea. Captain Clark's death is especially hard-hitting, as well as Pleasant's.

D

  • 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.
  • The last third of Dancer in the Dark is guaranteed to bring the audience to tears as Selma is torn down in front of the audience and the movie ends with Selma finally singing a song without daydreaming and being hung from the neck.
    • 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 little girl in the documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate with the open wounds in her legs. Also the little trafficked boy crying. It's sad that this goes on and so many don't know about it.
  • The ending scene of Dark Water (the original Japanese version), in which Yoshimi sacrifices herself to save her daughter.
  • The end of Das Boot, where 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.
  • The Masterpiece Theater movie of David Copperfield: Peggotty tells David through his door that he's going to be sent away to school, but that she'll always love him.
  • Dawn of the Dead: "You're going to kill my family?!"
  • Dead Poets Society
    • Neil committing suicide because his father won't let him act was bad enough.
    • The final scene, where, after Mr. Keating gets sacked, they defy the authority of the dean, standing on their desks to give him a farewell. "O Captain, My Captain!"
    • Neil's mom screaming "He's okay, he's okay!". * Sniff* Intense.
    • 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 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.
  • Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father will break your spirit, leave you without Kleenex for months and smile at the wonder of the human spirit.
  • The entirety of the Bittersweet Ending of Deep Impact.
    • Particularly the scene where Oren gets the chance to talk to his wife (and infant son Oren Jr.) for the last time, especially considering that Oren was blinded earlier in the film and it's a son he'll never see. "Be good, Oren... be good..."
      • That scene was brutal. "Look at it this way: we'll all get high schools named after us."
  • The Deer Hunter:
    • Two symbolical scenes: At first Mike shots a deer. But after the war, he's unable to kill a living being.
    • Russian roulette scene.
    • Steve (the one who lost his limbs) who doesn't want to come back home to live with his wife,
    • 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).
    • Mike returning to his hometown, deciding to drive to the hotel (despite everybody's waiting to invite him).
    • The apogee: Mike plays roulette with Nick after the war.
    • The ending meal, followed by credits.
  • In the 2008 movie about Jewish refugees in Belarus, Defiance, one of the four brothers learns from survivors from a neighboring town that his wife and son are dead. His reaction is heartwrenching.
    • 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 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.
  • Unusually for a horror movie, most of the deaths are Tear Jerkers in The Descent. Most obviously Beth's well-acted I Cannot Self-Terminate scene, but the sisters [one of whom was The Cutie] trying so hard to protect each other, one throughout the film and one Taking a Level In Badass just before she died, and both failing, is pretty upsetting too.
  • 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.
    • "I called her Pudding..."
  • In District 9 at the end of the film, when they are talking to the main character's wife about the handcrafted stuff Wikus would make her, and she shows them a flower made of scrap metal, then it cuts to an alien (aka Wikus) crafting another for her. This scene is just so sweet.
    • Christopher talking to his son after the fluid fiasco, showing him the District 10 brochure. "We go home now?" "No, we have to go here. See this tent? It might be ours. It will be better." "I want to go home!" He's just trying to make the best of a friggin' horrible situation. And him seeing the shuttle crash and thinking his son died in it, and just kneeling on the ground while he's beaten and questioned and not caring when he's about to be killed, not having anything left to live for. Thank GOD for Big Damn Heroes.
    • "Father!"
    • Wikus' huge Heel Face Turn itself, especially when he sacrifices himself to insure Christopher Johnson's escape.
  • The section in Dodgeball where Steve is told that he's not a pirate.
  • The end to Donnie Darko: Donnie lets himself get crushed to death by the airplane, because if he doesn't, the world will end on Halloween night (see it all here). Then, the song "Mad World" starts playing at the credits, and you really start to lose it.
    • The part that really go to me (it may have only been in the director's cut) was where Donnie gets into a debate in his English class over Watership Down, asking why the reader should care if the stupid rabbits live or die, and he sounds pretty desperate. He is so clearly trying not to be the Messiah, to convince himself he shouldn't have to die for these foolish, ungrateful people.
  • Draco's death in Dragonheart, especially when it goes quiet and the only thing you can hear is the sound of his beating heart as it slows down and stops. Set to the heartbreakingly beautiful "To The Stars" rendition of the main theme. Damn you, Randy Edelman.
 

