Filmsite Greatest Tearjerkers Scenes/Movie Moments

The love scenes in the 7th floor bohemian loft ("Seventh Heaven") between street angel-waif Diane (Janet Gaynor) and Parisian sewer worker Chico (Charles Farrell) after her attempted suicide by stabbing; and the climax that featured their jubilant reconciliation in an ethereal shaft of light.

The sad, long drawn-out death scene of time-traveling, delusional convict James Cole (Bruce Willis), shot in the Philadelphia airport by security guards, and mourned over by grieving present-day blonde lover, psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe), as a young incarnation of himself (Joseph Melito) looked on and was knowingly recognized by Railly as he witnessed his own death, at the conclusion of the film

The moving, troubling saga of Neil Hughes (Himself) throughout Michael Apted's series of documentaries following his life every seven years, from a charismatic 7 year-old boy from a wealthy family to his nervous breakdown at age 28 to homelessness at 35 - and his poignant recovery with a new close friend at 42. (He would end up as a successful politician at age 49 in 49 Up! (2005).)

The heart-breaking scene in which script-reader/writer Helene Hanff (Anne Bancroft) received an impersonal letter in early 1969 informing her that her pen pal Frank P. Doel (Anthony Hopkins) of the rare and used book store Marks & Co. (at 84 Charing Cross Road in London) - from which she ordered rare editions and carried on correspondence with Frank over a 20 year period - had died from complications during surgery for appendicitis: ("It is with great regret that I have to tell you that he passed away on Sunday, 22nd December. The funeral took place last week on Wednesday, the 1st January...Do you still wish us to try to obtain the books you asked for in your last letter?") -- with her realization that as long-distance soulmates, they would never meet in person (although an earlier scheduled trip might have made their meeting possible, but was cancelled due to her emergency dental work); and the subsequent letter from Frank's Irish wife Nora (Judi Dench): ("I miss him so. Life was so interesting"), and the closing scene in which Helene finally traveled across the Atlantic to England to the book store, which was being closed for good -- she walked into Frank's empty office cubicle in the back of the store, and said directly into the camera: "Here I am, Frankie. I finally made it", with a regretful but proud smile on her face.

The scene in which astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) incapacitated-lobotomized the sentient HAL-9000 computer (voice of Douglas Rain) by turning off its higher functions as it begged: "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a-fraid..." HAL ended his life by mindlessly singing "Daisy" or "A Bicycle Built for Two."

The scene in which the ghost of David Bowman (Keir Dullea) visited his former wife, appearing on a television, to say good-bye for one last time; also the tearful scene in which Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban) told HAL-9000 (voice of Douglas Rain) the truth -- that they intended to sacrifice HAL to escape an imploding Jupiter, and HAL's quiet, dignified acceptance of his fate - and his thanks: "I understand now, Dr. Chandra...Thank you for telling me the truth", and Chandra's response and farewell: "You deserve it...Thank you, HAL"; and the fond, final exchange between an ethereal David and a doomed HAL: (HAL: "I'm afraid" - Dave: "Don't be. We'll be together").

The final scene of widowed and retired 66 year-old actuary Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) in Omaha, Nebraska writing his last (in voice-over) despairing letter to his recently-adopted 6 year-old Childreach foster child Ndugu Umbo in Tanzania: ("But what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?...What difference has my life made to anyone? None that I can think of. None at all"), followed by his receipt of a letter, upon returning home from his only daughter Jeannine's (Hope Davis) wedding in Denver, from the African orphanage's Mother Superior, which included the child's drawing of himself holding hands with Warren - resulting in Warren's uncontrollable weeping of tears of joy and vindication.

The emotionally-raw resuscitation scene in which husband Virgil "Bud" Brigman (Ed Harris) valiantly refused to accept estranged wife Lindsey's (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) death by drowning while trying to revive her: ("Goddamn it, you bitch, you never backed away from anything in your life! Now fight! Fight! Fight! Right now! Do it! FIGHT, GODDAMNED IT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Fiiiiiiiiiiight!") -- and Lindsey's awakening from death.

