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?

[wagglebee]

Exactly, I know I cried at movies like "Bambi" when I was a kid, but it's "Knute Rockne All American", "Pride of the Yankees" and "Brian's Song" that will still get me choked up today. I also teared up at the end of "Miracle" about the 1980 men's hockey team, not because it was such a great movie but because of what that team really represented.

[miss marmelstein]

I’m a girl and never cried at Planes, Trains and Automobiles! It is a touching ending but nothing to sob into a hankie over.

[dfwgator]

I probably cried 50 years ago when Mrs. Peel drove away

That reminds me, the ending of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."

[dfwgator]

I’m a girl and never cried at Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

Oh I had tears during the Rental Counter scene alright. ;)

[son of awcomeonnow]

Always wanted to see it. Found a copy at a flea market.
Watched it with my teenagers, sobbed like a baby.
I’m suprised no one mentioned “Kramer vs Kramer”.
I made the mistake of taking someone out on our first (and only) date to see it. Embarassed myself big time.

[miss marmelstein]

Can you believe how many grown men freepers sob over Field of Dreams and Pollyanna? I may vomit!

[dfwgator]

But did you know there was a “Lost Ending” to It’s a Wonderful Life.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81249131/

[CrazyIvan]

“Secondhand Lions.”

Sounds like we have similar taste. Also one of my all time favorites.
“The Speech” chokes me up. Also Hub’s introduction in the diner. I loved that this tough guy tells them that he has had one great love in his life. Most men would brag about how many women they have bedded.

[Carpe Cerevisi]

This still makes my tv screen a little blurry:

Frodo : I can't do this, Sam.

Sam : I know. It's all wrong By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

[warsaw44]

Well with a review like that I’ll have to watch The Notebook.

I’m a big movie fan but don’t think I had even seen that one.

Best one I have seen recently is “ The Hundred Foot Journey “

Great movie - I highly recommend it.

[CatherineofAragon]

"I still mourn the loss of Carol's daughter."

Oh, wow...that still gets me. Poor little Sophia.

And then I cried because it wasn't me being pulled to the ground by Daryl, LOL.

[CatherineofAragon]

Pollyanna?"

Wait, what...?

[Polynikes]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105265/

That's where I grew up till I left to join the service in 75’. Beautiful county, to bad its heavily infested with liberal locusts now.

[Fightin Whitey]

I wasn't going to admit it but I'm the same way about River Runs...

As a young man I saw it premier in Bozeman, Montana (the last time I was in a theater!) and now I'm ever closer to the old boy in the final scene.

"I am haunted by waters...."

[angcat]

Saving Private Ryan recently caused me to use my inhaler especially the ending.

[Axeslinger]

we watch it every year...and every year my wife says, “boys look at your father and think about why he’s crying”

[fungoking]

The Rookie, when he gets to tell his little boy that he'd made it to the big leagues

[Axeslinger]

maybe, maybe not...but I cannot hold it together every time the old and aged Ryan says, "tell me I have led a good life....tell me i'm a good man"

every time

[EveningStar]

ping

[wagglebee]

That's another one that I had forgotten about.