I searched through lists of movies to find some tear-jerkers. There are many, many movies that cause men and women to break down and cry, for whatever reason, during certain scenes. The movie that does it to me isn’t on any of the lists I recently read. They even had lists of tear-jerkers for macho men who ‘never’ cry openly. Must be something wrong with me. The moving image, coupled with sound, music, and storyline can produce unexpected emotional reactions, maybe artificially induced, but felt as real nonetheless. Stuff like where the old dog in ‘Homeward Bound’ comes huffing over the hill, after they are all lamenting that he’s dead! Breaks you up don’t it? What movies make you cry?

The last movie that ever did that was Hotel Rwanda, where you witness how a person puts his life on the line to save others amidst the horrors of the genocide that was taking place in Rwanda. Something about personal sacrifice and surviving against all odds against highly oppressive forces really hits me, especially when based on a real story.

Dumbo. When the baby elephant goes to visit his imprisoned mother and all they can do is touch trunks. I have to leave the room it makes me cry so hard.

The opening sequence of Dr Zhivago, the setting, the funeral and the music.

Brokeback Mountain was the last one.

My tearjerker movie is “The Odyssey” starring Armand Assante as Odysseus and Greta Scacchi as Queen Penelope. There are three teary scenes, 1) when he finally makes it back after being away for 20 years, in the hut with his old sheperd friend 2) when he convinces his 20 year old son who has never known him that he is in fact Odysseus, and 3) When Penelope sees him finally in their room and she faints, and when Odysseus finally says, after the sweetest dialog between them, that ‘You are my world’. The last line of the movie. It just totally breaks me up. I won’t watch it with anyone else around.

Well it wasn't a movie this time, but a tune. I just heard the Moody Blues' "Emily's Song" for the first time in a good 20 years. Got a little misty-eyed over that one

Lovely to know the warmth
Your smile can bring to me
I want to tell you but the words you do not know

Sing me a lullaby
Of songs you cannot write
And I will listen for there's beauty where there's love

And in the morning of my life
and in the evening of my day
I will try to understand in what you say...

Rivers of endless tides
Have passed beneath my feet
And all too soon they had me standing on my own

Then when my eyes were closed
You opened them for me
and now we journey thro' our lives to what will be

And in the morning of my life
and in the evening of my day
I will try to understand in what you say

Through all that life can give to you
Only true love will see you through
And we'll stand beside you now in what you say

(Repeat 6th Verse)

Take me into your world
Alone I cannot go
For I've been here so long
You're leaving me behind
Walk with me now
Into your land of fairytales
And open up that book of pages in my mind
And open up that book of ages in my mind
And open up that book of pages in my mind
And open up that book of ages in my mind

-John Lodge

..there I go getting off-topic again

The Railway Children, original 1970 version. The part where Bobbie Waterbury is standing at the train station and see's her father.

Also, I am Sam, when Sam comes running around a corridor to see his daughter. He is late, has a birthday cake and falls over.

I still get silly over One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which is still, sadly, relevant in my line of work. I still meet and work with Nurse Rachett clones.

I watched Hotel Rwanda last night, it is a great film. The scene when the white tourists, journalists and relief workers get escorted to the buses by the European soldiers while all the local people have to stay behind was heart-wrenching. It brought me to tears. And the most painful part was not to see the violence, but the inability of those Westerners who cared to change the situation and the indifference of the politicians who could but did nothing.

All Disney movies make me cry. Like Bambi.

I am more sensitive to cartoon animals than humans.

Land and Freedom makes me cry. That and Twelve Monkeys. James Cole's life reminds me of being on Sankirtan, particularly when he's in the car and listening to the radio for the first time, always makes me cry.

The old movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a tearjerker on most peoples lists. I heard from someone how it bears one similarity to “The Odessey”, the movie that jerks my tear-glands and heart-threads. Accordingly, in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, James Stewart wants to travel, to see the world. Besides the fact that he has a loving family, is much loved within his community and is a very good person otherwise, it takes losing it all for him to realize what a wonderful life he really has. Similarly Odysseus goes off to war out of duty, fights the Trojans, disappears into the unknown and does not make it back to his small kingdom, wife and son, for 20 years. It is a great tale that has withstood the test of time. He only hankers for his home as it was.

