History TearJerker / FilmAToB

* ''Film/AnAmericanCrime'':
** Sylvia's [[WouldHurtAChild whole story]] is [[HumansAreBastards sad enough]], but the crowner has to be her DyingDream of escaping and reuniting with her parents, who tearfully apologize for leaving Sylvia to live with Gertrude. It gets worse when it's revealed to be a dream and that Sylvia is dying. You knew the escape scene wouldn't last, but ''damn'', how you wanted it to be real.
** If you have any sympathy for Sylvia at all, expect to cry during the torture scenes.
** The ending: Gertrude and her family are found guilty and there ''is'' a small amount of AlasPoorVillain towards the family and ''especially'' some when Gertrude sees Sylvia's ghost in her cell and before she can even utter a tearful "I'm sorry", Sylvia vanishes.
** The final shot: Sylvia on a ride at her parent's carnival, the only place she felt safe. Made a little more horrific by the final line's implication that Sylvia's spirit may remain here, at an empty carnival, forever, or until she makes sense of her death. At the very least her words underscore the emptiness and pointlessness of her death:
---->'''Sylvia (voiceover)''': Reverend Bill used to say, "For every situation, God always has a plan." I guess I'm still trying to figure out what that plan was.

* The "Valse Triste" scene from the film ''WesternAnimation/AllegroNonTrippo''. It features a cat running through the ruins of its former living quarters and thinking there are people still there. After while, it realizes all the joyous moments were just an illusion and the reality was that everything was lost and gone forever. As a wrecking ball destroys the wreckage, the cat itself vanishes, as it was just a faded out memory itself...

* The "Valse Triste" scene from the film AllegroNonTrippo. It features a cat running through the ruins of its former living quarters and thinking there are people still there. After while, it realizes all the joyous moments were just an illusion and the reality was that everything was lost and gone forever. As a wrecking ball destroys the wreckage, the cat itself vanishes, as it was just a faded out memory itself...
* Zack's scene in the desert at the end of ''Film/AlphaDog'' when he realizes what's about to happen.
** It becomes ''much'' harder to watch following Anton Yelchin's death.

* If you don't cry at the end of ''Beaches'' then you are dead inside with a piece of cold flint for a heart.

* Hephaestion's inevitable death in Creator/OliverStone's ''Film/{{Alexander}}'' is made all the more poignant when Alexander, who has become progressively disillusioned with his dreams throughout the film, starts speaking to him hopefully about all the great things they have yet to accomplish and how they will grow old together. Hephaestion dies in the middle of the speech. * sniffs* If only it actually happened like that...

** Sure, it's 3-1/2 hours of pure awesomeness, but at the end when, during the storm following Christ's death, [[spoiler:Judah Ben-Hur's mother and sister are miraculously cured of their leprosy by the blood of Christ washing down from the Cross]]...I don't care what your religion is, you should still be bawling like a kid after seeing that.

* ''Film/BrokebackMountain''. The final scene with [[spoiler:the shirts in the closet]] may not have me crying, but I'm certainly feeling sad about it.
** "Jack, I ''swear''..."
*** RealitySubtext is a '''bitch'''.
** The saddest part in ''Brokeback'' to me, by far, is Jack's flashback to [[spoiler:Ennis holding him]].
*** I agree. Especially the look on Jack's face as he watches Ennis leave. In the flashback he looks sad, but still hopeful and in love. In the present he looks cold and bitter and like he has no choice but to accept that it's hopeless. And then at the end, Ennis has reversed the shirts so that Jack's is inside his, like he's holding him one last time... and here come the waterworks just thinking about it.
** The line "Tell you what... truth is, sometimes I miss you so bad I can hardly stand it." That actually pre-empted later tear-jerking.

** I can start crying just hearing the music.

** I see your Jennifer Aniston prayer and raise you Jim Carrey's prayer.

** Just thinking about Jack Nicholson's character crossing off the list "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" [[spoiler: after seeing his granddaughter for the first time.]] *sob*

** In the director's cut there was a completely different ending in the original cut Evan [[spoiler: tells his childhood friend, Kayleigh as a child never to see him again to undo all the terrible events that happen when he attempts to change time. Thus apart from that first meeting they never meet again]] This can be a tearjerker but the director's cut has the following ending: [[spoiler: Earlier in the film Evan's mother mentions how she tried to have a baby but each died and Evan was the lucky one. At the ending Evan decides he must go back in time when he was just a baby in the womb. He strangles himself willingly with the umbilical cord and kills himself. As a result he never existed. ]] One might say this is a bit {{Narm}} but a tearjerker nonetheless.

