Thank you for normalising sobbing at children’s movies! Inside Out 2 at the cinema was brutal.
I even found myself welling up to the Moana soundtrack on the school run and trying to hide it from my bemused children. Those soaring, hopeful songs 😭
That’s 💯 why I wear sunglasses in the car all the time. Hiding my tears at Frozen or Moana or the Linda Lindas or whatever my children are making me listen to.
I get emotional every time I watch live theatre. Even if the play isn't particularly good, I always think about how this is literally a dream come true for the people on the stage. They worked so hard and they are getting to do the thing that they most want to do and are inviting people to watch them. It always makes me misty.
I haven’t looked at it in so long, but my sister Elizabeth and I both used to have lists (on listography) of movies that made us cry and which episodes of certain shows made us cry. The movies that hit me really hard have that emotional component and usually are something where someone dies or something really moving happens (I did cry at Inside Out as well because of that family hug, but as much as I loved Inside Out 2, it didn’t hit me as hard).
Some of the movies that tend to make me cry include My Girl (that scene where she wants them to put his glasses on at the funeral 😭), An Affair to Remember (he waited for her during a thunderstorm and didn’t even know she got hit by a car), The King and I (that scene where Anna reads the letter from the king about how his heart feels broken and she has been a very difficult woman always gets me), Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Amber Tamblyn breaks my heart when Tibby is feeling distant from Carmen), and Titanic (I don’t cry when Jack dies, but I do always cry when she almost gets on the life boat but then jumps back on the Titanic, the old people snuggling on the bed and the mom reading to her children before they drown is also so tough). This is a short list (there are way more movies that make me cry), but it gives an idea of what kinds of things make me cry.
I also have a long list of what episodes of Gilmore Girls have made me cry or what episodes of Parenthood but in general, if Lauren Graham is crying on either show or if Mae Whitman is crying on Parenthood, I am probably crying too! And on Parenthood, everything about Julia’s secondary infertility storyline makes me cry. The part where she hugs her mom after finding out she is unlikely to be able to get pregnant again, her apologizing to Joel when they find out that her intrauterine scarring is probably why they won’t be able to conceive, the crushing moment where her daughter asks how many “things” they’re going to have because you know Julia’s just trying to make the best of the situation and pour all of her enthusiasm into the relationship with her daughter.
I had primary infertility and it took me nearly 3.5 years to conceive my daughter (one early miscarriage in 2015; she was born October 2019). I have gotten pregnant twice since having her but miscarried both times, so it’s not surprising that a storyline about infertility and specifically infertility where they are worried about what happens when you don’t know if you can have a second child hits hard.
Now that I looked at Elizabeth’s listography for movie scenes I had to add my favorite scene from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner to my list. Spencer Tracy gives the best speech: “Now Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me but wants to know if I'm some kind of a *nut*. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband I'm a burned-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue... cause I think you're wrong, you're as wrong as you can be. I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old- yes. Burned-out- certainly, but I can tell you the memories are still there- clear, intact, indestructible, and they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think... because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it's half of what we felt- that's everything. As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you'll have no problem with me, and I think when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against. There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"! Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if - knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn't get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?”
That look in Katharine Hepburn’s eyes when they well up when she’s listening to him is so full of love- it gets me every time.
Definitely kids movies! Or just about anything to do with mothers and their children. Also, musicals. Hamilton in particular (just saw it recently). I cried in the sad parts but also get emotional listening to the soundtrack, I choke up every time at the end of “Non-Stop”. Why 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
I cry during the best of wives and best of women line in Hamilton. And throughout the whole damn show. It’s very inspiring! I’m taking my kid for his 8th birthday in January and I’m excited to see it again!
Encanto hit me hard too! Musicals make me cry a lot—I think emotions set to music are even more powerful. Titanic, Ragtime, In the Heights, Fiddler on the Roof, etc. The opening numbers will take care of it if I’m in the right head space. I remember going to see a production of In the Heights and deliberately not wearing mascara because I just KNEW.
Also good books about dysfunctional sibling relationships (yesterday it was Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors), and sometimes bittersweet romances where it can’t work out. Anybody else ever read Winifred Holtby’s South Riding? I remember having to put the book down and absolutely weep. (Some of that is also knowing stuff about Winifred Holtby, who died at 36.)
Father-daughter stuff will do it sometimes—the scene in Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye puts Hodel on the train to Siberia and looks up to God and says “See that she dresses warm”? Puddle.
