comment #1

scooterzz says ...

with all due respect, e-harmony!?!?...wtf!?!?

comment #2

Matthew Lucas says ...

I bawled during "Love Actually." I'm not afraid to admit it. I don't care what anyone says.

comment #3

JHRussell says ...

I love "Love Actually" - great movie, one of my faves from 2003.

As for the list of movies that make guys cry, I really have to think about that one for a while..."To Kill A Mockingbird" for sure from that list, but not so much the other films on the list.

The funny thing is, if you were to ask me, I think I cry freely during movies, but when I look over a list of films, I have a hard time remembering crying during any of them...

I watched "La Vie En Rose" last night on the big screen at home, and was surprised how much it moved me, much more so than when I saw it in a theater last summer.

I had very strong emotional reactions, including shedding a tear, to "V for Vendetta" and "Children of Men" from 2006. Sometimes it is simply a great movie that does it to me, not a specific scene...

comment #4

AlexStroup says ...

I haven't actually cried since I was 14 but the closest I've come at a movie since then was the end of The Notebook.

But that's my soft spot, stories of people dealing with the loss of another after a long life lived together.

Sappy rom-com? No, not even close.

comment #5

Geoff says ...

At the end of SCHINDLER'S LIST when Liam Neeson starts to break down because he could have done so much more. I start to get a little weepy.

comment #6

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Russell: V for Vendetta? What moment in Love Actually gets to you? When the trombone players start playing "All You Need is Love"?

comment #7

nola says ...

I like Rom Coms and I HATED Love Actually. Maybe my expectations were too high. I love London, Christmas, Four Weddings and a Funeral and I couldn't wait to see the movie.

What was up with all the high powered men falling for "simple" women? Was Richard Curtis going through a divorce and lusting after his non-english speaking maid, a tea-lady or a younger assistant?

comment #8

FEEG says ...

At the end of "The Iron Giant." Whenever I hear that ol' bucket of bolts mutter "superman." Get me every time.

comment #9

actionman says ...

The Bear. That movie kills me when the momma bear dies. I love that film.

Rudy and The Rookie made me cry in the theater.

I'll cry if the filmmakers are honest with their intentions.

comment #10

Josh Massey says ...

An article about guy tearjerkers and no mention of Field of Dreams? I call shenanigans.

And I liked Love Actually despite it being 30 minutes too long, but am having difficulty in remembering any moment that would induce waterworks.

Last movie I cried during was Once. Couldn't hold it in during those final minutes.

comment #11

BurmaShave says ...

Josh, I second you on ONCE. When the camera slowly pulls out of her window it destroys me.

comment #12

Arran says ...

I'll go with Once too. And Field of Dreams. And Magnolia (it's happy-sad in the final frame, when Claudia smiles). And Shawshank. And Chasing Amy:

I love you. And not, not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. I love you. Very, very simple, very truly. You are the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being. And I know that you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you would ever consider. But I had to say it. I just, I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't, I can't look into your eyes without feeling that, that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. And I know this will probably queer our friendship - no pun intended - but I had to say it, because I've never felt this way before, and I don't care. I like who I am because of it. And if bringing this to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But God, I just, I couldn't allow another day to go by without just getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And, you know, I'll accept that. But I know... I know that some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, then that means you feel something too. All I ask, please, is that you just, you just not dismiss that - and try to dwell in it for just ten seconds. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fucking planet who has ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it is there between you and me. You can't deny that. Even if, you know, even if we never talk again after tonight, please know that I'm forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which - while I do appreciate it - I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of.

Affleck gets a lifetime pass from me, if only for his acting in that scene.

Sorry for posting the whole speech, but it was tough to cherry-pick one bit.

comment #13

JHRussell says ...

The last scene in Dr Zhivago gets me every time (Can she play the balalaika?)...

In "V for Vendetta" I love the ending - the music, Evie's rooftop speech, etc...

In "Love Actually" I like the Colin Firth thread best, the scene in the restaurant...I like the one between Liam Neesom and the little kid, too...that movie is a fave of mine at Xmas time...

comment #14

Rosebudsthesled says ...

LOVE, ACTUALLY is a brilliantly flawed movie: there are probably five sections which I love and five which I would've cut out. Yes, it's over-directed in spots, but there are too many things in it which I like to dismiss it entirely. As for tears: no.

It's always hard to find a list of what makes guys cry. I'll cry at anything if the emotion is just that overpowering, but normally I cry at foreign films rather than American ones. For example: the end of 8 1/2 I find just really beautiful. It doesn't make me bawl, but I shed one or two when I watch it. The end of BICYCLE THIEVES is also really damn powerful. And Antoine Doniel getting taken away in 400 BLOWS.

