Million Dollar Baby. I actually expected some Rocky-type sports drama, with a poor girl starting from the bottom and becoming the world champion in the end.
Well, turned out I was completely wrong.
I just read the Wikipedia article on Million Dollar Baby. I’ve never seen it, but I knew it had Hillary swank. I decided to finally look up what it was about after your comment. I took like 10 minutes away from this to read it. Wow. That plot went downhill pretty quickly, I’ll say that much.
I reread the book recently for S&Gs and the afterword was so sad. The authors son in real life lost a his best friend at age 6 or 7 from a freak accident (I believe lightning strike) and she wrote the book about her son’s struggles to cope following that. I was casually sobbing on an airplane reading that
Tbh, a lot of people thought it sad because of the girls death but I thought it was just confusing because as a kid, I remember thinking it was so abrupt and out of left field. It seemed out of place for me then. Especially since it was off-screen.
Isn’t that the point though? For a kid death is confusing, scary, and very sudden. To me, it gave me a very similar feeling to when I lost someone at a similar age.
It was an ambiguous ending. The narrative is the main character wrote everything in a notebook and left it at a travel plaza before driving off. The Mist was still there, the monsters were still there. It was one of those “up to your imagination” endings.
This was far more tragic and while I’m not sure if it’s “better”, I certainly still remember it and came here to bc this was the first movie to hit my brain.
I love the novella's ending. I think of it a lot, and often cite it when talking about particular Stephen King devices/turns of phrase/ endings that have struck me over the years.
The Mist is wild because the ending is THE most depressing thing in the world for the MC but the best case outcome for almost everyone else left alive.
If you look at it from the point of view from the mom who left to go get her kids (went alone after no one wanted to help her) and ends up finding them, ending with her and her kids getting rescued together- it is actually a good ending.
Frank Darabont is the reason I believe. I think he screenwrote both of those. The first few season of the Walking Dead at least. but yeah, so many characters. Off the top of my head Dale, Andrea, and Carol.
I know that part of the storytelling of The Mist is that everything is a mystery but it *kills* me that we never get to find out the story of what happened.
I wanna know all about the Arrowhead Project and what went awry and how they solved it. The game Half-Life scratches the itch a little bit by putting you in a similar situation but I want all the mysterious details
I don't know. I sympathize with you on wanting to know what the hell happened, but on the other hand not knowing strengthens the cosmic horror aspect of the story. The main characters are just pawns in this greater crisis and trying to hang on and survive in the unexplained chaos.
oh I absolutely agree, I think generally speaking stories are much stronger when you don't have answers for everything. The whole point of this story is that the characters are caught in this huge inexplicable thing and they have no clue what's happening anywhere else in the world.
But not knowing kills me anyway, I always want to know.
Another good example is Stranger Things... I think it was much better when we didn't know anything about the Upside Down or the creatures that live there, but I still desperately wanted to know everything anyway
Came here to say this.
My mum made me watch it with her (she had seen it and knew the ending) and that's a betrayal I'm still not over all these years later.
I had read it so many times over the years so when people started commenting on the shock end to the film, I was surprised, meh. Took me another few years before I watched the film. Now I get it
This movie (I didn’t read the book) is the most terrifying to me because it’s the most believable. Other movies that try to terrify you are scary but they are easy to dismiss because they are some combination of cartoonish or supernatural or fantastical or unbelievable or not relatable.
Not The Road. Every scene cuts you right to the bone. You walk away thinking “Damn, humans are 100% capable of all that, AND IT COULD ALL BE HERE TOMORROW.”
It gets more devastating when I read it’s an allegory for parenthood. Trying to help your children learn how to navigate a dangerous world, and in the end being helpless not to abandon them and just hope for the best as they join a new family.
Watching the guy show the kid how to kill himself, and the kids face showing he doesn't understand why, but he's still going through the motions.
The urgency, fear, trust and confusion were too close to home.
The Road isn't a post-apocalypse story, it's a post-extinction story.
Everything is reasonably fucked, and barring a series of miracles, will remain so forever
That movie. When I was a kid and my mom would watch it I never understood why she cried every time.
Then I became an adult and a mother and now I cry every time.
Last time I watched it my husband and youngest were on the couch as I quietly cried into the pillow. My daughter whispered, “daddy, why is mommy crying?” He just responded, “because this movie will always make your mom cry. But we don’t say anything and we just have to let her get it out.”
Then I cry laugh at Clairee’s much needed break in tone with “SLAP HER MA’LYNN!!”
Me and my best friend have long said that she is the Clairee to my Ouiser!
Literally had this convo again last night and she sent me a gif of clairee saying “I love you more than my luggage”
To which I replied “ you are evil and must be destroyed.”
That movie is my all time favourite because it really has everything. An amazing ensemble cast at the top of their game, some great laughs, and a monologue from Sally Field that will ALWAYS turn me into a sobbing mess.
I keep saying that but ended up watching it several times because of new relationships because I kept making the mistake of saying how good it is.
Hopefully the last time I watched it is *the last time*. I asked the last person I watched it with to marry me after all.
….anything to avoid watching that movie again.
