01 An underrated, genuinely moving film about grief in childhood.
18 Best Sad Movies That Are Worth the Cry
By Vlad Zakh · August 21, 2026
These aren’t the movies people put on to torture themselves, they’re the ones where the sadness is actually earned. I only put a film on this list if I still think about it afterward.
01 
02 The original "warn your friends before they watch this" family film.
03 Quiet, restrained, and one of the saddest films you'll rarely hear mentioned.
04 Manages warmth and devastation in the same story, a rare balance.
05 Slow, heavy, and one of the more quietly devastating dramas of its era.
06 A big, sweeping tragedy that still works after dozens of rewatches.
07 Essential, difficult, and one of the most important films ever made.
08 The first ten minutes alone justify a spot on this list.
09 Earns its ending through everything that comes before it.
10 Devastating in the first half, genuinely hopeful by the end.
11 A quietly brutal look at how a relationship actually falls apart.
12 Handles a hard subject with more honesty than its premise suggests.
13 Simple, sincere, and still effective two decades later.
14 A genuinely difficult family drama that doesn't pull its punches.
15 The dog movie everyone warns you about, for good reason.
16 Brutal, but it earns every second of that reputation.
17 Grief handled with restraint instead of melodrama, which makes it land harder.
18 One of the most devastating animated films ever made, and one of the best.