Vote up the friends that always break your heart to watch split up.
There are few things that take more of an emotional toll on an audience than friends splitting up in movies. Sad movies about friends growing up strike such a universal chord that the pain portrayed within their frames can be felt by just about every viewer. Everyone in the world has felt the pain of growing apart from a close friend and having to put their childhoods behind them.Â
Just because no one dies in a movie doesn't mean it isn't sad. Watching two people realize they have to grow up and aren't right for each other can be as hard as watching someone get hit by a bullet. There's a reason there are so many great coming-of-age films - it's because that's a naturally cinematic point in a person's life. The movies on this list can bring even the most hardened man or woman to tears.Â
John Keating is an English teacher who encourages his students at a stuffy private school to look at the world a little differently. During his time at the school, the boys begin to come out of their shells and question the authority around them. Sadly, this puts the boys at odds with some of the strict authority figures in their lives and results in the suicide of one boy.
The film ends with Keating being fired from the school due to his unorthodox methods. But, on the way out, the boys show their allegiance to Keating by standing on their desks and saying, "Oh captain, my captain!" even though the headmaster is watching.
Stand By Me follows a group of four boys as they embark on a quest to find a dead body in the woods, hoping the discovery will make them local heroes of some sort. The boys are all dealing with things in their personal lives, but none more than Gordie, whose family is still grieving the loss of his brother. Along the journey, the boys bond and begin to lose the innocence of youth. Along the way, the journey becomes so chaotic that they have to threaten to shoot a man.
The movie ends with the four boys, all having been changed by their journey, returning to town and saying goodbye, knowing that nothing will ever be the same. The narration informs the audience that two of the boys didn't really hang out with the others after that. And, that now as adults, the narrator has just received news that his friend Chris has passed.
Samwise stands beside Frodo for the entirety of the LOTR trilogy. Once, when Frodo seems to be dead, Sam even picks up the One Ring himself and attempts to finish the journey for his friend. Eventually, after a tremendously long and perilous quest, Frodo and Sam destroy the Ring by casting it into Mount Doom.
After returning to the Shire, Frodo reveals to Sam that he'll be leaving to travel to the Undying Lands. Frodo's departure brings Sam to tears, who cries out that Frodo "can't leave!"
Hiccup is a young boy who grew up in a Viking village where his people spent their days battling with dragons. In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup bonds with a dragon named Toothless, and together they convince both dragons and humans that they can live together in harmony.
In How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Hiccup and Toothless find a dragon-safe haven and a mate for Toothless. Thanks to attacks led by a dragon hunter, Hiccup and Toothless decide that the dragons will only be safe on the Hidden World, and that humans and dragons aren't actually ready to co-exist at all. So, after all that time together, Hiccup and Toothless go their separate ways and begin new families.
There are few scenes sadder, especially scenes featured in films with this many car races, than Dom saying goodbye to Brian in Furious 7. This scene is a special kind of sad because it's representative of real-life events. As, during filming for Furious 7, the actor who portrayed Brian, Paul Walker, unfortunately passed.
After completing countless high-speed heists and other racing adventures together, Dom and Brian part ways at the end of Furious 7 so that Brian can focus on his family. But, as Brian drives off into the sunset, the audience watching knows they're really watching Vin Diesel say goodbye to Paul.
After the Iron Giant mysteriously crashes near Rockwell, a 9-year-old boy quickly befriends the giant robot. Together, the giant and the boy spend their days playing and trying to avoid a prying government agent.
Eventually, the army is called in to fight the Iron Giant, and the Giant begins to activate its self-defense protocols. This only makes the army even more afraid, and they decide to launch a nuclear missile at the Giant and, thus, the entire town with him.
The Iron Giant idolizes Superman, so he decides to sacrifice himself for the townspeople. So, Hogarth tearfully says his goodbyes to the Giant before the robot takes off to meet his inevitable doom in the sky.
