Your Question for the Day, 10/3/12
Posted on October 3, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 215 Comments
Hey, did I mentioned I’m writing on a deadline? Yeah, that.
Your question for today, to keep you amused whilst I clackity-clack away:
Name the first movie you remember crying at. And the most recent.
First one for me: Bambi. Because, come on. I think I was six. Most recent one: I rewatched Poltergeist a couple of weeks ago and teared up when they got their daughter back from the other side. Because I’m a parent now, that’s why.
You?
Please use the thread to note your own choices, not comment on other people’s choices.
Rudy. Always, Rudy.
Pinnochio scared the bejebus out of me. I don’t know or remember if I cried, though. I was about 5.
I do remember crying at the outdoor theater when they showed “80 Steps to Jonah”. It was a great story, very emotional. I was about 8.
The first I remember crying at was Enemy Mine. It was the midnight movie on New Year’s Eve, went with a bunch of buddies after drinking and it sobered me up.
Most recent. The Time Traveler’s Wife.
The first movie I remember crying at was the Wrath of Khan, when Spock died. I saw it when I was quite young, and Spock was my hero as a kid.
I don’t remember the first one that made me tear-up. There have been so many over the years. (The first thing I remember doing this to me was reading Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, but those are books.) The most recent though? The Dark Knight Rises. Seriously. The ending was unexpectedly emotional for me.
Day of the Dolphin at the end. Probably on TV when I was 8. Horrible, I know. Most recent was Searching for Bobby Fischer. Because I am also a parent.
The first was The Shining when I was 4 (lack of parental supervision and HBO showing rated R movies during the day). The latest was, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. One of the dangers of random Netflixing is finding something that devastates you.
It’s a Wonderful Life.
When his brother shows up at the party and end and says, “To my brother George, the richest man in town”. I lost it the first time I saw it and everytime since, even though it is 50 years later and I have seen it at least 50 times.
The first movie I remember crying during was Jesus Christ Superstar. I was very upset during “King Herod’s Song” because he was “making fun of Jesus”. I was about 4 and I bawled!
The last movie that I cried during was a rewatching of The Joy Luck Club. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to have any spoilers, but I will just say that at least one scene is very hard for a parent to watch.
E.T. for me – probably for the entire last 30 minutes, too. I was seven, but I will still tear up re-watching it today.
Most recent? Oddly enough, Tangled. Why, yes, I’m a parent of a young girl-child, how could you tell? (Seriously, though: Tangled is a great movie – the strongest non-Pixar Disney animated movie in some time.)
First movie: ET – I was 3 years old. Most recent: Toy Story 3. Curse you Pixar.
I was always quite the stoic at the movies. But My Dog Skip had me bawling like a baby. Nothing like reminding you of your best friend as a kid. The most recent was actually a rerun of Cold Case where the mother accidentally kills her child. This is what happens when you become a parent.
I don’t think I ever did cry because of a movie. I can bring a lump to my throat, though, in describing the scene in A Mighty Wind where Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara are on stage singing their song. Because here’s Eugene Levy: his character has been through so much in his life that the guy is maybe two-thirds of a person. He can hardly do anything for himself… and yet when he’s on stage he can still do something that nobody else can do, which is pin the audience right to the backs of their seats. That kind of thing always gets me.
Of Mice and Men, when the dog gets shot for being old.
I am Legend, when he has to kill his dog because it turned on him.
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” at 16. (Never so much as sniffled at a movie prior to that…probably because I’d seldom strayed from flicks like “The Last Starfighter” and “Tron.) Most recently, Woody Allen’s “Radio Days.” That film sneaks up on you and makes you nostalgic for a childhood you never even had. The final scene, as “September Song” plays on the soundtrack and you see these stars of old time radio lament that future generations will probably never remember them (and the sequence leading up to it about the girl trapped in the well as played out on radios across America), completely destroyed me and I was openly sobbing.
Woody’s 80’s output does that a lot to me…Hannah and Her Sisters (another awfully touching final scene), Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Purple Rose of Cairo.
Old Yeller for me – I was about 7 or 8 when I saw it in the theater the first time.
And more recently, although it is a documentary and not a proper movie – Keep The Faith, the story of the 2004 Boston Red Sox . I re-watch it every Spring as a prelude to baseball season, and I have yet to get through the image of Keith Foulke making the final out without tearing up just a bit.
E.T. was the first for me as well. I know there was one recently, but I can’t think of the name right now. My brain is locking up trying to remember the title. It was a damn good movie too.
Wow, I thought only I cried at “Day of the Dolphin”. I watched it years later as an adult…pretty bad. But as a kid that KILLED me at the end. The Champ, with John Voight did it too, but I believe Day of the Dolphin was my first true heartbreak moment at the movies.
Benji: The Hunted. Benji saves little cougar cubs after the mom cougar gets shot. Bawled my eyes out when the mom got shot.
Hey! I don’t cry over movies. I just have allergies is all…yeah, allergies. How about them Cowboys?
Nah, Bambi for me too, probably around the same age – I’ll wager that’s no coincidence since it’s one of the first tearjerkers many parents probably expose their kids too. But the first movie that really teared me up was My Girl. I remember vividly because I was on my first date at a drive-in, and I did my best to pass it off as, no joke, allergies.
Watership Down, when Hazel lets the Black Rabbit lead him into death. I think I was 5. The last movie I cried while watching was Taken, because I have a 10 year old daughter and just the idea that she would be kidnapped and abused really tore me up.
I can’t remember the most recent, but of more recent movies – I held it together during Marley & Me, right up until the end. Then just lost it when Owen Wilson says goodbye to Marley. Tears, everywhere.
I don’t think that a film has ever made me cry; I think 90 minutes is too short a time for me to get that emotionally involved.
Books can do it. Mike’s death in ‘the Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ chokes me up a little even now. I also sobbed like a baby whilst watching the final episode of M.A.S.H, but I had known those people for 11 years by then.
Goldfinger, when I realized that Auric wasn’t going to get all that nice gold.
More recently: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, when Holly finds Cat. That ending always hits my romance button like a runaway truck.
I vividly remember crying while watching “Where the Red Fern Grows.” The most recent film to get that reaction from me was “Brave,” which I watched with my brave and fierce 6-year-old daughter.
I honestly can’t remember the first and last movie that caused me to cry. The first might have been one of the Benji movies and the last might have been I Am Legend, specifically the part where the dog dies. Yes, I’m a sucker for animals. I can watch human beings getting killed in numerous horrible ways without being moved in the least, but show me a dog or a cat in distress and I become a blubbering mess. (Yes, I have to change the channel when those abused pet commericals come on and stories about animal abuse are one of the few things that will set me off into a frothing rage.)
E.T. was the first movie and Toy Story 3 the most recent. The movie I remember crying the hardest in was Old Yeller, seriously, the school had to call my parents.
Yeah, Bambi. Oddly enough, not as a kid, but one of the revivals in the ’70s, when I was 25-ish..
Most recently, while watching Hunger Games with my 11-y/o great-niece. Good thing I had my 3-D glasses on, because I would probably have embarrassed her. She’s too old & sophisticated for that.