The most moving film I have ever seen is Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING. Horrifying, devastating, brilliant. I left the theater shaking and crying. That's a movie I know I will not watch for a few years--it just takes too much out of me.

comment #15

JHRussell says ...

And the end of "Driving Miss Daisy" does me in - the scene at the nursing home when Morgan Freeman helps Jessica Tandy eat her dessert...of course the impact of that scene comes from the entirety of the movie, the life they lived together, her stubborn prejudices, his pride, etc...

comment #16

BurmaShave says ...

Oh also, GLORY always gets mentioned in this type of thread, surprised it hasn't been already. I'm sure Wells will snicker, but it gets me everytime:

"Give 'em hell, 54!"

comment #17

Arran says ...

Taking a leaf out of Rosebud's book, one movie I will never watch again is Dancer in the Dark. It's one of those movies that will either leave you completely cold or you will buy into it and it will just completely shake you to the core. I was definitely the latter - it genuinely upset me.

Maybe I'll try it again in another 10 years.

comment #18

JHRussell says ...

Showing my age, but the first time I ever remember crying in a theater: the "Dirty Dozen" scene when Jim Brown buys the farm...I recently watched that movie again, and it really isn't very good...and the scene had less than zero impact on me...

comment #19

raygo says ...

Brokeback Mountain. Now even more resonant than when I saw it in the theater. Ironic how Ennis Delmar ends up alone in a barely furnished trailer, and Ledger dies in a barely furnished apartment, both with broken hearts.

comment #20

Gordie Lachance says ...

If you're a guy and can name more then 10 movies that made you cry, you're a sissy.

Having said that, I have mentioned a couple of films here before (Jeff runs this topic every 3 months or so) the Schindler's List scene that was mentioned by someone above and the final scene in You Can Count On Me always get me.

I will admit that I recently re-watched Saturday Night Fever for the first time in about a decade last week and found myself choking up 1 or 2 times. For such a campy, potty-mouthed movie it sure is a great romance.

comment #21

Gordie Lachance says ...

Also, it just occured to me, while reading over the E-harmony list, other than the original Bad News Bears and Bull Durham, I have never seen a 'sports' movie. No Field Of Dreams, no Rudy, no Hoosiers, etc,etc.

I just feel like they're so formulaic and manipulative, and there's no way they could ever match the suspense and emotion of an actual sporting event.

comment #22

Stephe96 says ...

The final scene of "In America." Man, if that "Now it's your turn, Dad" line (that might not be the exact quote) doesn't tear your guts out then I don't know what to think. Seriously. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it...

comment #23

scooterzz says ...

if you're a guy and can't name more than 2 sports movies you've seen, you're a sissy.

that said, i just watched an upcoming hbo doc ('joe louis-america's hero...betrayed) and found myself tearing up a couple of times.......

comment #24

brendan says ...

Jeff,

I agree that Love Actually is a sappy mess, but once it hits the airport closing scene with its post 9/11 reflection and then Brian Wilson's masterwork "God Only Knows" (perfect choice) kicks in.....

comment #25

Movie fan09 says ...

I've acted in two or three plays...

really?

wow.
what plays and who did you play?
jeff- it's more about not playing the comedy..but existing in the honesty of the moment.

comment #26

christian says ...

I cried a bit during DARJEELING LIMITED. Sue me.

e-harmony?

comment #27

vermontfudge says ...

I guess I shouldn't say much because this thread is for guys, but Love Actually IMHO is one of the worst movies ever made. Unredeemably sexist, the guys all chose servants or total sluts. Any woman with anything going for her is depicted as desperate. The fabulous Laura Linney for some reason has to be topless and desperate, the wonderful Emma Thompson is supposed to be "fat" and boring (maybe she's a size 12) so she's rejected by hubbie Alan Rickman, at his least attractive, for the young office slut who for some reason has schemed to get dumpy old Alan. Its like a sleazy middle aged English guy's bizarre fantasy. Its insultingly, stupidly anti-American (fine criticize, but don't be brainless about it- Billy Bob Thornton is a sleazily lecherous Clinton type US president who UK prime minister Hugh Grant, of all people, stands up to because he groped his tea-lady girl friend. YES IT'S THAT DUMB. Grant's scene where he gives a little speech to this "typically" arrogant and sleazy US president gets a lot of swelling music like it means a lot. This movie is gross on every level. Its cruel to women who look like women (the tea lady, maybe a size 10 is demeaned by everyone for being fat, two different fathers insult their daughters for being fat) Even the celebration of Christmas is ridiculed. A very young girl is treated like a sex object. Its supposed to be funny that a very young boy is constantly using 4 letter words. A supposedly moving speech given by Liam Neesom at the wake of his wife is juxtaposed with a scene involving a half-dressed couple simulating sex for a movie. (Another "reason" to have a girl topless) The only redeeming thing in this is the Colin Firth episode which has some sweetness, if you don't notice all the insults heaped on his girlfriends over-weight sister by her father. ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER MADE. Real sorry its perpetrator, Richard Curtis, hasn't been heard from much since.

comment #28

renorambler says ...