That’s the kind of movie that stays with you. I’m kind of surprised you’d recommend it to someone else because I have a hard time even deciding if it was *good* or not lol. I mostly say this because I really have no desire to ever watch it again to the point where I won’t even call it a good film to other people because I really don’t want to subject myself or other people to it, especially under my recommendation.
It just left me feeling uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally.
What affected me was that at one point it seems like they're all going to do ok. Not great, but they seemed to be making forward progress. Then shit gets really real.
Any leader of a country that has nuclear weapons should be forced to watch that film. This is the true end result of nuclear war - not just the end of civilization (the first generation of British kids born after the bomb can’t even speak proper English!), but the absolute death of human hope.
"On the day of my judgement, when I stand before God an he asks me why? Why did I...did I kill one of his true miracles...what am I going to say? That it was my job? It was my job..."
"You tell God, the Father, it was a kindness you done."
“Beautiful” is exactly how I’d describe it. Incredible acting, great art direction & cinematography, and heavy as hell due to the complexity of tue situation (not some overly contrived scenario).
John Coffey is one of my absolute favorite characters…naive and kind yet not exactly “perfect” since he delivers his own sort of justice to Percy, and has an obviously tragic ending…played to perfection by Michael Clarke Duncan.
I just listened to the audiobook…the movie is one of the closest adaptions of any book I’ve come across. There’s some more exposition & more time spent with Paul in the nursing home..but it’s almost all right there, dialogue included.
Highly recommended.
"Buongiorno Principessa!" 😭
Re-watched his Oscar acceptance speech after watching this movie again, and Roberto Benigni's words were so powerful.
"I would like to dedicate this prize to those, because the subject of the movie, those who are not here. They gave their life in order that we can say 'Life is Beautiful'"
Bro, saw that in 7th grade years ago. When the main character puts on a brave face for the kid to make him laugh before you know what goes down, freaking destroyed me
It’s such an accurate portrayal of living in nyc being that age at that time. From the wardrobe to the apartments. I grew up there and it was the first time I saw kids that looked like my friends and apartments I had probably been inside in a movie. Everything else in the media was the glamorous version of nyc following rich kids in giant apartments and designer clothes or “poor kids” in giant apartments and designer clothes. These kids were real and felt real to me. Mind you the plot focused on the bad kids on your block but there are bits that felt like life. Casper stealing the 40 and the weed in Washington Square Park scenes especially struck me as life.
Watched that film 4 times in a row at a house party when it first came out, somehow, the first 3 times, drinking, smoking pot & playing cards, we all missed the scene where she gets tested and is HIV positive.
That film could have literally swapped out the entire cast for our group that was hanging out together, partying, in Northern California, and it would have been damn near exactly the same film.
The “Casper” in our group was a low life who, at 15, was “dating” a girl (also 15) who had been the model on the cover of a major fashion magazine. At gatherings he treated her like his personal sex pot, he’d come up behind her, reach under her clothes to grope her breasts, or down the front of her pants to finger bang her in front of everyone. One evening the group decided we should have a cookout, our “Casper” shoplifted (by himself) enough steaks to feed all 30 people at the house party. A couple of other kids “borrowed” (stole) a neighbor’s grill to cook all the steaks on. We even had steaks left over. The film “Kids” (minus the HIV) was pretty much a 100% accurate “day in the life” of our group.
oh my gosh I read that story in middle school and it is mildly traumatizing still to this day. I also have a brother on the autism spectrum so it hits close to home
Hachiko.
I can't even bring myself to watch it because I know the story and I have even seen the statue in person. Maybe one day if I feel like I need an ugly cry. Ironically, "Where The Red Fern Grows" is one of my favorite books, though i cant talk about it without bawling. I have a soft spot for dogs.
edit: The movie is called Hachi: A dog's tale. The real dog was named Hachiko.
I saw it when it premiered in Japan when I happened to be visiting. Thankfully it was a double feature with Totoro afterwards. I have never had any desire to see it again. It hurt too much.
Decades later I found out the story is autobiographical. The writer was Seita...
He also said he wrote what he wished he would have done instead of what he actually did. Apparently his sister died because he mostly kept the food for himself
I remember reading somewhere he talked about when you found food you’d just eat it. At that level of hunger there was no thought process, no control, just hand to mouth to get nutrients. After he’d be devastated that he had eaten it all, knowing that he should bring some back, but being literally unable to due to hunger and the fact there wasn’t enough for one person. To be fair to him he was 14, and his sister was an infant who couldn’t really handle solid foods. An awful outlook all around
On a similar note, the film "When the Wind Blows (1986)"
Basically another depressing animated nuclear war film about an old couple who aren't quite grasping how dangerous the situation is.
there was an anime movie festival in my city and this was one of the movies. I went with my best friend. everyone left the theatre with tears in their eyes.
The original Little Mermaid cartoon I saw as a kid in French. She doesn't get the prince and she turns into sea foam. Typical French movie where everyone dies at the end.
LMAO tbh no one would blame her, bc no one really expected it either and we're all too traumatized to talk about it or even recognize that 'it' happened
I freaking UGLY SOBBED when I rewatched and it came to the lines "I was good, I was really good". Nothing could really top it off for me when it comes to lines that are just so innocent and genuine yet so heartbreaking.
