Movies have an extraordinary ability to stir our emotions. Here are some heartbreaking movies that will make you cry with their emotionally charged stories.
Each of these certified tearjerkers has a distinct approach to storytelling and a unique way of tugging at your heartstrings. From historical dramas to animated wonders and poignant romances, these films offer a diverse range of narratives that will leave you reaching for the tissues.
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7 Certified Tearjerkers: Heartbreaking Movies That will Make You Cry
1. Hotel Rwanda
Hotel Rwanda takes top spot in our list of movies that will make you cry. It is a lions gate 2004 drama based on the Rwandan genocide that happened during the spring of 1994.
The drama tells the story of the violent and hateful massacre that claimed the lives of more than 500,000 members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group. Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo acted the character of hotelier Paul Rusesabagina and his wife Tatiana, whose helped save the lives of his family and more than 1,000 refugees by hiding them in the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines.
The film aims to tell the story of Rusesabagina and the horrors of the genocide by showing the horrible chilling realities of genocide and continuous acts of violence that have become so common in the world.
2. An American Crime
The American crime is a 2007 crime horror drama drama about Elliott Page trapped in a brick walled room to narrate the troubling true story of the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis single mother Gertrude Baniszewski.
The drama stars Catherine Keener and Elliot Page as Baniszewski and Likens, who depict the teenager’s imprisonment and death becausr of malnourishment and her intense injuries.
While producting the shocking film, most of the cast didnt know of the real Likens murder until they read the script, which was mostly based on the court transcripts used during the actual court case.
3. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
The 2008 documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, is another one of the heartbreaking movies that will
make you cry. Produced and directed by Filmmaker, Kurt Kuenne, the film centers on the life of his close friend Andrew Bagby, who was murdered after he quit his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Shirley Jane Turner. The woman was arrested for the cruel crime, and that’s when she announced she was pregnant with Bagby’s child, a boy she also named Zachary.
The rest of the movie is like a tribute and will certainly make you cry. It was hard for most viewers to contain, as the film clearly showcases what happens when justice dosen’t prevail.
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4. Melancholia
The 2011 apocalyptic drama art film Melancholia is about two sisters whose already weary relationship is at stake by an approaching doomsday from a rogue planet about to hit Earth.
The film explores the theme of political, existential, and social issues. Danish director Lars von Trier revealed that he came up with the idea for the picture on one of his therapy session for the treatment of his depression.
5. Precious
The 2009 drama Precious which worn as Oscar award is about an obese, abused and illiterate teen who tries to steer the streets of Harlem in 1987. At the same time, she was pregnant for the second time for her own father and endured violent and constant abuse from her vicious mother.
It is quite a hard watch to drama. Precious is invited to join a different school where she find encouragement and guidance from her kind new teacher Ms. Rain.
The movie is indeed a certified tearjeaker.
6. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about a prohibited friendship between a commandant son at a German concentration camp and a young Jewish prisoner Shmuel on the other side of the camp fence.
The film is based on the John Boyne novel and set during World War II. It is told from the perspective of the eight-year-old Bruno. As viewers follow the heartbreaking imminent fate of the innocent boy, the heartfelt film also reveals how brutal and devastating war can be.
7. Manchester by the Sea
This 2016 drama Manchester by the Sea is about a depressed man who is asked to look after his teenage nephew after the boy’s father passed away.
The film features the talented Casey Affleck, who portrays the reckless handyman Lee Chandler, who is shocked to find out that his brother asked that he become the legal guardian to his nephew.
Chandler has to deal with the immense grief of loosing his older sibling, and the terrifying prospect of raising a teenager on his own. He returns to the fishing village he was raised, causing him to have to face his own terrible past in Manchester again.
The drama, explores the thorough realities of grief and how it can be near impossible to fully recover from it.
