Sad Movies to Bum You OutLists of the best movies to watch when all you want to do is wrap yourself in a blanket burrito, flop over sideways, and feel terrible about the world and everything in it.
Updated October 2, 2019 4.6k votes 1k voters 36.5k views
List Rules
Vote up the saddest movie goodbyes where you sobbed uncontrollably.
There comes that inevitable moment when it’s time to say goodbye. It happens all the time in life, and because movies are reflections of life, it happens all the time in movies. Whether a character is dying, going somewhere else, or breaking up with someone, saying farewell is really, really difficult. Here are the 19 saddest movie goodbyes.
There’s nothing wrong if a movie makes you cry. In fact, there’s nothing wrong if a movie makes you sob so uncontrollably you choke on your tears. It means the filmmakers are doing something right, because great art is supposed to make you feel all the feels. And these sad movie goodbyes have been known to do exactly that. You know that ugly cry you get from sad goodbye scenes. You can’t hide it when Hubbell and Katie say farewell for good at the end of The Way We Were, or when ET is finally able to go home in E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.
So grab a box of tissues and get ready to bawl your eyes out. And after you wipe the tears away, be sure to vote on your favorite sad goodbye scenes from movies.
Is it okay for an adult to cry at a kid's movie? Yes, when it's Toy Story 3, and Andy is all grown up and going off to college. Andy says a teary "thanks" to his old toy pals and drives away. Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the gang are left on the porch. Sure, Bonnie will get to play with the toys now, but it's not the same. In fact, nothing will ever be the same again.
Sophie is faced with the hardest decision imaginable at the end of Sophie's Choice: she must decide which one of her two children to hand over to a Nazi soldier, and which one gets to live. If she doesn't choose, both children will die. Watching the young daughter part from her mother is painful in every conceivable way.
Terms of Endearment (1983) is a classic weepy that has every audience member with a heart reaching for the Kleenex. Perhaps the most tear-filled scene comes in the hospital, when Emma, a mother in her 30s, is dying from cancer and explains to her two young sons she's not going to be around in the future. She's had a troubled relationship with one of them, Tommy, and lets him know that she knows how much he loves her, even if he can't bring himself to say it.
"And you're gonna realize that you love me. And maybe you're gonna feel badly, because you never told me. But don't - I know that you love me. So don't ever do that to yourself, all right?"
In order to save the world, Harry Stamper makes the ultimate sacrifice. Before he rides off into the eternal sunset, he says farewell to his daughter, Grace. Michael Bay's Armageddon certainly has its flaws as a (disaster) movie. However, this tear-jerker of a goodbye scene is powerful enough to make even the darkest heart reach for a tissue.
Just because ET had to go home doesn't make his parting any less sad. Elliot found a true friend in the alien. It's heartbreaking to watch them bid farewell; a kid losing his best friend, what could be more bittersweet?. This separation is forever; ET won't be returning to Earth on summer vacation. Thankfully, ET knew exactly what to say to Elliot: "I'll be right here."
Spock sacrifices himself to fix the engines on the Enterprise in 1983's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Kirk races to find Spock, who is standing behind the radiation shield, dying. Spock tells Kirk, "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." Star Trek was never filled with emotion, but this scene of old friends parting in the face of certain death brings out the tears.