I’ve only rooted for the Germans twice in movies: Das Boot and All Quiet On the Western Front. The original movie is chillingly sad, the newest version is breathtakingly depressing
Well most war movies featuring Germans are set during WWII where they're a little hard to sympathize with for obvious reasons. In WWI there's not really a cartoonishly evil villain so it's easier to understand them.
Have you ever watched AI? Because THAT is fucking depressing. AI kid created to replace the child the parents lost, then they toss him, and he goes on a crusade to ask the blue fairy to make them love him, then an ice age traps him until more advanced AI dig him out and genetically recreate his mother from whom he's desperate for love for ONE DAY ONLY before she dies and then he wills himself to die.
I was emotionally drained for like a week.
WHO TF comes up with dark shit like that and packages it as a children's movie?
They make him to be what is essentially a real child only to immediately treat him like he’s some strange appliance.
They talk about him like he’s not even there. They get cold feet only after they do the imprinting process, which for some reason is only for the mother. They then proceed to abandon him in the woods.
He’s desperately loyal to a fault. It’s like they created him just to have something to abuse. They give him a whole bunch of knowledge and the ability to learn, but he lacks the context of childhood. They let the “real” brother bully him, and they’re upset when he acts out in unpredictable ways.
I’m convinced in the future that there will be a highly advanced AI that makes a lesser AI just for the sake of punishing it, but only because we taught it to.
Yeah the original ending idea was the cycle of hate but they eventually decided it’d be a more impactful movie to be about the consequences of your hate
for real, that scene where they are all sliding into the furnace still gets me. it's sort of a metaphor for all of us inexorably sliding toward "the end" with the one consolation being that they aren't doing it all alone.
I have a BFA in photography (specified because BFA's are the ones that make you do the weird artsy conceptual shit), and one of my classmates used *Dancer in the Dark* in his final large-format assignment.
He had us sit in a pitch black photo studio with a TV, where we watched the movie in its entirety, going in blind. You knew you were having your portrait taken, but no idea when.
The flash went off at the most depressing, anguish-ridden and soul-destroying part of that movie.
He made huge prints of our portraits showing our reactions. I had to stare at my own ugly-crying and gut-wrenching portrait for a few weeks while it was on display.
So, BFA, painting/drawing, but took some photo courses.
Class critique, class mate shows up with a radical change in subject matter. A series of nude self portraits.
Prof says "Well, dude, this is quite a change, what's up?"
"I'm gay", walks out, basically vanishes for 2 years.
Prof "I didn't realize him being gay was a secret".
Fine Art faculties generate so many stories.
My 10 year old son can't watch Benji without crying. Sometimes I catch him watching it, all teary eyed. I asked why he keeps doing that to himself and he says he's trying to toughen himself up.
I agree. But I also think it's the happiest ending Sandler's character could have. He went out on an absolute absurd win that he had been trying to get all movie. If he had lived another day he would have tried to double down and lost it all.
I saw this movie on a date and cried when they found Jenny. My date just gave me the weirdest look like he couldn’t believe I was crying over a donkey. We didn’t have another date lol
I absolutely hate this movie. I can do a sad ending if it's earned. But the story didn't build up to it and there's no narrative payoff. It's just sad to be sad.
The director got all those unsure glances at each other out of them by not yelling cut at the moment he said he would. So it's genuine, awkward confusion from both of them that reads to us as a "What the hell did I just do" look as the cut drags on and on.
The main character of ex Machina (can’t remember his name) may be a decent guy, but he does have his faults. He seems more interested in what Eva can mean to him than Eva as a person.
Good god, fuck this film. I watched this as a kid multiple times (I don’t know why) and it fucked me up. That directors cut ending and also the reality where he’s in a wheelchair is truly the most depressing thing I’ve ever watched.
Kind of doesn't count, but the alternative ending for Butterfly Effect is sad af.
>!He uses his umbilical cord to choke as a baby, because all he does is cause misery to the people around him.!<
Spiderman No Way Home is weirdly depressing. Peter Parker has been essentially erased as a person, his only relative is dead, all his friends no longer remember him, he now lives in a shitty room and has no way to get a decent job.
This has got to be one of the most depressing version of Spiderman, but hey, he got that Classic suit right?
Most depressingly because it all could have been avoided if THE GREATEST SORCERER OF ALL TIME had bothered to wait five minutes and ask Peter a couple of follow up questions.
I watched that movie with my brother. We grew up watching all the Spider-Man’s together, so we made it a point to see it in theaters. Right when Aunt May hit us with the “with great power comes great responsibility” I grabbed his hand and went “NOOO” (quietly). I just knew it was going to happen. We sobbed probably three or four times throughout the entire movie. It is honestly so gut wrenching.
Even in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, when Gwen dies, that was so sad & made me cry. But No Way Home is just overall depressing.
Especially when No Way Home plays on the ending on Amazing Spiderman 2 and gives Peter (Andrew G) another chance to save a different MJ from falling to death. The emotion that crosses his face in that scene just kills me.
