Posted on 01/15/2015 12:39:40 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Which Movies Make Grown Men Cry?
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. 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?
I asked SurveyMonkey Audience, which conducts polls for us from time to time, to ask people what films — if any — had ever made them cry, or at least made them choke up a bit. Respondents could volunteer up to five films.
About 92 percent of the 665 respondents said a movie had made them cry. The dry-eyed 8 percent were asked whether a movie had ever at least gotten them misty-eyed or choked up. A little more than half of them conceded that yes, they had been close to crying before. Call this the “Alex Kaufman Group.”
Still, this leaves us with 4 percent of respondents — about 1 in 25 — who have never been moved even close to tears by any film. Such stoic souls are rare, but they do exist.
Here are the biggest tear-jerker films, with the number of times they were mentioned. In total, 596 films were mentioned 2,615 times.
But men and women don’t tear up at the same films. Looking at films with more than five mentions, there are several that stick out.
“Field of Dreams,” “Rudy,” “Brian’s Song” and “We Were Soldiers” were the most likely to be listed by men rather than women. On the other end of the spectrum, “Beaches,” “P.S. I Love You,” “Steel Magnolias” and “A Walk To Remember” skewed heavily female.
I also asked about the relative tear-jerker-ness of different genres. It’s somewhat interesting to zero in on the 523 respondents for whom we have gender data.
Finally, I inquired about television shows and novels to see whether those were any more likely to cry.
Only 29 percent of male respondents admitted they had ever been brought to tears by a novel, which probably means our civilization is in desperate need for more books about World War II. What’s more, 61 percent of dudes said they have never been brought to tears by a television show or miniseries.
A final note of a personal nature: To the single respondent who listed “Jurassic Park” as a film that has brought them to tears, I need you to contact me as soon as possible. I’m pretty sure you’re my soulmate.
Gettysburg. Armistead’s “for Old Virginia” scene always makes me tear up. Richard Jordan who portrayed Armistead died of a brain tumor shortly before the movie was released.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Xu_Jni4V4
‘The Resignation of President Barak H. Obama’.
(Yet to be released.)
I honestly don't remember if I teared up or not (probably did) but the original Splendor in the Grass moved me so much that I have not watched it again. What happened to Natalie Wood's character is just heart-breaking.
Field of Dreams when Kevin Costner realizes he is play catch with his dad. Oh, to have that chance just one more time!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_It_Forward_(film)
Pay it Forward
They killed the kid, why did they have to do that?!
Seriously, the final episode of Band of Brothers always gets to me. Specifically, the baseball scene that segues into a narrated epilogue about the fate of each soldier.
A Night To Remember.
“Goodbye my dear son.”
I cried during “Dirty Harry” when the bad guy made Harry throw his Smith and Wesson model 29 on the pavement. The thought of that fine handgun being scratched moved me to tears.
Titanic, tho. I'm ready to hold his head under myself, just to shorten the pain by a few minutes... Hers too. One more emote from her, and I would go for a 9 iron, for proper cranial cleavage.
Gettysburg is a great film. Also, The Best Years of Our Lives when the young soldier with no arms shows his fiancee how he gets ready for bed. That scene plus the one where they marry in the movie makes me tear up.
The movie Mrs. Miniver, when her son walks up the stairs to see the corpse of his new bride and his mother is brave until he turns the corner then Mrs. Miniver falls into her husband’s arms to cry and then in the church where the young soldier goes to stand with his bride’s grandmother and sings with her, I always cry at that one too.
Oh yeah, ‘Lassie Come Home’, too!
Greg: She’s, as you just saw, very emotional.
Sam Baldwin: Although I cried at the end of “the Dirty Dozen.”
Greg: Who didn’t?
Sam Baldwin: Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these airshafts. And Richard Jaeckel and Lee Marvin
[Begins to cry]
Sam Baldwin: were sitting on top of this armored personnel carrier, dressed up like Nazis...
Greg: [Crying too] Stop, stop!
Sam Baldwin: And Trini Lopez...
Greg: Yes, Trini Lopez!
Sam Baldwin: He busted his neck while they were parachuting down behind the Nazi lines...
Greg: Stop.
Sam Baldwin: And Richard Jaeckel - at the beginning he had on this shiny helmet...
Greg: [Crying harder] Please no more. Oh God! I loved that movie.
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108160/quotes?item=qt0293335
Shallow Hal made me cry a little bit.
If you don't cry at the end of that one, you are not human.
‘The Cowboys’
‘Well, it’s not how you’re buried, it’s how you’re remembered.’
Casablanca.
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