Which are the Saddest Movies you've seen?

[Foxbat]

Silent Running. I don't believe anybody can watch those little robots with their toy watering cans at the end and not feel (at least) a lump in the throat.

 

[huxley]

Yes, I want to add Kes too. I had forgotten that one.

There are some common themes appearing here to answer huxley's original question (which sounds like homework of some kind.)

- animals
- death
- hopelessness
- repression of feelings

well, it's not homework, but i wanted to understand what makes the audience have a emotional connection with a story.

and i thank you all for your post. i wish i could watch all the movies that have been posted but i can't, and that's why asked to state why it was emotinal.

thanks again

 

[PTeppic]

I'm quite sentimental at heart, which I've discovered over many years of movie going. The first was probably "Pit Ponies" back in the late seventies. These days sadness will still get me, most of the last half hour of "LOTR:ROTK" for example, or the end of Silkwood. Bravura and overcoming adversity also do it, and death-or-glory last stands: e.g. Scarlet and the Black, Armageddon, Last Samurai, Dead Poets Society. Even the odd bit of outright romantic happy ending: e.g. Ghost.

 

[Stenevor]

The Elephant Man. I saw it once when I was about 12 and can still remember the lump in my throat at the end.

 

[ScottSF]

The Color Purple. I cried all the way through.

I'm with you for Color Purple number one crying movie. I just have to hear someone say "mama" with an african accent and it sets me off. Brassed Off with Ewan MgGreggor is a close second.

BUT sometime these movies make us cry because we are happy. So the saddest movie; so sad I couldn't even cry; was just saying 'no no no'; was a movie called Nobody Knows. It's a Japanese movie about kids who are left to take care of themselves and most of it isn't that sad but by the end. . .
sometimes I wish I hadn't seen it. . . but it's a really really good movie.

 

[Captain B]

Schindler's List,
Watched it on the TV,
Why was it upsetting-
It was a real event
My daughter was 3 years old & at one point in the film a row of pre-school children where lead hand in hand into the gas chamber, That’s when I stopped watched it. Only years later did I watch the whole film

 

[tangaloomababe]

Saddest movie for me is Life as a House, it has happy bits in it but the end result is sad. Cried for ages when it finished,s till has that affect on me now.
Why: its just very moving...

 

[dustinzgirl]

....Armageddon, Last Samurai, Dead Poets Society. Even the odd bit of outright romantic happy ending: e.g. Ghost.

Yeah those get me choked up. Its usually the family movies tho that make me really turn on the water works.

300, I almost started crying when the son of the spartan dude got his head freed from his body. But then I didn't.

Then there are movies I absolutely will not watch. Schindler's List, for one. Pretty much any movie where a child is mutilated, murdered, raped, ect....I just can't handle anything to deal with a child that is more real that Poltergeist or Dark Water or The Ring, and even those have me kinda edgy.


PS: Nobody Knows is an awesomely sad movie. It is very long and kind of hard to watch because it is filmed more like a documentary, but it just makes you want to jump through the screen and bring those kids to your house.

 

[Allegra]

Schindler's List,... Only years later did I watch the whole film

Believe or not, I haven't seen it for I know it's extremely sad and depressing.

 

[jackokent]

How could I have forgotten Bambi? That bit when he's going "Mother, where are you mother?" and she's been shot. That is so sad.

 

[Culhwch]

Believe or not, I haven't seen it for I know it's extremely sad and depressing.

On that note I'd have to add Downfall, the German film about the last days of Hitler. There's a hopelessness to that film that is quite affecting. Certainly not one to enter into lightly. One scene in particular, with the Goebbels children... Almost too much.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Schindler's List

The first time I saw this was in a film class in community college. Cried like a baby. However, we saw it in two parts because of its length. It was so compelling that I went out after seeing the first part and bought the video (was before DVDs; and bought because I found a used copy on sale for about $2) and watched the second half. Then, when we saw the second half in class the next week, I cried again.

The thing that ticked me off was that there were some guys in the class...grown men, mind you...who were laughing at those of us who cried (I was far from the only one) and saying stuff like, "It's only a movie". Idiots needed to take a history class instead of a film class, I think.

