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What's the most heartbreaking film you've watched?

550 replies

LudoBear · 22/03/2021 11:40

I've just watched Mums List. Proper sobbing watching it and I don't even have children.

Eight Below, Haachi and Marley & Me are sad too.

OP posts:
190190tnt · 23/03/2021 21:50

Truly, Madly, Deeply
The wind that shakes the barley
Schindlers list
Up
A song for Bernadette
Bridges of Madison County

Nanalisa60 · 23/03/2021 21:54

SedentaryCat

Bridges if Madison Country was the same for me!! I woke up crying the next morning!! It was just so sad!!

teezletangler · 23/03/2021 21:57

Anything with parents and children destroys me. I have never been able to get up the nerve to watch Sophie's Choice but I've seen the scene. I can start crying just thinking about being in that position!

Ones that haunt me are Philomena (especially the scene where she is watching the video of her son visiting the convent) and Life is Beautiful. I think Titanic is fairly silly but I don't think I'd be able to watch the scenes again that pp mentioned.

I love Legends of the Fall and I bawl through it, but it doesn't feel heavy because it's not a true story.

The Hours is the most depressing film I've ever watched. I was in a funk the whole day.

teezletangler · 23/03/2021 21:58

yy to Bridges of Madison County too!

ilovesouthlondon · 23/03/2021 22:04

Hotel Rwanda

Nothing7 · 23/03/2021 22:06

A star is born! Can’t watch it again

Sweetpea1532 · 23/03/2021 22:07

Class Divide...an HBO documentary about children living in a housing project/Council housing and children attending a$40,000/year private school. The buildings were across the street from one another in the West Chelsea area of NewYorkCity....watched in an airplane not long ago. Sad, sad story about the fate of our birth.

Can't remember the name of the film but I was a young child when I watched it and it was so sad I remember crying for days afterwards...my mum was out of town and my dad let us watch it(back in the day when there was only one channel)
The story was about a young father who took a tumble down a flight of stairs and became paralysed. He had to live the rest of his life in an iron lung. Those things were a real torture chamber...Google it if you've never seen one.🥺😟😭
I think the thing that touched me so was the sad music.

Spottysausagedogs · 23/03/2021 22:07

I know its a bit ridiculous given the nature of material that's already been posted, but that scene from Dumbo where his mum cradles him through the bars of jail gets me every time.
Similarly the scene from never ending story where Artax the horse sinks. Sobbing like a baby.

Kids films ah! Always so heartbreaking.

Grave of the fireflies was just so depressing, especially since its a studio ghibly I was expecting something along the lines of their other jolly ones like Ponyo, (not sure why given the title 😁) so I was a bit angry with it by the end!

Never let me go, the book and the film have stayed with me for years. I still get that heartbreaking sinking feeling when I'm confronted with my own mortality. I'm getting old and bits of me keep failing!

Elcantador · 23/03/2021 22:12

Lilya 4ever
Hotel Rwanda
Machinegun preacher

Lullaby88 · 23/03/2021 22:15

Titanic. Cry every time i watch it!

BlowDryRat · 23/03/2021 22:16

The Fox and the Hound. I cried so much that we had to leave the cinema. I was about 5, at one of those Saturday morning screenings of kids films.

As an adult... I know it's cheesy but probably Titanic. The men locked in the engine rooms by the containment doors. The mum putting her DC to bed and telling them fairy stories, knowing they had no chance of making it out alive. The man and his son who are swept away. The people scrabbling at the gates. The dead people in the water. Knowing that so many people really did die that night is awful.

Anything about the World Wars and the Holocaust is guaranteed to make me cry too. I couldn't watch past the first 20 minutes of 12 Years a Slave.

Toothdrama · 23/03/2021 22:18

The lovely bones
Lion king (dad, dad...wake up....)
Greenland (too close to home!)

RenegadeMrs · 23/03/2021 22:24

Grave of the Fireflies. I think its a great work of art but I have watched it once (pre children) and vowed never to watch it again. I think it would be even worse with it now I have kids.

vixeyann · 23/03/2021 22:24

The Pianist haunts me...I've never been able to watch it again. I still think of the wheelchair and window scene.

Spottysausagedogs · 23/03/2021 22:35

Oh god yes Greenland! I had to take a break halfway to compose myself and go upstairs to give my 7yo DD a cuddle. Stressful/heartbreaking overall though.

riceuten · 23/03/2021 22:37

Philadelphia or Schindler's List

Normally I have a swinging brick, to be honest. Just those 2 films.

Needcoffeecoffeecoffee · 23/03/2021 22:39

@GreenShadow I had forgotten Simon birch. I was sobbing and even my cold hearted sister had tears.
I didnt cry at Marley and me as it just felt forced and my sisters keeper wasnt sad as they changed the end in the film the book was awful. I remember proudly said to dh "I dont know why this is sad I've almost finished and it's not that sad" next moment I was sobbing!!
I do cry at
Steel magnolias
Stepmom
My girl
Beaches
ET
most Disney- up, lion king, toy story 3& 4, dumbo etc
Jojo rabbit I was trying so hard not to sob in the cinema!
I gave up on room as I was so upset although I have read the book
Not a film but most episodes of this is us. I've had to have a break since lockdown!!

Werkwerkwerkwerkwerk · 23/03/2021 22:40

I, Daniel Blake. One of those that made my bottom lip tremble and I actually sobbed. So so sad

Werkwerkwerkwerkwerk · 23/03/2021 22:43

Forgot to say Atonement. The book poleaxed me, so I thought I'd manage the film without crying. Nope.. broken!!!

TheCrowening · 23/03/2021 22:45

@ShivRoy

Nothing has ever made me cry like the 12 Days of Christine! Miss Lonely Hearts in Rear Window gets me as well.
12 Days of Christine was an absolute whammy. I can’t even listen to the song featured in it now without welling up.

I also sob every time I watch the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back”.

Took me a couple of attempts to even be able to watch Green Mile all the way through.

I cried at The Notebook until my husband pointed out all the skeevy behaviour from Ryan Gosling’s character that in any other world would be a massive red flag for emotional abuse...

Even as an adult I can’t watch Neverending Story.

Zenithbear · 23/03/2021 22:48

Kes
I am legend

Crowsaregreat · 23/03/2021 22:52

Grave of the fireflies. I tried to tell someone the plot once and started crying. It's on a different level of sad.

Empire of the sun and life is beautiful too. In empire of the sun the bit where he loses his mum in a crowd is too much.

BaaHumbugg · 23/03/2021 22:58

Arrival for me too - I wasn't expecting to be affected by it but I was! Plus I had no idea what it was about beforehand

Spottysausagedogs · 23/03/2021 22:59

I cried my eyes out at that recent series of les mis, couple of years ago with lily collins as Fantine. I'd never seen les mis, didn't know the storyline etc. So harrowing seeing the cruelty of selfish people just ruining her innocent life, every single person she encounters a two faced bastard. I couldn't watch after about 3/4 episodes so I still don't know how it ends, could have a happy ending for all I know!

Sweetpea1532 · 23/03/2021 22:59

Water For Elephants with Reese Witherspoon
Nothing about the people is actually sad because they put themselves in any bad situation....it's the cruelty to the poor innocent animals that happened in circuses 😭😭😭😭😭