Entertainment Weekly's "50 Best Movie Tearjerkers Ever"

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"Emotional roller coaster" is a horrible, hackneyed phrase, but it’s a cliché for a reason: Something in our nature craves a ride on the ol’ manipulation machine. Nine times out of 10, we know long before pushing play that the movie involves a terminally ill loved one, or an impossible love, or a giant robot that dies for our sins. And then there are the ambushes we still haven’t gotten over…like Bambi’s mom. (Let’s not talk about Bambi’s mom, okay?) Yes, there’s something about fictitious grief — different, it must be noted, from the real thing. (That’s why you won’t find The Sorrow and the Pity, or any other documentary, on our list.) Sure, laughter may be the best medicine — but discriminating depressives know that nothing beats a good sob.

  1. 1.
    Terms of Endearment
    by James L. Brooks

  2. 2.
    Bambi (Two-Disc Platinum Edition)
    by Bill Roberts

  3. 3.
    Sophie's Choice

  4. 4.
    An Affair to Remember
    by Leo McCarey

  5. 5.
    It's a Wonderful Life (60th Anniversary Edition)
    by Frank Capra

  6. 6.
    Brokeback Mountain (Widescreen Edition)
    by Ang Lee

  7. 7.
    Brian's Song
    by Buzz Kulik

  8. 8.
    E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (Widescreen Edition)
    by Steven Spielberg

  9. 9.
    Ghost
    by Jerry Zucker

  10. 10.
    Field of Dreams (Widescreen Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)
    by Phil Alden Robinson

  11. 11.
    The Notebook

  12. 12.
    Old Yeller (Vault Disney Collection)
    by Jack Kinney

  13. 13.
    Brief Encounter (The Criterion Collection)
    by David Lean

  14. 14.
    Kramer vs. Kramer
    by Robert Benton

  15. 15.
    Life is Beautiful
    by Roberto Benigni

  16. 17.
    Glory
    by Edward Zwick

  17. 18.
    Love Story
    by Arthur Hiller

  18. 19.
    Ordinary People
    by Robert Redford

  19. 20.
    Stella Dallas
    by King Vidor

  20. 21.
    Steel Magnolias (Special Edition)
    by Herbert Ross

  21. 22.
    Longtime Companion
    by Norman René

  22. 23.
    The Joy Luck Club
    by Wayne Wang

  23. 24.
    Charly
    by Ralph Nelson

  24. 25.
    Goodbye, Mr. Chips

  25. 26.
    The Great Santini
    by Lewis John Carlino

  26. 27.
    The Deer Hunter
    by Michael Cimino

  27. 28.
    To Kill a Mockingbird (Universal Legacy Series)
    by Robert Mulligan

  28. 29.
    The Way We Were (Special Edition)
    by Sydney Pollack

  29. 30.
    Cocoon
    by Ron Howard

  30. 31.
    Romeo & Juliet
    by Franco Zeffirelli

  31. 32.
    West Side Story (Special Edition Collector's Set)
    by Jerome Robbins

  32. 33.
    Imitation of Life
    by Douglas Sirk

  33. 34.
    Saving Private Ryan (Two-Disc Special Edition)
    by Steven Spielberg

  34. 35.
    Philadelphia
    by Jonathan Demme

  35. 36.
    Jerry Maguire
    by Cameron Crowe

  36. 37.
    The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc Special Edition)
    by George Cukor

  37. 38.
    The Iron Giant (Special Edition)
    by Brad Bird

  38. 39.
    The Champ
    by Franco Zeffirelli

  39. 40.
    Umberto D. (The Criterion Collection)
    by Vittorio De Sica

  40. 41.
    Little Women (Collector's Series)
    by Gillian Armstrong

  41. 42.
    Now, Voyager (Keepcase)
    by Irving Rapper

  42. 43.
    Sounder
    by Martin Ritt

  43. 44.
    Dead Poets Society (Special Edition)
    by Peter Weir

  44. 45.
    Truly Madly Deeply

  45. 47.
    Moulin Rouge (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
    by Baz Luhrmann

  46. 48.
    Cinema Paradiso (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition)
    by Giuseppe Tornatore

  47. 50.
    Rudy (Special Edition)
    by David Anspaugh

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Created by alyxstarr on Aug 01, 2007.
 

Comments

Untitled — 1 year ago

Some of those don’t seem like tearjerkers at all to me, let alone among the best ever.

EW seems to have a very short memory. So many of the really classic tearjerkers were made in the 40s, and most of them aren’t here.

I could start a real list with films like Penny Serenade or Tomorrow is Forever or Random Harvest. So many more.


Note re: Little Women — 5 years ago

EW referenced both the 1933 and 1994 editions of Little Women on their list, but it seemed a shame to push Rudy onto a second page and mess up the numbering just because EW couldn’t make up their minds. In their entry for the movie(s), they seemed to focus more on the 1994 one, and included a picture from same, so that’s the one I added to the list.




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