I honestly don’t remember the first time I cried during. If I had to guess, it may have been “Harold and Maude”. (I never saw most of the classic Disney tear-jerkers.). I think the most recent was “Hope Springs”.
Honorable mention goes to “Boys Don’t Cry”, for being the movie that made me cry the hardest. Which is all ironical and shit, but true.
Maybe it was “Where the Red Fern Grows” that got me first, now that I think of it.
Wow, that was a sad show! Especially now that I have a pack of dogs and sometimes heartbreaking things happen, I look back on that movie and feel: Yeah, at least they have a good life while it lasts.
Bambi and Kung Fu Panda 2, for the exact same reasons as yours, Mr. Scalzi.
I cried at Blade Runner, but only because I was 7, didn’t like it, and wanted to go home. :P Plus my dad was pissed at having to pay $5/person (this was 1982, remember!). It was traumatic.
I do really cry at movies all the time, though I can remember anything recent, unless “The Angels Take Manhattan” counts. ‘Cause, you know, the Ponds. :(
“Shenandoah” – not during the movie when the boys are dropping like flies, but at the end when the youngest kid and his black friend come up the aisle in the church and Jimmy Stewart sees them. I still choke up a million years later.
I had what I like to fondly recall as a “Lifetime movie childhood” so I gave up crying early. However, Old yeller….that movie scarred me for years. It is just such a boring sweet movie and then wham; it just stabs you in the heart. Most recently, would have to be The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith. That scene in the bathroom….I lose it every time.
First, It’s A Wonderful Life. Most recent, Finding Nemo in 3D. But I cry at everything, even when I’m not handing tissues to a 5 yo next to me and hugging her and whispering, “It’ll be okay, I promise, it’ll be okay!” I cry at dance recitals, while listening to Rasputina in the car, and when the waiters at the Mexican restaurant handed my kid a rubber chicken and sang her happy birthday.
I remember really losing it over, of all things, the Star Wars Holiday Special, on original broadcast. The scene of the stormtroopers busting in and smashing the kid Wookiee’s toys had brought me right up to the edge, and when when very drunk Carrie Fisher sang the Star Wars theme at the end during the Life Day celebration or whatever, I just lost it and started bawling.
What?
I can’t remember the first movie I cried at; but the most notable “recent” one was “Return of the King”. I started crying during the coronation scene and by the time the credits started rolling, my eyes were so swollen I could barely read them. Why it got me so hard I don’t know. I already knew the ending so it wasn’t a direct reaction to the on-screen events. I suspect it was a combination of the movies I had enjoyed so much over the past three years ending and the knowledge of the ultimate fate of Frodo.
“The Thing” The one made in he fifties. I was about 9 years old and had to sleep in my grandparent’s basement by myself. My father said I was being silly. The scariest movie I had seen on TV. This was in the 1950s and my dad was an Army officer and said I never make it in the army if I could handle that. Cried all night and never slept a bit.
The Muppet Movie–I was so upset by the guy who wanted to chop off Kermit’s legs and cook them that we had to leave. That or Puff the Magic dragon–stupid Jackie Paper went and left Puff.
Old Yeller was probably the first movie I cried at. Saw it in the theater when I was 5 or 6. Most recently? Either The Iron Giant or K-PAX. Watched them both for the first time earlier this year.
Q&A time. Okidoki. I understand. No, really, I do.
Lemme think. Yeah, it might’ve been Bambi for me too. Most recent occasion for weeping from a film? God, I was watching something on YouTube at work the other day, I think it was a scene from a flim. What was it? Oh yeah, a documentary on Ian Wright. He was this great soccer player for Arsenal from ’91-’98, a brilliant striker. He grew up very poor in London, however, with an abusive Mom and absent (and soon after, dead) Dad. His Mom told him he’d never amount to anything. But there was this one guy, a teacher, that tried to help Ian play soccer better when he was younger. Taught him how to write better too. Basically, a good man who saw this deprived child and wanted to do something to help.
Anyway, many years go by and Ian Wright finally makes it to professional football, top division with Crystal Palace. And guess who shows up one day during a photo opp? This teacher. Ian had thought the man had passed on, but no, very much alive. It was amazing, the reaction. Here’s this young man, top of the world, soon to be rolling in money and everything that that brings, and BOOM his old kind teacher shows up to wish him well. Ian just fell apart in wracking sobs and gave the old man a very long hug. It was a great moment. Had me in tears. I’m a parent too.
I don’t remember my childhood very well, but my mom tells the story of my bawling at West Side Story when I was 10 years old – and I bawled so much I was still crying the next morning.
I can’t remember the first movie, but the most recently was definitely “Up.”
Blackhawk Down
First: ET, like many others in here
Last: Avatar. I never thought I’d end up crying due to a tree being felled.
First: My childhood is a distant foggy haze.
Last: Toy Story 3 when they all hold hands while awaiting their fate. I got a little flushed just thinking about it now.
The first, I think, was The Fighting Sullivans. I was probably 10 and was crying in bed that night, and everything.
Most recent was probably the end of Return of the King. I’m a sucker for that movie. I don’t even like Frodo that much.
What mearsk said, except that for me, it was just this past Saturday at “Finding Nemo” in 3D. (I’d never seen it all the way through before.)
Taps. The end when the kids die for no damn reason because its all over. That whole movie really moved me. I think I was ten when I saw it.
Last movie, not sure. I’m a lot better at welling up without crying. Probably Act of Valor.
I cry at the drop of a hat, so I’m sure there were movies before this, but the first I remember specifically crying at was “The Little Mermaid” (she was leaving her dad and sisters!) and the most recent was “Avengers” because I was just so excited to be watching it in my home! (I have since cried at multiple TV shows, but that’s the last movie.)
I had to think hard for an early one, but got all the way back to Old Yeller, on TV.
There may be something more recent — I don’t remember for sure about Brave, but in the theatre, during the ending credits of Tangled, I suddenly broke down and had a real struggle to pull myself together, and didn’t even know why.
When it came out on DVD, I had to watch it again to find out which part of the movie that music was from, and found it playing when they were launching the lanterns — that combination of sorrow and hope…
American History X, towards the end.
Contact, in the end credits when we see “for Carl”.
First was probably Bambi, although the first one I *remember* crying at was ET, when I was 10 years old. Most recently? Road to Perdition. Watched that with my father and my husband, and all three of us were a wreck by the end of the movie. I also lost it at the end of Philadelphia. Not even when the Tom Hanks character dies, but later, at the wake, when they’re showing the Super 8 clips from his childhood and there’s the sad Neil Young song playing in the background. Gets me every time.
I don’t remember the first one, but most recent would have been The Hunger Games. Because Rue.
I honestly don’t remember the first movie I cried at. The most recent movie where I bawled like a baby? That would be “He Was a Quiet Man,” starring Christian Slater. It’s not a good movie — it’s a bit hacky and exploitative, but I was in a bad way when I saw it. When his character decides to devote his life to caring for another character confined to a wheelchair, I lost it. At the time, those scenes made me extremely sad. This was in 2008. I’ve seen better, and more emotionally mature, movies since that one, but I haven’t bawled like I did then.
The first movie was Pete’s Dragon. I don’t remember crying at any other movies, but the closest I’ve come in a recent movie was Toy Story 3. Honorable mention to Field of Dreams and The Straight Story.