A Knight is sworn to Valor.
His Heart knows only Virtue.
His Blade Defends the Helpless.
His Strength Upholds the Weak.
His Word speaks only Truth.
His Wrath Undoes the Wicked!

 
  • Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, right after the challenge match at the karate convention. We've been taken on a tense thrill ride, as the seconds count down to the appointed time limit ... and with only about three seconds left, Bruce Lee wins. The swell of celebratory music and the rotating pan around Lee as the crowd realises what he's done left me in tears.
  • Dreamgirls. Specifically, "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going".
  • Drop Dead Fred
    • The main character has just taken medicine to get rid of Fred, then overhears her husband on the phone, finally realizes he's cheating on her, turns away with her world spinning around her... and then Fred, on the floor and still in pain, reaches out to her with compassion on his face: "Come."
    • 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.

E

  • 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. 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 music alone is tear jerking.
    • The moment where Kim (Winona Ryder) realises the situation looks so bad that the mob of suburbanites will be too angry to reason with, and half-whispers "Run". Heartbreaking.
    • "Hold me." "... I can't."
    • 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.
    • "He didn't wake up."
    • And then the scene where Edward accidentally cuts his hands apart as the inventor crumples to the floor.
  • Ed Wood has many tearjerking moments focusing on Bela Lugosi's descending parable:
    • While shooting a night scene for Bride of the Monster, Bela suddenly tells Ed Wood that he turned down the role of Frankenstein that was offered him after Dracula.
    • Bela breaks into sobs while explaining to the nurse why he's checking into rehab.
    • His funeral, followed by a sequence of Ed alone watching Bela's last footage.
  • The last 10 minutes or so of Daft Punk's Electroma. Everything from the silver robot's death and the gold robot's attempt(s) at suicide to the end credits. The whole movie's pretty sad, but those last scenes... blimey.
  • Any scene in The Elephant Man that involves people being mean to Merrick. Especially the stuff in Europe.
    • "I used to read The Bible every day, I know it very well -- the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. The twenty-third psalm is very beautiful -- it's my favorite." "Why didn't you tell me you could read?" "You did not ask me... You wanted me to speak, but I was afraid."
    • Merrick's last sleep, with "Adagio for strings" and beautiful monologue (from Tennyson's poem): "Never, oh! never, nothing will die. The stream flows, The wind blows, The cloud fleets, The heart beats. Nothing will die.".
  • 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 the Nostalgia Critic joked about a run for its money.
  • The end of Empire of the Sun, where the lead kid finally reunites with his parents... despite, right before that, he doesn't recognize them and almost missed on finding them forever.
    • For that matter, 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 End of Days, 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.
  • The bits in Equilibrium when Preston first sees the sun rise off of the medication and Mary's execution can't help but force you to choke up a little bit. Obscurely contrasting with an hour and a half of Crowning Moments of Awesome makes them all the better and proves Christian Bale's versatility as an actor.
    • Preston breaking down after the latter made this editor Christian Bale fan. Well, that and his badassery throughout the rest of the movie.
  • The weeping Baby from Eraserhead is somewhere between this and Nightmare Fuel. There's also the state of Henry's apartment.
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey signs up for a procedure to erase the memories of his former girlfriend, only to realize halfway through that he doesn't want to do it, but finds that he can't stop it now. Especially at the end, when he and his girlfriend, both amnesiac but informed of what has happened, discuss getting back together, and the girl protests that they'll only end up breaking up again - and Jim Carrey says calmly, "Okay."
  • 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.
    • There's also the scene right after that, when she's back to doing chores and the Baroness is taunting her. When Danielle finally snaps and screams that she is the only mother she's ever known, and asks her if she ever once loved her at all.
 

