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What are your favorite tear jerking movies or books?


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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.

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Guest 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.

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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 ;)

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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.

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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."

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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...

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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

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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.

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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.

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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}}

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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!

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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)

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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).

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