 

[kythe]

Oh yes, I've always cried during Bambi. I watched it with my kids recently and started crying before we even got to the part about his mother's death. I think I get more out of it than they do. Charlotte's Web always did me in too. The original animated film, that is. I haven't seen the new version.

 

[Delvo]

...there were some guys in the class... saying stuff like, "It's only a movie".

Odd comment to make about that particular one, since it was NOT just a movie, but a reminder of REAL events.

"Schindler's List" also makes an interesting example in another way. It's one of the few that I was thinking about when I realized that sadness alone doesn't affect me nearly as much as sadness and some counterpoint to it combined, whether that's outright happiness or something more subtle. In this particular movie, plenty of sad stuff happens that's just thoroughly sad and nothing else to go with it in those scenes, but the most intense scene for me is when the Jews Schindler saved are trying to thank him and all he can think of is to blame himself for not doing more. Other examples are Dances With Wolves's (John Dunbar's) departure from the Sioux near the end of the movie, the termination of the solid Terminator in "Terminator 2", Chris Gardner's end to his struggles in "The Pursuit of Happyness", and Boromir's redemption and last stand to help Frodo and the other Hobbits in "The Lord of the Rings".

So I don't even know what the saddest scenes I've seen are. The most purely, thoroughly sad ones aren't very memorable to me. The best ones, the ones that stick with me the most, mitigate the sadness with something else.

 

[j d worthington]

Delvo: I think that's an important point. It's the contrasting emotions that make the most impact. That, I think, is why Requiem for a Heavyweight hits so strongly -- because he both triumphs and fails at the same time, it makes it so painful, because by all rights this should be a victory for him. It is the tragedy of the situation: these high aspirations always just beyond our ability to grasp entirely, but the heroism (or nobility) inherent in pursuing them nonetheless. A simple, single emotion, doesn't have near the impact, or last as long....

 

[Triceratops]

A.I. just ripped my guts out. Everybody hated it, it seems. It was dark, disturbing and totally explored the quest of a boy/bot who needed to find his mom. I wish I had written this one. It's original form came from the short short Super Toys Last all Summer Long.

The Elephant Man. About a mishappen figure of tragedy, who managed to retain his dignity through the worst possible circumstances. Had my true doubts about a God, who would allow someone to endure such a horrid existence.

The Green Mile

Ghost--Lost love.

Blade Runner--the search for humanity

The Omega Man--the last selfless act.

King Kong. We exploited him to his own end. Fosse would have been outraged.

Titanic--lost love

Brave Heart--self sacrafice.

Sparticus (the original)

Tri--red-shifting outta here before I start misting up.

 

[j d worthington]

The Elephant Man. About a mishappen figure of tragedy, who managed to retain his dignity through the worst possible circumstances. Had my true doubts about a God, who would allow someone to endure such a horrid existence.

Tri -- interesting note, that. It may sound an odd one coming from me, with my views on religion, but I've always liked the way Joseph Merrick ended his brief autobiography (if I can get this correctly):

"It's true my form is rather odd,
But blaming me is blaming God.
If I could make myself anew,
I would not fail in pleasing you.

If I could walk from pole to pole,
Or cross the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the whole:
The mind's the measure of the man."

 

[Triceratops]

Very touching, J.D. I had no idea that he wrote poetry. I always wanted to read the book of Dr. Fredrich Trieves (sp?), and I forget the title of it.

Tri

 

[PTeppic]

Boromir's redemption and last stand to help Frodo and the other Hobbits in "The Lord of the Rings".

Ah yes, apart from the last half hour, I forgot the bit at the wedding. Where Aragorn and the whole multitude kneel before the hobbits...

I don't even watch some films, like Schindlers List because I'll not enjoy them as being too upsetting. Even something like "Four Weddings" I'll fast forward through the funeral.

 

[j d worthington]

Very touching, J.D. I had no idea that he wrote poetry. I always wanted to read the book of Dr. Fredrich Trieves (sp?), and I forget the title of it.

Tri

Dr. Frederick Treves: The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923: Henry Holt & Co.). It was from Treves' memoir, written many years after the fact, that Merrick has been misnamed "John", when his actual name was Joseph Carey Merrick... he was not quite 28 when he died (27 yrs., 8 mos., 6 days).