But then sometimes I’m totally surprised. One of my all time favorite movies is Babette’s Feast, and the first time I watched it the final scene rolled around and I burst into tears. I wasn’t expecting that at all, but my goodness, what a cathartic moment!
Oh, lastly, every single episode of Call the Midwife.
Wait same?? I’ve never thought about this in depth but kids movies are and always have been my downfall. I can’t count how many times my husband has walked into the room while I’m watching a movie with my daughter and tears are streaming silently down my face because I’m trying not to upset her too, and he CALLS ME OUT - “Are you crying??” And then I’ll burst out sobbing. Toy Story 3, where he brings the toys to the little girl - talk about hysterics. We watched Hook recently and I was holding back sobs when the mom wakes up and the kids are back in bed. And from when I was a kid, Homeward Bound when Shadow comes back. And the song during the opening credits of Land Before Time was enough to choke me up.
There have been a couple kids books where my voice gets wobbly while reading aloud too. The Little Blue Bunny particularly destroyed me. It’s about a boy and his stuffed bunny and then the boy grows up and passes it to his kid. My 3yo asked why I was talking funny. RIP.
Just gonna bookmark this post and head straight to the comments the next time I need a good cry! 😭
For me it’s often art with friendship at the center—Now and Then, My Girl, Beaches, that last episode in SATC when they talk about imagining life if they had never met 🥺 The children’s book The Long Ride Home is reminiscent of this feeling, and I can’t read it without crying! Oof.
Parent/kid sentimentality is up there too. Father of the Bride, Stepmom, 8 Bit Christmas!! Sucker punch every time.
Well I just cried reading a Grub Street Diet in which the guy had to put his cat down so that's where my emotional state is at the moment 😅 but yes, pretty much all kids' movies make me cry (the scene with Moana's grandma gets me every time) and I've also realized that I cry while reading a lot, more than I do while watching a movie or TV show. Always been a crier though, and one of my daughters is the same - she's 9 and SOBS through movies. Sorry, kid, you're destined for a life of waterproof mascara and carrying tissues around everywhere 🤣
Yes! Sleepytime is 1. Basically a documentary of my nights and 2. More effective than a neti pot in the way it makes me sob so hard I drain my sinuses (sorry, gross?)
I never saw Fox And The Hound as a child and tried to watch it in college. I sat at our kitchen island and the opening scenes of the main characters as pups struck me as so incredibly cute that I started to cry. My roommates encouraged me to stop there, because if The Cute caused me to cry, then the emotional turmoil of The Plot would probably put me over the edge.
Cute animals were especially tear-inducing when I was pregnant and postpartum. The sea lion show at the GA Aquarium made me cry because of their rescue stories, and I didn’t want the show to end. Piglets swimming in a little trench during a race also made me cry.
Calling these performance art might be stretch but oh well.
Big same - nothing makes me cry like a movie made for kids … or teens. I recently sobbed during an old episode of Vampire Diaries when a beloved characters mom dies 😂😭 wrecked me.
Any scene that combines the motif of people coming into their own/their power or a moment of recognition of a person, combined with very powerful sweeping music. Classic examples (for me) include: 1. The coronation scene in The Return of the King where all the people in Minas Tirith bow to the hobbits and for the first time in their lives they are taller than everyone else (*sob*), 2. The end scene in The Lion King when Simba climbs Pride Rock in the pouring rain and you can hear Mufasa’s voice saying “remember…”, 3. In Les Misérables, during Do You Hear the People Sing. I usually need to pause these scenes/music and have a good cry before I can move on.
For me it's flamenco. I spend at least a week a year in Jerez, southern Spain, arguably the cradle of flamenco just because I want to FEEL something. The first time I saw it in a bar there I sobbed so hard I had to leave! Granted, flamenco is designed to evoke strong emotions but I never expected it to make me cry as hard as it does. And it's not just me - it damn near broke my mother and father in law when they came with us one time
I haven’t watched Fly Away Home in years but the premise was certainly very moving. I didn’t cry much at movies when I was a child but children’s movies seem especially moving to me now.
My Girl is one where I sob every time. My nephew just watched Angels in the Outfield and I cried again. Both Inside Out movies. I also sob when Kevin and his mom are reunited at the end of Home Alone. Hope Floats when little Bernice (played by professional crier Mae Whitman) keeps putting her suitcase in her dad’s car and he won’t let her come with him. Stepmom is another movie where I ugly cried.
