Sometimes it’s nice to sit down and watch a tearjerker movie. You can snuggle up in your pyjamas with a box of tissues and a mug of hot chocolate ready to sniff the night away.
However, sometimes a move goes too far. It takes the sad movies tag to a whole new level. These films broke our hearts completely and we will never, ever get over them. Sniff.
Now, fair warning, this list of sad movies will contain one or two spoilers. It might also bring back a tear to your eye…
1. Pay It Forward
Pay It Forward has a lovely uplifting concept devised by seventh grader Trevor McKinney – when someone does you a favour you should pay it forward by helping out three others (rather than paying the original person back). Sounds good doesn’t it? Trevor does a multitude of good in this film until he’s stabbed to death at the end. Yes, being a good person means nothing.
2. Requiem for a Dream
Sometimes sad movies cause you to cry uncontrollably – Requiem For A Dream is the kind of sad movie that sucks all the happiness out of you due to its utter horror. The plot follows different people and how their addiction to drugs completely destroys their lives. From heroin to weight loss drugs, by the end of this film you won’t want to let even a paracetamol across your lips.
3. Titanic
Titanic – we all know people were going to die yet this film still makes the top list of sad movies. Why? Because have you ever sobbed at a film quite as much as when Jack falls away into the sea?
4. Up
The majority of Up is funny and uplifting. The beginning, however, is possibly the most heartbreaking 10 minutes of all the sad movies. Poor, poor Karl.
5. The Green Mile
You don’t often associate Stephen King movies with sad movies, but The Green Mile is one heartbreaking exception. This supernatural crime drama follows inmates on death row in flashback form from one of the guards (played by Tom Hanks). In particular we see John Coffey, an inmate wrongly accused of rape and murder of young girls. Although Tom Hanks discovers Coffey’s innocence but Coffey wants to be executed as he is too sensitive for this world.
6. My Girl
My Girl is a coming of age drama about a tom boy girl called Vada who isn’t understood by her father and those around her. Her best friend is another social outcast called Thomas (played by Macaulay Culkin) and after the pair share a first kiss Thomas tries to find Vada’s missing ring in the woods. In what should have been a beautiful romantic gesture was destroyed when Thomas is stung by hornets and dies from an allergic reaction.
7. Marley and Me
Animals and sad movies are the worst. Take our advice when the dog starts going to the vet in the movie you’re best just switching to another television channel.
8. My Sister’s Keeper
Kate has acute promyelocytic leukemia, because of this her parents are advised to have a child who will be a genetic match for Kate so that child could donate organs, blood and tissue. Therefore Anna is conceived through in vitro fertilisation, however as she grows she doesn’t want to give a kidney to her sister and seeks legal action against her parents. The major heartbreaking twist is that Anna was more than happy to be an organ donor but Kate asked her to refuse as she wanted to die peacefully and their mother wouldn’t let her.
9. P.S. I Love You
A romantic comedy in a list of sad movies? That’s right. P.s. I Love You will make you laugh and destroy all your tear ducts at the same time. The story follows Holly as she tries to cope with the death of her soulmate Gerry. As her friends and family try to make her get over Gerry she can’t bring herself to be happy but Gerry had a plan – he sends her letters after his death. Sniff.
10. Moulin Rouge!
There’s songs, dance and love – how can this be a sad movie? Well after Ewan McGregor, hopelessly romantic writer, finally gets his girl in Nicole Kidman it should have ended on a happy note. But no, Nicole had to go and let herself die.
