What are your favorite tear jerking movies or books?

[Mrs. Readsalot]

As many of you know I have an auto-immune disease called Sjogrens that is destroying my tear glands amoung other things. I can still cry a bit at really moving or sad stories. I have to put drops in my eyes all day long as I make very few natural tears. Artificial drops are not nearly as good as real tears. my personal belief is the more I can exercise my ability to really cry the better for my tear glands. So bring it on...what movies or books make you cry? The last movie that made me cry was August Rush.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

..

[Mom2jnb]

It's an oldie..but it is the first movie I ever cried at and I still do each time I see it....family friendly too.

Savannah Smiles

(((Hugs)))
Alison

[Virginia Dawn]

Movies that have made me cry: Penny Serenade, A little Princess, The Way We Were, Funny Girl (no kidding), Brian's Song, Jeremiah Johnson, Where the Red Fern Grows, Old Yeller.

Books: Black Beauty, Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Meg :-)

All these date me terribly. Now I don't cry as easily as I used to.

[StacyWithFourRugrats]

I also recommend Life is Beautiful. I have watched it twice and am unable to watch it again. It is so heartwarming and yet sad.

Another recommendation that will make you laugh hysterically before it makes you ball like a baby is Steel Magnolias.

Another few good ones are A Walk to Remember with Mandy Moore, RENT (the movie based on the musical), and Anna and the King.

I know of a lot more but I am still waking up ;)

[AnneJ]

We read The Birds Christmas Carol. I could not get through the last chapter. It was such a good book and I was bawling like a baby.

[3lilreds in NC]

That one will make you cry for sure.

I don't know if you ever saw the movie "Mask" with Cher as the mom, but that was a really sad movie. I haven't thought of it in years, but it came to mind when I read your post.

"Pay It Forward" is another sad one. I did not know that when I watched it.

I cried when I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - I don't know if you read HP but that one was so, so sad.

[Mrs. Readsalot]

I would love to find this movie. I checked it out on ebay and the last DVD that sold their went for $94.00 Eek!!! this movie must be great and hard to find.

[SheilaZ]

Lorenzo's Oil (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104756/)
My husband says it is the most sad movie he has ever seen. He actually had to leave the room and has refused to everwatch it again.
It ends happily though...as happily as it can.

I get teary just thinking about the family that inspired it.:(

[Tammy]

nt

[Beth in Central TX]

I cried while reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier; the part where she came down in the white dress...

[MelissaM]

A Walk to Remember and Where the Red Fern Grows always make me cry. Oh, and that movie with Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw. I can't remember the name of it.

[MelissaM]

Love Story.

I think that's it.

[Josie]

[I]The Ultimate Gift[I] made me cry. We just watched it last night.

[Soph the vet]

Just reading Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech makes me cry every time.
Schindler's List is a tearjerker for sure, like Life is Beautiful.

[unsinkable]

Here is my theory on crying b/c of books/movies:

I cry when it mimics my life. Parents dying young reduces me to sobs, even if the movie is lame. Best example: Beaches. Mom dies; I sob.

If I want a good cry, I read "Do not go gentle into that good night." Instant waterworks.

How about songs: most songs by Sarah Mclaughlin but especially "I will remember you" and "Angel." Which leads us back to another movie: "City of Angels."

[Karenciavo]

I cried with Brian's Song, Truly Madly Deeply and Life is Beautiful as already mentioned, but would also like to add Of Mice and Men, Sounder, and Glory. Oh, I just remembered, in Toy Story 2 when "Jessie" (Sarah McLachlan) sings "When She Loved Me" I cry like a baby.

[StaceyinLA]

Stepmom with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. I guess it just really addresses fears I have always had about dying and leaving my kids.

Where the Red Fern Grows always did make me cry too, and as an adult, I couldn't even read it aloud to my son because I would start crying just knowing what was coming!

I will admit to crying at a lot of movies, but I think Stepmom could get any mother sobbing. Even though I really don't like either of the actresses in it very much, it is a really touching flick...

[PixieKris]

I started crying about 5 minutes into the movie PS I love you, and cried all the way through! James Patterson's book "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" also made me cry for most of it. And Little Miss Sunshine made me laugh and cry most of the way through, but I don't know why and I don't know if it would work for you!

Good luck,

Kris

[LNC]

the famous tear jerker The Notebook, & The Railway Children (can't remember why but I sobbed at the end.)

Lorenzo's Oil almost gave me a stroke - my son has a degenerative condition too. The scene where the father reads the medical journal about what was going to happen to his son. That same thing happend to me in a hospital library. Oh the tears are flowing even now... good movie though. Amazing family.

[Scarlett]

Nicholas Sparks is a sappy author IMO, but I sobbed gut wrenching tears reading 'Message in a Bottle'. Notebook did that to my friend, but not me. I think a lot of times it just depends on the mood you are in.

Out of Africa is one of my all time favorite movies. The first 10 times I watched it, I began to cry earlier and earlier in the movie because I knew what was coming.