* The ending of Emilio Estevez's ''Bobby''.

* The 2007 version of ''3:10 To Yuma''. Dan Evans has just had a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome when he alone escorts notorious criminal Ben Wade to the train leading to Yuma Prison, dodging several attacks by Wade's men along the way. [[spoiler:Just when he's about to deliver Wade to the train, he is shot and mortally wounded by Wade's men. After Wade kills his own men, Evans' son, who had little respect for his old man for most of the film, comes running to his dying father's side, and whimpers "Pa..." as Evans dies]].

* ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Nine}} 9]]''
** [[spoiler:2]]'s funeral. The music makes it worse.
** [[spoiler:5]]'s death, because just when he ''finally'' gets some [[TheWoobie self-confidence]] and [[TookALevelInBadAss takes a level in badass]], he gets killed desperately warning his friends and pleading for his life.
** [[spoiler:6]]'s death: seeing him just fall limply into the mist . . .
** The Seamstress [[spoiler:has been scared off and 1 isn't that enthusiastic about letting 9 save the dolls she's kidnapped after what happened last time, motioning over to 2's body . . . which 5 is sitting with, straightening it out and ''touching'' it]].
** The ending, where 9 [[spoiler:says goodbye to the souls of 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8]], especially when it shows [[spoiler:5 looking at the survivors at first not wanting to go but 9 reassures him]].

* In ''Film/TwentyEightDays'', when [[spoiler: Andrea dies from a heroin overdose]]. It's just friggin' TRAGIC.

* Almost the entirety of Film/FiftyFifty. But among the many scenes, a few definitely shine.
** The first is Creator/JosephGordonLevitt's character, Adam, at the house of Creator/SethRogen's character, Kyle. A few days before a significant surgery, he's staying at Kyle's house, pissed because his friend's attitude has been flippant (even using his condition to pick up women). But while sitting on the toilet, Adam notices a book entitled "Battling Cancer '''Together'''." Despite Kyle's attitude, Adam realizes that his friend was committed to fighting the disease with him the whole time. The most beautiful bro moment ever.
** While in the hospital awaiting the life-saving/extremely-risky surgery, Adam is in bed, parents by his side. His father, who has fairly severe Alzheimer's, stands by, confused by the whole situation. Adam, already scared by the prospect of dying on the operating table, takes his father's hand and reassures him.
** When Adam is with Kyle in Kyle's car. He forces Kyle out of the car and upon the door closing, sits for a few seconds, then unleashes all the pent up anger, frustration, and emotion he's been tamping down up until that point. Its a rather sobering scene to watch
--> "I know this is all a little confusing, but I want you to know that I love you."
--> (Father's eyes focus and he nods, a worried look on his face)

* The finale of ''Film/ThreeHundred'': the camera pans across the horizon and shows that [[spoiler:the sacrifice of Leonidas and his brave 300 has inspired ''thirty thousand'' Greeks to fight against tyranny]].
** The final scenes of the movie ''Film/ThreeHundred'', particularly when Delios says "Should any free soul come across this place, in all of the countless centuries yet to be, may all of our voices whisper to you from the ageless stone: Go tell the Spartans, passerby. That here, by Spartan law, we lie."
*** CompletelyMissingThePoint: One of the Points of the Movie is to what a unreliable narrator can cause.
*** Another scene that deserves mention is the one where Leonidas is leaving Queen Gorgo for the last time. As Delios narrates with solemn dignity: "Goodbye my love. He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness, not in Sparta. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard. Only the strong."
*** And that tearjerker inspires another tearjerker near the end, when Leonidas, peppered with arrows, the only Spartan left standing as his comrades die around him, raises himself up, and declares his love for Gorgo just before the final rain of arrows fall.

* The ending of ''The Blind Beast'', despite the [[{{squick}} squickiness]] and the voluntary nature of it. It's psycho, a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming, terrifying, and a tearjerker all in one.

