Pass the Tissues – Tearjerker Movies

It’s not often that I get choked up watching a movie. In fact, it’s become a running joke in my family that I never cry watching movies and am therefore cold. However, before you start calling me cold too, I do tear up or cry every once in a while watching certain movies or TV shows! And there are a handful of movies that no matter how many times I’ve seen them I always cry – I just can’t help it! Off the top of my head, I’ve thought of 5 movies that make me cry the same as when I first saw the movie as the 12th time. There are spoilers, but I’ve marked them so if you haven’t watched and don’t want to know the spoiler just skip over it!

Hachi starring Richard Gere is so touching and emotional. You know it’s good when I‘m crying and I’m not even a dog owner or big pet person. The story is based on a true story of the relationship between a Akita Inu dog and his owner. I saw this movie only once and a long time ago so I don’t remember the specifics of the storyline but I remember the movie follows them through the years and how loyal Hachi is. *Spoiler Alert* Hachi walks to meet his owner at the train station every day when he comes home from work and even after his owner’s death he goes to the train station and waits and waits for him to come home until his own passing. So heartbreaking, but a beautiful relationship!

I’ve seen Stepmom many times and even though I know what happens it makes me cry. Every. Time. The movie follows Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandons, who don’t exactly get along at first but learn to not only like but learn to love each other. Susan Sarandon’s character (Jackie) has cancer and Julia Roberts plays the girlfriend turned fiancee (Isabel) of Sarandon’s ex-husband. Since Jackie and her ex-husband have children, the two woman are in each other’s lives constantly. As you can imagine there are so many moments throughout the movie that would have you grabbing the tissues. Jackie being sick, her feeling like the kids think their stepmom is cooler, Isabel feeling like she doesn’t belong or is unaccepted in the family. One part that always always makes me well up is when the two woman meet up for a drink to have a real heart-to-heart and share their fears.

Isabel: Look down the road to her wedding. I’m in a room alone with her, fixing her veil, fluffing her dress, telling her no woman has ever looked so beautiful. And my fear is she’ll think, “I wish my mom were here.”
Jackie: And my fear is… she won’t.

I’m about to cry just reading that conversation!

Who hasn’t seen My Girl? It was such a huge movie in the 90s and when I was a kid. I even liked the sequel, but that one wasn’t as emotional. A young Anna Chlumsky plays Vada in the 1960s and lives with her widower father who also happens to be an undertaker. Her home is also the funeral home. It’s a coming of age story as Vada transitions from pre-teen to teen and goes through life surrounded by death. Death and dead people are a daily constant in her life and she (and her father) never realize that it isn’t normal for a girl to not see anything wrong with being surrounded by it. Until *Spoiler Alert* her best friend in the entire world Thomas J played my Macaulay Culkin, who is allergic to everything, goes into the woods by himself to look for a ring Vada had lost and gets stung by a swarm of bees and dies. It is probably the saddest movie I watched as a kid and although I haven’t seen it in years I am certain I would cry today if I watched it.

Beaches takes you on an emotional rollercoaster for the long haul. Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey star as CC and Hillary who met when they were little girls  while both in Atlantic City. Hillary is from a prim and proper wealthy family, while CC is from a loud working class family. CC dreams of becoming a big star one day and is the complete opposite of Hillary, yet the two maintain a friendship as pen pals as they grow up. As young adults, they reconnect in person and the movie follows them through the ups and downs of their friendship over the years. Through the highs and lows of CC’s career and Hillary’s tumultuous marriage. The movie is so emotional because there are things that anyone can relate to including the good and bad times of friendship. *Spoiler Alert* Hillary has a heart condition and gets very sick. CC helps take care of her and takes care of Hillary’s young daughter.

Bette Midler’s Wing Beneath My Wings is part of the movie’s soundtrack and I can’t hear that song without thinking of the movie and how sad it is!

Okay Letters to Juliet is an unconventional choice, I’m sure. It leans more towards a light-hearted love story, but there are a few teary moments. Amanda Seyfried plays Sophie, a young writer who is in Italy for a pre-wedding honeymoon with her fiance who spends more time touring kitchens and going to wine auctions (in preparation for the restaurant he’s opening back home in New York City) than with his fiancee. So she falls in with the Secretaries of Juliet. Women who gather to respond to the letters that women from all around the world leave for Juliet (of Romeo & Juliet) to respond to their romantic woes. Sophie finds a letter that has been lost in Juliet’s wall for decades and a whole adventure begins once Claire, the woman who wrote the letter as a young woman studying abroad, comes to find Sophie and the man she wrote about. Claire is now a grandmother so she comes with her grandson and Sophie joins them on their quest to find Claire’s long lost love. The movie overall is not sad, but there is one part that gets me every time. Distraught that the quest isn’t going as well as planned, Charlie (the grandson) gets frustrated with Sophie and yells at her. In his frustration he says some hurtful things to Sophie. When Claire goes to check on Sophie in her hotel room she says very tender, motherly things to her to comfort her while she brushes Sophie’s hair. I don’t know what it is about that, but I find it so touching and as Sophie sits facing the mirror with tears in her eyes as Claire soothingly brushing her hair, I can’t help but tear up right there with her.

So those are the 5 movies I first thought of that will have you grabbing the tissue box! I’m sure there are a bunch more, but I’ll have to think up those for another post in the future.

Are any of these movies on your list too? I’d love to hear what’s on your list!