The character of fastidious, withdrawn travel guide writer Macon Leary (William Hurt) who was emotionally numbed by the violent shooting death of his son Ethan (Seth Granger) in a fast-food restaurant robbery - including his subsequent divorce from wife Sarah (Kathleen Turner); his painful flashback in which he identified his son's body with a flat, drained confirmation: "Yes, that is my son"; and the moving scene in which he attempted to break off a dinner date with his wacky dog trainer and single mother Muriel Pritchett (Geena Davis) (who was tending Macon's spunky Corgi named Edward) by a written note - and then when he tried, awkwardly in person, to explain his loss and his reasons for not wanting to get close ("I can't go to dinner with people, I can't. I can't talk to their little boys. You have to stop asking me. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I'm just not up to this"), and her comforting hug followed by a non-sexual invitation to go upstairs to her bed to sleep - and her response of "I'm bashful" when he asked her to remove her gown next to him; and then later, the tearjerking finale in Paris when Macon (on his way to DeGaulle airport) after breaking up once and for all with Sarah and telling her that he was returning to Muriel ("I tried but I can't make this work...I'm beginning to think it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them"); after he was helped into a taxi by a blonde French-speaking boy (Gregory Gouyer) who strongly resembled Ethan, he spotted Muriel leaving the hotel (whom he'd repeatedly spurned while in Paris) - and the film ended with their mutual shocked reactions (Muriel's delighted and smiling reaction and Macon's teary-eyed look and half-smile) when she saw him in the back seat of the taxi that he had ordered stopped by her.

After meeting during a cruise and before docking in New York during a blossoming shipboard romance on the Constitution, the scene of engaged, playboyish Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) and singer Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) being together one final time (Nicky: "We'd be fools to let happiness pass us by") and vowing to reunite at the top (102nd floor) of the Empire State Building in six months time on July 1st at 5:00 pm - as Terry added: "Oh yes, that's perfect. It's the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York"; then the scene six months later when Nickie waited at their rendezvous point (a clock chimed 5 times), but Terry didn't appear (she was injured in an awful car accident (off-screen) on a busy NYC street on her way rushing to meet him) and there were ambulances heard blaring at 10 minutes after five; and then in the conclusion of this romantic, tearjerker tale of star-crossed lovers, the revelation scene six months later regarding the devastating, terrible secret of why she couldn't keep her fateful appointment: his accusatory and scolding conversation with her as she was supine on a couch (covered with a shawl from his now-deceased Grandmother Janou (Cathleen Nesbitt)) and his ultimate discovery that she had acquired his painting (visible in the mirror reflection in her bedroom) and kept her accident a secret ("Why didn't you tell me? If it had to happen to one of us, why did it have to be you?") - leading to their tearful reunion, her explanation ("I was looking up - it was the nearest thing to heaven. You were there"), and their kiss in the conclusion of the romantic, tearjerker tale of star-crossed lovers, when she told him: "Don't worry, darling...if you can paint, I can walk. Anything can happen", in director Leo McCarey's romantic melodrama [This film was a remake of the original shipboard romance classic Love Affair (1939) by writer/director Leo McCarey, starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne - and was referenced in director Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and in Love Affair (1994) with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.]

The scene of Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) weeping at her rain-spattered bedroom window after returning home from the dance, after she discovered that her "disappearing" and insensitive brother Walter (Frank Albertson) had been playing dice in the cloak room, dashing her hopes of respectability.

The touching, dream-like scene in which the spirit of roguish, criminal German shepherd Charlie B. Barkin (voice of Burt Reynolds), preparing to go to his death (he had been condemned to Hell unless he performed good deeds to earn a place in Heaven), apologized to sleepy young orphan girl Anne-Marie (Judith Barsi): "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry"; he was being called away by his name "Chaaaaarley" since he was soon to proceed to his fate, but he asked for a few more moments to offer his heartfelt goodbyes to her; he hopped up onto her bed as she awakened, telling her that he going on "a little trip" and asking her to take care of his best friend dachshund Itchy (voice of Dom DeLuise) while he was gone; she told him as she hugged and kissed him: "Oh Charlie, I'll miss you"; he became choked up: "Yeah, well, uh, I'll-I'll miss you too, Squeaker"; she then asked: "Charlie, will I ever see you again?", he replied: "Sure, sure you will, kid. You know goodbyes aren't forever"; she told him: "Then goodbye Charlie. I love you" - with his reply: "Yeah, I love you too" - and then he was called away into heavenly clouds rather than to Hell by a bright blue light - he had earned a place in Heaven because of his self-sacrificial heroic actions (he had saved Anne-Marie's life at the expense of his own: "You gave your life for her") as the angelic Heavenly Whippet Annabelle (voice of gospel singer Melba Moore) beckoned him once again: "Charlie, come home..."

The scene in which fortyish widow Cary Scott (Jane Wyman), after suspending her love affair with her handsome gardener Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), was presented with a brand new TV set (adorned with red ribbons) as a Christmas present to keep her company - she saw her reflection on the screen as the unctuous salesman told her: ("All you have to do is turn that dial and you have all the company you want right there on the screen - drama, comedy, life's parade at your fingertips...")

