10 Emotional Movie Scenes That Will Make You Cry
The tickets for these movies should have come complete with a hankie or three.
It's fair to say that one of the key things that brings us back to the movies time and again is the emotional responses they provoke. Sometimes they thrill us, frighten us, make us laugh, make us gasp - and, now and then, they might even make us cry.
Naturally, there will be plenty of readers - cocksure manly men, for the most part - who will deny that any film will ever bring them to tears because they're just too damn tough and masculine.
However, there's a lot to be said for being in touch with your emotions; studies have suggested that being able to cry at a movie is a sign of being a "more empathetic, sociable and generous" human being.
All that having been said, there's also no question that sometimes Hollywood goes out of its way to squeeze tears out of its audience in a manipulative manner. Very often it's a hollow display of sentimentality, sometimes it's wildly misjudged and can only result in unintentional mirth; surely no one cried anything but tears of laughter at the end of Pearl Harbor, right?
But when the movies get it right, when they hit you just where it hurts, those teardrops are bound to come falling thick and fast. Here are 10 such movie moments certain to inspire that very reaction.
10. Max Leaves The Island - Where The Wild Things Are
Spike Jonze's 2009 adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book remains a divisive film. The Being John Malkovich and Adaptation director always was an unorthodox choice to helm a film based on a beloved family classic, and he didn't deliver as mainstream-friendly a film as some had anticipated.
Yet while some might deem Where The Wild Things Are too slow, ponderous, and sinister for younger viewers, it brings Sendak's iconic creatures to life beautifully, and captures both the joys and sorrows of childhood in an often painfully blunt manner.
Never is this closer to the bone than in the final act, when Max (the extraordinary Max Records) realises he has to leave the island of the Wild Things and return home.
As Max gets into his tiny boat to sail away, the Wild Things watch him go - joined at the last moment by Carol (James Gandolfini), the most hot-headed of them who had been closest to Max, and the most hurt by his decision to leave. As the boat bobs away oh-so slowly, Carol's face creases up and he lets out a mournful howl.
It's a heart-rending moment that takes you back to every time you had to bid a loved one goodbye.