I cried at both Amelie and A Very Long Engagement. The former when Audrey Tattou finds the original owner of the tin box in the wall and leaves it for him in a phonebooth. A couple other places as well.

If you don't get choked up at the end of A Very Long Engagement when they are reunited and his first line to her is the same thing he said to her when they met as children, well, I don't think I even want to associate with you. It's a beautiful moment. The Double Life of Veronique also gets me.

I'm also reduced to tears every time someone forces me to watch a Michael Bay film.

comment #29

rickyroma says ...

Agree with the Once comments. A perfect bittersweet ending.

Brian Cox' voiceover at the end of 25th Hour always gets me. "This life came so close to never happening."

And I choked up a bit at the end of Man on Fire. The extra time spent developing the Denzel-Dakota Fanning relationship sure paid off emotionally. (Even though the rest of the film plays like a racist NRA fantasy.)

comment #30

erniesouchak says ...

Did any women cry at "Love Actually"?

I get weepy at the end of "Shawshank Redemption."

comment #31

Craptastic says ...

I'm crying due to Knight Rider

comment #32

The Winchester says ...

I didn't cry at the end of Once, but I was completely moved to tears the first time they played Falling Slowly in the music store. Beautiful scene.

And, to completely admit my sissyfication with you all, I finally caught Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and the scene with Max Von Sydow also turned the waterworks on. It was all downhill from there.

comment #33

pdinalis says ...

I loved love actually.

Other than that, and besides all the obvious titles that may have made me weep, I cried at "singin' in the rain" at the part when, after he sings the theme song, a policeman stops him and he leaves whispering the music. All that talent, all that emotion and music made me cry...

comment #34

Gaydos says ...

I loved LOVED "Love Actually." And I'm voting for Obama. And my favorite American movie of all time is "The Wild Bunch." Sorry, Jeff, but to quote the late great Sam Peckinpah, this time you're crackin' walnuts in your ass.

comment #35

scooterzz says ...

craptastic -- i so feel your pain......william daniels should be laughing in the streets....

comment #36

Craptastic says ...

Seriously.

That was the biggest waste of time.

I can't believe anyone from NBC thought it was good enough to air.

comment #37

scooterzz says ...

a favorite line from the kaufman/hart play, 'light up the sky': 'he cries at card tricks'.......
one gets to an age....jus' sayin'....

comment #38

christian says ...

How was Val Kilmer?

comment #39

Beaucoul says ...

i cry when the freeway comes to an end.

comment #40

Rich S. says ...

Field of Dreams is only very marginally a sports movie. You do not need to know anything about baseball, or even like it, to enjoy the film. Read Harlan Ellison's review of it if you can find it online and you'll understand.

The part of Field of Dreams that chokes me up even more than the end is Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) telling Burt Lancaster's character, "Rookie. You were good."

comment #41

Matthew Lucas says ...

Matt to Wells - the climactic montage gets me everytime, cutting back and forth between the boy chasing his sweetheart through the airport and Colin Firth going to declare his love for his housekeeper.

comment #42

christian says ...

I'm all for men crying...but eharmony?

Founded in 1998 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony was the first and most popular of the test-based matchmaking sites and welcomes more than 10,000 new users a day to its pool of 6 million singles. The personality profile is free, but in order to contact other members, subscribers must pay $49.95 for a one-month membership. So far, Warren's brainchild takes credit for 10,000 marriages, which he claims are happier and more stable than marriages not conceived on his site.

While eHarmony denies a Christian bias in its approach to matchmaking, the company does have an explicit agenda. One of eHarmony's stated goals is to "reduce the divorce rate in America."

"While they don't mention it explicitly, there's obviously an evangelical influence," says Dr. Mark Thompson of weAttract.com, the company that created the relationship test recently launched on Yahoo! Personals. "Their ads are absolute marketing genius. There's a totally white background. There's a man with white hair standing with a white background. Who is he? It's not coming from him. Metaphorically, it's coming from God."

A sometime guest on the conservative Christian program The 700 Club and contributor to Focus On the Family magazine, Warren received a master's of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Chicago. Warren has also written several books on mate selection. And in addition to operating a private practice, he served as professor and dean of the Fuller Theological Seminary's School of Psychology, which "places the cross in the heart of psychology."

