When Do You Watch a REALLY Sad Movie?

[Ashi]

I am not completely sure how to properly phrase this question, so I am going to use an example.

 

There was a period when I was really really down (not sure I'd call it depression, but it does feel like it, but I am not a psychiatrist, so I don't want to wrongly diagnose myself). I don't know, my Netflix queue was mounting with tragic movies, because they were my narcotics (I don't do drug, though I did drink a lot...). A classmate asked me why I watched those really sad movies, I told her, "When I feel down, I want to keep going lower, so it'll rebound." I don't know, it's a weird explanation, but it does work that way. It's sad at the time, but I always feel slightly better afterward (I guess they made me feel I wasn't alone). I also own some of those really well-written ones on DVDs, so I could watch them over and over again. I usually get sad over the same scene every time I watch the same movie.... Sounds kind of sick I know.... But that's how I got past my days back then.

 

Nowadays, I feel quite a lot better (btw, I got out of that slum without medication, ooh hoo!). And then the other day, it's one of those downer time again, so I thought it's time for a dose of sad sad movie.... I can't say I am happy nowadays, but I guess I am so far away from the worse days of my life, I couldn't finish the movie anymore. I don't know, I would start watching it, feel my heart twisted into a knot, and then I couldn't bear it anymore so I push that stop button and go to sleep. Before, I could watch several tear jerkers back-to-back without any problem.

 

I realize some people when they're down, they prefer to watch comedy. So I am very curious, when do you watch a tragic drama? Do you watch it when you're down, or do you watch it when you are happy and have energy to spend on such taxing recreation?

[Andy78]

I don't have a particular time or have to be in a particular mood to watch a weepie.

 

I love watching My Sister's Keeper and always end up going through half a box of tissues.

[Mikelaing74]

I've got to be a bit careful with sad movies. But I do remember watching Stepmom and bawling my eyes out !

[Cyhort]

Never. God I HATE sad movies. Watching something heartbreaking will mess me up for days. When I'm depressed I usually just read something that I've already read so I can distract myself but not have to worry about getting lost in thought and skipping a few paragraphs. It relaxes me and calms me down. Usually. If I watched a sad movie while I was depressed I'd probably wanna throw myself out a window

[Zombie]

Never. God I HATE sad movies. Watching something heartbreaking will mess me up for days. When I'm depressed I usually just read something that I've already read so I can distract myself but not have to worry about getting lost in thought and skipping a few paragraphs. It relaxes me and calms me down. Usually. If I watched a sad movie while I was depressed I'd probably wanna throw myself out a window

 

Yeah, same with me. I recently saw A Home at the End of the World. It's a good film, well acted, and the ending reflects the period it was set in, but it finished on such a sad note I was on a real downer. As I get older I want to be uplifted by stuff. Also if I'm feeling melancholic I can't play anything sad it just sends me into a pit of gloom Likewise I now check the end of stories to make sure it doesn't end in suicide, or the lover being killed in a horrible crash right at the end. Those writers are real meanies

 

Edit to add

I watched Mambo Italiano again at the weekend. Yeah, there is a sad sub-plot in it but overall it's just such a fun uplifting film, well acted and with a great cast. So, if you're feeling a bit low I can highly recommend it

Edited June 26, 2012 by Zombie

[Ashi]

I love watching My Sister's Keeper and always end up going through half a box of tissues.

 

I've got to be a bit careful with sad movies. But I do remember watching Stepmom and bawling my eyes out !

 

Okay, those movies are added to my Netflix queue now.... I'll try to space them out with some silly, no-production value, badly made gay movies with cute boys so I can have some laugh in between.

 

BTW, I just noticed there are two versions of My Sister's Keeper. 2009 version or 2002 version?

 

Never. God I HATE sad movies. Watching something heartbreaking will mess me up for days. When I'm depressed I usually just read something that I've already read so I can distract myself but not have to worry about getting lost in thought and skipping a few paragraphs. It relaxes me and calms me down. Usually. If I watched a sad movie while I was depressed I'd probably wanna throw myself out a window

 

Wow, that bad huh? BTW, I usually avoid using the word "depressed" when I was just down. Not sure if you really are/were depressed, because I really hope you don't have it. It kinds of piss me off when people use that word frivolously when they have no idea how serious it has to be before one would be diagnosed with depression (properly, I don't mean when a doctor wants to sell you anti-depressant, so when you say you're depressed, they automatically prescribe you the legal version of cocaine without proper diagnosis, which should last for a year).