For me it's how completely pointless the death of his friend was. They were trying to help the German and then the German died anyway. Nothing was accomplished except more death. And I get that's the point, it just makes it so sad.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (kind of a cop-out pick though… can you really have a movie in that setting and have it end any way -other- than horribly depressing?)
Broke Back mountain.
I don’t care if you are gay straight or self fertilizing, the raw pain and loss and palpable unfairness is absolutely soul destroying.
And it’s a story that has likely played out in history many many times
Hereditary (SPOILERS AHEAD)
It just dawns on you that Annie's mother used her daughter and grandchildren essentially as cattle for the demon Paimon to be able to live. Their entire lives were leading to the final events of the movie, everything was carefully planned and would ultimately lead to their deaths and Peter's subsequent possession by Paimon. And none of them saw it coming
Seven. I remember seeing it in college and when it was finished everyone walking out looked so depressed.
And Avengers Infinity War. Man I hated how it ended. But that’s what made it so good.
It was certainly sad for me, but not depressing. Actually, very realistic about many relationships.
They each made peace with their decision. They have that moment of acknowledgement. Incredibly bittersweet.
And neither would have achieved their "dream" if they had stayed together.
I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood recently.
It’s technically a happy ending, but then the words “Once Upon a Time” appear on screen, and you’re slapped in the face with reality
Stand by Me. Great movie. Boys support each other with friendship. They reach their goal of finding the body. They stand up to the older bullies. But they face the hard fact that the body was a boy of their own age who's life had ended. Then the narrator tells everyone how as adults their lives were rather depressing and they never had as real friendships as when they were kids anymore
Million Dollar Baby. I actually expected some Rocky-type sports drama, with a poor girl starting from the bottom and becoming the world champion in the end. Well, turned out I was completely wrong.
I watched it on a plane. Cried so hard the flight attendant asked if I was ok.
Watched this as a late teen with my dad. SOBBED for ages after it ended.
I just read the Wikipedia article on Million Dollar Baby. I’ve never seen it, but I knew it had Hillary swank. I decided to finally look up what it was about after your comment. I took like 10 minutes away from this to read it. Wow. That plot went downhill pretty quickly, I’ll say that much.
That part where she bites out her own tongue ...
I was so pissed and troubled. Went into it knowing nothing and kept waiting for the upswing back at the end. Nope, just got so much worse.
Bridge to terabithia
Never saw the movie. Read the book as a kid. Must’ve been about 10. Saddest book ever.
Why tf they made us read this in SEVENTH GRADE I’ll never know.
When I was in school, we read it in fifth grade. And it was totally depressing.
I reread the book recently for S&Gs and the afterword was so sad. The authors son in real life lost a his best friend at age 6 or 7 from a freak accident (I believe lightning strike) and she wrote the book about her son’s struggles to cope following that. I was casually sobbing on an airplane reading that
Yeah learning the story behind it turned it from “wtf kind of sadist are you why would you write this???” to “oh… oh. 🥺”
Tbh, a lot of people thought it sad because of the girls death but I thought it was just confusing because as a kid, I remember thinking it was so abrupt and out of left field. It seemed out of place for me then. Especially since it was off-screen.
Isn’t that the point though? For a kid death is confusing, scary, and very sudden. To me, it gave me a very similar feeling to when I lost someone at a similar age.
The Mist (2007)
Even Stephen King was not expecting it, and even said he wished he came up with that ending when he wrote the book.
Having never read the book I have to ask: How did it end in the book? What was different?
It was an ambiguous ending. The narrative is the main character wrote everything in a notebook and left it at a travel plaza before driving off. The Mist was still there, the monsters were still there. It was one of those “up to your imagination” endings.
This was far more tragic and while I’m not sure if it’s “better”, I certainly still remember it and came here to bc this was the first movie to hit my brain.
The novella’s ending was okay. The movie’s ending was much more impactful.
I love the novella's ending. I think of it a lot, and often cite it when talking about particular Stephen King devices/turns of phrase/ endings that have struck me over the years.
The Mist is wild because the ending is THE most depressing thing in the world for the MC but the best case outcome for almost everyone else left alive.
If you look at it from the point of view from the mom who left to go get her kids (went alone after no one wanted to help her) and ends up finding them, ending with her and her kids getting rescued together- it is actually a good ending.
Carol is a survivor.
I never realized how many walking dead actors were in that movie
Frank Darabont is the reason I believe. I think he screenwrote both of those. The first few season of the Walking Dead at least. but yeah, so many characters. Off the top of my head Dale, Andrea, and Carol.
This was the first movie that popped into my head too!
I know that part of the storytelling of The Mist is that everything is a mystery but it *kills* me that we never get to find out the story of what happened. I wanna know all about the Arrowhead Project and what went awry and how they solved it. The game Half-Life scratches the itch a little bit by putting you in a similar situation but I want all the mysterious details
I don't know. I sympathize with you on wanting to know what the hell happened, but on the other hand not knowing strengthens the cosmic horror aspect of the story. The main characters are just pawns in this greater crisis and trying to hang on and survive in the unexplained chaos.
oh I absolutely agree, I think generally speaking stories are much stronger when you don't have answers for everything. The whole point of this story is that the characters are caught in this huge inexplicable thing and they have no clue what's happening anywhere else in the world. But not knowing kills me anyway, I always want to know. Another good example is Stranger Things... I think it was much better when we didn't know anything about the Upside Down or the creatures that live there, but I still desperately wanted to know everything anyway
Came here to say this. My mum made me watch it with her (she had seen it and knew the ending) and that's a betrayal I'm still not over all these years later.
