The Saddest Movies of All Time

I’m sure there are many people that avoid sad movies the same way they avoid horror movies; they don’t want to cry or be scared. In its face, that seems reasonable, but is probably not healthy to hide from uncomfortable things completely.

Whether it’s being scared or crying uncontrollably, as many of the following movies cause me to do, I find some level of healing and catharsis in it. Simply existing itself is a kind of trauma for many people, and storytelling has always been a good way to exorcise those demons.

1. The Secret Garden (1993)

   

   I’ve always wanted to have my own secret garden, a place of immense beauty and comfort and peace with no one else around to bother you. Strangely, I’ve found that graveyards actually check all those boxes.

2. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

   

   There’s a Twilight Zone episode that feels like it inspired this movie or perhaps it was inspired by the movie. Either way, it feels like one of the sadder Twilight Zone episodes, set during Christmas time, full of despair, with redemption coming only at the very end, just in the nick of time. It’s all probably loosely based on A Christmas Carol.

3. The Green Mile (1999)

   

   The movie is full of both cruelty and compassion, which are equally brutal in a way. The saddest scene for me is probably the mouse.

4. Room (2015)

   

   The idea that someone could so deeply and cruelly deprive someone of the basic joy of existing while keeping them alive, all for their own sadistic pleasure seems like horror fiction, but story after story of real people in the news doing this to others just keep coming.

5. Flowers in the Attic (1987)

   

   The score and narration of this movie have a lot to do with why it hit so hard for me. I even once regarded it to be the saddest movie ever made.

6. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

   

   As a massive Tim Burton and Danny Elfman fan, this must be their collaborative masterpiece. We’ve all felt like we don’t belong, and some of us truly don’t, no matter how hard we try.

7. Watership Down (1978)

   

   This is one of those rare times where I read the book before watching the movie. And there’s a deep empathy for animals I’ve grown to have that make me truly think about their lives, and that all living things deserve a chance to do whatever it is they like to do. The arrogance of humans is often that simplicity means stupid or insignificant.

8. The Elephant Man (1980)

   

   “I am a human being!” This is by far David Lynch’s most grounded work, and I think it’s because the material needed it. He was in service of the story rather than the story being in service of him.

9. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

   

   Any child of abuse, neglect, fear, or some other kind of suffering understands the desire to escape, and honestly, most of us as adults (including myself), continue to escape into fantasy.

10. Charlotte’s Web (1973)

    

    Animation, especially older animation has a sort of cheat code charm into breaking our hearts. Some people might call movies like this or Watership Down anti-meat propaganda, but I’m sure this movie broke millions of meat-eaters who didn’t stop eating meat. The two things aren’t mutually-exclusive.

11. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

    

    AI (not the AI we know today that everyone hates) has always been a deeply emotional touch-point for me in storytelling, like time travel. There’s something inherently human about considering if other lifeforms feel what we feel, and to deny a robot the dignity of being alive also has roots in the way we treat other humans. Love, existence itself, are extremely complicated and these kind of stories tap into that better than any other can I think. It’s a difficult choice for me to not place this in the #1 spot.

12. Sling Blade (1996)

    

    Oh boy, this movie is brutally sad from beginning to end. There are little slices of grace throughout, but they only make it all the more tragic. The saddest part for me is probably when Karl confronts his father: “You ought not killed my little brother, he should’ve had a chance to grow up. He woulda had fun some time.,” which is universally true of all living things that had their life cut short, or in the case of Karl himself, not cut short, but unimaginably oppressed and stunted. The score goes a long way to sustain the melancholy of the movie, but the true reason this one probably takes the #1 spot is that nothing about it is fantasy. It captures very real human suffering.

Honorable Mentions

• Paths of Glory (1957)
• The Pianist (2002)
• Schindler’s List (1993)
• My Girl (1991)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• The Crow (1994)
• Ben (1972)

Closing Note

I’ve seen a lot of movies, but certainly not all of them. This list is very personal to my own experience, and honestly, there are probably many more sad movies that would have made the list as well that I simply don’t remember. It was surprisingly difficult just to get this far. I definitely want to discover more sad movies, so let me know.