Saddest Scenes in movies/shows

[Ramsay B.]

For whatever reason I randomly asked my friend what he thinks are some of the saddest scenes in a movie were. I’m curious to see some stuff I’ve missed. I’ll expand it to shows too, but really more curious about movies. Spoilers abound after the movie/show title.

Waves- When Emily and dad talk about Tyler’s crime while fishing. They both blame themselves and it’s heart wrenching. Incredible acting and movie too. Gets me every time.

Interstellar- McConaughey watching family video after 23 years(3hours) has passed. He really sells it and damn what a kick in the balls that would be.

Band of Brothers- Compton breaks after seeing Toye and Guarnere injured. Damn.

The Hunter- I think this is an under-seen gem. Dafoe is a paid mercenary that is supposed to get the DNA of the last tazmanian tiger alive. Long story short- he has a change of heart and kills and burns it at the end while sobbing because he knows human greed will never stop. We’re the worst.

Schindler’s List- Schindler wishing he saved more at the end. The whole movie is heart-wrenching, but that scene takes the cake.

The Fault in Our Stars- When Hazel finds out Gus has cancer in Europe. Then when he dies. Pretty rough.

[3CityApache]

In the Name of the Father - When Giuseppe dies and inmates honor him by setting pieces of paper on fire and dropping them out of the cells windows.

La Haine - Final scene.

Dead Poets Society - When Keating leaves the classroom.

Plus quite a few scenes in The Green Mile for sure.

[Not another Stark]

Those are not the absolute saddest ever. I would need to think hard to pick one. But those deserve consideration as far as I'm concerned:

Cold Hand Luke being shot.

The Man who would be King ending on the bridge.

2010 final dialogue with HAL, sacrificed with the ship.

Some final parts of In the Mood for Love.

Not a genuinely sad scene, but one of the most powerful scenes, that comes close to draw tears and surely makes a mess of a good third of any audience: Children of Men that scene when the refugee camp is under siege, they exit the building, and the whole world freezes over one tiny sound.

It would be unfair to nominate documentaries obviously, since they're about real events and one will find plenty of terrible and sad moments in many of them. Otherwise, I could simply pick Lanzmann's Shoah, all of it - the camp barber's story being the most horrific and saddest movie/TV scene I've ever seen, by a wide margin.

[BigFatCoward]

Bambi.

Last few minutes of six feet under

Last scene in blackadder  

[Heartofice]

My first thought when I read this was 2 Peter Jackson movies that got me going.

Fellowship of the Ring - Gandalf falling / "dying", Boromir dying and Sam's little boat speech at the end all had me welling up quite heavily. There are numerous scenes throughout the trilogy that manage to have that effect. 

King Kong - This movie gets a lot of hate but actually I think Jackson does a brilliant job of tugging on the heart strings, really making you care about a big CGI gorilla. Jackson uses a number of extremely emotionally manipulative techniques and it's very obvious what he is doing, but it's also extremely effective. His use of music is always very good. 

The Fountain - Jackman's performance makes this, as his wife dies, his outburst hits me so hard, i watched it on repeat.

Marley and Me can F**k off. 

That opening montage in Up.. oh god.

[Teng Ai Hui]

Coco

Ted Lasso, s01e05 - Ted thinking about missing his son

Squid Game, ep6? - the results of the games involving marbles

[DMC]

Really neat topic!  Before I start...

58 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The Fountain - Jackman's performance makes this, as his wife dies, his outburst hits me so hard, i watched it on repeat.

You stole one of my main ones!  This is one of my favorite under-appreciated movies, and IMO one of the saddest movies too - probably number two on my list.  There's a number of scenes one could choose but you were spot on with that too.

The Interstellar scene Ramsay mentioned was also one I was gonna, that's a great one.

So, to start, the obvious one is Sophie's Choice.  It's definitely the most written about sad scene ever, and well deserved.  To get through Holocaust movies, The Pianist would be the saddest movie ever for me.  Hard to pick one scene, but the SS officers dumping the old man in the wheelchair out the window stands out.  Finally, the ending of Life is Beautiful is one of my favorite sad/uplifting scenes, when Benigni walks to his death while still playing the game for his son hiding in the sweatbox.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - the final scene is also sad/uplifting of course, but the saddest scene is when they find out Billy killed himself.

Gangs of New York - when Bill tells Amsterdam the story of killing his father as Cameron Diaz looks on.

Finding Neverland - when they put on the play for a dying Kate Winslet.  Also sad/uplifting.

Munich - the Black September scene is harrowing.

The Good Shepherd - when Matt Damon's son tells him his fiance was pregnant right after we're shown Damon having her assassinated.

The Hours - Ed Harris killing himself.

