Join The Community
Smiley Face (2007)
Phone Booth (2002)
The Crying Scene: "I lie in person and on the phone. I lie to my friends. I lie to newspapers and magazines who, who sell my lies to more and more people," yells Stu (Colin Farrell), breaking down on the phone as the gathered crowds watch.
Why It's Unwatchable: It's utter humiliation in full-blown Technicolor. Sure, Farrell's accent wobbles, but the spirit of the scene is pure meanness as Stu has to declare his faults to the entire world. Cringe.
Farrell Says: "There wasn't a relaxed moment in the film, apart from the first few minutes when he's jack be nimble, jack be quick. Talk about being alive, dammit."
Signs (2002)
The Crying Scene: Reverend Graham (Mel Gibson) has dinner with his family, but the food's quickly forgotten when everybody starts bawling.
Why It's Unwatchable: Nobody wants to see their dad cry, and that's essentially what this scene's all about.
Plus, if Abigail Breslin's sweet little face all crumpled and trembling doesn't get you, you've got a heart of ice.
M. Night Shyamalan Says: "I love the dinner table scene, but everybody else gets scared of the dinner table scene in a movie cause the movie will stop - I love it! Like Signs, it's all built around the dinner table scene: their last supper together. I love it."
Rust & Bone (2012)
The Crying Scene: Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard) wakes up in hospital and discovers she's lost both her legs after an accident with a killer whale. Cue heart-rending sobs.
Why It's Unwatchable: Cotillard doesn't hold back, and the sight of her prostrated on the floor is one that'll haunt us for years.
Cotillard Says: "That was a hard scene to get, because it's hard to imagine what would be your reaction when you wake up and you realize that you miss your two legs.
"So we did different versions, and we ended up with, like, this state of shock. Like, she cannot even scream. It's really a shock."
Shutter Island (2010)
The Crying Scene: Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) sobs over the bodies of his dead children while Dolores (Michelle Williams) sobs, demanding to be "set free".
Why It's Unwatchable: Like the best scenes on this list, there's a brilliant balance between restrained performances and enormous human tragedy in this scene. When the gunshot goes off, it'll give you a heart attack.
DiCaprio Says: "It’s a very ultra complex character study. In order to tell the story, we had to push the emotional story-lines, to have one set of circumstances what we believed and what we needed to push to the emotional extremes."
I Spy (2002)
The Crying Scene: Alex Scott (Owen Wilson) helps Kelly Robinson (Eddie Murphy) get to the root of his emotional problems, which causes Kelly to have a good (bad?) cry.
Why It's Unwatchable: Murphy mistakes pulling faces and mumbling his lines for 'funny crying', while Wilson looks like he's imagining he's somewhere else.
Also, there are no actual tears, which just adds to the absurdity of it all.
Murphy Says: "Maybe 70% of what you see is in the script and then we improvised. We liked to make stuff up and have fun. Some of my best stuff is stuff we just came up with on the set."
Blue Jasmine (2013)
The Crying Scene: Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) loses it when she discovers that her husband (Alec Baldwin) has been cheating on her - and calls the FBI to reveal he's a fraudster.
Why It's Unwatchable: Blanchett is mesmerising throughout Woody Allen's film, but she's just so raw and manic here that it's almost too much to bear.
Woody Allen Says: "Cate Blanchett has an amazing gift. It’s an automatic thing. It has nothing to do with anything you can understand or write down; it’s just luck. Cate has that depth and complexity. Meryl Streep has it."
50 First Dates (2004)
The Crying Scene: Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) attempts to attract the attention of Lucy (Drew Barrymore) by sitting at a bar bawling.
Why It's Unwatchable: Henry's notion of crying is making a sound like a moose with indigestion while dabbing water under his eyes.
Basically, it's really, really annoying and, if anything, should drive Lucy AWAY rather than attract her.
Sandler Says: "I didn't get into movies to please critics."
The Hangover Part III (2013)
The Crying Scene: Phil (Bradley Cooper) tells Alan (Zach Galifianakis) that he loves him, which prompts Alan to start crying in the kind of way that only Alan can.
Why It's Unwatchable: Mostly because Alan's own special breed of crying involves shrieking so shrilly that we wish only dogs could hear him.
This is meant to be funny?
Galifianakis Says: "It’s fun for me to couple emotion with comedy. I think it helps comedy. I think a lot of times American comedies don’t play on emotion too much."
The Neverending Story (1984)
The Crying Scene: Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) sobs as his horse Artax gives up hope and starts sinking into a muddy bog.
Why It's Unwatchable: Anything to do with animals and we're sobbing like a two-year-old, and that's the case with this one.
Hathaway Says: "There’s just something about Neverending Story that just has this very fond place in people’s hearts that there aren’t very many movies made that are like that."