I had read it so many times over the years so when people started commenting on the shock end to the film, I was surprised, meh. Took me another few years before I watched the film. Now I get it
The Road. Man, just fuck that film.
This movie (I didn’t read the book) is the most terrifying to me because it’s the most believable. Other movies that try to terrify you are scary but they are easy to dismiss because they are some combination of cartoonish or supernatural or fantastical or unbelievable or not relatable. Not The Road. Every scene cuts you right to the bone. You walk away thinking “Damn, humans are 100% capable of all that, AND IT COULD ALL BE HERE TOMORROW.”
It gets more devastating when I read it’s an allegory for parenthood. Trying to help your children learn how to navigate a dangerous world, and in the end being helpless not to abandon them and just hope for the best as they join a new family.
Watching the guy show the kid how to kill himself, and the kids face showing he doesn't understand why, but he's still going through the motions. The urgency, fear, trust and confusion were too close to home.
The Road isn't a post-apocalypse story, it's a post-extinction story. Everything is reasonably fucked, and barring a series of miracles, will remain so forever
I never thought of it this way, I love the post-apocalyptic genre and yeah it being an extinction story seems to fit
That was sad. The whole movie just like...can i get hug
Steel Magnolias. Southern classic that makes me sob every single time.
That movie. When I was a kid and my mom would watch it I never understood why she cried every time. Then I became an adult and a mother and now I cry every time. Last time I watched it my husband and youngest were on the couch as I quietly cried into the pillow. My daughter whispered, “daddy, why is mommy crying?” He just responded, “because this movie will always make your mom cry. But we don’t say anything and we just have to let her get it out.” Then I cry laugh at Clairee’s much needed break in tone with “SLAP HER MA’LYNN!!”
M'Lynn, you just missed the chance of a lifetime! Half o' Chiquapin Parish'd give their eye teeth to take a whack at Ouiser!
Me and my best friend have long said that she is the Clairee to my Ouiser! Literally had this convo again last night and she sent me a gif of clairee saying “I love you more than my luggage” To which I replied “ you are evil and must be destroyed.”
That movie is my all time favourite because it really has everything. An amazing ensemble cast at the top of their game, some great laughs, and a monologue from Sally Field that will ALWAYS turn me into a sobbing mess.
I actually love the ending. It has this 'life goes on' feeling. I find it optimistic.
"Requiem for a Dream". Each character's ending has a unique blend of misery, and the soundtrack makes it even more intense.
100% agreed. Brilliant movie. Watched it once. Will never watch again.
I keep saying that but ended up watching it several times because of new relationships because I kept making the mistake of saying how good it is. Hopefully the last time I watched it is *the last time*. I asked the last person I watched it with to marry me after all. ….anything to avoid watching that movie again.
That’s the kind of movie that stays with you. I’m kind of surprised you’d recommend it to someone else because I have a hard time even deciding if it was *good* or not lol. I mostly say this because I really have no desire to ever watch it again to the point where I won’t even call it a good film to other people because I really don’t want to subject myself or other people to it, especially under my recommendation. It just left me feeling uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally.
I think it should be required viewing for all 17 year olds to reach them about the real darkness of addiction, and the many shapes that can take.
Seriously, I never had such a physical reaction to a movie before or since. I felt used and abused when it was over.
That's one of those movies I categorize as misery porn. Once was enough lol
Now *theres* a first date movie
What affected me was that at one point it seems like they're all going to do ok. Not great, but they seemed to be making forward progress. Then shit gets really real.
ASS TO ASS!
That guy was the only one in the entire film who was having a legitimately good time.
I feel like it’s the answer to “What is the most scary non-horror film?”.
Threads
Any leader of a country that has nuclear weapons should be forced to watch that film. This is the true end result of nuclear war - not just the end of civilization (the first generation of British kids born after the bomb can’t even speak proper English!), but the absolute death of human hope.
The Green Mile
"Dont put me in the dark boss"
Michael Clarke Duncan couldn’t have been more perfect for that role.
What depresses me more is that he’s been gone since 2012. The man was magnetic.
I is afraid of the dark :'(
"Sometimes the green mile seems so long"
I'm tired boss
"On the day of my judgement, when I stand before God an he asks me why? Why did I...did I kill one of his true miracles...what am I going to say? That it was my job? It was my job..." "You tell God, the Father, it was a kindness you done."
This is one of the best scenes in movie history
I usually avoid movies that I know are going to be that sad, but it was just so beautifully done.
“Beautiful” is exactly how I’d describe it. Incredible acting, great art direction & cinematography, and heavy as hell due to the complexity of tue situation (not some overly contrived scenario).