[DIY-DY]

As many of you know I have an auto-immune disease called Sjogrens that is destroying my tear glands amoung other things. I can still cry a bit at really moving or sad stories. I have to put drops in my eyes all day long as I make very few natural tears. Artificial drops are not nearly as good as real tears. my personal belief is the more I can exercise my ability to really cry the better for my tear glands. So bring it on...what movies or books make you cry? The last movie that made me cry was August Rush.

Also Schindler's List was a real tear-jerker for me.

For books, I cannot read The Littlest Angel or the unabridged Velveteen Rabbit aloud. I'm a sobbing, snot-covered wreck at the end of either book.

Children At The Gates by Lynne Reid Banks left me curled on the front porch, clutching my coffee in one hand, with a box of tissues in the other, having to turn the pages with a pinky between swipes of the tissue.

Man, come to think of it, I must be a wreck! LOL! But hopefully one of these will help. {{hugs}}

[Susan]

It made me cry, it is so sad!

[PixieKris]

I'm with you on Nicholas Sparks - they are quick reads, but can be tearjerkers... A Walk To Remember I think was a tearjerker too, but I agree - depends on your mood. I can't remember if I cried during The Notebook, but I did like it!

[Dana in OR]

I think my favorite movie is "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid", and I always cry at the end. We just watched "The Ultimate Gift" and it made me cry. I haven't watched it in a looong time but "Brian's Song" was a real tear-jerker.

[Elaine]

We just watched Facing the Giants and I could not stop crying. :eek: And I am with Karen Ciavo on Toy Story 2 when Sarah Maclaughlin sings. Same thing with Finding Nemo, I was a blubbering mess during parts of that one.

Movies:
Old Yeller
The Whale Rider
Dead Poets Society (I swear, I needed an intervention after that one!)
Pursuit of Happyness
The Hours ( Julianne Moore's sad character disturbed me greatly. She did an awesome job in that role.)

Books:
Where the Red Fern Grows
A Handmaids Tale (Don't know why, it just made me so sad.)
A Child Called It
Three Came Home (I blogged about this one. I cried, intermittently, for days after I finished the book.)
Bridges of Madison County


I am sure there are more, that's all I can think of right now.

[Diane]

I'm never cry at movies, BUT...when I watched A Walk to Remember, I kid you not, I cried the entire second half of the movie.

[sdWTMer]

Well, religious themed: The Gospel of John.

Other ones, non-religious, are Steel Magnolias (I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned already!), Dying Young, One True Thing, Terms of Endearment, Regarding Henry.

That's all that I can think of right now.

[Mama Lynx]

I cry at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life," every single year.

Mr. Holland's Opus made me cry. And so did Saving Private Ryan. But in general, I 1) tear up often at movies, and 2) try to avoid any real tearjerkers. It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Holland's Opus are good kinds of crying. I don't mind that, at all.

I read Elie Wiesel's "Night" on a Friday night, in college, and I cried the entire weekend. That's the kind of crying I'd rather avoid.

[Karenciavo]

I thought of one more, Jesus of Nazareth.

[Carol in Cal.]

.nt

[Tutor]

Movies:
The Story of Us
Wit
House of Sand and Fog
Magnolia
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Life is Beautiful
Pan's Labyrinth
No Country for Old Men
Schindler's List

Books:
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

And the short story The Scarlet Ibis (just thinking about it makes me tear up)

[Virginia Dawn]

Oh my, I forgot Dead Poet's Society. That was definitely a tear jerker.

[Johanna]

i cried!

[Old Dominion Heather]

The last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner. Try reading it outloud to a five or six year old boy. I get teary just thinking of it. I stop at the next to the last chapter when we read that book.

[Mom2legomaniacs]

Totally agree with Steel Magnolias and Life is Beautiful. Sobbed with both of them. I think I probably did with Schindler's List but I can't recall.

There was a book from FIAR called Who Owns the Sun? that really got me teary. I had a hard time reading that one aloud without stopping to compose myself.

There are definitely other books and movies, but for some reason, I cannot bring them up in this addled head of mine!

[Liberty]

I cry at nearly everything. I can't sit through a single episode of Little House on the Prairie (ask my poor dh) without cying. Perhaps one could say I'm a conniosseur of the tear-jearker genre (which seems to be one of my favories). But, to keep it short, I'm going to list the ones that made me cry the HARDEST.

Movies:
The Color Purple (when her sister leaves and also at the very end.)
The Shawshank Redemption
The Joy Luck Club (again, at the end)
It's a Wonderful Life
Life is Beautiful (saw in the theatre and cried all the way home)
Titanic (again, at the very end -- must be a theme here with sad endings)
Gallipoli (beautiful and tragic movie)
The English Patient
Hotel Rwanda (cried the whole way through)
Lorenzo's Oil (hysterical crying, like everyone else here has said already)
Cool Hand Luke
Children of Men


Books:
Angela's Ashes (throughout the entire book)
Sign of the Beaver (at the end)
Island of the Blue Dolphins (I read this and the above book aloud to my sons--at times they could barely understand what I was saying because I was crying so hard)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
To Kill a Mockingbird
East of Eden
The Pianist
Old Yellar
Love Story (never saw the movie, but the book is very, very sad)

[melissel]

I weep like a baby through the end of Steel Magnolias every single time. :o And, bizarrely, I cry copiously through Armageddon, with Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck too. It's such a cheeseball movie, but the relationship between Liv Tyler and Bruce Willis (he plays her father)...well, I won't give away a key point in the movie, but I'm nearly crying now just thinking about it! I'm very close with my tough-guy dad, and it reminds me so much of him.