 

BTW, I can't read a story when I am seriously down.... It usually makes me angry when I am reading things absent-minded and start to skip paragraphs, because I would go back and re-read the whole segment. I am a VERY slow reader because of that. When I am down, I don't want to get angry.... I really hated it when I was in high school with a reading schedule I could not keep up. Not saying the college level reading was easier, but at least my English level was significantly improved, so I had one less issue to deal with. That's one reason I watch many classics, but read few of them....

 

Back to the response to yours. I think watch really sad movies did the same job for me as skip-reading is for you.... I would say it's almost therapeutic.... Nice to know what other channels one can do to feel better.

 

Yeah, same with me. I recently saw A Home at the End of the World. It's a good film, well acted, and the ending reflects the period it was set in, but it finished on such a sad note I was on a real downer. As I get older I want to be uplifted by stuff. Also if I'm feeling melancholic I can't play anything sad it just sends me into a pit of gloom Likewise I now check the end of stories to make sure it doesn't end in suicide, or the lover being killed in a horrible crash right at the end. Those writers are real meanies

 

Edit to add

I watched Mambo Italiano again at the weekend. Yeah, there is a sad sub-plot in it but overall it's just such a fun uplifting film, well acted and with a great cast. So, if you're feeling a bit low I can highly recommend it

 

A Home at the End of the World? Regretful maybe, but not sad.... To Bobby, it's not his first time to face an experience that's "the end of the world." When his brother died, that was the end of the world for him already, and he built a new home for himself, so the worst was over. I thought he was very very positive and optimistic. Very well-acted, good script, very relatable characters are all worth it for me. I hate it when I finish (or stop) a movie, I felt time wasted.... That movie isn't, so I actually felt pretty good when it ended (I do hope Bobby find a new home that he fits in). The Line of Beauty..., similar theme (one guy trying to find a place he fits in), but that movie/mini-series left me a really really sad note (also well written, by Andrew Davies, based on a Booker Prize winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst). Don't want to spoil it.... The last spoken line is a classic. Not sad, per se.... But it's a mixture of complex feelings punched through the heart in one line. If I were Nick Guest, I would feel my life so far has been pointless.

 

I am adding Mambo Italiano to my queue.

 

EDIT: Of course the tragedy writers are meanies! I went to a screenwriter seminar, and speaker (Michael Arndt, love him) quoted a famous saying, to write a good drama, the writer has to be a sadist. Can't be truer than that! That's why we watch tragedy right? Because we are..., well... masochists. LOL.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Ashi

[Anya]

I love to watch sad movies when I'm down. They always make me cry and that's just a great way to relieve the stress and process everything. I usually watch 'Moulin Rouge' when I feel like that. Sometimes I like to watch happy movies too but that only makes me forget for a little while...they don't really make it better

 

But then again...I love sad movies in general 'My sister's keeper' is great! I was a mess when I watched it in the cinema...

Edited June 26, 2012 by Anya

[Andy78]

Likewise I now check the end of stories to make sure it doesn't end in suicide, or the lover being killed in a horrible crash right at the end. Those writers are real meanies

 

 

Well Zombie, then I suggest you do not read my short story "School Dance"

 

BTW, I just noticed there are two versions of My Sister's Keeper. 2009 version or 2002 version?

 

 

That would be the 2009 version

[Yettie One]

For me films are my method of pure escapism. I get lost in the movie, become a part of the action, get so caught up in the plot, sometimes it feels like I'm there.

Sad movies are a killer. I feel blue for a good while, especially if its a proper good story. I remember when I was a kid going to watch a film called Out Of Africa, and get really upset the main character dies. Maybe that kinda set a standard for me. I hate to see the people hurt.

 

If I'm down, I usually turn to something cheerful to make me giggle. I can handle the world if I've had a good laugh. I don't know it helps me maintain a positive frame of mind.

I must admit I don't mind mellow or even somewhat depressive music when I'm feeling down. I think that could be me trying to match the music to my mood.

 

Best sad films?

 

Green Mile, A Walk To Remember, Hachi, A Dog's Tale, Marley & Me, Schindler's List.

[joann414]

When someone makes me angry, or really hurts my feelings, instead of lashing out, I just more or less ignore them. Then, I usually go home and find a sad movie to watch so if I cry, I can blame it on the movie, and not on the fact that I let that person get to me.

