Best movies for a good cry: The emotionally devastating films guaranteed to make you ugly cry

Have you ever tried watching a movie about a dog on a plane?

The combination of heightened emotions, the mania of travel and that cabin pressure along with the near-inevitably of a fatal fate for our four-legged friends leads to a prolonged session of ugly crying which will make your fellow sardines deeply uncomfortable – even if they know exactly what you’re going through.

But there is something so wonderfully cathartic about a weepy movie. It’s not just that crying has actual physiological benefits, releasing endorphins and flushing stress hormones.

Plus, when you’re trying to recompose yourself afterwards, trying to resemble a semi-functioning adult, you take those proper deep breaths you never remember to do. You always feel lighter after a good, emotional sob-fest.

Then there are the psychological factors. Movies with big feelings unlock something in us, perhaps repressed emotions, that force us to confront something unresolved or uncomfortable, helping us to work through our history and heal.

Or they inspire us by telling the stories of extraordinary and ordinary human acts that reveal that for all the anxiety, scaremongering and muckity-muck, most people are inherently good and not out to destroy you and the world.

It’s nice to remember that every now and then.

If you’re looking for a tear-jerker, here are some that punch you right in the feels.

LEGENDS OF THE FALL

Legends of the Fall is one of those sweeping family epics that doesn’t know the meaning of the word restraint. For some, it’s a little melodramatic, but if you lean into it, it’ll carry you along with its story about three brothers who all loved the same woman.

Set in the early 20th century, it stars Brad Pitt at his peak attractiveness, Aidan Quinn, Anthony Hopkins, Julia Ormond and Bart the Bear.

COCO

The filmmakers at Pixar either have the highest EQs in the world or they’ve struck some kind of Faustian bargain that allows them to tap into the deepest well of emotions.

Coco is visually spectacular and beautifully scored but its genius is in its story about a young boy who crosses over to the land of the dead to try to find his great-great-grandfather and uncover a family secret.

At its gooey heart, it’s about legacy and memory, and keeping alive those who are already gone. If Coco doesn’t stir something in you, you have to ask yourself if you ever loved your grandparents.

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

The joy of watching Roberto Benigni leaping over the rows of velvet chairs at the 1998 Oscars ceremony on his way to collect his awards is matched by the big heart of this Italian tragicomedy that he wrote, directed and starred.

Set during World War II, it’s about a Jewish bookseller who is sent to a concentration camp along with his young son. In the bleakest of worlds, he tries to hide the truth from his kid with games, stories and elaborate ruses.

PAST LIVES

Written and directed by Celine Song, this tender drama is seemingly about a love triangle but it’s really about the different layers of our own histories and the versions of ourselves we shed when we make changes.

The story is about Nora, a young woman who as a child moved from Korea to Canada and left behind her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung. Years later, she’s in New York, married to an American, and Hae Sung comes to visit. That final scene is so quietly beautiful and devastating.

THE FATHER

There’s a lot that could be said about the technical brilliance of this film starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman about a father and daughter struggling with the challenges of his worsening dementia – the writing, the performances, and the production design are superb.

But its real power lies in its depiction of what it might actually be like to live with dementia, the discombobulating confusion of your constantly shifting world.

ATONEMENT

A screen adaptation that is every bit as exquisite as its source material, Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel, Atonement stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as two young lovers in 1935 England.

Their chemistry is charged but what could’ve been never was because of a lie told by Cecilia’s 13-year-old sister which locks in everyone’s fate. The second half of the film (and book) is a stunning example of the lies we tell ourselves in order to cope with the consequences of our actions.

TOY STORY 3

The movie that famously had adult men weeping uncontrollably in the cinema, Toy Story 3 takes a bold thematic leap in crafting a chapter where Woody, Buzz and their friends are faced with their obsolescence as Andy grows up and no longer needs them anymore.

The question of where they go from there, if they have any purpose left, comes to stand for everyone confronted by the onset of aging. It’s melancholy and nostalgia mixed in with anxiety.

FRUITVALE STATION

The gut-punch that is Fruitvale Station is that it is a true story which means the overwhelming injustice of the death of Oscar Grant is both tragic and enraging.

The movie tracks the final day of Grant, a young man killed by two transport police officers in 2009. The film is Ryan Coogler’s (Black Panther, Creed) directorial debut and his first collaboration with Michael B. Jordan, heralding the arrival of a significant creative force.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

The final film in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy really chokes you up in large part because of the work of the two previous films that cemented this beautiful bond between dragon rider Hiccup and his dragon Toothless.

It culminates in this story in which Toothless and the rest of the dragons must leave the human world for their own sanctuary. It’s about growing up and going your own way, but never forgetting those that helped you become who you are.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

There is a pulsing energy that runs through Beasts of the Southern Wild and a big part of that is due to six-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis who carried the responsibility of anchoring this ambitious film.