The heart-rending and nostalgic segment called Feline Fantasies -- of a lonely, emaciated kitty-cat exploring the decaying, abandoned and crumbling tenement of its former owner, now surrounded by modern structures; the cat remembered when the house was full of life and people, and the various pleasures it experienced, such as clawing at a bird cage, roaming through a colorful kitchen full of the smells of cooking food, and how it lounged on a cushy armchair -- to the soundtrack of Jean Sibelius' mournful Valse Triste (The Sad Waltz); at the film's climax, the cat realized that its dreams of happiness would never again be realized; in the final scene, a wrecking ball demolished what was left of the former house

The scene of Dorinda Durston (Holly Hunter) fearing that her lover, forest fire-fighting pilot Peter Sandrich (Richard Dreyfuss), would die from his risky occupation ("I love you, Pete, but I'm not enjoying it. Every time you take off, every time you leave the ground, I wait for the phone to ring. I go to bed sick and I get up scared. I don't - I don't like being sick inside all the time. Do you think I like being afraid that you're never gonna come back?"), followed shortly after by his explosive and tragic death when he had just heroically saved the life of his best friend Al Yackey (John Goodman), who prematurely exclaimed: "Oh, that lucky son-of-a-bitch!"; the many scenes of the ghost of Peter and his unrequited love for his still-living lover Dorinda, including the scene in which he agonized over watching her dance and kiss Ted Baker (Brad Johnson), crying out to angel Hap (Audrey Hepburn): "Oh, Hap! Take me out of here!"; this was followed by the famous scene in which she was dressed in the white, skin-tight "girls" clothes he had bought her for her birthday, when he whispered a request: "Can I have this dance?", and they danced around her living room to the tune of their favorite song - "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" - his ghost accompanied her in perfect synchronization without her knowing; and Peter's tearful statement to Hap: "I'm not ready to say good-bye"; also the scene of Pete's final farewell to Dorinda: ("..I love you, Dorinda. I love you. I should have told you that a long time ago. Any jokes, I should have said the words, because I know now, that the love we hold back is the only pain that follows us here. And the memory of that love shouldn't make you unhappy for the rest of your life. I hope you can hear me, because I know this is true, from the bottom of my heart, how good your life is, how good it will be") and his "release" of her after her plane crashed in water: ("Here's the rest of your life, Dorinda. I want you to go to them. I'm releasing you. I'm moving out of your heart. Go on. Go on..."), in Stephen Spielberg's romantic fantasy - a remake of the WWII-era romantic drama A Guy Named Joe (1943).

The visually impressive and chilling, downbeat fade-out ending when hunted, falsely-accused fugitive James Allen (Paul Muni) responded to his fiancee Helen (Helen Vinson) about how he lived - "I steal" - as he receded into the shadowy darkness.

The scene of virologist scientist Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) mercy-killing his loyal companion and dog Samantha ("Sam") after it was attacked and wounded by a pack of infected, zombie-ish dogs when trying to protect him from Dark Seekers; anguished, he cradled his beloved German shepherd in his arms after injecting it with an experimental serum and then sang Three Little Birds by Bob Marley ("Don't worry about a thing, 'Cause ev'ry little thing, Gonna be alright") - but after noticing the dog's hair loss, tooth growth and increasingly aggressive behavior, he realized it was infected and snapped its neck (or suffocated it); the next day after burying Sam, he visited the neighborhood video/DVD rental store where a pretty female mannequin was posed in one of the aisles, and went up to it - piteously entreating the unresponsive figure: "I promised my friend that I would say hello to you today. Hello. Hello. Please say hello to me. Please say hello to me."

The scene of the last conversation, by radio from New Guinea, between publisher-promoter husband David Putnam (Richard Gere) and his pioneering aviatrix, plucky wife Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) in director Mira Nair's biopic, just before the last leg of her attempted flight to circumnavigate the globe in early July, 1937. With cropped hair and freckled skin, she promised him: "I'll be in Honolulu on the 3rd and with you in Oakland on the Fourth of July, okay?" He replied: "Don't keep me waiting." She responded: "I won't dare." Putnam had a premonition of disaster, worried that her recovering-alcoholic navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) wasn't up to the task: "So what's that I hear in your voice? Is he drinking?" She assured him: "I can handle it." He sighed and ordered: "Call it off. Call it off now. Right now, Amelia. I mean it. Right now." She softly repeated: "I can handle it." He then said: "After the Fourth, we're going home." She smiled and asked: "Where is that?" Putnam responded: "For me, anywhere you are." Amelia put her hand to her mouth and tears welled up in he eyes, and then composed herself: "I'm going to like it there. I'd better since this is going to be my last flight." He softly responded: "If you insist." She ended the call with: "I love you. Should I let you go now?" He whispered back: "No, never. I'll go tell the world you're on your way." She added: "See you - my darling." He answered: "See you, my love." After Amelia's plane disappeared without a trace on its flight to Howland Island in the Pacific, Putnam sat and watched rough waves from a rocky shore, and gazed up into the cloudy sky, as Amelia spoke in voice-over, and vintage photographs were displayed: "All the things I never said for so very long, look up, they're in my eyes. Everyone has oceans to fly. As long as you have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries? I think about the hands I have held, the places I've seen, the vast lands whose dirt is caked on the bottom of my shoes. The world has changed me." No evidence of their Electra airplane was ever found, even after a massive rescue mission.