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 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 last half hour of Everybody's Fine. After suffering a heart attack on the plane home from visiting his daughter in Las Vegas, Frank (Robert De Niro) has a dream where his kids, as their younger selves, reveal their long-standing issues to him. He later wakes up with his three children he'd visited throughout the movie at his bedside and wonders where the fourth, David, is. He never answered the door to his apartment or returned Frank's phone calls, so he doesn't know why he's not there. Throughout the movie, it's made known that David has been arrested in Mexico for drug possession charges and his kids have been keeping the information from him until they know more about what's going on. Then his daughter tells him that David died of an overdose. After that, the movie is just a non-stop orgy of tears. This could fall under Narm for some.
  • 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.

F

  • In the Tarsem movie, The Fall, with Lee Pace, after Alexandria falls and encounters her dream sequence, she wakes up to Roy sitting by her.
    • Odious beats up the Masked Bandit/Roy, shoving him in the water repeatedly, all while doing this in front of the Bandit's daughter. Just the way Alexandria was repeatedly screaming for him to get up, as tears streamed down her face makes it so heartwrenching. He lives, though.
    • All the while, in real life, while Roy is going through his Creator Breakdown, and Alexandria is pleading for him to stop. Also, the moment when Darwin's monkey shows Darwin that he captured the butterfly Darwin wanted as he's dying. This is quite possibly the only time the death of several line-less characters caused tears in many. Furthermore, the only time when learning a character dies (other than the scrappy, big bad, etc) isn't as sad as learning they didn't.
    • "No more fighting! He needs to go to his daughter, she's afraid!" As begged by a crying Alexandria. It breaks my heart, not only because she is clearly talking for herself, not the character—but also because Roy immediately has the bandit run to her to hug and comfort her as asked.
  • Fearless: I did not win!
    • While we're at it "It's not about me any more" and "We stand strong"... and the rest of the last 20 minutes of the movie.
  • In Felidae, there are several different tear jerking moments specifically Felicity's death.
  • Fearless (and no, not the Jet Li movie): Fearless is a 1993 movie that starred Jeff Bridges playing a survivor of a horrific plane crash, and throughout the whole movie, seems to be stuck between in a state of not really feeling alive (in fact, through most of the movie, he comes off as kind of an asshole). He periodically has flashbacks showing what happened in the events leading up to the crash, starting with showing the passengers just moments before the plane starts having trouble. Each progressive flashback gets closer and closer to the point of impact, until the very last one at the end of movie, where it shows both the impact itself, and the few moments leading up to it. The final scene is one of the most emotional scenes in a movie. Just so you know, among the passengers on the plane were the protagonist's business partner and friend (the person he was sitting next to initially), two sisters who were taking their children on vacation without their husbands, a young boy who was travelling alone (and was played by a real life survivor of the crash that this story was based off of), and a mother who had her almost two year old son with her. Her baby is ripped from her arms and killed, one of sisters, along her children, die, and the business partner/friend is also killed, along with many others.
    • "I'm alive! I'm alive!" For some reason, this moment overwhelmed me with both elation and gut-wrenching grief.
  • Three words: Field of Dreams.
    • "Hey Dad? You wanna have a catch? I'd like that." Brace for tears.
  • The ending of Final Fantasy the Spirits Within. Captain Grey sacrifices his life to destroy the Phantoms. In front of his love. After his squad of True Companions died trying to get Aki and Dr. Sid out of New New York.
  • The English narration of past events in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children was done so beautifully and simply that it was heartbreaking in its own right, but especially this one line: "Someone I love went back to the lifestream too."
    • Also, the final moments of the movie, watching Aeris walk away, then turn so we can finally see her face, the little farewell wave from Zack, and the final lines: "See? Everything's okay." "You're right. I'm not alone." The combination of Cloud finally smiling, surrounded by the children he has helped cure, being congratulated by his team-mates and some closure on Aerith. All this happening in that god damn church. The orchestral piece Cloud Smiles that plays during the scene tops it all off, as it is just fucking beautiful.
  • Finding Neverland: Sylvia actually walks into Neverland in her home, before she dies. Then there was the ending scene just with James and Peter on the bench.
  • Once the situation of Robin's character in The Fisher King really sinks in, it's heartbreaking.
  • The death of Weebo in Flubber. Think the death of a non-humanoid robot isn't heartwrenching? Think again.
  • The Fly 2: Despite being a gore-splattered sequel of Jeff Goldblum's body horrific Fly, the one scene that made me almost break down in tears was when Martin (Brundlefly's son) finds the telapod golden retriever he befriended two years earlier hideously mutated and chained in a tiny cage. Martin's employer, Bartok, kept the mutated dog alive for the past two years despite being promising Martin he had put it out of its misery a long time ago. And despite the dog being in terrible pain, it still fondly remembers Martin, who ends its misery by euthanizing it with chloroform. It's this scene that elevates Bartok's station as a smug snake into an utter and complete monster.
    • 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 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.
  • When Amy hits Igor in Fly Away Home. The thud and the way she screams after she hits him, terrified that she's hurt him badly always makes me tear up, even after seing the film dozens of times.
  • After a brotherhood moment in Flyboys when The Squad stuck up for their friend
  • Sparrow's death in The Forbidden Kingdom.
  • Forrest Gump:
 