* A combo TearJerker and CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming in ''Film/BubbleBoy'', where he ''finally'' reaches his crush's wedding, having travelled for days to reach it - and he removes the bubble-suit. She's protesting his actions, knowing that he'd die due to his lack of immunity, to which he replies, while hugging her: "I'd rather spend one moment holding you, than the rest of my life knowing I never could." And he collapses. [[spoiler: Don't worry, he gets better.]]

* The 2007 version of ''3:10 To Yuma''. Dan Evans has just had a CrowningMomentofAwesome when he alone escorts notorious criminal Ben Wade to the train leading to Yuma Prison, dodging several attacks by Wade's men along the way. [[spoiler:Just when he's about to deliver Wade to the train, he is shot and mortally wounded by Wade's men. After Wade kills his own men, Evans' son, who had little respect for his old man for most of the film, comes running to his dying father's side, and whimpers "Pa..." as Evans dies]].

* ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater,'' when [[spoiler:Frank]] gets infected and desperately tells [[spoiler:his daughter]] to keep away from him.

* ''Film/FiveHundredDaysOfSummer''
** They don't end up together. That's a given. However, we find out near the end that [[spoiler: Summer's gotten married to somebody else]]. This revelation is shown in split-screen: half of the screen shows what Tom imagined happening at a party and the other half shows what actually happens. At the end of the scene he runs out of the party and into the street, and watches as the world turns into a line drawing and then is erased into blankness. [[spoiler: Because we only see the movie from Tom's point of view we have no idea how long Summer had been seeing her husband or why she didn't love Tom the way Tom loved her.]]
** The difference between the numbers for the days of [[spoiler: the break up and the engagement party]] was that of only several months.

* The death of Jeff In Film/AndJusticeForAll.

%%* The ending of ''Film/{{Armageddon}}''.
* ''Film/{{Atonement}}'' Especially coming after the almost unbearably tense first act.
** When Robbie is arrested and taken away, his mom coming and beating on the hood of the police car with her umbrella screaming "LIARS"
** The Tea Room scene.
** Every time the letters were read aloud.
--->'''Robbie:'''Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. I will find you, love you, marry you and live without shame.
** The long, continuous scene at Dunkirk.
** The last scenes in the belly of the factory. I'm turning into mess only typing this:
--->'''[[spoiler: Robbie]]:''' You won't [[{{Foreshadowing}} hear another word from me.]] I promise.
--->'''[[spoiler: Nettle]]:''' Cheerio, pal.
** When it switches to the present, and 79 year old Briony is being interviewed, [[TheEndingChangesEverything and you find out what really happened.]]
*** It's a close-up of Vanessa Redgrave's face with all these emotions whirling over it, wondering if she has done enough to atone herself, kind of knowing that it isn't.

* ''* batteries not included'' aka "Miracle on 8th Street"
** The whole concept of a bunch of unlucky everymen (consisting of an overworked old man and his delusional wife, a mute and aloof mechanic, a pregnant woman whose boyfriend fled and a starving artist with a drinking problem who are visited by a bunch of tiny [[FlyingSaucers UFOs]] and become absorbed in helping them while their house is demolished from above their heads is sad, but the relationship between the {{Mook}} Carlos who's been hired to evict the protagonists and the crazy landlady who mistakes him for his long dead son is the best example.

* In ''28 Days'', when [[spoiler: Andrea dies from a heroin overdose]]. It's just friggin' TRAGIC.
* ''28 Days Later,'' when [[spoiler:Frank]] gets infected and desperately tells [[spoiler:his daughter]] to keep away from him.

* ''BrokebackMountain''. The final scene with [[spoiler:the shirts in the closet]] may not have me crying, but I'm certainly feeling sad about it.

* ''The A Word''. It's a short documentary done by Lindsay Ellis, otherwise known as WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick, about what she went through when she had an abortion in December 2009. It's a pretty huge shock to see this {{badass}}, in control, dark-humored woman suddenly lay herself bare and look actually quite lost and uncertain throughout the movie. (It also makes you smile even harder when you see her around and know that she's A) alright and B) can joke about it.)

* ''Film/BenHur''.