TV wise- I cried all the time at Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, This Is Us and quite a few episodes of Greys Anatomy. Buffy for the episode when she has sex with Angel and he loses his soul and the one where she dies. I made a list of episodes that made me cry when I was still on listography 10+ years ago and it’s quite interesting. Apparently breakups make me cry a lot but I don’t normally cry at people getting together. https://listography.com/chasingpacey/television/episodes_that_make_me_cry_and_why
I frequently tear up reading author’s notes or acknowledgments a lot too. I finished Sophie Kinsella’s novella What Does It Feel Like? and cried when she thanked all the people on her medical team because she was still here after her glioblastoma surgery.
I recently watched the ep where Jasmine and Crosby get back together and I kept replaying that scene and crying. Adam Braverman first realizing Max was ND also resonated so strongly for me. And when Joel and Julia get back together after their separation too. I cried all the time with that show!
Yes, Home Alone every time! And that scene from Hope Floats is crushing. Stepmom for sure. This is Us and Grey’s are for sure big ones for me as well and Friday Night Lights.
Acknowledgments also have me tearing up constantly- that twin connection is strong even with what makes us cry I suppose!
I cried when Fug Girls thanked Fug Nation in The Royal We. And when Abby Jimenez thanked Ashley Spivey for the words “I believe you, this is not your fault, and you don’t deserve this,” in Part of Your World. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWlgifMl9SH/?igsh=MWdzNmJrdGppZ3R6Mw==
It admittedly doesn’t take much to set me off - my kids love to point out how *everything* we watch makes me cry. I think consistent triggers are:
- extremely tender things (most recently the Great British Bake-Off when they all help each other and comfort whoever got eliminated that week, but also all the Disney/children’s movies, especially the Inside Out movies, Moana, Frozen 2, Toy Story 3, Fox & the Hound, Tarzan, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Wall-E, Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin - the familial togetherness!!
- nostalgic movies that have been a comfort to me for years (Winona Ryder’s Little Women…the score alone will evoke sobs; Angels in the Outfield, Remember the Titans, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, both Home Alones, Return to Me, You’ve Got Mail, About Time)
- the thing I absolutely cannot handle is a love story when one person forgets that they love the other person. Exhibit A: Peeta & Katniss in the Hunger Games. I absolutely could not recover when I read the books, and then I suffered anew when I saw the movies. If I think about it too much this very second, my day will be ruined. This same phenomenon in the TV show Once Upon a Time really did me in, also in The Good Place. I’ve avoided the Notebook all these years for this very reason. I’m pretty sure if I ever were to watch it, I’d have to take to the bed and may never emotionally rebound. 😅
- sorry, I’ve got to stop now, but also I sometimes cry during really upbeat songs, like at Zumba class? Makes me feel like a moron. 🫠 I think it’s the swagger, the confidence? Like I’m bursting with pride to be alive, and not apologetic about it? I am sure I should unpack this in therapy. 🙃
- oh, and live theatre. I’m just so proud of everyone up there and I can’t help it! 😭
I LOVE that re the crying during exercise - I hear you! I've been there! And Winona Ryder's Little Women is so important to me it's basically a religion.
Oh man I forgot how much I cry at You’ve Got Mail too! I start crying when he says “for as long as we both shall live” when they’re outside her brownstone to the moment she sees him chasing Brinkley and cries—ugh the whole thing, so moving! Remember the Titans I am so moved by Julius and Gary and their friendship and that press conference with Herman Boone.
Thank you for normalising sobbing at children’s movies! Inside Out 2 at the cinema was brutal.
I even found myself welling up to the Moana soundtrack on the school run and trying to hide it from my bemused children. Those soaring, hopeful songs 😭
That’s 💯 why I wear sunglasses in the car all the time. Hiding my tears at Frozen or Moana or the Linda Lindas or whatever my children are making me listen to.
I get emotional every time I watch live theatre. Even if the play isn't particularly good, I always think about how this is literally a dream come true for the people on the stage. They worked so hard and they are getting to do the thing that they most want to do and are inviting people to watch them. It always makes me misty.
ughhhhh YES
I haven’t looked at it in so long, but my sister Elizabeth and I both used to have lists (on listography) of movies that made us cry and which episodes of certain shows made us cry. The movies that hit me really hard have that emotional component and usually are something where someone dies or something really moving happens (I did cry at Inside Out as well because of that family hug, but as much as I loved Inside Out 2, it didn’t hit me as hard).