My Life - dunno how many people have seen this.  The entire movie is sad (it's Michael Keaton dying of cancer), but there's a very personal reason for me.  Not gonna share the whole story, but I watched this with my dad when we were on vacation in Hershey, Pennsylvania when I was about 12.  It was a really dumb vacation we hastily went on for..reasons, and my dad, brother, and I were all insanely bored the entire time.  So before the three of us drove home early my dad and I were watching this in the hotel room.  At one point my mom came in and both of us were close to bawling and she was like "WTF?!?"

Trying to think of recent movies...honestly I haven't watched many recent movies.  I really liked Little Woman, so obviously "Beth dies."  But specifically the scene on the beach between Beth and Jo where they discuss it.

Finally, doesn't really count as "sad," but goes to the sad/uplifting thing - I love the end of Moneyball.  "You're a loser dad."

Try to come back for TV later.

[HoodedCrow]

Manchester By The Sea…all of it 

[Rippounet]

Grave of the Fireflies... all of it, or close enough.

[Isis]

3 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

The Hunter- I think this is an under-seen gem. Dafoe is a paid mercenary that is supposed to get the DNA of the last tazmanian tiger alive. Long story short- he has a change of heart and kills and burns it at the end while sobbing because he knows human greed will never stop. We’re the worst.

Saw this at the pictures. It's quite bleak and horrible (this is not a criticism).

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

The Fountain - Jackman's performance makes this, as his wife dies, his outburst hits me so hard, i watched it on repeat.
 

Yes! I love this film and most especially the soundtrack. Even though the film is telling you that consciousness transcends bodies etc etc, the whole Izzi dying storyline is incredibly wrenching to witness. Great performances from both actors.

A film I found really upsetting to watch in the cinema was Take This Waltz - the scene where Margot (Michelle Williams) goes out for dinner with her husband to 'celebrate' their wedding anniversary, and she says, 'why don't you ask me how I am' and he replies, 'I don't need to ask you how you are, I live with you and see you every day' (paraphrased) made me aware of how much sadness, anger, and hurt I had suppressed about my first marriage which had ended a couple of years before. I cried inconsolably for a good half hour after the film ended. Luckily I was seeing the film with my second husband who totally understood what my problem was. 

[sologdin]

in my cousin vinny--

Quote

Vinny: What happened? Rear-ended?
Guy: No, ah fell.
Vinny: Oh.
[...]
Vinny: Did you fall in your place or somebody else's?
Guy: My place.
Vinny: Shit.

--it breaks me up me every time, as a plaintiff attorney, to contemplate an injury without a viable defendant.
 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Hodor.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The Good Place: Eleanor sitting with Chidi before he leaves.  His wave explanation.  It is the best kind of “bittersweet”.  Because bittersweet is real.  

 

[Nictarion]

Some that really hit me hard…

The end of Paths of Glory when the German girl is signing for the French soldiers. 

When Uncas dies in Last of Mohicans. Chingachgook avenging him is one of my favorite fight scenes ever, but once it’s over it’s so sad when he’s reflecting on being the last of his people.

Two scenes at the end of Wind River: first when Jeremy Renner visits Elizabeth Olsen in the hospital, and then the murdered girl’s father. 

I very rarely get choked up at movies, but those are a few off the top of my head. My tv show has already been mentioned with the Six Feet Under final montage. Absolutely wrecks me. 

[Corvinus85]

Patch Adams - after Patch's girlfriend is murdered and he wants to kill himself (again). Little did I know how much of Robin Williams's suffering probably went into that scene.

Another Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come, when the painted tree withers because his wife, who's in hell, destroys the painting.

To the above Band of Brothers scene about Compton I would also add the scene when they open up the death camp.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

When Uncas dies in Last of Mohicans. Chingachgook avenging him is one of my favorite fight scenes ever, but once it’s over it’s so sad when he’s reflecting on being the last of his people.

Good pick.  Chingachgooks grief and rage are absolutely visceral when he sees what is happening.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Not yet mentioned, the ending of The Mist.

[Whiskeyjack]

A lot of good choices in this thread.

For movies, one that stands out for me is the end of Arrival.  I thought about it for a long time afterward.  The question of, would you choose to do something, if you knew ahead of time that it would bring you tremendous joy but also end in the worst possible pain?  Its almost impossible to answer.

On that same note, the television show The Leftovers has a lot of different scenes that apply.  But the one that hit me the most was when they went back to the day people disappeared.  And specifically the part with Nora and her family, where she gets mad at her daughter for spilling a drink on her phone at breakfast, yells at her, goes to the counter to dry it off, and then turns around and her family is gone.  Its so brutal, and has really stayed with me.  Just the realization that its such a waste to get upset over small things, and to appreciate what you have because things can go bad at any time.

[Darryk]

Frodo's "We saved the Shire, but not for me" from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

The ending of The Haunting at Bly Manor (TV series, not film) affected me for days afterward.

[Corvinus85]

How could I forget The Last Samurai? Both the doomed charge "I will miss our conversations" and later in the emperor's throne room "I will tell you how he lived".

Artax's death in Neverending Story.