A Glean movie guide
The Ultimate Cry List
Grab the tissues.
From historical tragedies to intimate heartbreaks, these films are guaranteed to move you.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Manchester by the Sea
A raw, unflinching look at a man paralyzed by an unthinkable family tragedy.
After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.
- 02
Grave of the Fireflies
A devastating animated masterpiece about two siblings struggling to survive the final days of WWII.
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
- 03
Aftersun
A quiet, deeply moving reflection on a daughter’s final memories of her father.
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.
- 04
Schindler's List
A powerful historical epic that finds profound humanity amidst the horrors of the Holocaust.
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
- 05
The Green Mile
A supernatural prison drama that builds toward an emotionally shattering climax of injustice.
A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
- 06
Marley & Me
A heartwarming and eventually heartbreaking journey through the life of a family’s beloved dog.
A newly married couple, in the process of starting a family, learn many of life's important lessons from their trouble-loving retriever, Marley. Packed with plenty of laughs to lighten the load, the film explores the highs and lows of marriage, maturity and confronting one's own mortality, as seen through the lens of family life with a dog.
- 07
Blue Valentine
A brutally honest portrait of a marriage’s slow, painful dissolution over several years.
Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.
- 08
Coco
A vibrant Pixar journey that explores the deep emotional bonds of family and the fear of being forgotten.
Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector, and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history.
- 09
The Notebook
A sweeping romantic classic centered on the enduring power of love in the face of memory loss.
An epic love story centered around an older man who reads aloud to a woman with Alzheimer's. From a faded notebook, the old man's words bring to life the story about a couple who is separated by World War II, and is then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths.
- 10
Lion
The incredible true story of a man’s obsessive, years-long search for the family he lost as a child.
A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.