Some of the movies that tend to make me cry include My Girl (that scene where she wants them to put his glasses on at the funeral 😭), An Affair to Remember (he waited for her during a thunderstorm and didn’t even know she got hit by a car), The King and I (that scene where Anna reads the letter from the king about how his heart feels broken and she has been a very difficult woman always gets me), Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Amber Tamblyn breaks my heart when Tibby is feeling distant from Carmen), and Titanic (I don’t cry when Jack dies, but I do always cry when she almost gets on the life boat but then jumps back on the Titanic, the old people snuggling on the bed and the mom reading to her children before they drown is also so tough). This is a short list (there are way more movies that make me cry), but it gives an idea of what kinds of things make me cry.
I also have a long list of what episodes of Gilmore Girls have made me cry or what episodes of Parenthood but in general, if Lauren Graham is crying on either show or if Mae Whitman is crying on Parenthood, I am probably crying too! And on Parenthood, everything about Julia’s secondary infertility storyline makes me cry. The part where she hugs her mom after finding out she is unlikely to be able to get pregnant again, her apologizing to Joel when they find out that her intrauterine scarring is probably why they won’t be able to conceive, the crushing moment where her daughter asks how many “things” they’re going to have because you know Julia’s just trying to make the best of the situation and pour all of her enthusiasm into the relationship with her daughter.
I had primary infertility and it took me nearly 3.5 years to conceive my daughter (one early miscarriage in 2015; she was born October 2019). I have gotten pregnant twice since having her but miscarried both times, so it’s not surprising that a storyline about infertility and specifically infertility where they are worried about what happens when you don’t know if you can have a second child hits hard.
Now that I looked at Elizabeth’s listography for movie scenes I had to add my favorite scene from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner to my list. Spencer Tracy gives the best speech: “Now Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me but wants to know if I'm some kind of a *nut*. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband I'm a burned-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue... cause I think you're wrong, you're as wrong as you can be. I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old- yes. Burned-out- certainly, but I can tell you the memories are still there- clear, intact, indestructible, and they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think... because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it's half of what we felt- that's everything. As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you'll have no problem with me, and I think when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against. There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"! Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if - knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn't get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?”
That look in Katharine Hepburn’s eyes when they well up when she’s listening to him is so full of love- it gets me every time.
Especially when you know about their own real-life longtime romance. And that he died just after filming this movie.
Yes, that part too! The fact that they were actually in love in real life made a difference to that on-screen chemistry.
Definitely kids movies! Or just about anything to do with mothers and their children. Also, musicals. Hamilton in particular (just saw it recently). I cried in the sad parts but also get emotional listening to the soundtrack, I choke up every time at the end of “Non-Stop”. Why 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
It's Quiet Uptown tears me up every time.
One time I was driving during “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” and I had to pull over when she got to the orphanage.
I cry during the best of wives and best of women line in Hamilton. And throughout the whole damn show. It’s very inspiring! I’m taking my kid for his 8th birthday in January and I’m excited to see it again!
Encanto hit me hard too! Musicals make me cry a lot—I think emotions set to music are even more powerful. Titanic, Ragtime, In the Heights, Fiddler on the Roof, etc. The opening numbers will take care of it if I’m in the right head space. I remember going to see a production of In the Heights and deliberately not wearing mascara because I just KNEW.
Also good books about dysfunctional sibling relationships (yesterday it was Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors), and sometimes bittersweet romances where it can’t work out. Anybody else ever read Winifred Holtby’s South Riding? I remember having to put the book down and absolutely weep. (Some of that is also knowing stuff about Winifred Holtby, who died at 36.)
Father-daughter stuff will do it sometimes—the scene in Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye puts Hodel on the train to Siberia and looks up to God and says “See that she dresses warm”? Puddle.
But then sometimes I’m totally surprised. One of my all time favorite movies is Babette’s Feast, and the first time I watched it the final scene rolled around and I burst into tears. I wasn’t expecting that at all, but my goodness, what a cathartic moment!
Oh, lastly, every single episode of Call the Midwife.
Blue Sisters has been on my TBR list for a while! I ADORE sibling stuff.
It hurt SO good. 😉
oh my God, Ragtime destroys me. Seeing it live, listening to the soundtrack... I'm a sobbing mess.