I cry easily, so I can’t remember the first. Two that made we weep and have really stuck are the first 10 minutes of “Up” and “Grave of the Fireflies”. Grave of the Fireflies is just too painful to watch more than once.
First one was the HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, because Quasimodo scared the crap out of me. I was six, I think. The most recent I can recall is RETURN OF THE KING on opening night. My dad had passed away a few months before and even though he was a bastard when Theoden died I lost it.
The first was either “Born Free” or “Ring of Bright Water” – Google tells me that Born Free came out first, but I saw these very close together. Either way, apparently they BOTH star Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. Dear Bill & Ginny – thanks for ALL THE BLUBS!!!!! I was so affected that to this day, I can’t even listen to “Mr. Bojangles” because A) the dog up and died & B) after *20yrs* he still grieves. Getting teary just typing that.
Most recent was “Captain America.” which we just saw on Netflix. As I said, very damaged by Bill and Ginny.
First? The Trial of Billy Jack. Shut up! Watch it and see. Latest? Taking Chance.
The first that comes to mind is The Journey of Natty Gann. Or possibly The Neverending Story. Or maybe Old Yeller?
Last week it was Cars. The final racing scene makes me tear up every time.
Silent Running, as the domes are being jettisoned
First, Old Yeller. Latest, The Bucket List
I think I cried at bambi too. I vaguely remember it. I am a few years younger than John. I used to work with a guy who played college basketball. He said he cried during Titanic. You don’t expect to hear that from an athlete.
@civrek: if you liked the move The Time Travelers Wife. The book blows it away. In particular the audio book is outstanding. They have a male and female performer. Very few books draw me almost immediately and this one did. This is from a guy who does not like romances and this book was outstanding.
1st-Wrath of Kahn
Most recent-Wall-e
The first was Old Yeller. I was 7 or so. The most recent was probably The Pursuit of Happyness. Like someone above, the scene in the bathroom broke me. I’ve teared up at movies since then, but that scene had me bawling and wanting to go wake my daughter up so I could hug her.
Bambi was the first for me, too. Latest full length movie is probably Joy Luck Club. It was amazing.
Terms of Endearment. Went with my Dad & older Brother pretty much right after my folks divorced. I was Nine. It was _awful_.
Most recently: Captain America, w\When he realizes he had to crash the plane and isn’t going to see the girl again. Ever.
Relatedly; when Heavy sacrified himself in The Clone Wars so his squad could complete the mission and get away. Self sacrifice always gets me.
The first time would have been when I saw Jesus Christ Superstar. I see someone else mentioned this too.
The last time was just yesterday, when I saw Brokeback Mountain. Strange, I had seen it when it was just out, but can’t remember it touched me that much. Then this summer, in Wyoming, I met Annie Proulx and we talked about the book, the movie and other things. I read the short story again. And yesterday I wanted to compare it to the movie..
“Snoopy Come Home”, it was on TV so I must have been 6 or 7. I saw it again many years later and it didn’t have the same effect, it just seemed silly and mildly entertaining.
I saw “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” in a theater, so I was probably 4, and I was scared when the kid got sucked up the chocolate tube, but I don’t think I cried. Mom had to take me out of the theater.
I don’t remember so well, but I think when Old Yeller was shot /might/ have been the first.
Most recent: maybe Serenity.
You know, I’m not a bit movie-crier. I don’t recall crying at any as a kid – I remember the 2nd time I saw “E.T.” with a friend and she started crying and I was giggling and she gave me the most wounded look, but I knew what was coming… Of course, my dad taught me crying was bad when I was quite young, and we weren’t allowed movies much, so that might have had something to do with it. I’m sure I’ve at least sniffled at movies in the past 10 years, but I just can’t recall a single one…
The first one i remember is Boy’s Town where Spencer Tracy is carrying a little boy after he was struck by a vehicle. Mickey Rooney was following and crying saying over and over how sorry he was. That breaks my heart even today. Most recent? Magic Mike… JUST KIDDING! Facing the Giants got to me particularly the part where the main character’s wife thought she wasnt pregnant then joyfully found out she was. Yeah, my wife calls me a girl when that part comes on and I sit there with tears in my eyes.
It’s a little embarrassing, but I don’t think I cried at a movie until I was in my early twenties and rented Life as a House with Hayden Christensen and Kevin Kline. I think it was because of my fractured relationship with my own father, and because Hayden’s character’s sexual dalliances with other boys mirrored my own coming out. The movie moved me in unexpected ways, and I bawled like a baby at the end. I have watched it several times since and still tear up.
Wizard of Oz, because the Wicked Witch of the West scared me. I actually ran from the room crying when Dorothy was finding the Tin Man for the first time–she was knocking on his foot and I was sure the witch was going to jump out at them. My parents weren’t going to let me watch the rest, but I insisted on going back.
The first was either E.T. or Wrath of Khan, I was 6 when they both came out, and I cried for both. The last was the Iron Giant, which I was just rewatching the other day.
Oh, most recently, I got a little verklempt watching “Looper.” Sorry about using 2 posts. I was having a text convo with my husband while trying to post this.
The earliest movie that I remember crying is The Incredible Journey made in 1963 about 2 dogs and a cat that get left behind when a family moves away. Most recently it was People Like Us because Disney always wants more tears. Seriously though, a great movie for guys with hard-ass fathers.
First: Bambi – like you. about the same age too. At around the same time, my sister spent the last third of Snow White hiding under my seat. I was 6 and she was 4.
Last: Up – the beginning sequence may be the best cartoon for adults ever made – absolutely amazing.
Most Intense – Willie Nelson singing “He was my friend” at the end of Brokeback Mountain.
Most consistent – The Yearling. Once when I was watching it with some friends, the women left the room so the men could cry in peace.
First movie I can remember crying was Fox and The Hound
Last movie to make me cry is Forrest Gump when he is talking to Jenny’s gravestone..gets me every time
Having grown up at least partly in the pre-VCR era, my exposure to the likes of “Bambi” was from the safe confines of my living room sofa during “The Wonderful World of Disney” on TV, and I don’t think I cried at that. My guess for first would be “The Mysterious Monsters”, a 1976 ‘documentary’ about Bigfoot and Loch Ness narrated by Peter Graves. It freaked me out, we left the theatre early.
Most recent: “Brave”, and like John I could play the parent card and claim that it’s because I have a daughter, but who are we kidding: it’s Pixar, I would have cried anyway.
First one: Don’t remember. I tend to tear up but don’t really cry over movies very often.
Last one: Two weeks ago rewatched the whole series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, Neville Longbottom standing up to Voldemort.
Funny you should mention Bambi. I had to be carried, screaming, out of Bambi at age 3 and no, it wasn’t the sad part. It was the *happy* part, where he’s sliding on the ice! Apparently at that age I couldn’t understand that kind of comedy and and I was traumatized because no one would help him. I’ve always felt sorry for my poor aunt, still a teenage, that took me there for a nice afternoon out.
I don’t remember my first, but my most recent was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I get sniffly every time I watch that movie.
When Lieutenant Dan shows up at Forrest Gump’s wedding.
