The first time I had the experience of seeing a boy tear up at a movie was in high school... Brian's Song was on TV, and several of the boys from our football team (including, but not limited to the defensive line) were sniffling quietly. Listen, we all know the movies that girls tear up for... usually it involves either Julia Roberts or Debra Winger dying at the end. But what are the movies that make men mushy? What are the movies that men feel like they have a pass on... Rudy, Hoosiers... (and I swear, an old boyfriend of mine teared up at Titanic). What kinds of movies does a man feel free to shed a tear over?
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When the son is killed in VietNam
Movies that make a Man Cry: I am a 35 year old man and the two movies that make me cry everytime I watch them and bring a tear to my eye right now just thinking about them are "When a Man Loves a Woman" and "Cinderella Man".
The part when the Man has to tell the older little girl that he has to leave and she is old enough to know what is going on and she does not want him to leave.
The part in Cinderella Man is when he is about to fight for the World Championship and his wife has been against it but finally realizes she has to back him up and tells him the he is the "Champion of her heart".
I fell for my husband when he cried watching "It's a Wonderful Life".
I get choked up even thinking about the scene in "Mr. Holland's Opus" when Richard Dreyfus sings (and signs) the song "Beautiful Boy" to show his deaf son that he has finally learned sign language.
this is stupid, my father cries when he feels like it. he isn't crying like a baby, he is an emotional person. i feel as if i have slipped back to the 70's.
Phar Lap. When the horse dies in his trainer's arms. Come on.
I cry at great movies, bad movied, action movies, often at my kids' animated movies, probably not horror movies. My kids always look to see if I'm tearing up during an emotion provoking section of a movie.
Nature's Pale Male documentary, when the young hawks begin to fledge made my sweetie cry ("go little guy, you can do it!"). And I practically had to force him to watch it!
my list started when i was a child, when Goose died in Top Gun, but now things like suicide scene, such as in Rules of Attraction, then theres stories like Life as a House, where the father passes away and the son finally finds his love for him
October Sky gets to me almost every time I see it. The relationship between the boy and his father, and the conflict between the working class and the intellectual - it all resonates...
In the movie " Billy the Kid" with BoB Dylan and James Coburn, when Slim Pickins gets shot during a gunfight and staggers over to a rock and sits down......his back to the camera. His Mexican wife rushes over to embrace him while he's dying, and "Knocking on Heavens Door" is playing.........heart rending.
War movies! Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, Glory, Gettysberg, ... anything to do with the honor and sacrifice of a "brother in arms".
...and father & son scenes... Magnolia, with Robbards and Cruise.
The Shawshank Redemption!
How can you forget that one?
Under the father-son category "Smoke Signals". Real tear jerker for guys with difficult relationships with their dads
I vote for "Saving Private Ryan" also..a tough movie. The number of scenes are numerous, from the attack on the machine gun emplacement and the loss of one of the platoon members, to the older Private Ryan visiting the cemetary in Normandy. I have visited the cemetary at Couleville (sp), it is a gut wrenching experience.
A guy cry moment with the "steely resolve" theme:
Appolo 13 when Ed Harris says "we've never lost a man in space and we're not about to on my watch."
The Pusuit of Happiness got me while flying from Chicago to Portland. Towards the end when the movie is wrapping up I couldn't stop the flow of tears. Wife and I thought it was a very good movie overall.
I frist would like to say that I found the segment on this very offensive and somewhat sexist. Does it seem so implausible that men can be compassionate? That is one of the reasons why people cry at movies--because they can empathize/sympathize with the characters in a form of compassion. If men aren't crying at movies, then it demonstrates how far we as a society still have to go until we can overcome harmful notions of what it is to be a man.
Two movies that always make me just sob are: What Dreams May Come, and When a Man Loves a Woman.
The question of why Austria had a navy was asked in passing. The answer is that, prior to losing WWI, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a seacoast on the Adriatic.
Now, how a team from Switzerland became the defender of the America's Cup....
I get teary eyed during 2 scenes of Gladiator with Russel Crowe. When hes on his horse riding back to his farm and the Roman soliers are ransacking his farm and killing his wife and son. Finally I also get choked up when he's dying at the end of the film and is passing in and out of reality as his soul is reuniting with his wife and son. I guess as a father and husband, scenes like that do it to me every time.
Oh, "The Champ". No eeping or sobbing, just tears. Boxing movie.
A friend of mine sobs every year watching "It`s a Wonderful Life".
I'll admit it, Nemo got me too.
My Dog Skip.