The sorrowful, downbeat conclusion (or epitaph) in which a teary-eyed and regretful Orson Welles commented on his professional struggle to finance and make films after Citizen Kane (1941), and how he should have quit the movies: "I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paint-box, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about two percent movie-making and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life."

The depressing scene in which a lake bed in the Southwest African Namib Desert dried up under the scorching African desert sun, forcing pelicans to abandon their chicks, who then began a fruitless 'death march' and died off one-by-one, in James Uys' successful, anthropomorphic nature documentary.

In the film's conclusion, Alvy Singer's (Woody Allen) wistful, resigned realization that his relationship with ex-girlfriend Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) would remain just a good friendship, but also that she would hold a special place in his heart, punctuated with a nostalgic montage of their romance as Annie sang "Seems Like Old Times."

In this film's heartbreaking ending, fading and "washed-up" burlesque star Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan), the ailing, self-sacrificing mother of convent-bred 17 year-old daughter April Darling (Joan Peers), suicidally poisoned herself and slowly died in her dressing room, as April vowed to take her mother's place by forcing herself to go out and dance sordid burlesque in front of leering, middle-aged men (and defiantly vowed to give the crowd their 'money's worth': "I'll show them"), after telling her mother: "Nothing matters now but you, Mommy. We'll always have each other. Nothing is ever going to separate us again."

The overly-sentimental, feel-good fantasy story of a young orphaned boy and 11-year old child musical prodigy named August Rush/Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore), who ran away to NYC to find his long-lost birth parents ("The music - I thought if I could play it, they would know I was alive and fine me"); after miraculously receiving a scholarship to Julliard School of Music, he was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic at its summer concert series in Central Park with his own Rhapsody in C Major, but was taken away by the street-performing, Fagin-like Wizard (Robin Williams) at the last moment; in a series of coincidences, he was able to rush back to the concert stage in a tuxedo where he led the orchestra -- and was reunited with his long-lost musically-gifted parents Lyla Novacek and Louis Connelly (Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers) [Note: they had conceived him during a one-night stand, but were separated afterwards and the baby was given up for adoption]; in the concluding scene, the parent-couple found themselves reunited in the audience (where they held hands), and turned toward and were drawn to the stage where Evan conducted - knowing that they had all found each other as the music reached a crescendo.

Leonard Lowe's (Robert De Niro) "awakening" from a sleeping sickness of 30 years following an epidemic of encephalitis - after receiving dosages of the Parkinson's Disease experimental drug L-Dopa, and his first meeting with his mother (Ruth Nelson) since his recovery; and Leonard's glowing smile at taciturn neurologist Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) from his bed when the other catatonic patients were also awakened - followed by Leonard's re-discovery of the world, zest for light and delight in simple things (i.e., brushing his teeth) - and his slow heart-breaking relapse back into catatonia.

The heartbreaking scene in which young fawn Bambi (voice of Bobby Stewart) was with his mother (voice of Paula Winslow) in the snowy meadow, grazing on some exposed green plants. Suddenly, she sensed a human presence -- and warned: "Bambi. Quick! The thicket!" There were gunshots as they both raced away. She encouraged: "Faster! Faster, Bambi! Don't look back. Keep running! Keep running!" As Bambi ran and ducked behind a snowbank - and made it to the protective thicket, there was a fateful gunshot. Bambi turned and exclaimed while panting: "We made it! We made it, Mother! We...", but his Mother was nowhere in sight. Bambi emerged, asking and calling out: "Mother. Mother! Mother, where are you?!" He fruitlessly searched for her during a raging snowstorm, not knowing she had been killed by a human hunter. After not finding her and hearing no response, the young fawn began to sob, and then gasped at the imposing sight of his stag father, the Great Prince of the Forest, who stated: "Your mother can't be with you anymore." A tear formed in Bambi's eye as he looked up, and was told: "Come. My son." He followed, but looked back one last time in the direction of where his mother had been.