* Several of the scenes with Mr. Freeze and his cryogenically preserved wife Nora in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', especially the one where Mr. Freeze is told by Poison Ivy that she's dead, and he sheds a single tear which freezes on his cheek. The fact that those are the ''only'' good scenes in that movie only makes it worse.
** And it becomes even worse for the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' fans who know that that scene was the planned ending of the episode "[[TearJerker/WesternAnimation Heart of Ice]]".
** In ''Film/BatmanReturns'', the [[spoiler:Penguin]]'s funeral. [[spoiler:His own penguins bury him at sea, and it somehow works.]]
*** Am I the only one who thinks that the Joker's [[DisneyVillainDeath demise]] in Batman was tearjerkery? I mean when he had his leg tied to the gargoyle as it was about to fall, you could even hear him groaning. Just listen to it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOuPmtq6raA&feature=relmfu Best Death Scenes: The Joker]].
*** As with the Batman Returns example, the music that accompanies it is what gets to this troper about the Joker's death. Partly because the Joker was perhaps the most memorable part of the film and it's sad to see him go as well.
** In ''Film/BatmanBegins'', when Bruce's parents are murdered in front of him.
*** Turned up to eleven in the two or three scenes after that. That little kid -- Gus Lewis -- inspires TearJerker after TearJerker. And Gary Oldman and Michael Caine contribute unmercifully (well, to the audience, not to Bruce). If your bottom lip isn't trembling by the time Jim Gordon has tried -- helplessly -- to comfort young Bruce, then it won't matter; the "a little dinner" scene between Michael Caine and him will rip the waterworks from you anyway. He breaks down gutwrenchingly, and the arc of Caine's performance against that is just perfect:
--->'''Bruce:''' If I hadn't wanted to go ... if I hadn't ... gotten ''scared''--
--->'''Alfred:''' Oh, no, no, no, no. It was '''him.''' And '''him alone.''' Do you understand?
--->'''Bruce:''' ... ''I miss them so much, Alfred!''
--->'''Alfred:''' ... (''choking up'') So do I, Master Bruce. So do I.
*** Alfred has a lot of really moving dialogue in ''Begins'' that shows just how loyal and attached he really is to the Waynes.
--> Bruce: "Why do you give a damn, Alfred? It's not your family.
--> Alfred: "I give a damn, because a good man once made me responsible for what was most important to him in the whole world."
*** And for that matter, in the 1989 film.
--> "I have no wish to spend my few remaining years grieving for the loss of old friends. Or their sons."
** Let's be fair. A ''lot'' of ''Film/TheDarkKnight''- what wasn't scary or FoeYay - was designed to set off the waterworks. Some of it's due to the FunnyAneurysmMoment factor, but... fans didn't even like [[spoiler:Rachel Dawes]], [[AlasPoorScrappy but they still cried]]
** Two words: Harvey freaking Dent. Anyone with even vague knowledge of the character from any of the adaptations knows what's coming, but that won't save you from ''every scene'' of [[spoiler:his transformation into Two-Face]] punching you in the gut and then spitting on you for good measure. The [[spoiler:horrifically realistic facial burns]] ''do not help''.
*** When Harvey Dent, a fundamentally decent human being, points the gun at his own head for being one of the people responsible for [[spoiler:Rachel's death]] and says with resignation "My turn."
*** When Batman shows up, insisting that Harvey doesn't want to hurt Gordon's son and asking him to put the gun down. Harvey spends a moment genuinely showing regret, and then yells that it doesn't matter what what he wants, it's about what's ''fair;'' he truly doesn't want to kill the kid, but feels he must anyway. And that's when you know just how hard Harvey's fallen into madness.
*** Gordon pleading with Dent not to hurt his son.
*** The exchange between Batman and Harvey at the end. Harvey screams at Batman: [[spoiler:"You thought we could be decent men, in an indecent time! You were wrong."]] Then, [[spoiler: Harvey: "The Joker chose me!" Batman: "Because you were the best of us!"]]
*** Harvey in the hospital bed, reaching over and grabbing the coin he'd given Rachel, and then turning it over to see the burnt side. The look of sheer, horrifying ''anguish'' on his face, followed by the silent screaming and shaking breakdown right afterward hits ''hard.''
** The part with the bombs on the ferries, where the huge convict and the random, seemingly stoic and pragmatic man are [[spoiler:holding the detonators for the bombs on each other's boats. The convict takes the detonator from the police officer, and casually hurls it out the window, completely ready to accept his fate, while the man on the other ferry tries to trigger the bomb, looks down at it, and with his hands trembling, he puts it back down]]. The scene right there is so powerful, human, and heroic for the ordinary citizens of Gotham.
*** [[spoiler:The huge convict's line before it: "Give that remote to me, and I'll do what you should have done ten minutes ago."]]
*** A very subtle one that a lot of people miss, right when the convict throws the detonator out the window he goes to sit down in... not shame, but resolution. A group of convicts circles him as if to say "it's all right, you did the right thing" and all look as if they are comforting him. That says so much right there...
** And how are we not including Gordon's final monologue, set to the scene of Batman running from the cops, "because we have to chase him"?
*** [[spoiler:And Batman taking the blame for all of Harvey's murders, even though ''Batman had nothing to do with them''; it was all to preserve the image of pre-Two Face Harvey Dent.]]
*** [[SadisticChoice It was either spend the rest of his superhero life as a wanted man, or let the credibility of a district attorney turned murderer come crashing down.]]