"Dear God, make me a bird so that I could fly far. Far, far away from here." *sniff*
"I may not be smart, but I know what love is."
"I really miss you, Jenny."
Forrest: Then, Bubba said something I won't ever forget.
Bubba: I wanna go home.
"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...?"
    • Seeing Lieutenant Dan broken and legless after Forrest saves him. "I was supposed to die on the field! With honor! It was my destiny, and you...cheated me out of it! I was Lieutenant...Dan Taylor..."
  • The Fountain. After the main character's wife dies, and he's sitting in his bedroom and absolutely sobbing, while tattooing his wedding ring on his finger since he'd lost it before her death. Actually, the whole ending of that movie too. Heartbreaking.
    • The moment where the main character sees the vision of his wife which has been haunting him for decades switch simultaneously with his wife's depiction of Isabella of Spain is particularly painful. Especially the moment when he smiles and says, "I'm going to die". The little laugh at the end.
  • Four Lions, a Black Comedy about inept suicide bombers, stays upbeat until the last ten minutes. Earlier in the film, ringleader Omar tells his son how martyrs die smiling. By the end, all of his friends have died for nothing, including naive Man Child Waj, who was terrified. He walks into a chemist and blows himself up, but not before saying his last words to a colleague standing nearby.
 

Omar: Now, you stay here. And you tell them I was smiling.

 
  • Freedom Writers: While the entire movie kind of gently tugs at your heartstrings, the biggest bit is the 'Toast for Change' scene, when one student reads an entry from his journal, saying how when he and his mom got evicted from their house, and how worried he was about being made fun of for being homeless, when he came to his English class first hour, nothing else mattered. He was home. He reads it all on the verge of tears himself, and then the whole class--people who were formerly gang rivals who hated one another--gather around him for a group hug.
  • Idgie telling Ruth one last story in Fried Green Tomatoes.
    • 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 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.

G

  • Galaxy Quest, when Sarris' minion shoots Quellek. For Quellek, It Has Been an Honor to serve Alexander Dane, whose culture and philosophy he had emulated for life. For Alexander, watching the only one who respected him die in his hands spurs him to deliver the line he hates the most as an actor: "By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!"
  • Gallipoli.
    • Frank (Mel Gibson) just can't quite run fast enough to get back to the trench with the order to stop the attack, and has to watch all his mates going over the top to their doom.
    • He doesn't see it, but instead hears the whistle blown by the Major to start the attack, causing him to collapse howling in despair. Who would've thought the sound of a tin whistle could be so traumatic.
    • Also during that scene, the soldiers awaiting the order to go, all writing last letters to loved ones and fixing them to the sandbags with their bayonets, then hanging their valuables - rings, watches, lockets - on the bayonet handles. Wordless and quite beautiful.
    • Just...
 

Archie: What are your legs? Springs. Steel springs. What are they going to do? Hurl me down the track. How fast can you run? As fast as a leopard. How fast are you going to run? As fast as a leopard! Then let's see you do it.