The tearjerking relationship between two ball players during a baseball season: mentally-slow catcher Bruce Pearson (Robert De Niro), who was diagnosed with incurable Hodgkin's Disease, and his protective best friend and star pitcher Henry "Author" Wiggen (Michael Moriarty); the poignant performance of "Streets of Laredo (The Cowboy's Lament)" by cowboy team-mate Piney Woods (Tim Ligon) about a dying cowboy's funeral wishes ("...Oh, bang the drum slowly and play the fife lowly / Play the dead march as you carry me along..."); the final good-bye between Henry and Bruce after the season ended -- as Bruce bid farewell to his friend: ("Thank for everything Author. Thanks. And I'll be back in the spring. I'll be in shape then...don't forget to send me a scorecard from the Series") - and the very next scene of Bruce's funeral (which none of his team-mates attended) with Henry's narrated last lines: ("...He wasn't a bad fella, no worse than most, and probably better than some -- and not a bad ballplayer neither, when they gave him a chance, when they laid off him long enough. From here on in, I rag on nobody.")

The downbeat and sad ending, in which Dark Knight Batman/Bruce Wayne's (voice of Kevin Conroy) true love and ex-fiancee Andrea Beaumont (voice of Dana Delany), the daughter of a wealthy lawyer with ties to the mob - who was surprisingly revealed to be the murderous and vengeful Phantasm - decided against a future life with Bruce, and Bruce's mourning of his loss to consoling loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth (voice of Efrem Zimbalist, Jr): ("I don't think she wanted to be saved. I've always feared that you would become that which you fought against. You walk the edge of that abyss every night, but you haven't fallen in and I thank Heaven for that"), and Bruce's discovery of Andrea's pendant, which he clutched tearfully -- and the following scene that revealed a troubled Andrea standing alone on a moonlit cruise ship deck - when a tipsy partygoer asked her if she wanted to be alone, she sighed: "I am."

The scene in which tough Hispanic gang leader Carlos (Michael Carmine) -- whom silver-haired severe Alzheimer's patient Faye Riley (Jessica Tandy) mistakenly thought was her deceased son Bobby, had a change of allegiance and rescued Faye from a fire he had been hired to deliberately set in her apartment complex, with Faye looking at news clippings of her son's death; and the complex, heart-breaking, non-formulaic scene in which Faye's patient and clear-headed husband Frank (Hume Cronyn) attempted to cheer her up in the hospital by presenting Carlos as Bobby --- Faye, who was distraught over the departure of her alien mechanical life-form friends, sobbed: "That's not Bobby" - finally acknowledging her son's death over 40 years earlier, and at the same time dashing Carlos' hopes of redemption - he dumped the flowers he brought to give her in a trash can as he silently left, in this bizarre sci-fi fantasy.

The scene in which daughter Victoria Cecilia Essex (Grace Johnston) found her uptight WASP single mother Hillary Whitney Essex (Barbara Hershey) collapsed on the bedroom floor when she was in the last stages of her terminal cardiac disease (viral cardiomyopathy); the hospital scene following in which Hillary asked her life-long best friend - brassy, Jewish, low-brow and spirited NY singer/entertainer C.C. Cecilia Bloom (Bette Midler) - to take her from the hospital to live out her last days at a Pacific Ocean beach house; the scene of their conversation while playing cards, when C.C. told Hillary: "Listen, I know everything there is to know about you and my memory is long. My memory is very, very long" - followed by Hillary's response to herself: "I'm counting on it"; Midler's rendition of "Wind Beneath My Wings" on the soundtrack as they watched a final sunset together - and ending with Hillary's funeral after her death.
After Hillary's death, the tear-jerking scene of C.C. discussing the future with Hillary's teary-eyed daughter Victoria, inviting her to come live with her and admitting her selfishness: ("If you don't want to come with me, Victoria, I - I will understand. I'll understand. I mean, I don't know what kind of a mother I'd make. You wouldn't believe the things that go through my head sometimes. And I'm very selfish too. I don't know what she was thinking of when she picked me. Now that I don't want to do it, there's nothing in the world I want more than to be with you. You think about it"), and Victoria's request: "C.C.? if I go with you, can I bring my cat?" - with C.C.'s reply: "Of course you can bring your cat. You can bring any old thing you want" - the two consoled each other's grief with a strong embrace; and C.C.'s resumed performance at the Hollywood Bowl - singing an encore tribute song "The Glory of Love" to her friend, while wearing a wine-velvet gown: ("Ya gotta laugh a little, cry a little and til the clouds roll by a little / That's the story of, that's the glory of love...") with Victoria watching back-stage - afterwards, they walked off together, hand-in-hand, as C.C. told the young girl about first meeting Hillary in 1958 under the boardwalk on the beach at Atlantic City, NJ: ("I sang that song the day your mother and I met in Atlantic City. We were just about your age. Did you know that?...We met when I was under the boardwalk smoking cigarettes"). There was a concluding flashback (in color and then freeze-framed black and white) of 11 year-olds Hillary (Marcie Leeds) and C.C. (Mayim Bialik) having their pictures taken in a photo booth on the day they first met in Atlantic City on the boardwalk - as they promised always to write to each other - in voice-over ("Be sure to keep in touch, C.C., OK? Well sure, we're friends, aren't we?").