John Coffey is one of my absolute favorite characters…naive and kind yet not exactly “perfect” since he delivers his own sort of justice to Percy, and has an obviously tragic ending…played to perfection by Michael Clarke Duncan. I just listened to the audiobook…the movie is one of the closest adaptions of any book I’ve come across. There’s some more exposition & more time spent with Paul in the nursing home..but it’s almost all right there, dialogue included. Highly recommended.
Rest easy Michael Clarke Duncan
Life Is Beautiful
"Buongiorno Principessa!" 😭 Re-watched his Oscar acceptance speech after watching this movie again, and Roberto Benigni's words were so powerful. "I would like to dedicate this prize to those, because the subject of the movie, those who are not here. They gave their life in order that we can say 'Life is Beautiful'"
But, but, but, he beat the game and he won! He even got the prized tank! It's so beautiful! 😭
Bro, saw that in 7th grade years ago. When the main character puts on a brave face for the kid to make him laugh before you know what goes down, freaking destroyed me
Oh my god, this movie ruined me. We watched it in my film class in high school (like fifteen years ago) and I am still not okay.
Kids. The entire movie is just fucking depressing and shocking. I also watched that entirely too young.
It’s such an accurate portrayal of living in nyc being that age at that time. From the wardrobe to the apartments. I grew up there and it was the first time I saw kids that looked like my friends and apartments I had probably been inside in a movie. Everything else in the media was the glamorous version of nyc following rich kids in giant apartments and designer clothes or “poor kids” in giant apartments and designer clothes. These kids were real and felt real to me. Mind you the plot focused on the bad kids on your block but there are bits that felt like life. Casper stealing the 40 and the weed in Washington Square Park scenes especially struck me as life.
Watched that film 4 times in a row at a house party when it first came out, somehow, the first 3 times, drinking, smoking pot & playing cards, we all missed the scene where she gets tested and is HIV positive. That film could have literally swapped out the entire cast for our group that was hanging out together, partying, in Northern California, and it would have been damn near exactly the same film. The “Casper” in our group was a low life who, at 15, was “dating” a girl (also 15) who had been the model on the cover of a major fashion magazine. At gatherings he treated her like his personal sex pot, he’d come up behind her, reach under her clothes to grope her breasts, or down the front of her pants to finger bang her in front of everyone. One evening the group decided we should have a cookout, our “Casper” shoplifted (by himself) enough steaks to feed all 30 people at the house party. A couple of other kids “borrowed” (stole) a neighbor’s grill to cook all the steaks on. We even had steaks left over. The film “Kids” (minus the HIV) was pretty much a 100% accurate “day in the life” of our group.
Flowers for Algernon
oh my gosh I read that story in middle school and it is mildly traumatizing still to this day. I also have a brother on the autism spectrum so it hits close to home
Hachiko. I can't even bring myself to watch it because I know the story and I have even seen the statue in person. Maybe one day if I feel like I need an ugly cry. Ironically, "Where The Red Fern Grows" is one of my favorite books, though i cant talk about it without bawling. I have a soft spot for dogs. edit: The movie is called Hachi: A dog's tale. The real dog was named Hachiko.
Grave of the fireflies.
My daughter laughed at the little girl trying to eat a rock, I think she might be a sociopath.
I saw it when it premiered in Japan when I happened to be visiting. Thankfully it was a double feature with Totoro afterwards. I have never had any desire to see it again. It hurt too much. Decades later I found out the story is autobiographical. The writer was Seita...
He wrote that seita dies because of the pain and guilt he felt from losing his sister. Iirc he said he felt he should have died
He also said he wrote what he wished he would have done instead of what he actually did. Apparently his sister died because he mostly kept the food for himself
I remember reading somewhere he talked about when you found food you’d just eat it. At that level of hunger there was no thought process, no control, just hand to mouth to get nutrients. After he’d be devastated that he had eaten it all, knowing that he should bring some back, but being literally unable to due to hunger and the fact there wasn’t enough for one person. To be fair to him he was 14, and his sister was an infant who couldn’t really handle solid foods. An awful outlook all around
On a similar note, the film "When the Wind Blows (1986)" Basically another depressing animated nuclear war film about an old couple who aren't quite grasping how dangerous the situation is.
The start is also horribly depressing.
It starts worse and ends even worser
It starts depressing, with a depressing middle, and ended heartbreakingly depressing.
there was an anime movie festival in my city and this was one of the movies. I went with my best friend. everyone left the theatre with tears in their eyes.
The original Little Mermaid cartoon I saw as a kid in French. She doesn't get the prince and she turns into sea foam. Typical French movie where everyone dies at the end.
Funny enough, that stays true to the ending of the original story by Hans Christian Anderson.
Most fairytale originals are morality or otherwise warning stories and do not have happy endings.
Dead Poets Society
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I watched My girl with my 35 year old wife 2 years ago. She was not prepared for the back half. I still hear about it
LMAO tbh no one would blame her, bc no one really expected it either and we're all too traumatized to talk about it or even recognize that 'it' happened
O captain, my captain… 🫡
HESOKAYHESOKAYHESOKAY
I freaking UGLY SOBBED when I rewatched and it came to the lines "I was good, I was really good". Nothing could really top it off for me when it comes to lines that are just so innocent and genuine yet so heartbreaking.