Set during the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, this fairytale-like story follows a young girl as she sets off by herself across the flooded bayou looking for her mother. It’s otherworldly and bewitching and it grabs you all over.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

There are many emotional triggers in this wildly imaginative Oscar movie featuring parallel universes, ranging from the regret of paths not taken and lives not lived to the weight of generational trauma.

But the one that matters the most is the fractured relationship between Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn and her onscreen daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), who just haven’t been able to see each other. When you walked out of the cinema, you called your mum, didn’t you?

IT’S TERMINAL

The beautiful thing about young lovers is their optimism about where their passion and adventures will take them. Not yet dampened by the challenges and banality of a long-term relationship or the cynicism that builds after successive heartbreaks, there’s a reason why it’s described as that first flush – it’s exciting and full of possibilities.

What does it say about storytellers who know how to weaponise that joy by killing one of them off?

There’s a whole subgenre of lovers whose romance is doomed because one – sometimes both – of them is terminally ill. It’s kind of sadistic but there is something gothic about how that bond is forever preserved because it never had the chance to sour from just the throes of life.

One of the OG in this heart-wrenching category is the 1970 film Love Story, starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal as Jenny and Oliver, who meet in college and despite their different backgrounds (he’s rich, she’s not) fall madly in love and marry.

They triumph over his parents’ hostility, which is why it’s so cruel when she is diagnosed with leukemia. Love Story is where the famous line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” comes from. Sniff.

It provided the template for many to follow, including The Fault in Our Stars (Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort), Me Before You (Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin) and A Walk to Remember (Mandy Moore and Shane West).

It’s not just young lovers. There are plenty of impending deaths for family members, which forces characters to re-evaluate their relationships, or even just if their lives are what they want it to be. There are dying daughters (Terms of Endearment), dying siblings (My Sister’s Keeper) and dying mums (Stepmom).

But the premiere example of the terminally ill genre has to be the 1988 drama Beaches, because, sometimes, your soulmate is your best friend. If you can listen to Bette Midler belt Wind Beneath My Wings without a little pause for Beaches, your veins are ice.

Beaches starred Midler and Barbara Hershey as lifelong friends CC and Hillary who met as kids under the boardwalk in New Jersey. CC is a brash go-getter with dreams of stardom and Broadway while Hillary comes from an old-money family.

The movie tracks their friendship over the years, which survives several fights, jealousies and men. But they always come back to each other, despite their differences.

Eventually, Hillary becomes pregnant and decides to raise the child on her own. Just as both Hillary and CC are hitting their stride, Hillary is diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy, which will require a heart transplant, a near impossibility due to her rare tissue type.

When, at the end, CC sings a tribute to her best friend, it’s a world-stopping moment that you can barely even see because your vision is obscured by big blobs of tears.

WOOF WOOF

In the days before the release of the 2017 Kate Winslet and Idris Elba movie The Mountain Between Us, the studio made the unusual move of releasing a spoiler on its social media channels: the dog doesn’t die.

In the survival film’s trailer, there’s a beautiful Labrador trudging behind Winslet and Elba’s characters, two people whose plane crashed on a mountain where there is no food or water but at least one mountain lion.

After online anxieties that this gorgeous dog might meet with a bad ending, the studio didn’t want to run the risk that audiences might stay away because it was going to get mauled or worse, eaten.

There’s something particularly distressing about dogs dying in movies, maybe even more than kids. Perhaps it’s that they can’t talk so therefore unable to ever really express themselves other than through their love and loyalty. Your dog always has your back.

Some people won’t even watch a movie if they know the pupper goes to doggie heaven before the end credits, which is why there’s a website called Does the Dog Die, so you know exactly which flicks to stay away from.

So, it’s no surprise that some of the weepiest movies have pooches that die. The most memorable of these is Marley & Me, the Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston drama-comedy about a rambunctious Labrador retriever puppy who just won’t be trained.

But as the family grows and there are ups and downs, it’s Marley who’s the one constant to anchor them through the challenges. If you start to feel your throat constricting just reading these sentences, it speaks to the power of a very good dog.

Not to be outdone, there’s also the Australian crowd-pleaser Red Dog, based on the real-life story of a kelpie who won hearts throughout the Pilbara region in WA, making better the days and lives of all who were lucky enough to call him a friend.

There was also A Dog’s Purpose, not a particularly great film on an objective level but one that definitely yanks on a dog lover’s sentimental side because there’s not one but several deaths as the pooch reincarnates, once as a red retriever, another time as a German shepherd and even as a corgi.

The real tear-jerking part is when the dog reunites with Ethan, who he first met when the human was just a child and then later as a teen and as an older man, across several lifetimes.

You’re fully crying now, aren’t you?