46 Sad Romance Movies That Make You Cry Every Time
You know those sad romance movies that wreck you every time you watch them? The ones that — at the age of 12, having yet to go on a single date — left you utterly convinced that you knew what love’s most tragic depths felt like? And the emotional movies that, as someone who’s maybe now experienced a taste of love and loss yourself, continue to hurt so good?
Yeah, those. When it comes to sad romance movies that make you cry, honestly, we can't get enough. In the back of our minds, we totally know that most of the characters are made up (or, at the very least, are fictionalized adaptations of real people). But the emotions and heartbreaks, the wins and losses of being in love, still feel totally real. And isn't that what matters? We thought so.
Love’s highs — and all of its beyond-anguishing lows (we love a good unrequited love song) — are explored in so many different ways in movies now, so we've rounded up the 29 best emotional movies that are guaranteed to make you cry every time. (Yes, even those of you who swear you don't have tear ducts!)
Now, get ready to revel in a sad love story (or several), and while you’re at it, pass the tissues. And when you’re done with that, we have some (happier) movies about summer love for you to check out.
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Walter Thomson/Netflix1/46All the Bright Places (2020)
There’s potential tragedy from the very beginning of this heart-wrenching film. Violet Markey (Elle Fanning) is battling survivor’s guilt after her sister was killed in a car accident. She meets Theodore Finch (Jaden Smith) on the very bridge where her sister died, where Violet is about to jump to her own death. Theodore talks her down, and the two form a relationship grown out of their combined discontent with their lives as they stand.
Where to watch: Netflix
2/46A Star is Born (2018)
We were rooting for Ally (Lady Gaga) and Jackson (Bradley Cooper) from the second their paths cross in a gay bar where she's belting out Edith Piaf's “La Vie En Rose." With Jackson's help, a star is born—but so is an epic romance. It starts with so much promise, and even when things start to take a turn, we're left hoping (against all hope) that things will somehow turn out all right.
Already seen, and sobbed to, Gaga and Cooper’s remake? Try one of its predecessors; there’s the 1937 version, starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March; the 1954 version, starring Judy Garland and James Mason; and the 1976 remake that stars Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. In short, many stars who have been born!
Where to watch: MAX.
3/46Love, Simon (2018)
If Nick Robinson as Simon doesn't have you smiling at all of his prospective romances while he searches for the elusive "Blue" throughout the film, then you are probably a monster. But the moment that will have you sobbing (and exhaling along) is when Simon's mom (played by Jennifer Garner) sits down and confronts Simon about him being gay.
Where to watch: Amazon and Disney+
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY4/46Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Given the Shakespeare play is one of the saddest love stories of all time, this is kind of a no-brainer. But it's Baz Luhrmann's gorgeous treatment of the film that really gets the vote in our book. Between the beach setting, the costume party, and — yes — '90s-era Leonardo DiCaprio, you'll recite every speech in iambic pentameter, just like you learned in English class.
Where to watch: Amazon.
5/46Moonlight (2016)
Moonlight is a movie that won’t just pull — it’ll yank at your heartstrings. From writer-director Barry Jenkins, it tells the story of one young, gay Black man’s journey to adulthood. Growing up poor in Miami with a mother who struggles with substance abuse and addiction, we follow Chiron as he comes to terms with his identity — and with the nature of his feelings toward a close friend, Kevin — in three defining life chapters. It was both the first LGBTQ movie and the first movie with an all-Black cast to win Best Picture, and it’s a must-see.
Where to watch: Hulu.
6/46Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
A, simply, gorgeous movie. Set in circa-1770 France, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is a painter who’s commissioned to secretly paint the engagement portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Héloïse isn’t exactly hot on the idea of this marriage and, with Marianne, experiences a utopic five days of love and female-driven mysticism and seaside cinemascapes. After watching, you may be inspired to keep the weep-fest going by putting on Vivaldi and forlornly opening a book, any book, to page 28. (Just trust us, okay.)
7/46La La Land (2016)
That closing montage — woof. This movie does not provide the Hollywood fairy-tale ending we were hoping for, but it does provide a cathartic release of tears (and plenty of Ryan Gosling).
Where to watch: Netflix
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY8/46A Walk to Remember (2002)
It’s the movie that made you want a butterfly shoulder tattoo (and probably inspired at least one of us to sing “Only Hope” in the school talent show). Plus, the determination of Landon (Shane West) to make sure a leukemia-battling Jamie (Mandy Moore) crosses everything off her bucket list raised the bar for significant others everywhere.