Warren openly describes himself as a "passionate Christian" and an eHarmony advertisement on ChristianSinglesToday.com says the matchmaking company was founded on "Christian principles." But his wife, Marylyn Warren, the company's senior vice president, is careful to say that "eHarmony is meant for everybody. We do not discriminate in any way."

This isn't exactly true, as eHarmony is the only site of the top-10 most trafficked not to offer same-sex matching. Marylyn Warren denies that eHarmony's exclusion of gays and lesbians has anything to do with its founder's religious principles. "It's nothing against it, we just don't want to be involved in something we don't know anything about," she says, noting that eHarmony's research was conducted on married heterosexual couples. "Our goal is to create good heterosexual families, I guess."

http://www.alternet.org/story/21291/?page=2

comment #43

thegreatmags says ...

"Hey Dad...Ya wanna have a catch?"

Lord, I love that movie. Costner is the shit just for that line.

comment #44

Dave says ...

I finally caught Atonement this weekend. Didn't cry, but the ending definitely made me a tad weepy.

Not a great movie-- another case of a bad waste of a Best Picture slot-- but pretty good.

comment #45

insider77 says ...

Mmm. Cry in movies is a strange thing.

I'm not American, but I saw recently United 93 with a couple of American men. Jesus. They started to cry just in the first fifteen minutes.
And I was so cold about the movie (an 80s-direct-for-TV movie at best). But they were destroyed.

comment #46

transmogrifier says ...

Forget wimpy - I'm afraid, anyone who professes love for the wretched Love Actually has that worst possible movie taste.

comment #47

Walter Sobchak says ...

You're all a bunch of pussies!

comment #48

seduisant says ...

Mysterious Skin.

comment #49

christian says ...

"You're all a bunch of pussies!"

Are you actually quoting Rock Hudson from PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW? Cos ya just did, Tiger.

comment #50

antyonus says ...

The scene where Emma Thompson opens the present to find the Joni Mitchell CD and then is in the bedroom listening to it crying her eyes out - that gets me - actually all of her emoting scenes get to me as well - when she tells Rickman that he has made her life foolish...good stuff. Also the Colin Firth scene in the restaurant 'just in cases' - there's a lot of sweet and sad moments that make you slightly teary and then you catch yourself and smile because it's got to you...

In The Notebook when Gena Rowlands finally remembers and her and James Garner embrace and start dancing and then WHAM! That gets to me...

The overly sentimental moments in The Family Stone get to me...

The moment in Finding Nemo when Marlin is trying to get rid of Dory and she says that when she's with him...she's home...gets me...

In Carousel when Gordon McRae is walking amongst the graduates in the final scene and tells his daughter to believe...and then goes to Shirley Jones 'Know that I loved you'...gets me...

There are plenty of others out there...plenty...even TV shows like Grey's Anatomy can get to me...pathetic but true.

I don't think it's a question of crying...I think that's a rare reaction for men and women from movies, unless they've got some pent up emotion and a sad scene suddenly triggers the waterworks...but nice 'moments' in films are the ones that I count and are pretty damn special if you ask me. And I'm only 25!

comment #51

raygo says ...

Grey's Anatomy is the Love, Actually of television.

comment #52

Hallick says ...

Thank you Arran for that Chasing Amy quote. I'm chilled by how exactly it sums up a situation in my own life right now. Jesus...

comment #53

christian says ...

Grey's Anatomy? Shudder.

comment #54

George Prager says ...

THE NOTEBOOK? THE FAMILY STONE. FIELD OF DREAMS? IN AMERICA for chrissakes? Seems like a lot of you pussies have been spending a lot of time riding in Peter Pan buses. (Coming back and forth from prison, I assume).

Guys getting gay with each other on HE. So what else is new? If Hitler had conquered the UK and the country was still being run by Nazis, LOVE, ACTUALLY would've had no problem getting past the censorship boards.

ONCE? Gay.
Especially that scene when Irish boy is singing to his laptop. I liked the movie, but by the end , i realized that no one over the age of 18 should ever take it seriously. It's platonic porn.

What make me cry? This scene from RAGING BULL:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6J8I9XgwfmU

The last scene in COMING HOME.

Yeah, that's right. Movies about real men with real problems. That's what makes me cry.

And I can't believe that someone actually took the time to type that CHASING AMY "I love you because you're a smelly lesbian and I'm a wuss" horseshit.
If that sums up your life right now Hallick, I suggest that you fucking change your life. Be a man. Some people have real problems, they don't have the leisure to sit around having unrequited infatuations with silly little girls. Boo fucking hoo!