** [[spoiler: I think you and I are destined to do this forever. [[FunnyAneurysmMoment Knowing that no, they won't.]]]]

* The President's speech in ''Series/BabylonFive: In the Beginning''.
** Especially this part: "To buy time for more evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for the support of every ship capable of fighting to take part in a last defense of our home world. We will not lie to you: survival is not a possibility. Those who enter the battle will never come back. But for every ten minutes we can delay the enemy advance, several hundred more civilians may be able to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people. But I ask you now to step forward one last time, one last battle to hold the line against the night."
*** Made especially poignant when you realise that she's asking for the ultimate sacrifice of tens of thousands of people on the minute, off chance that a few hundred people may be saved. That even with the best possible outlook, mankind will be decimated anyway.
** Londo's description of humans. "The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. Where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage. Their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns, when they ran out guns they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage, but in the end, they ran out of time."

* ''Film/{{Backdraft}}''. "That's my brother," the close-to-dying words of Kurt Russell's mortally wounded firefighter character to the medics who are taking him away, as he finally comes to respect his brother ([[Billy Baldwin]]) as a firefighter, as the brother courageously holds off a wall of flame.

* ''BridgeToTerabithia''
** Leslie[[spoiler:'s death]].
** Jesse [[spoiler:squeezing the watercolours into the river]].
** The moment when Jess's teacher took him outside and told him she understood. Something about the fact that Jess had only thought of her as mean and her barely having any screen-time and then, suddenly, she has all this depth about her husband being dead and . . .
** When Jess was with his father right after, blaming himself and crying in his father's arms.

* ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''
** William as a young boy sees his father's friends coming back... injured, with a wagon. The look on that little boy's face is enough to get the waterworks going.
-->'''Campbell:''' William.... come here, lad.
** Then there's the damned funeral scene and the Scotch thistle Murron gives him. On the other hand, when [[ObiWan Uncle Argyle]] turns up, you've got those great lines: "Saying goodbye in their own way... playing outlawed tunes upon outlawed pipes. It was the same for me and your Daddy, when our father was killed." And then, as William considers the massive broadsword, that great line: "First -- learn to use [taps Wallace's head] ''this.'' Then -- I'll teach ye to use [raises sword] ''this.'' "
** William gives back the thistle that Murron gave him. And to make matters worse, they throw in the sweet bagpipe love theme.
** The rape of the unnamed bride. When her father throws himself at the English soldiers shouting that they by God will NOT, and her new husband steps in front of her, and she walks forward to give herself so they won't get hurt, drawing the soldier's blade away from her husband's throat... the look on his face. The "Do ye remember me?" speech about half an hour later is beyond satisfying.
** After the Battle of Stirling Field.
*** Hamish whispers, "Mercy, William," and Stephen says, "Jesus Christ, man, say it."
*** And then Stephen the Mad Irishman closes his eyes, griefstricken, straight after. Way to go twisting the knife, Mel!
** William Wallace watching his dead wife in the crowds while he is being tortured. That always got me bawling.
** Best line of the whole movie: Robert the Bruce turns his back on the massive English army arrayed against him, and says to the others, grief-stricken, agonised: "You have bled with Wallace! ... Now bleed with ''me''."
** It's depressing, even if it is [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17205_6-historical-villains-who-were-actually-ok-guys.html probably misguided]].
** ''In the year of our Lord, 1314, patriots of Scotland, starving and outnumbered, charged the field at Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets. They fought like'' Scotsmen. ''And won their freedom.''