Where to watch: Tubi
9/46Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Armie Hammer may definitely be canceled, but CMBYN is still the movie that propelled Timotheé Chalamet into stardom (and into all of our hearts). It’s set in the most idyllic place for a summer romance slash sad love story, a small villa in northern Italy, and the angst will have you at the edge of your seat the whole movie. Then, there’s that ending. No spoilers, but you will definitely be crying along with one of the main characters while Sufjan Stevens croons in the background.
Where to watch: Amazon.
10/46If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Based on the novel by James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk is a story of Black love in a world that puts every obstacle in front of it. Directed by Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, it tells the story of Clementine (KiKi Layne), or “Tish,” and Alonzo (Stephan James), or “Fonny,” two childhood friends turned lovers in 1970s Harlem who are ready to start a life together. Their plans take a devastating turn, though, when Fonny was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.
Where to watch: Amazon
GIF: Courtesy of GIPHY11/46Blue Valentine (2010)
Watching Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams go through the motions of a couple falling in love, only to fall disastrously apart, will make you question if love was ever real to begin with. Don't watch this with a significant other — or even on your own if you're in a relationship, period. It won't end well.
Where to watch: Amazon.
12/46Titanic (1997)
Would any list of sad, romantic movies be complete without Titanic? We don't think so. Chances are you've watched this a million times and already know how it ends, but you still can't help but shed a tear (okay, a busted pipe’s worth of ‘em) when Rose (Kate Winslet) tells Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) she'll never let go. (Or, if you’re a true Titanic stan, the moment when Rose jumps back onto the sinking ship from the safety of her lifeboat — that’s the real onion peeler.)
Where to watch: Amazon.
13/46Your Name (2016)
Part love story, part gender-flipping, body-switching teen sci-fi adventure, this Japanese anime movie took box offices by storm, surpassing even anime juggernauts like Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle. From writer-director Makoto Shinkai, it tells the story of two teenagers determined to meet one another after discovering they’ve been magically swapping bodies. It’s, more than sad-sad, tender and funny and touching, but it’ll also likely leave you feeling a little wistful.
Where to watch: Amazon.
14/46Brokeback Mountain (2005)
The doomed-before-it-began story of Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), based on the short story by Annie Proulx, is guaranteed to make you cry. It's as poignant and as relevant as ever, even though we live nearly 60 years after Ennis and Jack first met.
Where to watch: Amazon.
15/46Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Yes, Kate Winslet’s Clementine is pretty much the archetypal Manic Pixie Dream Girl. And also, yes, Eternal Sunshine lives on as solid watch-with-a-tub-of-ice-cream material. The premise — that two dysfunctional-in-love exes, Clementine and Joel (Jim Carrey), undergo a procedure to erase all memory of the other — is memorable. (No pun actually intended.) It’s wistful and hopeful in a decidedly still-sad kinda way, and if you’ve recently ended a relationship, it may leave you thinking a text to the ol’ ex is wise. (It probably isn’t!)
Where to watch: Amazon.
16/46Les Misérables (2012)
Let’s be real. Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream” number is a surefire recipe for tears. “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed”? Gah! Talk about a sad love movies anthem for the ages.
Where to watch: Amazon.
17/46Boys Don't Cry (1999)
When it was released, Boys Don’t Cry became the first mainstream movie to center a transgender man. Based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man who was brutally raped and murdered in 1993, the film was both critically acclaimed and generally well-received by the LGBTQ community when it was released. (Its legacy today though, especially for some trans viewers, feels mixed.) Hilary Swank won an Oscar for her portrayal of Brandon, whose relationship with Lana (played by Chloë Sevigny) is a focus of the film.
Where to watch: Hulu
18/46My Girl (1999)
Young Macaulay Culkin! Baby Anna Chlumsky! Pre-teen angst and one of the most tragic deaths in a movie about kids, possibly ever. We dare you not to cry.
Where to watch: Tubi
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19/46Amour (2012)
It’s a film about a still-in-love couple in their eighties. So, in short, you know you’re going to cry! George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), decades into a loving marriage, remain totally devoted to each other. Facing mortality, they continue to love each other while keeping the promises they’ve made — including their promise that Anne, who’s suffered a stroke, will never go back to the hospital. If emotional movies about later-in-life love get you, this one will leave you actually destroyed.
Where to watch: Amazon.