Forgot I also used to listen to the Tarzan soundtrack while pregnant with my son and would sob so hard I had to pull over 😂
Omg yes this soundtrack is so so good
Wait same?? I’ve never thought about this in depth but kids movies are and always have been my downfall. I can’t count how many times my husband has walked into the room while I’m watching a movie with my daughter and tears are streaming silently down my face because I’m trying not to upset her too, and he CALLS ME OUT - “Are you crying??” And then I’ll burst out sobbing. Toy Story 3, where he brings the toys to the little girl - talk about hysterics. We watched Hook recently and I was holding back sobs when the mom wakes up and the kids are back in bed. And from when I was a kid, Homeward Bound when Shadow comes back. And the song during the opening credits of Land Before Time was enough to choke me up.
There have been a couple kids books where my voice gets wobbly while reading aloud too. The Little Blue Bunny particularly destroyed me. It’s about a boy and his stuffed bunny and then the boy grows up and passes it to his kid. My 3yo asked why I was talking funny. RIP.
Toy Story 3 got me SEVERAL times.
I'm now remembering SOBBING in the theatres - forgot about this one!
I saw it in the town where I went to college, and it just felt like the end of childhood for all of us who grew up with the Toy Story franchise!
ahhhhh YES kids' books are also dangerous!!!
Just gonna bookmark this post and head straight to the comments the next time I need a good cry! 😭
For me it’s often art with friendship at the center—Now and Then, My Girl, Beaches, that last episode in SATC when they talk about imagining life if they had never met 🥺 The children’s book The Long Ride Home is reminiscent of this feeling, and I can’t read it without crying! Oof.
Parent/kid sentimentality is up there too. Father of the Bride, Stepmom, 8 Bit Christmas!! Sucker punch every time.
Well I just cried reading a Grub Street Diet in which the guy had to put his cat down so that's where my emotional state is at the moment 😅 but yes, pretty much all kids' movies make me cry (the scene with Moana's grandma gets me every time) and I've also realized that I cry while reading a lot, more than I do while watching a movie or TV show. Always been a crier though, and one of my daughters is the same - she's 9 and SOBS through movies. Sorry, kid, you're destined for a life of waterproof mascara and carrying tissues around everywhere 🤣
lol the magic of inheritance!
Right now… Bluey! Watch Baby Race, Sleepytime and Onesies for a good cry. Such a great show 🥹💙🐾
oh sleepytime YES
I’m Aussie so this might hit me harder, but Cricket is also a tear jerker.
Oh no, American here, I couldn’t understand the game if you paid me, and Cricket always makes me lose it.
Yes! Sleepytime is 1. Basically a documentary of my nights and 2. More effective than a neti pot in the way it makes me sob so hard I drain my sinuses (sorry, gross?)
I never saw Fox And The Hound as a child and tried to watch it in college. I sat at our kitchen island and the opening scenes of the main characters as pups struck me as so incredibly cute that I started to cry. My roommates encouraged me to stop there, because if The Cute caused me to cry, then the emotional turmoil of The Plot would probably put me over the edge.
Cute animals were especially tear-inducing when I was pregnant and postpartum. The sea lion show at the GA Aquarium made me cry because of their rescue stories, and I didn’t want the show to end. Piglets swimming in a little trench during a race also made me cry.
Calling these performance art might be stretch but oh well.
um piglets swimming in a little trench?! i can't!!!
Big same - nothing makes me cry like a movie made for kids … or teens. I recently sobbed during an old episode of Vampire Diaries when a beloved characters mom dies 😂😭 wrecked me.
Any scene that combines the motif of people coming into their own/their power or a moment of recognition of a person, combined with very powerful sweeping music. Classic examples (for me) include: 1. The coronation scene in The Return of the King where all the people in Minas Tirith bow to the hobbits and for the first time in their lives they are taller than everyone else (*sob*), 2. The end scene in The Lion King when Simba climbs Pride Rock in the pouring rain and you can hear Mufasa’s voice saying “remember…”, 3. In Les Misérables, during Do You Hear the People Sing. I usually need to pause these scenes/music and have a good cry before I can move on.
honestly sweeping music is a gift!!
OMG, Les Mis gets me every single time. I might as well bring an entire box of kleenex to the theatre.
For me it's flamenco. I spend at least a week a year in Jerez, southern Spain, arguably the cradle of flamenco just because I want to FEEL something. The first time I saw it in a bar there I sobbed so hard I had to leave! Granted, flamenco is designed to evoke strong emotions but I never expected it to make me cry as hard as it does. And it's not just me - it damn near broke my mother and father in law when they came with us one time
I LOVE this Charlie!