First: Probably Wizard of Oz on the tv. Just tearing up, which I do a lot of at movies.
All-time Sob-fest: Saving Private Ryan. I bawled like a baby during those first twenty minutes on Normandy Beach, and wept more quietly a couple times later in the film. I’m glad I saw it, but don’t want to ever see it again.
I was going to say I couldn’t possibly remember the first movie that made me cry, and then DPWally comes along and mentions “Snoopy Come Home,” and…yeah. That one. (And still does.) Most recent one is probably “Secondhand Lions.” I may have separation issues.
(Honorable non-movie mention to Dandelion Wine, which I reread shortly after Ray’s passing. The chapter about saying goodbye to John Huff gets me at the best of times, but that time, wow.)
The first movie I remember crying at was “The Beginning of the End.” It’s the one where giant grasshoppers attack Chicago. They were climbing the Wrigley Building and I knew that if they were climbing it they were also climbing the Tribune Tower- my dad was there working at the time. My mom had to call my dad at work so he could tell me he was OK. He later told me that the other guys in the Sports Department (he was a sports writer) overheard his part of the conversation and ended up turning on the movie and watching the end. He said good time was had by all. Oh, by the way, I was 3 yrs old.
I’ll tell you about the most recent movie when I can remember what it was. So, more later.
The 1985 Transformers movie when Optimus Prime died! The last movie I can remember crying at was Dances with Wolves when the Union soldier kill the wolf
I almost never cry in movies, but the ending of Gallipoli gets me every time.
The first one was definitely ‘The Land Before Time’. Oddly enough, it seems to have this status for most of my friends who are part of my generation (grew up in the 90s). The most recent film to make me cry was ‘Brave’. Pixar is very good at tugging on the heartstrings.
I cry in just about every book, TV show or movie I watch, but I’ve noticed that two things set me off the worst. The first is the passage of time (the third ‘Toy Story’ film just broke me), and the second is anything to do with relationships between parents and children. I think my first and most recent tear-inducing films are examples of the latter.
I think the closing scenes of ‘Robin and Marian’ is the *only* time…
At age 6, I cried at “The Land Before Time”, when Littlefoot’s mother dies. I remember being upset for days. The idea of losing a parent was so sad and scary and awful to me that I didn’t even know how to talk about it. (I must have watched “Bambi” not too much later, but I don’t remember being nearly as upset about that one.)
The most recent film that actually made me cry was “Up.” That opening bit. Jesus. I’m not usually much of a crier at movies, but that had me openly weeping in the theater.
The first one I remember crying at was ”Titanic”. Last one which i saw 2 weeks ago was ”Hachiko Monogatari”(1987 version ).
First movie; Star Wars. I was 9 when i first saw it. Was in tears when it ended. MORE!
Latest movie; Brave. The archery scene at the very beginning. I’d started teaching daughter how to shoot when she was six.
I’m such a crybaby that I cry at a lot of movies, so trying to remember the first one to make me cry is pretty impossible. I do, however, recall the first book that made me cry. It was the summer after 5th grade, which would have made it about 1981 and the book was Where The Red Fern Grows. Boo-hoo fest, for sure.
The most recent movie to make me cry would have been End Of Watch, because underneath the violence and the snark and the 8 bazillion F words was a touching story of friendship and loyalty with a super-sad ending.
First: Turner and Hooch
Most Recent: Does the trailer for the new Les Mis count?
Yeah, I cry at movies all. The. Time. I’m the person they’re thinking of when they plan the scene for maximum emotional impact…and I never disappoint. When Anty died in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, I ended up with half the theater laughing out loud at me as I sobbed like a baby.
I was 30 years old.
Anyway, the first movie I remember crying at was definitely Bambi. The most recent was on rewatching Big Fish last week. Special mention for the movie that absolutely wrecked me for the longest period of time was the remake of The Champ; I don’t think I stopped crying for hours. I can haz catharsis?
Amazing how many dog movies are here. Mine too: first movie cry I can remember was “Where the Red Fern Grows.” Shown in school, no less- totally unfair.
Most recent was probably Toy Story 3. I have a 15-year old son who still plays with his (my!) Legos, but I know those days are numbered.
First all out bawling at the content of a movie was Ring of Bright Water. That one could be weaponized. Today I tear up at almost anything cause I’m a huge softie.
First one I cried at for sad reasons was “Old Yeller.” I cried at Pinocchio, but that was out of fear at the whale and my Mom had to take me home. Latest is whatever I’ve watched lately. I’m such a sap that I tear up at commercials that have an overly sentimental theme.
Also, not first or last, but honorary mention goes to “Saving Private Ryan”- because I saw it with a group of manly men, and was embarrassed to be crying, until the lights came up after the credits and revealed that we all were.
Hell, I’m tearing up just reading this comment thread! :)
I don’t know whether this counts, it being television and all, but on Sunday I cried for hours after watching the mid-season finale of Doctor Who.
For me, I generally *ALMOST* cry, but not quite; feel the stinging in my eyes but no actual tears, usually. I can’t remember the first movie that did it to me, though. The most recent may well have been, as with many others here, Toy Story 3; boy, Pixar did that one well.
ADDITIONAL NOTE — John, I’ve tried emailing you RE a Big Idea slot four times — the first was the standard formal request, the others have been pings just to see if you got it. Haven’t heard anything back, so my apologies for cluttering your forum, but I’m thus not sure if my Emails are even getting through to you.
Not the first, but most memorable: “My Girl.” Because come on – HE CAN’T SEE WITHOUT HIS GLASSES!!
First book I remember crying over: “Bridge to Terabithia”
I think it was Old Yeller. Somehow, the older I get, the more I cry at movies. Sobbed like a baby during Wall-E.
My mom tells this story every chance she gets (which drives me absolutely batty, but that’s a different question of the day thread): first movie I cried at was Fantasia. Specifically in the Rite of Spring section when the dinosaurs start dying. I was 5 or 6. I have a vague memory of it, but the way my mom tells it, I started bawling uncontrollably in the theater.
Old Yeller. Or maybe “Thomasina.” (About a cat.)
Recently? @#$%, I don’t remember. I don’t tend to go to movies that will make me cry. Probably “Serenity.” *SNIFFLE*
Top two TV shows that made me cry and cry and cry and cry: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (damn you, Joss!) and “China Beach.”
Watership Down. When the black rabbit of death came for Hazel (both times). God I blubbed like the 6 year old I was. Most recently, I dunno. I can’t think of a movie I’ve blubbed at, but on TV I cried like I was 6 again at the end of last week’s Doctor Who.
I have a vague memory of crying at Lady and the Tramp as a child. Most recently? I think a rewatch of Love Actually got me.
First movie? E.T. upon initial release. Most recent movie? Heavenly Creatures on DVD a few weeks ago. That one surprised me. I burst out into tears with no warning whatsoever.
More most recent criers? Zoe’s Tale (yes, really). Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (that was during a particularly intense time in my life). The Sarah Glenn Axe body spray commercial (WTF?).
My first crying movie that I remember was made for TV: The M*A*S*H finale.
I’m pretty sappy and it happens quite a bit so I truly can’t remember the most recent, but just thinking about the very end of Monsters, Inc. gets me started….”Boo?”
