Often times, the movies that stick with you long after the credits roll are the tearjerkers. It’s what they were designed to do, after all. Some people watch these kind of movies because their friends won’t shut up about how much they loved them. These friends even go as far as calling these movies masterpieces. And in most cases, they are. They clean up awards at awards shows, and critics fall over themselves praising them. But no matter how incredible they are, they can be way too painful for a second viewing.
That’s exactly the category these five movies belong in. There are no rainbows and butterflies at the end of each one. Just doses of cold, harsh reality that hit so hard that viewers end up questioning their life choices after watching them. So, grab some tissues, and maybe a blanket too, because you’re in for a roller coaster of emotions.
5. Manchester by the Sea (2016)
We’re ripping the band-aid off straight away with one of the most gut-wrenching movies ever made. Casey Affleck plays Lee, a Janitor who’s dragged back to his seaside hometown following the death of his brother to look after his nephew, only to come face to face with a tragedy he spent years running from. The film almost wasn’t Kenneth Lonergan‘s at all. Matt Damon and John Krasinski cooked up the idea and brought it to him to write, with Damon set to direct and star. But once Damon read the finished script, he realized it was too much a Lonergan movie for anyone else to direct, and scheduling conflicts later bumped him from the lead too, opening the door for Affleck to star.
The movie won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and Affleck took home the gold for a performance that’s sure to live long in the memory of anyone who’s seen the film. He barely raises his voice throughout the entire film, but we can still feel that inside he is screaming in utter agony. The gut-wrenching aspect of it all is that there’s no big redemption arc, no forgiveness, no fresh start. Lee just stays broken, unable to forgive himself, carrying the burden of the biggest mistake of his life.
4. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)
Dog owners might want to skip this one because while it is touching, it’s not pretty in its painful delivery. This is a true story about an Akita who shows up at the train station every single day to greet its owner (played by Richard Gere) , and keeps showing up long after his owner stops stepping off the train. There’s no villain or plot twist here. It’s just plain, uncomplicated loyalty colliding with loss so intense that it wrecks the viewer emotionally. The real dog, named Hachiko, waited at the Shibuya train station every day for nearly ten years after his owner died, and there’s a bronze statue of him right outside that station as a symbol of loyalty.
3. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Returning to characters who can’t seem to get out of their own way, meet Ben Sanderson. Nicolas Cage has done some pretty out-there stuff over the years, but his sombre rendition as Sanderson is in a league of its own, and explains why he bagged a Best Actor Oscar for the role. He portrays a screenwriter who moves to Sin City with the exclusive goal of drinking himself to death. Then he crosses paths with Sera, played by Elisabeth Shue, a sex worker who just… cares for him as he is, no strings attached.
But this isn’t some rom-com where true love fixes the alcoholic, and that’s what makes it so brutal to watch. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that the movie is based on a novel by John O’Brien, who died by suicide just two weeks after signing away the film’s rights, over a year before the movie came out. He never lived to see a single frame of it. His father said the book was his suicide note.
2. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Set in World War II Japan, Grave of the Fireflies follows orphaned siblings Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi) and Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi), both of whom are trying to stay alive after their city is firebombed. The author of the original story, Akiyuki Nosaka, wrote it to deal with the guilt he felt for surviving while his younger sister died. And in Japan, the film is regularly shown around August, the anniversary of the war’s end, to teach younger generations about the cost of conflict.
It’s animated and beautiful too, but a nasty combo of pretty pictures and an unbearable subject is just too much. The absence of battle scenes and villains to root against makes it even more difficult to watch two kids who are slowly running out of food and options, while the adults around them look the other way. The film doesn’t save them, and it doesn’t let the viewer look away either.
1. Come and See (1985)
Most war movies play out like action blockbusters. Come and See is the one that breaks that mold completely. It follows a teenage boy named Flyora, played by Aleksei Kravchenko, who joins the resistance during the Nazi occupation of Belarus and watches his innocence get stripped away piece by piece. This isn’t really a story so much as an experience; surreal, nightmarish, and built to make you feel what war does to a person instead of just telling you about it.
By the end, Flyora’s face has actually changed from what he’s witnessed. The film draws heavily on the director’s own childhood memories of war, and is famous for using real gunfire and live ammunition in some scenes to get authentic reactions. At the end, a small caption reveals that the Nazis destroyed over 600 villages in Belarus. That fact alone is enough to make any viewer sit in the uncomfortable silence that follows the credits.
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