The scene in which John Geste (Ray Milland) presented Lady Patricia (Heather Thatcher) with a letter from brother Beau (Gary Cooper), disclosing that her prized valuable gem - "The Blue Water" sapphire, had been sold years before and that Beau had stolen the substitute to save her the embarrassment of selling it - she read the letter aloud at the foot of the stairs: ("I was inside the suit of armor in the hall the day you sold the Blue Water to the Maharajah's agent and received an imitation to take its place. When the wire from Sir Hector came, I thought I could repay your devotion to us by giving Brandon Abbas its first robbery. So the lights went out and so did Beau. Lovingly, Beau Geste"); after reading the letter, she delivered a tearful last line of thanks: "Beau Geste? Gallant gesture. We didn't name him wrongly, did we?"

The concluding hours between two young tourists: American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and French Celine (Julie Delpy), after roaming around Vienna throughout the night, when they realized that they would have to part; the concluding heartbreaking scene was set in the train station when they hastily parted with a few final kisses and embraces: ("OK, I guess this is it, no?...Have a great life. Have fun with everything you're gonna do!"); they vowed to see each other again in exactly six months at the same location, and then boarded separate trains (and each reflected upon their time together as the film returned to the locations they had visited which were now empty) - to the sound of Bach's Andante from Sonata No. 1 in G Major for Viola

Double amputee Homer Parrish's (Harold Russell) self-loathing homecoming with his family when his mother first notices her son's hooks/hands, and his speech to his fiancee Wilma Cameron (Cathy O'Donnell) later in the bedroom: ("Well, now you know, Wilma. Now you have an idea of what it is. I guess you don't know what to say. It's all right. Go on home. Go away like your family said"), and Wilma's refusal to abandon Homer - she vows devoted, steadfast love for Homer and that nothing has changed her love for him: ("I love you and I'm never going to leave you, never") as she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, before helping him to bed; after she leaves, Homer lies in bed, staring upward at the ceiling, with tears welling up and streaming down.

In a touching and sentimental scene, womanizing radio host Buzz Fielding (Bob Hope) and ex-wife Cleo Fielding (Shirley Ross) serenaded each other with a duet of the Academy Award-winning Best Song Thanks For the Memory; they sang as they shared drinks, poignantly and slightly regretfully looking back on the good times they had experienced within their failed relationship; he began: "Thanks for the memory / Of rainy afternoons / Swinging Harlem tunes/ Motortrips and burning lips / And burning toast and prunes" and she joined in: "How lovely it was / Thanks for the memory / Of candlelight and wine / Castles on the Rhine / The Parthenon..." as they continued to alternate the lyrics; their singing ended wistfully, as they clinked their glasses together again and sang: "Hooray for us"; she asked, still singing: "Strictly entre nous, darling, how are you?" and he replied: "And how are all those little dreams that never did come true?"; she responded: "Awfully glad I met you", with his response: "Cheerio, toodle-oo" - she collapsed in tears in his arms when they finished -- (this was the song that would launch Hope's career and become his famous trademark or signature theme song).

A film filled with a series of dramatized fanciful stories, legends, myths, whimsical and magical autobiography - when estranged and doubting prodigal son Will (Billy Crudup as adult son) returned home to console and confront his tall tale-telling, dying cancer victim father Ed Bloom (Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor as a younger traveling salesman), including the scene of Ed transformed into a big catfish to swim away forever ("the biggest fish in the river gets that way by never being caught") -- a beautiful metaphoric death that eased him into his real death; in Ed’s dying moments, it was revealed what Ed had seen in the witch’s/Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter) glass eye – Ed died in the river (as the 'big fish' he always wanted to be) surrounded by all the people he had met on his far-flung adventures; the real-life versions of the people from Ed’s stories turned up to bid their final farewells and pay respects at his funeral, illustrating to Will that his father's tall tales were very close to reality

There were at least two tearjerking scenes in director Fritz Lang's landmark bleak, film noir crime classic and violent melodrama: (1) the scene in which homicide Police Sergeant Dave Bannion's (Glenn Ford) pretty wife Katherine 'Katie' (Jocelyn Brando) was killed in a car-bombing intended for him, and (2) the retaliatory scene in which heroine Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame), the beautiful moll and kept-woman of sadistic, reflexive, cold-blooded Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) sought revenge with hot coffee, but was shot fatally twice in the back - Bannion sympathetically cradled her head with her mink coat while kneeling at her side, although she pulled it up to hide her disfigured face; she expressed peacefulness in her final words when she referred to Bannion's murdered wife: "I like her...I like her alot."