My most intense was definitely the end of Dancer in the Dark…Crying like a baby on my couch… I’m glad I was home alone with that Nexflix DVD.
Don’t remember the first one at all. Most recent was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, with Snape’s death. (Believe me, I was much worse when I read the book, even though I was expecting it.)
Three other times stand out in memory. Dances with Wolves, when they come upon the slaughtered buffalo. I was a quivering mess for the rest of the film, and refuse to see it again. Titanic, OTOH, is a film I like, but the shot of the older couple, waiting to die in their cabin together, always sets me off. I couldn’t identify with DiCaprio and Winslet, but these two? Together all that time & wanting to be together at the end? Oh yes. And Up, because one of us going first is the more likely scenario.
First movie I cried about: Homeward Bound. When I was a kid, all you had to do was play the theme song and I’d start crying.
Most recent: Um . . . I think it was the Hunger Games. I’m pretty sure I cried when Katniss gave the salute to District 11 after she covered Rue with flowers.
I don’t watch many movies in a theater but my first was either Bambi or Old Yellar. My last in a theater was Gettysburg at the start of Pickett’s charge. Knowing self sacrifice also gets me every time.
First was likely Land Before Time, but I’m a sucker for getting emotionally attached to movies (but even more so, books).
Most recently was on a re-watch of De-Lovely, a story far too complicated to sum up in brief but absolutely outstanding as long as you can stomach musicals. Cole Porter’s rough-sketch biography.
Hmmm, man it was so long ago, it’s hard to remember the first, and I cry at almost every movie. I know “The Quiet Man” had a major impact, it was the first movie that came to mind so I’ll say that. The last movie we say was “The Life of Dan” and (since I cry at everything) I will say that’s the latest.
Not sure about the earliest one … I’m told that the first time I was taken to a movie theater, “Wizard of Oz” scared me enough that I had to be taken back out, probably crying in the process.
Most recent one is MUCH easier, since I just re-watched it on DVD yesterday. Meryl Streep in “Music of the Heart”, in particular the standing ovation at Carnegie Hall, gets me every time. That was an incredible film in at least a couple of ways … it was Wes Craven’s first and (I believe) only venture outside the horror genre, and was so well done that I’m surprised he didn’t follow up with further “experiments” with genres.
And the amazing number of world-renowned violinists appearing as themselves (Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and many others) who asked permission to join the kids’ benefit concert and play along with them. While I’ve never been able to find confirmation or denial of this, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they’d made similar approaches to the producers, offering to perform for little or no compensation to help support the continuance of music education in the schools, particularly inner-city schools.
First: Superman, because I wanted to watch it again but my mom said we had to go home. Last: HP&DH2. I knew what was coming and I cried anyway. I started when Snape said “Take them” and cried so hard at that I didn’t see most of the next 5 minutes of the movie.
I think the first movie that made me crie was E.T.. The most recent one: A couple of weeks ago I saw a film called Shooting Dogs (Beyond the Gates in US) (2005) that tells a true story about the Rwandan genocide…
The first one I remember crying to was Steel Magnolias. Which is an odd thing for a teenage boy to cry at, but there you go.
Most recent – I’ve teared-up for every Pixar movie since Finding Nemo, except for the Cars movies, and I haven’t yet seen Brave. So, most recent was Toy Story 3.
Charlotte’s Web. The original animated film from 1973.
We were living in North Carolina when it came out and I had, after finding myself nose-to-nose with a black widow spider up in the rafters of an old barn shortly after seeing a TV documentary that showed how spiders feed, embarked on a career as The Nemesis Of All Spiders Everywhere. I was very inventive in all the ways I would squash, stomp, crush, mash, flail, skewer and burn spiders out of existence. I believe the local flying insect population held a parade in my honor. I was a very young child.
When Charlotte crawled out of sight after saying her final goodbye to Wilbur, I started crying and I couldn’t stop for days. I also stopped indiscriminately killing spiders, opting instead for catch-and-release where possible.
Most recently, Doctor Who. “Melody, you be a good girl!”
“What Dreams May Come”, the moment Robin Williams character got to Heaven and discovered it was made out of paint. (I now seriously hope Heaven will be like that.)
Wizard of Oz on TV when I was a kid. Even after seeing it half a dozen times, and knowing that Dorothy wasn’t really parting from her friends at the end.
The first movie I cried from fright, was either Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (I’d had a cousin who drowned a year or two before I saw it, and though death wasn’t something that really registered with me at that age, something in me responded to Augustus Gloop’s sinking below the surface of the chocolate lake), or The Birds.
Most recently? Who knows. I cry over lots of movies, anime, books, etc., and it seems to be getting worse as I get older. Up is the most striking movie I’ve cried at from the last few years. Haven’t seen Toy Story 3 yet, but there’s no doubt it’ll be a two-tissue movie.
Can’t really remember the first one. But I clearly remember a room full of crying teenage boys as my friends and I watched the last episode of M*A*S*H. Never saw a rerun of it and I likely never will.
Last? “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” – saw it a coupla days ago on HBO. I didn’t think it was all that good of a movie and all, but I still cried. (But hey, I cry at _alot_ of movies… and books… All real men cry, right?)
Bambi and Old Yeller are two big movies that got to me.As for the last one, i can’t recall.But, it will happen.
Also, Mass Effect 3. That… particular sequence on Tuchunka. No spoilers for those who haven’t played it yet, but what a way to face one’s end. And what a reason why.
old Yeller
I’m not a big crier, but an exception was Million Dollar Baby. I saw it the day it was released, so the audience was unaware of the “twist”. It was such a shocker. The emotion was palpable throughout the theatre. The crying was contagious. Before the end of that movie I think everybody in the audience was in tears, both men and women. If they had had concession people in the aisles selling Kleenex they would have made a mint at that show.
First one: Old Yeller
Most recent: Sleepless in Seattle (again)
I cry at movies alot. Guess I’m just a sensitive guy.
Add me to the list that remembers crying at ET as a kid in the theater.
I’m a big cryer when it comes to movies, up to and including The Seven Samurai. But I only got choked up at Brave, so I’m not sure what the most recent one was, but that’s just because I can’t remember which I caught on TCM most recently: Bless the Beasts and Children or Gallipoli.
Oh yeah, another one I saw again recently that no one has mentioned – Mask.
1st: E.T. Kinda obvious for a Gen-Xer, I suppose.
Recent: I tear up a lot at most movies since I started being a parent, but rarely do I get to full water works. The most recent time I can recall that happening was Schindler’s List, when Schindler breaks down at the end. That would have been 1999 or so. Or, if we can count TV, I went full sobbing re-watching Anya’s “I don’t understand” speech from “The Body”. That was last month, but that happens every time I watch that episode. In fact, I think I may have something in my eye right now. It doesn’t help that that episode first aired 7 months before the death of my mother, who had been my BtVS watching buddy since the show premiered.
First? Hmm. 2001. Frank Poole’s body in the pod’s arms.
Most recent? Setting aside crying from laughing too hard (the Pony Music Video of Hardware Store)… hmm. I don’t remember whether I cried at Tangled. I suspect not, if only because of the distractions at that party. Shoot. I don’t know. It’s been so long since I’ve really been able to sit down and watch a movie.
