One of my favorite blogs is A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago. It's kind of difficult to classify their niche but it is mostly pop culture, baseball, and the absurd. (I know. I said it was difficult to classify. And I'm really not doing it justice. Check it out.) They had a post this week about movies that can reliably make people cry. Researchers determined in the late '80's that the scene where the father dies in the movie The Champ is the most tear-inducing. ALOTT5MA asked which movies made in the interim were as or more sad.
I'm going to admit upfront that I'm a crier. I get choked up at books, movies, and even commercials. Does anyone remember the Polaroid commercial with the two brothers (cousins?) running around at a family reunion taking pictures of everyone that they ultimately use to make a photo collage for their elderly grandfather? That one always reduced me to tears. There are several movies that are guaranteed to make me cry.
They are (in no particular order and I'm going to issue a blanket spoiler alert warning right now):
Steel Magnolias
(Two scenes) When they turn off the Shelby's life support machine and M'Lynn sits with her daughter while she passes away and the scene in the cemetary when M'Lynn loses it after looking at her "brown, football helmet hair" make me blubber like a baby.
Lars and the Real Girl (a small, underappreciated film - check it out)
Bianca's funeral. When I saw it in the theater, I sat between two of my friends. I started to cry but had no idea whether they were even enjoying the movie, so I just leaned back and let the tears slide off the sides of my face. I then saw one of my friends reach up to wipe away the tears and heard the other start sniffing. When the movie was over, my friend D said, "I can't believe they made me cry over a plastic woman!" And that, my friends, is the whole point of this quiet little movie.
Toy Story 3
The scene in the incinerator when all the toys accept their fate and hold hands to wait for the end brings tears to my eyes. I knew the first time I watched this movie that Pixar wasn't going to kill off those sweet little toys, but it was still suspenseful and oh so sad. I also get choked up at the end when Andy is going off to college and he gives all his toys to his mother's friend's little girl. So sweet and so emotional.
Up
Pixar has the keys to my heartstrings. The five minute "scenes from a marriage" montage at the beginning of the movie so wonderfully captures a lifetime of happy marriage without any dialog. It is absolutely brilliant but the portion where they start to plan for a baby, go to the doctor who shakes his head, Ellie ends up in the backyard just sitting and staring, and Carl goes out to comfort her has special meaning to me because of our trials with infertility. By the time Ellie dies before they can live their dream of going to South America, I'm a basket case. The interesting thing is that Up has been in heavy rotation on one of the movie channels and I always watch (I know, I know, I'm a glutton for punishment). I call TLS "the tin man" because he likes to act like he doesn't have a heart, but he totally does. I had no idea that he was as affected by that montage until I was watching it one afternoon just as the scene was about to start. He was walking through, glanced at the TV, shielded his eyes with one of his hands, and said, "Oh no, the sad part is coming on."
Out of Africa (my all-time favorite movie)
The very end of the movie is a shot of a pair of lions lying on the patch of ground where Denys Finch-Hatton is buried. There's a haunting voice-over by Meryl Streep describing the scene that says, "Denys would like that. I shall have to remember to tell him." Those damn lions on the grave get me every.single.time. And still I watch it again and again.
Does anyone else have movies that always make them cry?
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