The scene of French girl Melisande's (Renee Adoree) farewell to her lover, World War I American soldier James Apperson (John Gilbert), as he was taken away in an army truck and she ran after it -- James tossed his watch, dog-tags chain and shoe to her, which she clutched to her breast; also the scene of James' return from war and amputation, as he came down a French road in a traveling suit - hobbling on a wooden leg and steadied with a cane, returning to the girl of his dreams as he promised. In the gripping, moving finale, he tried feverishly to quicken his pace and run into her arms, as they called out: "MELISANDE! JIMMEE!" They were finally reunited and overjoyed as they embraced and hugged each other once more.

Mentally and physically scarred Benjamin "The Little Colonel" Cameron's (Henry B. Walthall) homecoming, in which his arrival on the doorstep of his old ruined home was greeted by a hug from his initially reticent sister Flora (Mae Marsh) -- and the brilliant side-shot in which the house itself seemed to beckon him back home as hands and arms of his unseen mother (Josephine Crowell) held him lovingly and pulled him inside.

Bladerunner cop Rick Deckard's (Harrison Ford) cruel undressing of Rachael's (Sean Young) humanity when she insisted that she was human (by showing him a picture of her and her mother and by describing her intimate, implanted memories first about playing doctor with her brother and then seeing a spider egg hatching) with his retort: ("Implants! Those aren't your memories. They're somebody else's. They're Tyrell's niece's [memories]") - the retraction of his comments came too late, as a tear flowed liberally down Rachael's cheek -- followed by a long shot of her throwing the photo to the floor and fleeing Deckard's apartment (later, she would tearfully come to terms with her artificiality: "I'm not in the business. I am the business"); and the famous scene in which replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) gave a poignant, eloquent speech before dying, after he had saved Deckard's life: ("I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.")

In this film's shocking and tense "ballet of blood" finale - an ultra-violent, country backroads ambush was set for outlaw doomed lovers Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) - in their final freeze-frame of life, with a silent glance at each other, Bonnie and Clyde revealed both panic and love in their faces - knowing that something was ominously wrong and that they were facing their ultimate destruction, the natural result of the escalating violence; their frenzied corpses writhed in slow-motion as they were gunned down, 'shot,' and riddled with bullets - they died cinematically-beautiful, abstracted deaths to accentuate the romance of the myths and the larger-than-life legends that surrounded them; their last moment of 'life' occurred when Clyde rolled over gently in slow-motion and Bonnie's arm dangled unnaturally and then stopped moving. Bonnie's flowing blonde hair, streaked in sunlight and gently blowing in the breeze, cascaded down in many arcs as she hung out of the car.

The climactic scene in which adult lion Elsa, previously an orphaned cub, was released into the wild to enjoy a free life after being raised by two Kenyan game wardens George and Joy Adamson (husband and wife Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna), to the strains of the Oscar-winning title song and score by John Barry.

The surprisingly poignant scene in which nature and technology meet: the Toaster (voice of Deanna Oliver), hiding from woodland animals, encountered a flower standing in a single ray of light; the flower saw its own reflection in the Toaster's shiny metal chrome and thought it had found a companion, but the Toaster backed away and dismissively explained: "Oh, no. It's just a reflection. It's not real"; undeterred, the flower embraced the Toaster anyway; panicked, the Toaster then hid behind a bush - taking a peek through the leaves and saw that the flower, now wilted and dying, was bent over in sorrow, rejection and loneliness - a petal dropped to the ground like a tear; the Toaster walked away, looking back in guilt and with some pensiveness, learning a lesson about cameraderie, as he would be more friendly and supportive of his other appliance friends from now on.

Scottish legendary kilt-clad, war-painted hero William Wallace's (Mel Gibson) rousing, emotional speeches to his loyal followers, such as: "I AM William Wallace! And I see a whole army of my country men, here, in defiance of tyranny. You've come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?...Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live - at least awhile. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take OUR FREEDOM!", and his heroic death scene as he is courageously tortured ("I'm not dead yet") and then brutally beheaded - when he sees the ghost of his dead wife Murron (Catherine McCormack) in the crowd.