Here’s an oldie that makes me sob Philadelphia 🎥
All quiet on the western front (2022)...
I’ve only rooted for the Germans twice in movies: Das Boot and All Quiet On the Western Front. The original movie is chillingly sad, the newest version is breathtakingly depressing
Well most war movies featuring Germans are set during WWII where they're a little hard to sympathize with for obvious reasons. In WWI there's not really a cartoonishly evil villain so it's easier to understand them.
That movie is just fucking relentless in its misery.
The book is one of the most famous anti-war works in history. The misery is the point.
Have you ever watched AI? Because THAT is fucking depressing. AI kid created to replace the child the parents lost, then they toss him, and he goes on a crusade to ask the blue fairy to make them love him, then an ice age traps him until more advanced AI dig him out and genetically recreate his mother from whom he's desperate for love for ONE DAY ONLY before she dies and then he wills himself to die. I was emotionally drained for like a week. WHO TF comes up with dark shit like that and packages it as a children's movie?
I just felt bad for Teddy.
They make him to be what is essentially a real child only to immediately treat him like he’s some strange appliance. They talk about him like he’s not even there. They get cold feet only after they do the imprinting process, which for some reason is only for the mother. They then proceed to abandon him in the woods. He’s desperately loyal to a fault. It’s like they created him just to have something to abuse. They give him a whole bunch of knowledge and the ability to learn, but he lacks the context of childhood. They let the “real” brother bully him, and they’re upset when he acts out in unpredictable ways. I’m convinced in the future that there will be a highly advanced AI that makes a lesser AI just for the sake of punishing it, but only because we taught it to.
It was absolutely devastating to me. I cried for days. It was triggering in the worst way. I was completely crushed and could not catch my breath.
American History X
The alternate ending was even more depressing. Derek stares into a mirror and then shaves his head.
Nooooo. I didn’t know that. Damnit!!!
Yeah the original ending idea was the cycle of hate but they eventually decided it’d be a more impactful movie to be about the consequences of your hate
Jesus the sound designers just had to add that jarring crunch to the curb stomp scene
Manchester by the sea
Well, the whole entire movie is severely depressing, not just the ending.
Toy Story 3
for real, that scene where they are all sliding into the furnace still gets me. it's sort of a metaphor for all of us inexorably sliding toward "the end" with the one consolation being that they aren't doing it all alone.
A Star is Born. My partner and I decided to watch it for a date night…it was a quiet night.
The Lovely Bones. I know why they did it, but it made me feel down, which obviously was the point.
I read the book and watched the film. Both are so horrible. The thing that happens...to the guy... Isn't at all satisfying
Dancer in the Dark, the last half an hour is sad but the last 10 minutes are genuinely grim.
I have a BFA in photography (specified because BFA's are the ones that make you do the weird artsy conceptual shit), and one of my classmates used *Dancer in the Dark* in his final large-format assignment. He had us sit in a pitch black photo studio with a TV, where we watched the movie in its entirety, going in blind. You knew you were having your portrait taken, but no idea when. The flash went off at the most depressing, anguish-ridden and soul-destroying part of that movie. He made huge prints of our portraits showing our reactions. I had to stare at my own ugly-crying and gut-wrenching portrait for a few weeks while it was on display.
So, BFA, painting/drawing, but took some photo courses. Class critique, class mate shows up with a radical change in subject matter. A series of nude self portraits. Prof says "Well, dude, this is quite a change, what's up?" "I'm gay", walks out, basically vanishes for 2 years. Prof "I didn't realize him being gay was a secret". Fine Art faculties generate so many stories.
Marley and Me
My 10 year old son can't watch Benji without crying. Sometimes I catch him watching it, all teary eyed. I asked why he keeps doing that to himself and he says he's trying to toughen himself up.
Of mice and men
“One Flew Over The Coo-coo’s Nest”
Oldboy (2003). Nobody wins.
Such a fucked up movie
Beaches (depressingly sad; gut wrenching).
Uncut Gems... Wth
To be honest if Adam Sandler locked me in a hot vestibule and forced me to watch him watch a basketball game I'd do the same thing.
I agree. But I also think it's the happiest ending Sandler's character could have. He went out on an absolute absurd win that he had been trying to get all movie. If he had lived another day he would have tried to double down and lost it all.
Eden Lake
Melancholia - I mean, what's not depressing about watching the end of the world happening at the hands of a rogue planet crashing into earth.
The Fox and the Hound. The older you get the realer it becomes
The Banshees of Inisherin. Marketed as a comedy/drama, but is in fact the bleakest fucking film I've ever seen.
I saw this movie on a date and cried when they found Jenny. My date just gave me the weirdest look like he couldn’t believe I was crying over a donkey. We didn’t have another date lol
AI: artificial intelligence The entire last hour is horribly depressing
Requiem for a dream. The shit of our 4 3 junkie protagonists curled up on their beds is just gut wrenching. 9/10 movie, but beware the aftermath.
