Is there a movie that makes you cry everytime?

[EdelweissFan]

This is probably going to sound strange, but "Pieces of April."

I'm a sucker for movies and a lot make me tear up, but this really gets to me.

It's the kind of movie you have to see several times to understand this one moment. The first time I saw it, it went right over my head.

As you may know, the movie is about an East Village type punk girl cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time for her very disapproving family which is driving in from the burbs. It turns out that the mother is dying of cancer and this may be their last Thanksgiving dinner together.

Two parallel movies -- April's clueless travails trying to cook and the family driving toward the city -- happen interspersed.

But instead of a reconciliation type movie, it is clear that the mother can barely stand the daughter she is visiting. A running theme is that April is a bad, bad girl who caused nothing but hardship to her mother.

The totally square family gets all the way to April's place and decides not to go upstairs, but instead drives back to the burbs and has dinner in a diner. Mom goes into the bathroom.

Now up to this point it is kind of a light drama/comedy, but suddenly it turns on a dime and becomes profound.

Now here's the scene that is so subtle, it's fucking amazing. Didn't even get it the first time. Mom, in the bathroom, hears an argument in a stall behind her. A woman bursts out yelling something and the camera sees a little girl left behind with her drawers down.

Mom looks in the mirror for a long time. About ten different emotions pass through her face, from shock to recognition, to deep sadness, to desperation. Then she hitches a ride with a biker to April's apartment and there really is reconciliation.

The writer and director are so fucking brave it's a miracle. See, that moment in the bathroom Mom has realized that April wasn't a bad girl; it was that Mom was mean to her as a child. It says everything about our adult relationships with children, who we mess them up and blame them.

But the way it was written, Mom doesn't say, "OMG, now I understand our relationship blah blah." There are no visual flashbacks. An entire 20 year relationship is told through the silent emotions that pass across the actress's face.

It's one of the fucking most amazing moments in movie history and it makes me ball like a baby everytime.

[phxguy]

There is only one movie that actually made me cry. "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence". It was the scene when the parents decided to abandon their robot son.

[emmettray]

Hey TJT

I agree you would have to be a stone not to be affected by the 'All the kisses you never saw' sequence in Cinema Paradiso. Incredibly evocative.
In a similar vein, if you haven't seen it already, I would highly recommend 'My Life as a Dog'.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089606/ (alert: steer clear of the english dubbed version) It's hilarious and heartrendering in equal measures. Just like real life eh?
'Jean de Florette' is the heartbreaking story of the gentle, hard working, city hunchback (Gerard Depardieu) who inherits a rural farm and the wickedly covetous locals who conspire to cheat him out of it. The follow-up 'Manon de Sources' is the story of how the Hunchback's beautiful daughter turns the tables and wreaks her long-term revenge on her Fathers tormentors. What goes around, comes around - if only.
Agree with you on both 'Grapes of Wrath' and 'Goodbye, Mr Chips'.
I did see 'The Mission' on the cinema when it was first released and have seen it several times since on video/dvd. Would love to see it again on a 'state of the art' big screen and sound system. I think it is a majestic piece of cinema with one of the most moving scores ever written. Betrayal at its most gut-wrenching. Deeply moving and requiring of a very large hanky.

[stillies77]

Vanilla Sky got me too...at the end when he is on the elevator and Tech Support is showing him his life.

[latrix67]

A film I saw when I was a child.
"When the North Wind Blows"

http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=505598

[TJT]

I thought I'd seen Jean de Florette,the neighbors were an evil bunch. I haven't seen the sequel.

I saw My Life As a Dog years ago but it was the dubbed version you're talking about. It didn't translate well.

[suckseed]

Whenever Bigass Shemale Roadtrip #19 ends I definitely need a box of tissues.

[Willie Escalade]

Saving Private Ryan

The scene in the cemetary showing all of the deceased soldiers really caused a lump in my throat. The same can be said when Tom Hanks' character was killed.

[tsfarrah]

i would say

"The Colour Purple" makes me cry my eyes out everytime, nearly all the way though the film

but buy the time she meets her 2 children at the end i'm on the floor! lol

[wombat33]

I know this is probably gonna get some laughs. Heaven knows my friends have all laughed at me when I told them this.

For me it is "Babe" and always at the same part in the movie. Okay as you know Babe is a pig that thinks he is a sheep dog. Well at the end of the movie after running to the farm and back to retrieve the secret message, he gains the trust of the competition sheep. After farmer Arthur Hoggett (Hoggett, get it?) quietly walks Babe through the routine and swings the gate closed, there is that brief moment of silence.

The crowd erupts cheering, the tears start flowing for me, and the farmer turns to Babe and and says, "That'll do, that'll do."

That'll do indeed! That'll do it to me everytime.

So save the guffaws and share your own little secret movie and scene.

The final scene in Feild of Dreams.........

"Hey dad, you want to have a catch?"