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?

[cuban leaf]

Just that picture makes me cry, and I didn’t even get to know the car.

[Fiji Hill]

Onionhead (1958)

[miss marmelstein]

Men cry much too easily these days.

[dfwgator]

The opening scene in Up gets me every time.

[CatherineofAragon]

Hmmm, now that you mention it, I think my husband did cry when the Corvette was dropped from the sky in “Con Air.”

[Resolute Conservative]

Elaine disagrees.

[ExTxMarine]

In all fairness, I will admit Titanic is very high on my list!

I mean, every time my wife makes me sit and watch it with her, I start crying and whining and bitching and moaning!

Sometimes it works, and we change the movie.

[miss marmelstein]

Catherine, you are a woman after my own heart.

One of my favorite memories: the great Gene Hackman sitting on a chair in Bloomingdales, holding his wife’s coat, while she swanned around trying on weird outfits. Boy, was he miserable.

[CatherineofAragon]

Haven’t seen that one-—I need to google.

[nodumbblonde]

My manly-man husband grudgingly watched The Notebook with our daughter because it’s one of her favorite movies. He’s probably watched it ten times since and is always a puddle at the end of it.

[Resolute Conservative]

The Searchers when Ethan finally catches Debbie gives me a lump in throat.

[CatherineofAragon]

LOL! That’s priceless.

I’ll be honest. I don’t subject my husband to that kind of torture. I figure it’s only fair, since he does me the great courtesy of not expecting me to be present when he looks at electronics or car parts.

[TalonDJ]

I am sure UP seriously skews the statistic of ‘people cry at comedy’.

[Night Hides Not]

Agreed. Blazing Saddles made me cry several times, particularly the scene around the campfire.

[NeoCaveman]

The opening scene in Up gets me every time.

That is a sad one.

[yetidog]

Bingo. “A River Runs Through It” (book and movie)makes me tear up at the last every time....and the message that you can’t help those closest to you and that you love the most resonates. I saw one the other night —”About Time” that hit me hard as well. I think family situations that have elements of truth tend to have high sob value.

[Lurker]

Me too. One of the best movies ever.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Men cry much too easily these days.

Tell me about it....

[Lurker]

Love that movie.

[Duckdog]

That, and Pearl Harbor, Just attack for crying out loud!