Which Movies Make Grown Men Cry?

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT ^ | 01/14/2015 | Walt Hickey

[SeekAndFind]

Argument — much like karaoke and online shopping — is at its best when done with friends and a drink. And so, here’s “Bar Fights With Walt,” a column devoted to solving the only questions that truly matter: the dumb arguments about life and pop culture developed and hashed out in barroom rants. We’ll use data and research to take these arguments to their logical statistical conclusion. If you’d like to submit a question or conundrum, corner the author at one of his typical haunts and pick a fight.

After an evening at Grassroots Tavern, some friends and I got into a heated argument about “Love Actually,” which I contend is a good movie (see this Ben Dreyfuss essay for more on that). This eventually became a slightly less heated argument about which movies make people cry. The consensus was that everyone has at least one movie that gets them. The lone dissenter was my friend Alex Kaufman, who claimed he had never cried during a movie. After we listed approximately half the films on IMDb, he eventually recanted, saying that “Saving Private Ryan” had, at points, briefly broken his steely resolve. This leads us to this week’s question:

What movies make people cry the most?

[Vince Ferrer]

Groundhog Day

[demshateGod]

1. Never heard of
2. Yes
3. I can’t remember, probably
4. Yes
5. Heck No!
6. Never heard of
7. No
8. Never seen
8. ?
8. When are you supposed to cry in that movie?
11. No
12. No
13. ?
13. No
14. No
14. ?

I bawled on Empire of the Sun when the kid finds his mom and feels her hair. I cry about a lot of movies.

[IYAS9YAS]

The opening scene in Up gets me every time.

Me too.

Scenes where personal sacrifice to save others, regardless of the genre, make me tear up, as well.

[TADSLOS]

Lone Survivor made me misty eyed.

[WayneS]

Really?

I’m going to have to break out that DVD tonight and see if this time is the one...

[elteemike]

Mostly, I tear up when I realize I just dropped $30 on tickets for the drivel I just “watched” on the screen, and I’ll never get those wasted two hours back...

[DoodleDawg]

My boyfriend’s a pretty tough guy. I don’t remember him ever crying at a movie. But for some reason he gets all teary at a certain part of “A Christmas Carol” that the Missouri Rep does every year. Go figure.

[onedoug]

There’s a scene in “The Alamo” (2004) in which Jim Bowie is dying from tuberculosis and is all but incoherent with fever when his sister tending to him suddenly becomes his dead wife, and kisses him one last time. With the swelling of Carter Burwell’s score, it becomes a terrifically iconic moment. At least IMHO.

[cuban leaf]

;-)

[JoeDetweiler]

I don’t think I actually cried, but “Silent Running” choked me up a bit. I really kinda liked those little robots by the end.

[Jeff Chandler]

[CrazyIvan]

Yes it was.

[WayneS]

You DO know there’s a difference between crying and simply having your eyes water, don’t you?

[demshateGod]

That was a LOL moment.

[BobinIL]

For me the Shootist. Great final tribute to the Duke.

[TalonDJ]

Return of the King when Theodin says, “ I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed.”

[miss marmelstein]

Isn’t he a disgrace??

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The opening scene in Up gets me every time.

Probably the only movie my husband and I both sobbed at. And it hits you out of no where. Timing had something to do with it but that is one movie we will never watch again.

[dangus]

The Notebook? I had no idea any men saw that one. And I’m not making a machismo joke: I’ll admit to liking Steel Magnolias. I think the last time I cried at a movie was Farenheit 911... for our country when I saw how stupid so many Americans are. (Not really.) I don’t think I cried during “Up,” but it was definitely cry-worthy... easily the most cry-worthy of the bunch among the ones on the list I’ve seen. I probably cried during Bambi, since I was a little kid and it was very sad.

I don’t recall actually crying at movies, but some certainly got me very emotional. And since I have a son, I get more emotional whenever something touches on that for me. So even though I didn’t cry at My Girl, I probably would now if I saw it for the first time.

[demshateGod]

Oh yeah. We Were Soldiers; when the wives were getting the visits.