The 10 Saddest Movies of all Time

Everyone could use a good cry now and then, and what could be better than movie for that? Grab your tissues and comfort food- these are the 10 saddest movies of all time.

10. Hotel Rwanda

As you’ll see in this list, nothing gets the tears flowing like genocide.

Hotel Rwanda takes place during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Amidst the violence, hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) houses what refugees he can in his hotel.

Throughout the movie you see Rusesabagina struggling to be a source strength for his family, divert Hutu militia who are hunting Tutsis, and try to run his business with ever-dwindling time and resources. All the while, you’re aware of the hundreds of thousands of people being killed around him.

9. The Fox and the Hound

Sure it starts out cute- A baby fox and hound meet each other and develop a wonderful and adorable friendship… Until that same friendship is torn apart when the Hound realizes he’s being bred to hunt foxes.

You have to sit all the way through to the end to see the Hound ultimately spare the foxes life and allow him to escape, only to know they can never be friends again. It’s a cruel world.

8. Titanic

Oh it’s so romantic! Such a beautiful love story about Rose (Kate Winslet), a beautiful and wealthy woman trapped in a loveless engagement, and a poor artist named Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio).

In a scant few days their love affair would end at the bottom of the ocean along with the lives of over 1,500 people. Love stinks.

7. Lorenzo’s Oil

A healthy and happy child developsAdrenoleukodystrophy (ALD)- a recessive disease that attacks the brain, rapidly degenerating its functions until the sufferer lives in a vegetative state, or even dies.

Lorenzo’s Oil is based on the true story of Augusto and Michaela Odone and their desperate search for a cure to their son’s disease before it’s too late. As the film progresses, you watch Lorenzo slowly go from a normal child to a completely bed ridden boy who cannot speak and is only capable of moving his eyelids. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.

6. Sophie’s Choice

Sophie’s choice is a movie about a Polish immigrant to Brooklyn, New York after World War II.Sophie (Meryl Streep) was sentenced to a concentration camp by the Nazis who at one point is made to choose which one of her two children lives, and which one dies.

Throughout the movie you learn more of Sophie’s story as she befriends her neighbor, a writer named Stingo, (Peter MacNicol) and her relationship with her abusive lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline).

Try and sit through the holocaust, a woman being abused, a double suicide, and truly impossible decision without shedding a tear.

5. Precious

A story about overweight teen who is beaten by her mother and sexually abused by her father, which resulted in Precious (GaboureySidibe) having a daughter with down syndrome, and a baby boy.

We’re just getting started too. Precious can’t read or write, her parents are on welfare, everyone calls her ill daughter “Mongo” (as in mongoloid), and oh yeah, Precious finds out she’s HIV positive after her father dies from AIDS.

But don’t worry, at the end of the film Precious plans to get her high school diploma, and prepares to start a new life with her children. That surely erases all the scenes of abuse.

4. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

A young boy named Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and his family move from Berlin to the countryside after his father is promoted to run a nearby concentration camp. Bored with having no one to play with, Bruno runs off into the woods and eventually comes to the fence of the camp where he meets and befriends a boy named Schmuel (Jack Scanlon).

You know where this is going. The two boys become very close friends and are completely naïve to the reality of their situation. Before Bruno is due to move again, he shaves his head, puts on the striped uniform (that he thinks are pyjamas) and digs under the fence so he can stay with Schmuel. Before Bruno’s family realize what their son has done, they discover and him and Schmuel have been taken to a chamber and were gassed. Jesus Christ…

3. A Walk to Remember

Boy meets girl. Girl tells him not to fall in love with her. Boy pursues her, and they inevitably fall in love. How sweet! That is, until you find out why she warned him- she has terminal cancer. What else is there to say? Their love is doomed and you get to watch it from start to finish.

2. Gigli

Why is this movie here? Simple- it’s an abomination. It makes this list as a reminder of how precious one’s free time is and how you shouldn’t spend it watching this movie. Don’t bother with it unless you hate yourself.

1.Schindler’s List

Could there really be any other movie at number one? I don’t think so. Watching the true story Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) using his factoriesand money to save Jews by employing them during the Holocaust is incredibly moving.

What isn’t is all the horrors you see the Nazis committing to countless people throughout the film. From the scene where you are convinced a bunch of women are about to be gassed, to the smoke stacks making it “snow ash,” you will be shaken to the core.

By the end of the movie when you see actual survivors and their children visit Schindler’s grave decades later, you will cry like a ten-year-old girl.