17 Sad Movies That Will Make You Cry

Sophie’s Choice

Sophie (Meryl Streep) is the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who has found a reason to live with Nathan, a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Mystic River

In this Clint Eastwood film, the lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them has a family tragedy.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

Blue Valentine

The relationship of a contemporary married couple, charting their evolution over a span of years by cross-cutting between time periods.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

A filmmaker decides to memorialize a murdered friend when his friend’s ex-girlfriend announces she is expecting his son.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Requiem For A Dream

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

The Mist

Based on the Stephen King novel in which a freak storm unleashes a species of bloodthirsty creatures on a small town. A small band of citizens hole up in a supermarket and fight for their lives.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

In New York City’s Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Boys Don’t Cry

A young man named Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) navigates love, life, and being transgender in rural Nebraska.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

The Greene Mile

Based on the Stephen King novel, the lives of guards on Death Row are affected by one of their charges: a man accused of child murder and rape, yet who has a mysterious gift.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Grave of the Fireflies

Don’t be fooled, this animated movie is one of the saddest I’ve ever seen. The film features a young boy and his little sister struggling to survive in Japan during World War II.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Atonement

Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister’s lover of a crime he did not commit.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

I Am Sam

A mentally handicapped man fights for custody of his 7-year-old daughter and in the process teaches his cold-hearted lawyer the value of love and family.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

Schindler’s List

In this Oscar-winning film about German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Million Dollar Baby

A determined woman (Hilary Swank) works with a hardened boxing trainer (Clint Eastwood) to become a professional.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Hotel Rwanda

Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, houses over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda, Africa.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

The Road

In a dangerous post-apocalyptic world, an ailing father (Viggo Mortensen) defends his son as they slowly travel to the sea.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%