The earliest I can remember… might be “Snoopy, Come Home”. Which probably isn’t actually a sad film. I must’ve been very young at the time. I remember having woken up very early in the morning, before my parents, and sneaking downstairs to watch it on VCR…
The most recent I think was “Up” (which I only watched recently for the first time). That opening sequence is incredible.
The first was Born Free. I was 6 or so and at school with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers’ daughter Louise. They took a bunch of us to see it at the Embassy Cinema in Dorking, for her birthday I think. I have never forgotten it. I can’t remember the last movie I cried at, I suppose because I cry when anything moves me so it happens a lot. Interesting, because the first time was over 45 years ago and I remember it very well.
“Old Yeller” on the Wonderful World of Disney in the ’60s.
First – probably when Han gets frozen in The Empire Strikes Back. I never cried as a kid or through my teens, so I missed out on crying at all the sad kid movies. Empire came out when I was old enough to have learned how. These days I cry at the drop of a hat, but I don’t see many movies. The most recent was Brave, which had a few tearful moments in there.
Stand By Me. When Richard Dreyfuss narrates that Chris Chambers was killed–got me as a youth, still gets me as an adult.
Charlotte’s Web, for sure. I think I was in 2nd grade.
First: Where the Red Fern Grows because the dogs die.
Most Recent: Up because it’s deeply depressing for the first 3/4 of the movie.
I remember crying in the Neverending story when Artax gets sucked into the mud, and at The Last Unicorn when Molly Grue asks why the unicorn didn’t come when she was younger. Even as a kid the delivery of the line “How dare you come to me now, when I am this!” choked me up.
Most recently: Grave of the Fireflies had me bawling for the last thirty or forty minutes. That was rough.
The first I really remember was pretty late – not exactly a touchy feely childhood. It would have been the ending of Cyrano de Bergerac (the Gérard Depardieu version). Then I cried because it was so noble, nowadays I cry because of the waste of being so noble as to deny true love over a ghost and, more importantly, not involving Roxane in the decision making process.
I’ve gotten sappier as time goes on. Films like Up, Toy Story 3, Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato and Gallipoli still get me all verklempt. The biggest reaction I’d have to say was the end of Saving Private Ryan. Asking any 18 yr old to look at all the lives lost to get him home and tell him to “earn this” is a terrible geas to put upon anyone, but is felt more by those farther along in life, I believe.
First movie I cried at was the ending of “The Last Unicorn” (hi, Rene!). I could not have been older than five.
Last movie I cried at was the ending of “The Dark Knight Rises”. When Alfred broke down in tears, so did I.
The first one I remember crying at was “The Jungle Book.” Most recent was “The Descendants,” which made me cry like four separate times. Great movie, but *brutal* and I have no desire to ever see it again.
“Snoopy Come Home” for me too. More than crying, I got worked up into a frantic anxious state. A psychoactive medicated man thinking about his childhood mental state… I wish I could, via a time machine, send my younger self a care package of Buddhist books, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and pharmaceuticals.
The first “movie” I recall crying about was a made for tv special of “The Little Prince” the part at the end where he goes back to the snake.. “You have good poison? You are sure that it will not make me suffer too long?”
Most recently – at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, there was a documentary about the Civil War and they had this animated map that showd major battles.. and along the bottom the combined death toll, it just kept going and going…
before that – The first sequence in “Up”
I may have sniffled a bit when Obiwan Kenobi died in Star Wars, and I recently teared up when rewatching the end of Stranger than Fiction.
Some that ALWAYS make me cry: Iron Giant, Monsters Inc, Love Actually, and Tangled (when Mom & Dad launch the lanterns).
If a made-for-television special counts as as short film, the first one I’m sure of was the 1972 DePatie-Freleng version of “The Lorax.” I was 9 when it came out and it just walloped me. Most recent? The prologue of “Up” . . . total (albeit temporary) emotional meltdown.
(The scene in “Mama Mia” where Meryl Streep’s character sings “Slipping Through My Fingers” to her teenage daughter gets an honorable mention, but . . . that’s 90% the song, 10% the movie.)
The first one – Watership Down. I was ten years old. I couldn’t listen to the theme song for months afterwards without dissolving into floods of tears.
Odd I remember that but couldn’t tell you the most recent.
Bambi. That was long, long ago, when I lived where forest fires were a constant danger. Most recent, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I’m that age, now, and have been to more than a few funerals. Psychic echos.
Obligatory E.T. as first movie cry for your typical Gen-Xer.
Most recent is probably the beginning of “UP”
Losing it uncontrollably: the end of Schindlers List when the survivors (now elderly) are placing stones on his grave…*wipes off iPad*
The power of One – at various moments. very touching film.
Oh, yeah, both A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Come Home made me cry *hard*. The first particularly: the ending, with Charlie Brown coming home in defeat after the spelling bee, is an intense emotional gut-punch for a kid. Willy Wonka terrified me, but my response to that was to run and hide.
These days, the closest I get from movies and TV is the edge of tearing up, probably because I had crying beaten out of me in junior high school. Toy Story 3 did it in a few places.
Oh, now we’re mentioning books? Easy. Flowers for Algernon. Read that scene where he comes back, by accident, to his adult education class after the experiment goes wrong. Even thinking about it is too powerful.
Braveheart when I was like 6 or 7 (yeah, my family didn’t really censor what we watched).
I didn’t cry at a movie since that until I saw UP at the age of 23 and was sobbing 20 minutes into the movie.
Can’t remember the first movie I cried at, but the last one was Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Because of sad chimpanzee.
First: Silent Running.
Most recent: Brave.
I lost it during A Better Life, when the dad gets deported after trying so hard to provide for his son.
Movies rarely made me cry when I was younger (heart of steel) but now I all I need is a character to cry and I burst into tears. So honestly the earliest movie I can remember shedding tears at was Titanic, though I do remember being quite sad during a particular scene in The Lion King. The most recent was Won’t Back Down (because sad mothers crying) and if we are counting shows the series 7 mid-series finale of Doctor Who had a couple tears welling up.
First movie cry: Benji – the original one. I was probably 6 or 7.
Most recent: Hachi, A Dog’s Tale, last week on Netflix. Great big sobbing ugly cry.
I cry at lots of movies that don’t even involve dogs, too.
First (AFAIK): Old Yeller gets another tick (heh). Wow, that movie is older than I am – think I saw it sometime in ’64 or ’65.
Most recent: Stardust (2007), based on the novel by neilhimself.
Old Yeller in the theater in ’57 when I was 7, with mom and dad, who both cried with me. Which is kind of odd as we were all cat people, more or less. Last time, in a theater – We Were Soldiers Once. In the privacy of my living room – last week — the Last Resort. sigh.
The first was either How the West Was Won or Gone with the Wind. It was emotional happy crying. Not sure what the last one was. It may have been Hugo. I only do happy cries at movies, never sad ones. Not sure why.
The only movie I can remember crying over was The Wrath Of Khan.
The first time I saw the ending of “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”. I was about six and I mistakenly thought Heston’s detonation of the alpha/omega bomb meant no more Apes films, which made me cry.