 
    • C. E. W Bean's accounts of Gallipoli were polished up to publish and might not have been a completely accurate and impartial reflection of events...but that bit? Completely true - there was a young Australian soldier (Wilfred Harper) who was last seen running for the trenches without a rifle, like 'a schoolboy in a foot-race'.
    • [1] The soundtrack really doesn't help...
  • Gettysburg: After Pickett's Charge.
 

General Robert E. Lee: General, you must look to your division.
Major General George E. Pickett: General Lee... I have no division.

 
    • What gets me is when the officer on the horse during Pickett's charge is shot by the cannon right as the music turns tragic, and then it cuts to Lee pulling his binoculars away from his face with this sad expression...
      • It's made even more poignant when you realise that this is Pickeet's first time in an actual battle, He'd previously always arrived after the fact, and him realising just how brutal warfare just hammers it in.
    • Also, after Armistead has been shot, and is looking for his best friend, who was on the opposing side and whom he hasn't seen since before the war started.
 

Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead: Would like... to see General Hancock. Can you tell me... where General Hancock may be found?
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: I'm sorry, sir. The general's down, he's been hit.
Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead: No! Not both of us! Not all of us! Please, God!

 
      • Added to by Reality Subtext; Richard Jordan, who played Armistead, died shortly after filming, and this is his final scene ever.
  • Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai: During the final shootout when Louie shoots Ghost Dog as Ghost Dog pulls his gun from its holster. All the while Ghost Dog's best friend Raymond is frantically shouting in French (he only speaks French) "It's not even loaded!" and begging Louie not to shoot his friend. Louie, an Italian gangster, doesn't understand what Raymond is saying and shoots Ghost Dog twice more, killing him.
  • Ghost Town. The scene where the main character finally submits to the ghosts requests and goes around telling their survivors what they wanted to say is surprisingly touching for what was a riotous comedy up until then.
  • The final scenes of Gladiator, particularly the death of Maximus.
    • And within that scene, the wheat field. Coupled with "Now We Are Free".
  • Glory, Denzel Washington's character violates orders and Colonel Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick is forced to have him whipped... in front of the whole regiment.
    • Moreso because when Pvt. Trip's shirt is ripped off, it's revealed his back is already a mess of scars from having been whipped as a slave. Shaw watches every moment, trying to keep a professional face but obviously hurting.
    • And then there's the Colonel's death in battle. And Washington picking up the flag for the first time. And the regiment seemingly being so close to victory but being slaughtered. And finally, the sad music playing as all the bodies, black and white, are set into the pit together.
      • Or even better, when the regiment is still in training, they receive news that the Confederate army had declared that any Black man found in uniform will be hanged, as will any White man found in command, there'll be no prisoners. Colonel Shaw says the Army will allow a discharge for anyone who wants it. The next morning he asks his friend, "How many are left?" When he doesn't answer, the camera pulls back to show that NOT ONE Black or White soldier has left. A choked up Shaw can only say "Glory Hallelujah". Damn straight.
      • And the fact that almost all of it is true! Studied this film as part of a 6th Form coursework on the modern media portrayal of the Civil War, and almost every part of this film is accurate, including all the above facts. Glory Hallelujah indeed.
      • One detail of the movie disagrees with historical sources. They say that Col. Shaw actually fell inside the fort upon being shot and that his entire regiment attempted entry to be with their Colonel, only to be slaughtered to a man. Probably a more powerful statement than even the movie made.
  • The Battle of Fredricksburg, as depicted in the film Gods and Generals, when the Irish Bridgade of the Union army encounters an Irish regiment of the Confederate army. Ordered into an impossible meat-grinder of a charge, the Union brigade is cut down in swathes. At the height of the slaughter, the Confederate commander, overwhelmed by the sight of so many of his countrymen dead by his own hand, breaks down into Manly Tears. When one learns that some of the officers on either side had formerly fought together in the Rebellion of 1848, having fled to America to escape British reprisals, it becomes almost heartbreaking.