One of my favs is a pretty old one with a young Reese Witherspoon called " Man in the Moon". It gets me everytime. Also, " The Notebook", and " Message in a Bottle."

[Ashi]

I must admit I don't mind mellow or even somewhat depressive music when I'm feeling down. I think that could be me trying to match the music to my mood.

 

Sometimes I do that too! I would sing song like "You're Beautiful" when I was driving (driving aimlessly is another one of my pastime..., though gas price has been risen, so not something I could do much) and that would make me feel better. So please don't carpool with me if you noticed I am down, unless you're in karaoke mode, then you're fine.

[Yettie One]

driving aimlessly is another one of my pastime..., though gas price has been risen, so not something I could do much

 

Ditto. A nice long drive is always good, but fuel is so expensive here its just not something I can afford to do too much anymore.

 

 

One of my favs is a pretty old one with a young Reese Witherspoon called " Man in the Moon". It gets me everytime. Also, " The Notebook", and " Message in a Bottle."

 

Awwwww Message in a Bottle <3

[Anya]

Omg 'The Green Mile'! There are some movies I can't watch more than once or twice because they're so utterly devastating I run the risk of killing myself after I'm done watching it

[lilansui]

Every time I watch the 'notebook' i need a box of tissues, coz it just gets me. Used to be when I was down, I'd turn off all the lights in the house, close the curtains and just watch some really long epic movies until I can't think anymore. Now, I watch 'the lakehouse'. I don't know why, it just makes me feel better. I can put it on repeat and watch until i fall asleep.

 

The 'GreenMile' scares me a bit, literally. I'm with Anya on that one.

[Ashi]

Oh..., the saddest movie I've ever watched is "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Phenomenal performance by both leads (young Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin). Extraordinary story if not telling the bleak future in a downright unglamorous way (it was a 1969 movie, set in the first "Great Depression," and still is relevant today). The most depressing movie I've ever watched is an understatement for what it is. Tag line of the movie is "People are the ultimate spectacle." I think that line sums up the movie pretty well in many layers. And it's the only movie I watched that "flash forward" works without being gimmicky.

 

"Jude the Obscure" of course is seriously sad (the 1971 Robert Powell version, not the modern remake trash). Any of the Thomas Hardy books will do. The final Hardy novel is however the ultimate of all Hardy tragedy, and very appropriate for our time. I am at the part of the novel which I can see why the story was controversial and brutally attacked to the point Hardy decided to quit writing novel altogether. The way of thinking was too modern for Victorian folks. Given Hardy had a religious upbringing, shaking certain Christian belief that's been unquestioned for millennia in such honest way can't make him popular....

 

"Ordinary People" is a depressing movie about depression.... Don't watch it unless you're in depression (actually don't watch any of the movies listed above unless you're ready for them, because you might be affected in a negative way. They make Greek tragedy looks like light-hearted slapstick). However, I think it's very relevant to people with that condition, or relatives of people affected by it.

[W_L]

When I am in my really sad and self contemplating mood, usually during times when I write deep stories with existential themes.

 

I think I get apathetic after a while of watching some sad movies, I used to cry every time I watch the notebook, but after like the hundredth time, I stopped. I still like it, but it has lost that magic.

 

My current favorite is Dream boy, it's a gay themed movie set in the rural south (I understand Jamessavik a little better due to it), but the entire thing is emotional and the end becomes so sad.

[harcallard]

i can watch a sad movie anytime.

[Celethiel]

I try not to... but I can give you a couple...

The Doll Maker...

[Henry_Henry2012]

Saddest movie I watched was Schindler's List. I was bawling like a child when I watched it for the first time and that was a year ago. I always evaded those kind of films, but when I felt the need for some existentialism chugged down my throat, I dared to watch it.

 

Another film was The Color Purple, Wit (Emma Thompson was amazing in this television film), My Sister's Keeper, The Way We Were. Even Toy Story 3 teared me up at the part where Andy was leaving for College. I sort of realised the childhood I missed will never come back as time went on.

 

The English Patient was an all time favorite book and the film was something that tugged a chord in my heart's string. The Kite Runner was probably the only movie that made me cry like I knew my death's schedule. Cause I don't weep, tears just silently fall down my cheeks. And the chest pain is what agonises me to hum the palpitations of my heart.