I haven’t a clue what the first movie I would have cried during was. I wasn’t much of a movie kid growing up, and when I did watch something, it was either Disney (and I’m pretty sure Bambi never really upset me for some reason…) or something like TMNT.
The most recent, though, was definitely a rewatch ‘Pan’s Labyrinth.’ I’m so much more of a sap than I used to be.
Books, though? I know I cried during Little Women when I was little, and more recently during Escape from Camp 14. Stupid real life.
I can’t remember the first movie that made me cry, but the first TV show was an episode of THE WALTONS. Poor Johnboy loved that girl so much and he never saw her again.
I don’t remember crying at Bambi, though I probably did. The first I remember crying at was Ashes and Diamonds, round about 1961. Most recently? Probably the last movie I saw, whatever it was.
First that I can recall was Fox and the Hound; the latest, I’m not sure about. I know I cried in Brave (*anything* with appropriate parental issues gets me, including lots of TV commercials), and I’m not sure if there’s been something even more recent than that. Dark Knight Rises, at the flashback to Gordon putting his coat around the just-orphaned Bruce, perhaps.
Don’t remember the first, but some comparatively recent ones:
– When the bells started pealing at the end of ‘Breaking the Waves’
– When Mary has a flashback to her son as a little boy in ‘The Passion of the Christ’
Regarding the ~crying, I have to say that when I saw ‘E.T.’ in the theater I remember thinking ‘about time that fucker died’ until they Spielberg’ed it with the sappy/crappy/happy ending. Fortunately John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ showed up shortly thereafter to cleanse the pallet.
I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the first movie I cried at, but the first one I really remember making me cry was the Zefferelli version of Romeo and Juliet. I was in seventh grade and I knew how it ended. I cried from beginning to end the first time I saw it, and so I had to go back and see it again – twice – to actually see it.
The most recent movie that made me cry was “The U.S. vs. John Lennon”. Yeah, I know. A documentary. But it really hit me for the first time while watching this the other day that if Lennon had lost his fight against deportation, or if he had given in and gone back to England and given up the fight, he might still be alive.
First was either Bambi or Pinocchio (re-release, naturally). I was a toddler and know this only from second hand sources.
Most recent was Up. Clearly animation gets me.
Bonus: movie I cry too most often: Casablanca. I tear up every time they sing La Marseillaise to drown out the Nazis in the bar.
First one I remember crying out was E.T. though it certainly wasn’t the first time that had happened, I’m sure. Last one? I dunno, as likely as not the last movie I saw and I can’t actually remember the last movie I saw in a theater, been months.
First: The Elephant Man – the part when Michael Elphick’s character bursts in with all his drunk friends and they terrorise John Merrick for fun. I was about eight or nine I think.
Most recent: Schindler’s List – the part towards the very end when Schindler is upset that he didn’t do more to save more lives. I’ve probably had ‘something in my eye’ at lots if films since but this was the last one I remember being very upset by.
First, last, and every time- Mr. Roberts…
First time was probably ET or Annie
Most recent eludes me at the moment. Having a toddler at home means that movies are a rare treat. Enjoyable as they were, I really didn’t find Dark Knight or The Avengers to be tearjerkers…
I don’t remember the first flick I cried at, but I blame DH for getting me started at the end of Field of Dreams, which was on cable a couple weeks ago. It now gets me every time. “Wanna play catch?”
I would like to say that the first movie was True Grit but it was an old & terribly inappropriate musical-Paint Your Wagon. Lee Marvin made me care about a washed up man and the latest movie was picked by the wife-Courageous, with the blatent(but serious) unspoken choice of her to say Grow UP. It will make you laugh or cry, depending on the scene.
First to make me cry…maybe Bambi. But for a more original answer…Popeye. I had a raging ear infection at the time. I had been bugging my parents to see it for-ev-er when it came out…and it was scarier than hell in some spots. Plus there were a few really sad spots…. (This is a movie Robin Williams has publicly said he feels he has to live down. I disagree. He nailed the role.)
Recent movie…some of the more tender scenes in Despicable Me or Pirates: Band of Misfits.
Most recent entertainment? I stream old radio shows on my phone sometimes and was listening to Dragnet while at work one day. Kid you not I teared up at a scene…this boy had been kidnapped, supposedly found…the kid given to the old grandfather taking care of the lad knew something was wrong…ends up that it was a run-away that kinda lied about being the right kid. Kid looked a bit like the other kid and police had given him enough information on the way back to the grandfather’s place to be able to fake it. He hadn’t meant it maliciously (more of dumb kid being dumb kid) but the grandfather of the show pleading with him asking him why he did it really got me. Worse than that…the grandfather’s real grandson ended up found dead somewhere. Gut punch for the parent in me….
The first to make me cry was “Truly Madly Deeply”, the Juliet Stephenson/Alan Rickman movie, where they’re a married couple but he is dead and a ghost and she is trying to move forward…
The most recent is much harder. I don’t recall the last time a fiction movie made me cry. I do watch lots of movielength docos, though, and they frequently break my (oh-so-manly) heart. In the interests of having a name to place here, I’ll go with “The Yes Men Fix the World”.
The first movie to make me cry was Dumbo, when the Mom is jailed and she puts her trunk through the window to rock her baby…I could cry right now thinking about it. The last movie to make me cry was The Road. I cried when I read the book and still cried when I watched the movie.
I’m pretty sure the first one was the Fox and the Hound. I was embarrassed because I was always laughing at my mom for crying at movies, if she didn’t fall asleep first. Most recently it was Brave, sitting next to my very headstrong teenage daughter, who laughed at me. The one that gets me every time is the Iron Giant. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I’ve almost become my mother except I stay awake at movies.
I don’t cry at movies very often, but “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” got me good and proper.
Well, I’m not sure EXACTLY which one was first, because it was a double-feature. Of Bambi and Old Yeller. Yes, I do believe that someone in Disney’s marketing department in the early 60s truly hated children.
Most recent? Harder to answer since a properly sentimental moment can catch me unawares. The one that definitely does it for me (still) is UP. First with the opening “short film” showing their lives together. Then at the end when, in order to save the kid, he empties the house (and we see that shot of the two chairs together on the mesa).
“Old Yeller”
I can’t really remember the first movie I cried at, but I suspect it was probably either “My Friend Flicka” or “Lassie Come Home.”
The first movie I remember crying at was The Empire Strikes Back when I was five. I completely lost it when Vader cut off Luke’s hand, to the point that my father had to carry me out to the lobby. I can remember the lobby too – we saw it at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood.
The most recent movie where I cried (well, teared up, I don’t really cry at movies) was probably Come and See, a Soviet film about the occupation of Belarus during World War II. The one before that was probably Graveyard of the Fireflies, which looks positively upbeat by comparison.
First movie I remember crying was Old Yeller. I still hate that movie.
The last movie that made me cry was Das Boot, the director’s cut. I watched it with my sons (17 &14) after touring the U boat at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago last month.
The Champ, and the Odd Life of Timothy Green.
I don’t remember the first movie for sure. I suspect it was Land Before Time, which seems to my generations’ ET.