The last scene which always makes me weep goes like this. His Queen Penelope rushes into their bedroom after hearing of his return, she gazes at him with great joy and disbelief, fainting into his arms, the music steadying their embrace.
Odysseus says “It’s all right, I will never leave you”.
The scene changes to them on the bed.
Penelope says “Too much has changed”.
Odysseus says “No, you’re still the same”.
Penelope says “You’re still a liar Odysseus. It’s been 20 years since you held me in your eyes”.
Odysseus says “It’s only one day”.
Penelope says “And in one day you have seen all the world”.
Odysseus says “Yes, and there is much that is sacred and beautiful, but nothing as beautiful as a man’s own world, what he can take in his hands and never lose. You are my world.”

According to my conception, these kind of sentiments are a kind of reflection, a longing that is dormant within every soul for their permanent home of going back to Krishna and everything that entails. Like Gopa Kumar finally meeting and embracing Govinda in that pasture in Vraja after so many lifetimes of endeavor...

The final scene of The Elephant Man wherein his mother appears as if the Mother (Goddess) - her face spanning the galaxy - and comforts her dying son with the words: 'The wind blows...the sea flows...the cloud fleets...the heart beats. Nothing ever dies. No, nothing ever dies... '

I bawled my eyes out at Lassie when I was a kid.

I cry at almost everything...Im a total sook.

Dumbo also made me cry as a child. Later it was Kiss of the Spiderwoman. As for Elephant Man...I can't sit through any version of that movie as it is too disturbing.

The last scene of Kiss of the Spiderwoman always affects me because the guy gets relief from death. Wouldn't it be great if we viewed death as a positive transition into something good rather than a mysterious or fear-ridden ending? Maybe that's part of the appeal of Vaishnavism too, although there is some fear there as well but not as much as in other religions.

I think I also cried after watching The Graduate once...but now I'm such a cynic that the ending seems too impossible for my life and therefor no longer affects me.

I am so emotional that it is almost disturbing. My eyes get wet and my speech goes all porridge for almost anything that touches my heart. There is no point of listing such occurrences in my case. Lately I have been watching the video of Johnny Cash singing the song "Hurt" and for obvious reasons it has been very emotional.
http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Johnny+Cash/track/Hurt

I'm sorry to hear your emotions are so raw with feeling these days, i that you are able to move through this time easily.

I too can not help but to tear up and get emotional over silly things, and i have not lost yet such an important person in my life.

I had a hard time last night and today so far, working through what my 15 year old daughter did to me. She was very hostile, and mean. I just wanted to hear from her about her day at school. I hardly ever get to be with her one on one these days, and the ride home from a friends, i thought would be an ok time.

She even said in French, that she hates her dad.

the movie producers have been accused of fomenting the violence in rwanda years earlier so they could make a movie about it. so far they haven't adequately defended themselves against the charges

I find Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali makes me cry - it is a really beautiful film but tragic.
Robert Altman's Short Cuts is another film that had me in bits.
It's interesting that Johnny Cash's Hurt video came up in this discussion -I can't watch it with a dry eye - the first time I saw it was before he had actually passed away but it had real poignancy as an epitaph (and I think is the best music video ever).
Depending on my state of mind, often seeing footage of Dublin is devastating .

In Covenant of the Heart, Valentin Tomberg (also author of Meditations On The Tarot) writes that “tears have a purifying, rejuvenating and light-bearing power and capability — this was known by the masters of spiritual life: the hermits, monks, and members of spiritual orders in the past. 'The gift of tears' was highly esteemed by them. . . . And just as the moving waters precede the appearance of the rainbow in the primeval light, so does weeping precede the rainbow of illuminating light in the soul."

That was nice. It is also good to remember that cry and laughter are very closely related to each other. Just a thin veil in between.

Yes that is true, the one can 'overflow' in the other, deep down there must be a connection, but underneath that there must be cause for the laughter to change into tears or vice versa.