Tops on my list, without a doubt, is The Joy Luck Club. Ebert billed it as a "four-hanky movie" and he was aboslutely right. It's the only movie I've ever been to where you could hear audience members all around you sobbing. My faucets are already open during the initial voice-over as the feather is being drawn (beautiful effect, by the way). I've been waiting for this to come out on DVD for such a long time, finally the day is nearly at hand...
And I can't forget Dr. Zhivago, the very first movie to make me cry so many years ago. The scene where Laura leaves the ice palace and Yuri rushes upstairs so he can see the receeding dot of the sleigh for just a few more moments really gets to me.
Mulan is on my list too. That scene on the Emperor's steps where she turns around to see untold thousands of people bowing to honour her was the most powerful moment I've seen in any animated film.
And although it's not a mainstream movie, in a very special place in my heart is the Japanese drama series Beautiful Life, a story about the Kyoko the wheelchair-bound librarian and the Shuuji the hairdresser. I love the Japanese "renzoku dorama" format, a mini-series-like format which (unlike series TV) allows anything to happen and (unlike a relatively shorter movie) gives you a chance to really get to know the characters. This series was 12 hours where the tender feelings started slowly and then just kept building and building to a truely heart-rending finale. I cried pretty much through the entire final episode, particularly at the point where Kyoko's mother brings her shoes in to her...
Gee guys, what have you done to me? My wife just asked me why I was crying...