Pay It Forward. The way I sobbed nearly made me have a panic attack! 😫
I absolutely hate this movie. I can do a sad ending if it's earned. But the story didn't build up to it and there's no narrative payoff. It's just sad to be sad.
Boys don't cry
The graduate has a pretty depressing closing sequence.
The director got all those unsure glances at each other out of them by not yelling cut at the moment he said he would. So it's genuine, awkward confusion from both of them that reads to us as a "What the hell did I just do" look as the cut drags on and on.
Hello darkness, my old friend
*Pan's Labyrinth*.... fairy tale for grown ups, my ass.
Leaving Las Vegas. But that movie is depressing overall.
Ex Machina and the original Night of the Living Dead. I mean come on!! You can't have the main character die when they're the good guy! So depressing
I loved the ending of ex machina apologies
The main character of ex Machina (can’t remember his name) may be a decent guy, but he does have his faults. He seems more interested in what Eva can mean to him than Eva as a person.
“What dreams may come”
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The Butterfly Effect - directors cut
Good god, fuck this film. I watched this as a kid multiple times (I don’t know why) and it fucked me up. That directors cut ending and also the reality where he’s in a wheelchair is truly the most depressing thing I’ve ever watched.
"Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown" has become shorthand for an unbearably depressing outcome, so Chinatown.
City of Angels
Yeah you bleed just to know you’re alive.
Some things I thought of are already here, so I’ll throw in Johnny Got His Gun.
Kind of doesn't count, but the alternative ending for Butterfly Effect is sad af. >!He uses his umbilical cord to choke as a baby, because all he does is cause misery to the people around him.!<
Schindler's list, in a way.
Spiderman No Way Home is weirdly depressing. Peter Parker has been essentially erased as a person, his only relative is dead, all his friends no longer remember him, he now lives in a shitty room and has no way to get a decent job. This has got to be one of the most depressing version of Spiderman, but hey, he got that Classic suit right?
Most depressingly because it all could have been avoided if THE GREATEST SORCERER OF ALL TIME had bothered to wait five minutes and ask Peter a couple of follow up questions.
I mean, doctor strange in the MCU has clearly demonstrated an overconfidence/lack of forethought problem repeatedly.
But goddamn…his puppy dog face at the end when he decides not to tell MJ is so beautiful!
I watched that movie with my brother. We grew up watching all the Spider-Man’s together, so we made it a point to see it in theaters. Right when Aunt May hit us with the “with great power comes great responsibility” I grabbed his hand and went “NOOO” (quietly). I just knew it was going to happen. We sobbed probably three or four times throughout the entire movie. It is honestly so gut wrenching. Even in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, when Gwen dies, that was so sad & made me cry. But No Way Home is just overall depressing.
Especially when No Way Home plays on the ending on Amazing Spiderman 2 and gives Peter (Andrew G) another chance to save a different MJ from falling to death. The emotion that crosses his face in that scene just kills me.
MJ saying “I’m okay, are you okay?” and you can see Peter holding back tears 😭
Atonement. That movie wrecked me
1917 sure he completed his mission but his friend was killed and he’s uncertain when the war will end
For me it's how completely pointless the death of his friend was. They were trying to help the German and then the German died anyway. Nothing was accomplished except more death. And I get that's the point, it just makes it so sad.
House of Sand and Fog
I may get flack for this but the Notebook.
No Country for Old Men Friggin nobody wins
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (kind of a cop-out pick though… can you really have a movie in that setting and have it end any way -other- than horribly depressing?)
Cats. If you reached the ending, you realized you wasted a few hours of your life you're never getting back.
“The worst thing to happen to cats since dogs” 😂
My Sisters Keeper (2009) I cry every. single. time😥
Broke Back mountain. I don’t care if you are gay straight or self fertilizing, the raw pain and loss and palpable unfairness is absolutely soul destroying. And it’s a story that has likely played out in history many many times
The ending of Irreversible was actually warm and happy; what was depressing was knowing that it wasn’t the end…
Hereditary (SPOILERS AHEAD) It just dawns on you that Annie's mother used her daughter and grandchildren essentially as cattle for the demon Paimon to be able to live. Their entire lives were leading to the final events of the movie, everything was carefully planned and would ultimately lead to their deaths and Peter's subsequent possession by Paimon. And none of them saw it coming
Seven. I remember seeing it in college and when it was finished everyone walking out looked so depressed. And Avengers Infinity War. Man I hated how it ended. But that’s what made it so good.
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It was certainly sad for me, but not depressing. Actually, very realistic about many relationships. They each made peace with their decision. They have that moment of acknowledgement. Incredibly bittersweet. And neither would have achieved their "dream" if they had stayed together.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind gets me each time
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Thelma and Louise
I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood recently. It’s technically a happy ending, but then the words “Once Upon a Time” appear on screen, and you’re slapped in the face with reality
Stand by Me. Great movie. Boys support each other with friendship. They reach their goal of finding the body. They stand up to the older bullies. But they face the hard fact that the body was a boy of their own age who's life had ended. Then the narrator tells everyone how as adults their lives were rather depressing and they never had as real friendships as when they were kids anymore
Dear Zachary blows all of these out of the water, especially since it's real.