20/46Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
Oh, the rampant queer subtext of Fried Green Tomatoes! It’s a gloriously gay movie, even if its makers and 1990s media tried to bill it as a “story of female friendship.” (Right.) It absolutely deserves its place on any list of sad romantic movies that make you cry, although the storyline that jerks your tears the most — whether it’s the one told in flashbacks or the modern-day subplot — may be a tossup. That said: Idgie and Ruth forever!
Where to watch: Amazon.
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21/46Cabaret (1966)
The circa-1930s Berlin of it all! Belied by comedy in a way that some other movies on this list aren’t, Cabaret is a lot of things, but it's also, in its own way, one of the saddest romance movies. Plus, Liza Minnelli’s Sally Bowles doing that closing “Maybe This Time” number? Iconic.
Where to watch: Amazon
22/46Irreplaceable You (2018)
They say it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all. Well, in Irreplaceable You, Abbie (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is diagnosed with terminal cancer (yes, the tissues will be coming out early in this one) and tries to find someone to love and care for the fiancé she's leaving behind. Trying to find the love of your life's next partner because you don't have long to live? Now THAT's love.
Where to watch: Netflix.
23/46The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
Pop quiz: what part of this movie will make you cry?
- A: Shailene Woodley's perfect portrayal of a teen battling cancer.
- B: Ansel Elgort's turn as a teen whose cancer comes back.
- C: the depiction of a first love in the face of immense sadness.
- D: All of the above.
Where to watch: Amazon.
24/46The Vow (2012)
If watching Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams learn how to fall in love again after she suffers a terrible car accident doesn't make you feel things, consider this: It was based on a true story. Crying now? We thought so.
Where to watch: Amazon
25/46The Notebook (2004)
Need an explanation for why we included this tearjerker? (Obviously, you don’t.) Not only do you get Ryan Gosling (yet again), you also get that classic scene where Noah proclaims “If you're a bird, I'm a bird.” Sigh. And if you've read the novel by Nicholas Sparks, it makes the movie even more special.
Where to watch: Amazon.
26/46Every Day (2018)
Why watch a movie with one romance when you could watch a movie with basically an infinite number of them? Well, sorta. In Every Day the entity "A" wakes up in a different body and starts to fall in love with Rhiannon (Angourie Rice). Part-coming of age, part-romance, this movie will have you crying from start to finish.
Where to watch: Amazon
27/46Atonement (2007)
Among tragic romance movies, this one’s a classic. Following the tried and true star-crossed lovers tradition, romance between Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy) is only just beginning — that library sex scene, though! — when Cecilia’s 13-year-old sister (played by a young Saorise Ronan in a performance that won her an Oscar nomination) tells a lie that upends their lives forever.
Where to watch: Amazon.
28/46Malcolm & Marie (2021)
From Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, Malcolm & Marie was, fun fact, the first Hollywood feature film to be completely written, shot and produced during the pandemic. (Such a fun fact, right? *cue nervous laugh*) A story of romantic reckoning, it follows Marie (Zendaya) and Malcolm (John David Washington) on the last legs of a relationship rollercoaster that’s seemingly destined for a final crash. Among the lineup of sad romance movies on Netflix, it’s gotten more mixed reviews, but we’d honestly watch it for Zendaya alone.
Where to watch: Netflix.
29/46Moulin Rouge! (2001)
A sad love story shown in Baz Luhrmann-befitting technicolor — the sets! The costumes! — Moulin Rouge! is, as one of my best friends put it, a “hopeless-romantic theater kid’s dream.” Behold its central adage: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” And just like that, our preteen selves were pretty sure we were wise in all things related to love.
Where to watch: Hulu.
30/46Up (2009)
Tear buckets. You’ll need ‘em. While maybe a less-obvious pick compared to some of the archetypal sad romantic movies on this list, Up offers a deeply poignant look at love. It’s a story about the way love shapes and defines us even when the ones we love are no longer living, and excuse me, I have already started crying?
Where to watch: Disney+.
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection31/46Seven Pounds (2008)
When it comes to sad romances in film, this is one of the toughest to sit with. Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is on a mission to wipe his own slate clean by saving the lives of seven people. There’s a kink in the plan when he meets and falls in love with Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a woman with a fatal heart condition. Grab the box(es) of tissues.
Where to watch: Apple TV
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32/46Remember Me (2010)
One of the most emotionally devastating romantic films on this list, Remember Me follows the blossoming relationship of two new lovers. Starring Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin in the titular roles, you’ll need an entire pack of tissues for the absolute gut-punch that is the ending of this iconic film.