The final scene in an alleyway during a downpour when NY socialite Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) found her abandoned nameless cat in an alley and kissed neighbor writer and 'kept' man Paul "Fred" Varjak (George Peppard) - with the cat squeezed in-between them and her last lines: "Cat! Cat! Oh, Cat... ohh..."

The melodramatic plotline in which paralyzed oil-rig worker Jan Nyman (Stellan Skarsg�rd) insisted his new kind-hearted wife Bess (Emily Watson) sleep with other men as a way to establish spiritual contact with him: (Bess: "I don't make love with them. I make love with Jan. And I save him from dying"); and Bess' tragic rape/murder in a sacrificial martyr's death aboard a ship where even prostitutes wouldn't go; during her burial, it was discovered that there was only sand in the coffin - Bess was refused a proper burial as a transgressive cast-out from the community, so a miraculously-healed Jan stole her body in order to bury her at sea - as heavenly bells mercifully rang over the ocean and the oil rig in the film's cosmic ending.

Two scenes: Gale Sayer's (Billy Dee Williams) haltingly spoken locker-room address to his fellow players on Brian Piccolo's (James Caan) cancer, breaking down into uncontrollable sobs to prematurely end his speech: ("Uh, you uh, all know that we hand out a game ball to the outstanding player...Well, I'd like to change that. We just got word that Brian Piccolo is...that's he's sick, very sick...And, uh, it looks, uh...like he might never play football...again, or, uh, a long time...And, I think we should dedicate ourselves to give our maximum effort to win this game and give the game ball...to 'Pic'. We can all sign it. And take it up...Aw, sh....Oh, my God...").

And later, his tear-jerking acceptance of the George S. Halas Award for Courage: ("I love Brian Piccolo. And I'd like all of you to love him too. And tonight, (when) you hit your knees - please ask God to love him.")

The film's flashbacks after the heroine's death, including the pivoital rainy afternoon scene of married Iowa farmwife Francesca Johnson's (Meryl Streep) fateful, cross-roads decision to remain with her husband (although she partially turned the doorknob) instead of jumping out of the truck at a stoplight and joining lover-National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) after their short four-day affair; and Francesca's later receipt of a package from Robert's lawyer on his death featuring mementos of their affair.

The many emotionally potent scenes between middle-class housewife Laura (Celia Johnson) and doctor Alec (Trevor Howard) in their weekly clandestine meetings, including the famous scene of their final day together when they were interrupted by a friend during their last, painful, repressed goodbye (both at the start and end of the film) as Alec gently placed his hand on her shoulder and then disappeared forever (on a medical journey to Africa).

The scene in which bisexual cowboy Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and lover Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) painfully tried to deal with their mutual sexual and romantic attraction and Jack's painful admission: "The truth is... sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it..." as they dealt with the secretiveness of their affair, and the pained partings after each tryst; the tearful scenes in which their wives learned of their affair: ("You don't go up there to fish"); and the scene of the final break-up between the two when Jack delivered an ultimatum: ("Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! F--kin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain!...I wish I knew how to quit you!") and Ennis' sobbed response: ("Well, why don't you? Why don't you just let me be? It's because of you that I'm like this! I ain't got nothing... I ain't nowhere... Get the f--k off me! I can't stand being like this no more, Jack"); the scene of Ennis' first discovery of the blood-stained shirts in Jack's childhood bedroom some time after his death. The shirts belonged to himself and ex-lover Jack (who had died while changing a tire that exploded, although Ennis imagined it as a gay-bashing incident) from when they fought together years earlier on Brokeback Mountain - he held the shirts to his face and breathed in their scent; and the melodramatic ending, in which Ennis once again saw their two old shirts (hanging in the back of a closet in the trailer of his father). The two shirts were both together on one hanger, intertwined - Jack's blood-stained shirt was tucked inside of Ennis's - he also saw a postcard of Brokeback Mountain tacked next to the shirts and straightened it - he tearfully and regretfully cried about their forbidden homosexual love affair: "Jack, I swear..."

The tragic life of the sensitive and frail teenage Cockney waif Lucy Burrows (Lillian Gish), and the scenes of her forced smile by pushing up the ends of her mouth with her fingers, and the unforgettable death scene as her brutal and bigoted father Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp) savagely broke down the door as she cowered in a closet and twisted to avoid him but later received the fatal blows.

The doomed romance in 19th century Paris between French nobleman Armand Duval (Robert Taylor) and ill courtesan Marguerite Gautier (Greta Garbo), and his impassioned speech to her as she died in the inevitable death scene in this timeless classic: ("Think of how happy we were once, how happy we shall be again. Think of the day you found the four leaf clover, and all the good luck it's going to bring us"), and his reaction to her passing while lying in his arms: ("Marguerite. Marguerite! No, don't leave me. Marguerite, come back!").