I know the last movie, it was The Hollow Crown: Henry V starring Tom Hiddleston. I actually wept during the St. Crispen’s day speech. (both times I watched it…) Really well done.
First was An American Werewolf in London. Seriously, who takes a four year old to see a werewolf film? I was scared of werewolves for years after that.
I honestly don’t remember the most recent.
First one was probably Old Yeller (because *what the hell* Disney!?). I can’t recall what the most recent movie would be, because I haven’t seen many in the last couple years. I will admit to choking back the tears at Opie’s wake on Sons of Anarchy this week.
First, no idea.
Most recent: Sophie Scholl – The Final Days. I held it together (watching it on a plane) until near the end when her parents are allowed to visit her in jail before her execution, and her dad tells her something like he’s proud of her. Man, just thinking of that is getting to me even now.
I actually have a pretty good memory of the first movie that made me cry, even though it dates back to around 1972 and I was only about 5-ish. My parents were having a small party, and because I was bored and it was too early for bed, I was allowed to watch TV on a small B&W set in the kitchen. The movie I was watching was ending, and suddenly my father burst in to the kitchen wanting to know what was wrong?! And that’s when I realized I was crying… at Shirley Temple in Heidi: after all her travails, she had finally been reunited with her grandfather, and I was apparently overcome with happiness. Happy tears, not sad. But it still counts.
‘Silent Running’ when I was around nine guess. Couldn’t understand why the damaged robot couldn’t be saved too.
Not sure recently, probably the obvious scene in ‘Downfall’.
My ‘everytimers’: The Iron Giant (“Superman…” ) and ‘The Incredible Journey’ (60s original). How a doddery freaking dog running across a field can affect me so much genuinely disturbs me… :)
My first movie I cried with was _Sleeping Beauty_. I don’t think I cried at another movie until after my wife almost died from a car accident. After then, I became sentimental, and cry often at movies, especially when a love is lost and recovered.
First Movie I recall crying at – Bambi.
Latest movie – The Help.
To be clear though – I find myself crying at movies all the time now.
Happy moment – Cry in joy
Sad Moment – Cry
Heroic Moment – get overwhelmed and cry
This all started when I read Dragonlance and Sturm died. His “noble sacrifice” still hits me.
I’m a heartless bastard and don’t cry at movies. At least that’s what everybody tells me because I didn’t tear up at any point during Toy Story 3. My whole family was bawlings their eyes out…
In the early 70’s (obviously working from memory here), ABC used to show 90-minute made-for-TV films at the end of their Saturday morning block, probably from 11:00-12:30 or so. So, my five-year-old self is vegging along on a rainy day, safely watching cartoons, when we transition into what, in retrospect was a live-action retelling of Bambi with elephants. When the momma elephant gets trapped and shot by the poachers, I just absolutely lose it. No idea of the title, or even if much of any of this was correct, but it’s one of my earliest memories.
Last? Up, every darn time.
202 replies to a question on what movies made you cry. From a writer with stories on the line, but with a blog that needs blogging. You realize this is amazing in ways I can’t quite wrap around at the moment. What a world, what a world.
I keep thinking of Linda Richman and Coffee Talk (“Talk amongst yourselves. Mingle.”). When it’s all said and done you should post, “I can die now! Excuse me; I have to go die now!”
This thread has me crying. When I was a kid, animals dying just devastated me. I have never seen Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows because I’d been told how they ended. So it was probably Bambi for me as well. I cry at everything these days, but ones that stand out are “The Body”, which turned me from a casual Buffy watcher to a die-hard fan.”United 93″, which destroyed me, especially the behind the scenes showing the actors meeting the families of the people they were portraying (I felt the effects of this film for days after, it really wore me out.) I went to see “Jeepers Creepers” a few days after 9/11, and this stupid little horror film kicked my ass. I was way too raw after all that death and loss and suffering. And the scene where Ricky makes up the notion of heaven to comfort his dying mother in “The Invention of Lying” hit me hard. I was at the theatre with my brother and we’d lost our mom not long before. And I can’t hear the music from “Pan’s Labyrinth” without crying. The older I get, the easier I cry.
There were probably earlier ones, but the first that comes to mind is:
Standing in line to see Return of the Jedi for the first time, and hearing the end soundtrack music (that darn John Williams!), and “knowing” that that would be the last time I would have the experience of seeing a Star Wars film for the first time.
Most recent was:
The Hunger Games, when the one girl dies (you know the one I mean – trying to avoid spoilers here.)
But the video that ALWAYS tears me up is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c_ylcxgCaI
Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes, with a great soundtrack added. Run, Big Red, Run!
My first tears were also shed at Bambi. It also was the first movie I saw in a theatre. As an adult, I’m not a big movie person so I confess I can’t remember the last movie (saw or) I cried at, but I surprised myself and shed a few tears when I finished reading The Giver a few days ago.
I don’t remember the first movie I cried at, but “Up” was probably the most recent.
I don’t have a clear memory of a first movie I cried at but I know the last one I cried at was Up.
In the first 10 minutes!
I hate Pixar!
:)
The first was probably Dumbo. His mama is rocking him through the bars, and I lost it.
The most recent? I’m betting someone’s going to laugh at me, but that’s okay. Near the end of The Bourne Legacy. When Aaron Cross is sitting in this little metal interrogation room, before he’s Aaron Cross, after he’s sustained a serious injury and to me, knowing people with TBI, is acting like he’s got a serious brain injury, and he’s asking if he can stay…so he doesn’t have to go back to the state home he remembers.
I lost my shit. Awesome action movie, with Jeremy Renner, we get to this part, and I had to get up and walk out of the theater, because that bothered me. It was all because my thought was, “You took this guy, who had no family, and nothing to lose….and you created a super weapon because you could use him.”
My brother and my husband still make fun of me for losing it and bursting into tears during The Bourne Legacy. That’s okay…..the husband still can’t hold up while watching Brave.
Doctor Zhivago. I was at a vulnerable point in life. Lost it when Zhivago was watching Laura go.
The first was Old Yeller. Of course it didn’t help that my mom took the 4 of us to the movies to distract us from our dog being put down that day. (Don’t ask.) Last was Life is Beautiful. If you have kids, you will know why.
I think my first was The Last Unicorn. I just don’t know exactly when I saw it – sometime after it came out, I guess? I was only 4 for most of 1982, and I think I was about 5 when I remember falling in love with it. The bit with the unicorns charging out of the sea got me every time. I revisited it and it turns out it still does. Yeah, even as a little kid, I was more moved by the collective-action-wins-out than the love story. ;)
After that, the next one I know made me cry was E.T. Bawled my eyes out for DAYS. Had nightmares that someone was going to hurt E.T. I was a sensitive soul.
I don’t remember the last one – but I tear up easily even now. :)
I’m late to the party, but…”Bambi” was the first movie I cried at, too. I think I was 7 or 8 years old. It was the first time it ever occurred to me that my parents could die, and the realization left me a bit traumatized. And thus began a lifelong history of crying at movies. ; )
I guess I’m really old. Dog of Flanders.
@GaryG: … ‘The Incredible Journey’ (60s original). How a doddery freaking dog running across a field…
Don’t remember the first movie I cried at, but this comment had me weeping, so this movie might be it.