I haven’t watched Fly Away Home in years but the premise was certainly very moving. I didn’t cry much at movies when I was a child but children’s movies seem especially moving to me now.
My Girl is one where I sob every time. My nephew just watched Angels in the Outfield and I cried again. Both Inside Out movies. I also sob when Kevin and his mom are reunited at the end of Home Alone. Hope Floats when little Bernice (played by professional crier Mae Whitman) keeps putting her suitcase in her dad’s car and he won’t let her come with him. Stepmom is another movie where I ugly cried.
TV wise- I cried all the time at Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, This Is Us and quite a few episodes of Greys Anatomy. Buffy for the episode when she has sex with Angel and he loses his soul and the one where she dies. I made a list of episodes that made me cry when I was still on listography 10+ years ago and it’s quite interesting. Apparently breakups make me cry a lot but I don’t normally cry at people getting together. https://listography.com/chasingpacey/television/episodes_that_make_me_cry_and_why
I frequently tear up reading author’s notes or acknowledgments a lot too. I finished Sophie Kinsella’s novella What Does It Feel Like? and cried when she thanked all the people on her medical team because she was still here after her glioblastoma surgery.
This is us and Parenthood… essentially queued up a weekly cry for over a decade haha. Both shows are so good!
I recently watched the ep where Jasmine and Crosby get back together and I kept replaying that scene and crying. Adam Braverman first realizing Max was ND also resonated so strongly for me. And when Joel and Julia get back together after their separation too. I cried all the time with that show!
Yes, Home Alone every time! And that scene from Hope Floats is crushing. Stepmom for sure. This is Us and Grey’s are for sure big ones for me as well and Friday Night Lights.
Acknowledgments also have me tearing up constantly- that twin connection is strong even with what makes us cry I suppose!
I cried when Fug Girls thanked Fug Nation in The Royal We. And when Abby Jimenez thanked Ashley Spivey for the words “I believe you, this is not your fault, and you don’t deserve this,” in Part of Your World. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWlgifMl9SH/?igsh=MWdzNmJrdGppZ3R6Mw==
Yes! Both of those!
It admittedly doesn’t take much to set me off - my kids love to point out how *everything* we watch makes me cry. I think consistent triggers are:
- extremely tender things (most recently the Great British Bake-Off when they all help each other and comfort whoever got eliminated that week, but also all the Disney/children’s movies, especially the Inside Out movies, Moana, Frozen 2, Toy Story 3, Fox & the Hound, Tarzan, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Wall-E, Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin - the familial togetherness!!
- nostalgic movies that have been a comfort to me for years (Winona Ryder’s Little Women…the score alone will evoke sobs; Angels in the Outfield, Remember the Titans, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, both Home Alones, Return to Me, You’ve Got Mail, About Time)
- the thing I absolutely cannot handle is a love story when one person forgets that they love the other person. Exhibit A: Peeta & Katniss in the Hunger Games. I absolutely could not recover when I read the books, and then I suffered anew when I saw the movies. If I think about it too much this very second, my day will be ruined. This same phenomenon in the TV show Once Upon a Time really did me in, also in The Good Place. I’ve avoided the Notebook all these years for this very reason. I’m pretty sure if I ever were to watch it, I’d have to take to the bed and may never emotionally rebound. 😅
- sorry, I’ve got to stop now, but also I sometimes cry during really upbeat songs, like at Zumba class? Makes me feel like a moron. 🫠 I think it’s the swagger, the confidence? Like I’m bursting with pride to be alive, and not apologetic about it? I am sure I should unpack this in therapy. 🙃
- oh, and live theatre. I’m just so proud of everyone up there and I can’t help it! 😭
I LOVE that re the crying during exercise - I hear you! I've been there! And Winona Ryder's Little Women is so important to me it's basically a religion.
Oh man I forgot how much I cry at You’ve Got Mail too! I start crying when he says “for as long as we both shall live” when they’re outside her brownstone to the moment she sees him chasing Brinkley and cries—ugh the whole thing, so moving! Remember the Titans I am so moved by Julius and Gary and their friendship and that press conference with Herman Boone.
Gaaah I have to schedule specific times to watch Remember the Titans because I will be *weeping* and there is nothing chill or casual about it 😅