 

I watched the film in my sociology class. And I had to excuse myself to the lavatory for me to weep in a cubicle. It reminded me so much of the lesson of sacrifice, and how so many of us recognise it as losing a part of ourselves in the process, while not realising that we gain more in return.

 

One Korean film which I randomly flicked on the telly on one boring Monday morning, had me asking for questions about the cosmos and life when I was 15. It was a film called Peppermint Candy. I didn't cry but I felt ridiculously morose for weeks, worrying that my life would end like the protagonist.

 

And to answer the question of why I watch sad movies, I watch sad movies to complete a part of me that yearns to seek the solitude of comfort that my life problems at the moment, are far from the realities of what the film I'm watching portrays. And since films are a reflection of our life's relevance, it basically means that there are shittier things people experience than what I'm experiencing. 

 

Most people watch sad movies because it creates a balance of surrealism, which creates a paradox that despite the problem one experiences, we feel happy that our lives are not a reflection of the tragedies that the film's narrative express.

 

And watching sad movies makes us reflective of our own lives, which in turn creates a composite of our own problems, and provides us a temporary or permanent solution that everyone in this entire planet deals with pain, sorrow, angst, despair, hatred, and any negative feelings derived from sadness.

 

It's funny that what we say is contrasting of what our brains relates. We may say that "Oh, I feel sad that the lead actor die." whereas, our subconscious is telling us that "At least if you die, you know you're loved." or "If you die like the actor in the film, you know you have time to change your path unlike the lead actor that tragically died of cancer with tons of regrets."

 

Most of us become proactive, most of us become compassionate, most of us feel more human and more alive than we were, because we identify the most basic of emotions which is sadness, in contrast to happiness that our mind consolidates to create a healthy balanced mindset.

 

Unless of course you're the kind of person who is pessimistic of your own life, and instead of accepting that your life is better than the life of the protagonist of the film who has tragically passed away, you focus on the similarities. . . Then you're probably depressed and needs psychological help.

 

Because not everyone wants to be sad all the time, and not everyone feels like being happy every time (that's just crazy and creepy). . . Sadness helps us reflect on the lives we lead, and happiness helps us celebrate the lives we have. And sad movies basically helps us interpret the sadness we feel of our own lives, in contrast to the happiness to the thought that we have a chance to make our lives better.

[Thorn Wilde]

I very rarely set out to watch a sad film... I will set out to watch a good film, so someone might recommend a movie to me and tell me it's a great movie, and I'll watch it and it'll turn out it was really sad and that's fine. My favourite sad movie is probably Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. Really great film. I've watched it twice. I will probably watch it again some time, but I can't rewatch films like that to often.

 

Usually, it's not the plot of a movie that makes me cry, though. A really sad, heavy, tragic movie leaves me feeling a little hollow and tired and exhausted, which can all be good feelings... But it's great dramatic performances that make me cry, and they can come in anything. I cried twice during The Hobbit, I cried during Star Trek Into Darkness, I cried during Iron Man III, I have cried many times during Glee when someone performs a song particularly well (Darren Criss's acoustic version of Teenage Dream last autumn had me crying like a baby), I cry lots every time I see the last episode of series 2 of Sherlock, not because of the plot but because of Martin Freeman's amazing acting. So yeah, to me it's not the plot of the film that determines whether I cry or not, it's the emotional realism of the actor's performance, and it can be a really sad scene or a hopeful scene or the scene where everything turns out okay in spite of the tragedy preceding it, but it's always determined by the acting, not the story.

[Former Member]

Sad movies are kind of a catharsis for me.  It leaves me feeling absolutely exhausted, but I always feel better, calmer, fresh.  I also tend to feel very inspired.  I love the movies that sneak up on you and make you cry when you have no idea why.  3 Iron really did that for me.  The end just...just KILLED me.  To this day I don't know why.

 

I love watching The Notebook but I have never cried during it.  But I will bawl like a baby every damn time I watch Finding Neverland.

[Sasha Distan]

i can watch a sad movie anytime.

 

me too, and they will always make me cry. you want guaranteed tears? Marley and Me....

[JamesSavik]

OLD YELLOW

[Former Member]

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[Kitt]

Sad movies just never seem to hit my radar.  Occasionally I may trip on one but I don't seem to have any interest in intentionally sitting down to a movie I know is sad.  Make me laugh - that't what i prefer.