My Top 7 Ugly-Cry Movies

Are you ready for a roaring good time?

Well, then I suggest you go somewhere else, since I’m about to start a woeful list.

It’s been too long since my last list-oriented post. For my next post, I’d like to write about movies that make me bawl like a baby. I’m talking about some serious crying over here.

Now, I’m not overly sensitive, but I’m also not made out of stone. I get the feels as much as anybody. (I think.)

So are you ready to mumble and weep? 🙂

Side note: Both my sister and my boyfriend helped me compile this list.

7. The Imitation Game

What Part Specifically: When Alan Turing breaks down in fear of losing his machine, crying that he doesn’t want to be alone.

Why I Cry: For the whole movie, Turing comes across like an unfeeling machine. This makes for some humorous moments while he’s working with his fellow code-breakers to decipher the Nazi Enigma machine. And he does end up displaying some fondness for them. But for the most part, Turing feels like a solitary island. The only real glimpses of humanity that we witness are from his childhood flashbacks, when we see Turing’s time at school. While at school, Turing met a fellow classmate named Christopher, who saved him from bullies and whom Turing fell in love with. Unfortunately, Christopher dies. As Turing completes his work on his machine, you understand how much Christopher meant to Turing based on the fact that Turing named his machine after him. However, it’s only at the end of the movie, when Turing has been condemned for being a gay man and he is threatened with having his work taken away from him, that you realize how much of a crutch his machine became to cover for Turing’s sense of loss. So of course I’m going to cry over the idea that the man responsible for creating computers, devices used to connect countless people across the world, could have felt lonely and afraid at the end of his life.

6. The Fox and the Hound

What Part Specifically: When Big Mama starts singing that song as Copper and Todd are playing together.

Why I Cry: As a kid, the concept of two friends being unable to play with each other even though they really wanted to was traumatizing. I never liked watching The Fox and the Hound as much as other Disney movies when I was younger. Nowadays, Big Mama’s simple, happy song towards the beginning of the movie gets me bawling because you know what is going to happen next. They’re not going to be the best of friends forever. Once, my mom decided to show this movie to her kindergarten kids. I was volunteering in her classroom when she put it on. That part of the movie came on the screen, and I had to walk away from the group of kids so they wouldn’t see the tears gushing out from my eye holes.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

What Part Specifically: When Sam carries Frodo up Mount Doom.

Why I Cry: Okay, I can hear the snickers now. Yes, I cry when Sam yells heroically that he can’t carry the Ring, but he can carry Frodo. I feel embarrassed that I sob at such a meme-worthy, laughable moment, but I just can’t help it! It’s so noble! And then the music swells up as Sam hefts Frodo onto his shoulder and trudges up the lava-spewing mountain. My sister walked in on me when I was watching this part, and do you think she comforted me? Nope. She laughed in my face.

4. Blindspotting

What Part Specifically: When Collin confronts Officer Molina in the basement of his own home.

Why I Cry: I can’t recommend Blindspotting enough. It is a very good movie. It’s one of those movies that can make you laugh or cry on a dime. I saw it in October, and one of the final scenes had me silently weeping in the theater. Collin, after having seen a police officer shoot an unarmed man and get away with it, has been deeply affected by the event. He spends the next couple of days living in fear and shock. (Whoever directed this movie did a really good job of having you feel that fear too.) A few days later, when Collin is moving some things out of a person’s house as part of his job, he realizes that the house he’s working in is owned by the very cop he saw perform the shooting. Collin picks up a gun and threatens the cop with it. Except it’s not just a simple threat/revenge scheme. Collin is still clearly terrified of the cop and angry with him for having such a hold over his life, and you realize that all Collin seems to want out of the situation is for the cop to know what he has inadvertently done to his life. And as you look into the cop’s eyes, you see (or at least I did; I may have interpreted this scene a bit too freely) self-reproach, and you realize that while Collin may have spent the past few days in terror, the cop was probably being wracked with guilt. I won’t spoil what happens next, but Blindspotting is an overall fantastic movie that had me fighting/succumbing to the feels on more than one occasion.

3. Toy Story 3

What Part Specifically: When Andy plays with his toys one last time.

Why I Cry: I mentioned this moment in my Top Ten Pixar Movie List a few weeks ago. Originally, I wasn’t going to have this movie on my list because I felt like it would just be a rehash of what I wrote before. But my sister insisted I keep it in because no matter what I’m doing, no matter if it’s just this scene that I watch, I will always weep when I see it. I was a “toy” kid when I was young. I would spend my Saturday mornings playing with my toys in my room all by myself, crafting adventures for them and having great character arcs for each of my action figures. When I was a kid, there was nothing I liked to do more than play with those toys. But as I grew up, the toys didn’t come out as much, until eventually, all toy-playing ceased. So when I see Andy play with those toys, it reminds me of how I used to be and wracks me with guilt over the possible sense of abandonment my toys might be feeling. I’m getting all teary-eyed right now just thinking about it.

2. Rudy

What Part Specifically: The goddamned ending.

Why I Cry: Fuck you, Danny, for showing me this movie. I know you’re reading this. For those of you who don’t know, I’m not a sports movie person. I’m not a sports person period. Whenever I watch some sports event, I pick teams I want to win based on whether or not I like their mascots. (Animal mascots win out over non-animal mascots. Bird mascots are the best kind of animal mascot.) So it was a real struggle for Danny to get me to watch Rudy. Why, I thought, should I waste my time watching some lame sports movie? Oh. My. God. Rudy is one of the best movies ever. All Rudy wants is to play on this one college football team. That’s it. That’s the end of his objective. And his determination is goddamned beautiful.

Honorable Mention! Hamilton

What Part Specifically: Whenever Angelica says/sings, “I know my sister like I know my own mind.”

Why I Cry: It’s a play, not a movie, but I wanted to include it anyways. My sister and I have a really close relationship, and whenever any evidence of the Schuyler sisters’ love for each other comes up, it always gave my sister and me a bad case of the feels. When we went to go see the play in San Francisco, both she and I cried when that part of Angelica’s song came up. Yes, we’re both saps at heart.

1. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale

What Part Specifically: When Hachi passes away at the train station his owner always went to.

Why I Cry: It’s a sad dog movie! Of course I’m going to cry. In case you haven’t heard about this sobfest, it’s about this loyal dog named Hachi, who always accompanied his owner to the train station when he went off to work. At the end of the owner’s work day, Hachi would go and wait for him at the station. Unfortunately, the owner suffered a heart attack at work one day. Hachi went to the train station, but the owner never came. For every day afterwards, Hachi stayed at the train station. He eventually passed away in front of the station. The movie really twists the knife when it shows us what Hachi experienced as he died. Hachi saw the doors to the station opening and his owner walk out from them, giving him a big old hug. You just can’t withstand the emotional impact of a dog’s affection.

So do you have any ugly-cry movies? I may have heard of (and cried during) them as well. 🙂