    • 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 film version of Godspell: As with the play, it ends the morning after the crucifixion of Christ as his disciples (some crying) carry him away, leading into a reprise of "Day By Day". They round a corner of a building, and the camera then rounds it as well—and other people of New York City are walking past, a huge crowd of them, as the song continues in voiceover (we hadn't seen anyone but Jesus and his disciples in the city since the long prologue); the last shot is a freeze-frame of ordinary people going about ordinary lives. After the intensity of the crucifixion sequence, this ending is a punch to the gut.
  • The end of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah: Godzilla dies a slow and painful death due to a nuclear meltdown. That and 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." (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.)
    • Try watching the original Gojira and not crying after learning that it's inspired by two horrific tragedies in Japan's history (the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the Lucky Dragon 5 incident). Go ahead, try.
      • The makers of the film painstakingly made the scenes of Godzilla's attack on Tokyo so eerily similar to how Hiroshima and Nagasaki looked after being bombed.
      • 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 (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 (promptly blasts the man into oblivion with his breath weapon).
    • Rebirth of Mothra trilogy: The death of Mothra Leo's mother is very tear-inducing. What gets me is Mothra Leo putting his head under her wing, crooning for her not to leave him and trying to prevent him from drowning. He fails and she sinks into the ocean with very sad music. Every a reviewer who picked on the film at Million Monkey's Theator said it was an emotionally draining scene for two models made out of rubber and styrofoam.
    • Why is there not even one mention of Godzilla plunging into Mt. Mihara at the end of "Godzilla 1985," followed by Raymond Burr's ending monologue?
  • The death of 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.
    • Melanie's death scene, and the one immediately afterward, when Scarlett, the Aspie Poster-Girl, finally realizes that Ashley loves his wife more than he ever will her.
  • The German film Goodbye Lenin
    • Alex's mother finally leaves her room and walks the now-Westernised streets of what was East Berlin.
    • And when Alex is riding home in the taxi and the taxi driver is his childhood hero, the cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn.
    • At the end, Alex is showing his mother another fake news tape, and she says it's wonderful, but she's looking at her son, not the TV... she knows that he has been faking these news reports for her, and she knows that it's just a sign of how much he loves her.
  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips. "I thought I heard you saying it was a pity... pity I never had any children. But you're wrong. I have. Thousands of them. Thousands of them... and all boys."
  • Good Morning Vietnam: The What A Wonderful World scene. Those shots of Vietnam's lush jungle and rice paddies and villages, and then shots of said peaceful villages being blown to bits. The shot of the lone bloody sandal sitting on the ground among the wreckage.
  • The Good Son with the crazy kid played by Culkin...Would any mother make that same decision?!
    • What, let him die? Seeing as it was a choice between 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 and wordlessly covers him with his coat and gives him One Last Smoke. Manly Tears big time.
  • Good Will Hunting: "It's not your fault."
  • 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 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.
    • The end, in which the Gran Torino is willed to Thao.
  • No love for Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator? Charlie Chaplin plays a man who gets mistaken for the movies Expy of Adolf Hitler at the end. Becasue of that, he ends up having to give a speech in front of everyone who followed the dictator. His speech is so amazing, and so beautiful... And then you remember what the real Hitler did.
  • The final scene in The Great Ziegfeld, when Ziegfeld's stage extravaganzas flash before his eyes before he expires.
  • The Green Mile
    • The end . Especially during the death of John Coffey.
    • 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: 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.
    • When Coffey walked into the execution chamber singing "Cheek to Cheek."
    • 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 cruelty of the witnesses at Coffey's execution, hurling epithets at him, none of them knowing that John is anything but a "monster."
      • Coffey begging Paul not to put the shroud over his head: "Please boss, don't put that thing over my face. Don't put me in the dark. I's afraid of the dark." The stricken expressions on the guard's faces when he says that crushes my heart.
  • Grumpier Old Men: "Looks like God remembered you, Pop"
  • Guess Who's Coming For Dinner. Especially when you know the backstory behind the relationship of Ms. Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
  • The ending of Gwoemul.
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