I'm not a big fan of Shirley Maclaine, but I'm usually a mess through Terms of Endearment too :o

[Wendi]

I always cry watching "Return of the King" at the part when Sam thinks Frodo is dead, and throughout a lot of the last half-hour. I also cry a lot when reading the book(s).

I cried watching "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", and also cry when I read the book, along with Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I bawled like a baby when I watched "Miss Potter".

I cry tears of joy at the end of "Emma".

"Sophie's Choice" also makes me cry, but it's so heavy. Don't watch it if you're depressed. It won't help. :rolleyes:

I cried a lot when I read The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Excellent, excellent book.

"Titanic". Some really good tearjerking scenes in that movie!

"Shadowlands" (the one about C.S. Lewis).

The book A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken.

"Amazing Grace" (the movie about William Wilberforce).

Those are the ones that come to mind right now.

Wendi

[kdeno]

Oh, I just remembered, in Toy Story 2 when "Jessie" (Sarah McLachlan) sings "When She Loved Me" I cry like a baby.[/QUOTE]


Kari
love your avatar, what a cutie

[LaMere Academy]

The Painted Veil is a good one, also
Steel Magnolias
Terms of Endearment
Pursuit of Happyness

[Jill, OK]

Where he sings to his son? My gosh. I love it. (I'm getting teary just thinking about it, lol.) That's a really powerful movie.

The end of Sense and Sensibility, where she asks him, "You mean...you're not married?!" and then breaks down crying gets me, usually.

And this is a Christian book, but...the part when the mom tears up the little girl's dandelion chain, in The Last Sin Eater made me put the book down, go into the bathroom, and bawl. Hard.

I know there are more, I just can't think right now.

[Cricket]

Liberty mentioned Gallipoli. I cried for days after seeing that movie.

Not the greatest movie in the world but for some reason Hope Floats makes me cry. I don't know what it is about that movie but it gets me every time. lol

I've avoided Schindler's List and Life Is Beautiful because I could cry now just thinking about them. I think they would bother me way too much. I get into movies like that too much because they are based on true events. I think that is why Gallipoli affected me so much. Even Gettysburg (fake beards and all!) made me cry.

[A home for their hearts]

I started crying about 5 minutes into the movie PS I love you, and cried all the way through! Kris

This was a great movie! One minute I'd be crying the next I would be laughing my butt off! It was the type of movie that you laughed so hard you cried! It was also a tear jerker! I highly recommend it.

Also, I haven't been able to read through all the posts, but The notebook is a great book and movie, I would read the book first. ;) And Message in a bottle, never read the book but the movie was great! The Family Stone is another good one. Here on Earth-this movie is a little similar to A walk to remember
It seems I can cry at anything but I think that is just my hormones from breastfeeding!
I could go on but the baby is crying!

[OH_Homeschooler]

Hmm, I wish I could remember more, but recently I've cried at the end of Waitress (with Keri Russell) and I finally watched the season finale of the Gilmore Girls. If you're into TV shows, that was such a good one. Neither of those has a sad ending, so they might make you cry without depressing you!

(Although I think part of what was so sad when I watched Waitress was knowing that the producer of the movie and a co-star died after it was made, and her own daughter has an appearance in the movie).

[JWSJ]

BlackHawk Down

What Dreams May Come

That line, "Tell my children I will not leave their mother."

That does it for me every time.

[Basketmaker Amy]

My Dog Skip...when the boy leaves for school gets me every time!

[valkett]

TOTALLY AGREE....movie and book!! You laugh, you cry, you laugh, you cry!

Steel Magnolias is another.

RUDY - at the end, I can't help but cry.

Val

[Suzanne in ABQ]

Most crying book: The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks

Most crying movie: (I haven't seen The Notebook), but Mr. Holland's Opus has me crying like a baby.

Then again, I can't get through an American Girl book without getting too choked up to read.

[Gigi]

nt

[nancypants]

Definitely Life is Beautiful. Every time, I bawl my eyes out.

Saving Private Ryan will always make me cry. Every single time. Schindler's List would probably do it too. (I'm detecting a theme here.)

I have cried with laughter more than once while watching Hitch. Don't know why but seriously, I do cry laughing at the allergic reaction part. Every. Time.

You'll probably come up with a bunch if you Google, "movies where the main character dies" :o

[Baseballmom]

I saw a few others recommend this, but the Ultimate Gift is definately a tear jerker. Although, as my son will tell you, I cry at every movie.

[KristineIN]

[I]The Ultimate Gift[I] made me cry. We just watched it last night.

I was just thinking this also before reading the posts.
Very good movie!

Also as far as a book, A Thousand Tomorrows by Karen Kingsbury was a tear jerker, as are a lot of her books.
Kristine