Where to watch: Tubi
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33/46Me Before You (2016)
If you’re a fan of the grumpy-sunshine trope, this movie was practically made for you. When Louisa Clark (Emilia Clarke) becomes a caregiver for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), the duo’s starkly different personalities collide. Soon, Clark’s positive outlook on life begins to rub off on Traynor, whose cynicism begins to take a backseat to love.
Where to watch: Apple TV
34/46Five Feet Apart (2019)
Based on the novel of the same name, this 2019 film is the epitome of tragic teen romance. In the film, two teens with cystic fibrosis, Stella (Haley Lu Richadson) and Will (Cole Sprouse), begin a flirty romance. Even though their illnesses require them to maintain a strict distance between them, they might risk it all for a few moments of pure bliss.
Where to watch: Apple TV+
35/46P.S. I Love You (2007)
After her husband dies, Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank) begins to receive a series of letters written by her husband (Gerard Butler) to help ease her grief. Equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful, this film will encourage you to love hard and never waste a second enjoying life.
Where to watch: Amazon
36/46Dear John (2010)
If there’s one thing a film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel is going to do is make you sob uncontrollably into your popcorn. Dear John is no different. This will-they-or-won’t-they romance follows the lives of college girl Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) and soldier John Tyree (Channing Tatum). Over the next few years, the lovers exchange letters while John is on deployment, but neither of them can predict what happens next…
Where to watch: Amazon
37/46If I Stay (2014)
Chloë Grace Moretz and Jaime Blackley star in the film adaptation of the 2009 novel of the same name. A classic teen drama, the film follows a young cellist with a major decision to make: attend her dream school or stay with the love of her life. After an accident leaves her life hanging in the balance, there’s no telling what she might choose.
Where to watch: Amazon
38/46The Danish Girl (2015)
Yet another book-to-movie adaptation, The Danish Girl is one Oscar-nominated film that’s guaranteed to make you ugly cry. Following the story of Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) as she prepares to undergo one of the first ever sex-change operations with her wife by her side.
Where to watch: Amazon
39/46A Silent Voice (2017)
This Japanese animated film isn’t afraid to touch upon the darker side of bullying. A beautiful ode to friendship and love, this movie will remind you exactly how important you are in other people’s lives (and how impactful your words and actions can be).
Where to watch: Amazon
40/46One Day (2011)
Warning: This movie is so devastating you might need 3-5 business days to recover. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess portray two lifelong friends who meet up one day a year to discuss their life—until 20 years later they finally find what they’ve been looking for all along.
Where to watch: Amazon
41/46All of Us Strangers (2023)
Loosely based on the Japanese novel “Strangers,” this queer drama puts Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott’s acting talents on full display. A film wrapped up in grief, romance, and healing, you’ll find yourself reaching for the phone to tell your parents just how much you love them.
Where to watch: Hulu
42/46The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
The theme of this article: novel-to-movie adaptations aren’t actually bad. At least not when it comes to romance films. The Time Traveler’s Wife is no different. Starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, this gut-wrenching movie follows the relationship of a time traveler and his wife — and all the troubles that come along with loving someone who can disappear at any moment.
43/46Past Lives (2023)
This award-winning film asks: what happens when two childhood friends reconnect after decades apart? Facing love, destiny, and endless possibilities, Nora Moon (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) grapple with their messy and complex feelings for each other.
Where to watch: Hulu
44/46Life Itself (2018)
Prepare yourself to ugly cry while watching the long-standing romance between two college sweethearts. Starring Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Olivia Cooke, Antonio Banderas, Samuel L. Jackson, and more A-list actors, this film will have you sobbing within the hour. (I’m seriously not joking, I think I made it 15 minutes without sniffling).
Where to watch: Amazon
45/46In the Mood for Love (2000)
A slow-burn film that will have you aching for true love, this 2001 film was co-produced between Hong Kong and France. It follows the story of two friends who realize their spouses have been cheating on them. Slowly, the duo begin to fall in love, but neither wants to break their marital vows.
Where to watch: MAX
46/46The Last Song (2010)
The infamous movie that brought Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth together, this film is yet another heartbreaking Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Forced to spend the summer with her estranged father in Georgia, NYC teen Ronnie (Cyrus) grapples with her parents divorce, her father’s cancer diagnosis, and falling in love for the first time.
Where to watch: Hulu
Can't get enough love stories? Here are the best romantic movies about summer love, so you can look back on the one that got away.