For me, it's "Jacob's Ladder", especially the ending, where the father is reunited with his son. And I don't just "heeeemp", I bawl. "Tunes of Glory", and you know what - "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence".
have we progressed so little that we still have to act surprised and ashamed when male human beings adimt to emotions other than anger or pride? crying is a normal, natural even healthy thing to do. keeping your emotions bottled up can literally make you sick. it's hard for me to believe that at this late date "guys" are still such wimps as to be afraid of their own feelings. c'mon, folks: let's move the discussion along a bit! that being said, movies that make me cry: Kramer vs Kramer, when the little boy says he knows his mommy left because he was bad...The Bicycle Theif...The Shootist (John Wayne's cancer-doomed gunslinger)...Truly, Madly, Deeply, in which a dead husband comes back as a ghost to help his widow cope with her grief over his loss.
I was a member of the Seventeen and Mademoiselle generation. Learning that finding about yourself and pleasing yourself was OK (even a good thing) would have been a great thing to know.
Although I have probably seen it 30 times, I can still get teary at "It's a Wonderful Life."
Movies my men have cried over include Brian's Song (every man, every time), Breaker Morant, Field of Dreams, The Natural, Chariots of Fire (only the first time), the animated Iron Giant, Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliette (but ONLY when Mercutio dies), My Dog Skip, and recently, the Norwegian short "Helmer and Son". Also, the fathers of young girls in my family cried during Whale Rider.
I heard a suspicious sniffle from my husband at the end of the final episode of season 2 of the new Dr. Who, when The Doctor and Rose Tyler are separated forever...
Did I mention Brian's Song? And Breaker Morant? And Field of Dreams?
The Bicycle Thief.
A River Runs Through It
Forrest Gump
Glory
Good Will Hunting
Big Fish
The Big Lebowski--Donnie's funeral scene
Sign me up for the "I cry at almost anything" group. I'm well known in the family for tearing up at the slightest cinematic provocation. Heck, I think I snuffled a bit somewhere along the way even during "Die Hard 2."
Thos
I cried at the end of "Dead Poets' Society". One time while watching this movie with my father (I was in Junior high) we got to that tear-jerking scene at the end where the students stand on the desks. I kind of looked down to wipe a tear from my eye and maybe crack a joke (in case my father was looking). When I saw my father, there were tears streaming down his face (he did not even try to hide them). Now whenever we get to that part of the movie "...oh Capitan my Capitan...". I get butterflies and oops, here come the water-works.
City Lights, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame (Charles Laughton) are two that I remember.
Wow. I don't think this topic is offensive or 'not-progressive'. I think acknowledging differences or trends (gender, age, ethnic, regional) is fine, as long as we also recognize that generalizations are just that. As a mother of both boys and girls I love seeing how my kids buck the gender stereotypes (or don't), and how each of them has unique responses to film and other art. What made me laugh about this story was how, at the very first mention of men crying at movies I heard the theme from Brian's Song in my head. I'm sure I wasn't the only one!
Let us not forget the scene in Slingblade where simpleton Karl sits by the boy at the pond, and tells the boy he loves him, and gives him his books before carrying out the last act. And the last scenes from Schindler's List, where Oskar has his big breakdown, that kills me every time. Also...It's a wonderful Life; Let's not forget Captains Courageous (1st one inthe 30s) What a tear jerker!!
I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned yet, but one of the few movie moments that gets me choked up each time is the final scene in "Field of Dreams" when the pieces all fall in place and Costner calls out to the young man, "Dad, you wanna play catch?" A classic rite for almost every American male, I think, and one of the ultimate signs of father-son connectivity.
"Promises" "road to guantanamo" "cildren underground" and yeah "it's a wonderful life" also.
I was really surprised, but my boyfriend cried at the end of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
Now that I am a father, any father son moment gets me. Some notable examples,
Life is Beautiful
or if you combine the sports cliche and the father son moment:
The Champ
I don't think anyone mentioned The
Guardian; when Kevin Costner figured out Austin Kutcher's character's guilt for his friends' deaths, and also at the end when KC died. Even my 11 year old son admitted he shed a tear or two at that point, but he teased me mercilessly because I was sobbing at the end of the movie. And all the war movies mentioned have affected me, plus one more--Flags of Our Fathers - the ending with the soldiers playing in the surf, and then the names of the dead of Iwo Jima on the screen - the theater was so quiet it was like being in church; I felt that everyone there was very emotional.
Big Fish, The Natural (at the lights out homerun climax), Schindler's List...but for me (heeemp) it's ET when the bikes take off (cue the music). It's the music which really puts it over the top emotionally...Williams knows how to push the harmonic buttons. A friend of mine in the NY Philharmonic said that after this clip was presented at last fall's film score fest featuring guest appearances by Spielberg and Scorsese, there was not a dry eye in the house. As a musician, I can vouch that the tinkle of tears on glockenspiel bars and timpani heads always gets the attention of the trombones...
The Patriot. As a father that movie is so hard to watch as the only thing that Mel seeks to save are his children and they are brutally taken from him.
That and the final few scenes from braveheart.
Darn Mel Gibson and his guy movies.
Cinema Paradiso packs a triple punch cry session that I think could topple the manliest of men
The Green Mile.
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