I’ve seen A Night at the Roxbury so many times, and this scene still cracks me up just as much as it did the first time I saw it.

Entertainment Weekly had an online feature that listed 25 Tearjerker Scenes from films. After reading the list, I was inspired to do my own list.  Here are five scenes that have made me cry, in no particular order.

WARNING – Spoilers and all that jazz.

1.  Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

At the end of Homeward Bound, Chance, Shadow, and Sassy are just about home when Shadow falls into a pit.  Since he is old, he orders the others to go home to their humans and leave him there.  Chance and Sassy have a happy reunion with their respective humans, but Shadow’s human, Peter, is left looking over the hills, waiting for Shadow.  “He was just too old,” he says sorrowfully.

And just when Peter dejectedly starts walking away from his family, Shadow starts limping over the hill.  As the music swells, Peter shouts, “SHADOW!” and they run to each other joyfully.

Basically, if you don’t cry at this scene, then you have no soul.

Damn it, I still can’t watch this scene without tearing up.

2.  Million Dollar Baby

I don’t want to give away the ending to this movie, because it’s a emotional punch to the gut if you haven’t seen it (boxing pun completely unintentional).

I went into this movie completely unsuspecting, thinking that it was simply a boxing movie.  WRONG. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard during a movie as I did with this one.

3.  Up!

Pixar makes some beautiful films that can make the viewer quite emotional – I’m not going to lie, tears were shed when I saw Toy Story 3 in the theaters last year.  But that ending was nowhere near as depressing as the beginning of Up! was.

If you haven’t seen it, the scene depicts Carl and his wife, Ellie, throughout their marriage – from the wedding to the end of Ellie’s life.  Ellie’s death is depressing enough, but I think what really got me is she had all these dreams when she was young and was never able to live them. I watched this movie with my family, so I was trying really hard not to cry.  But then I gave up.

4.  The Sixth Sense

The part that always gets me emotional is not the famous ending, but rather the scene where Cole finally reveals to his mother that he can communicate with the dead.  His mother, skeptical at first, finally believes him when he talks about his encounter with her mother’s ghost.  It’s a powerfully acted scene.  Toni Collette is so devastating in this scene, especially when she says, “Do I make her proud?” Gah, gets me every time.

5.  Love, Actually

I was fully expecting to hate this movie the first time I saw it back in 2008, but it’s one of my favorite movies now.  There are so many good stories in it that entire film can move me to tears of sadness and joy alternatively.

What movies have made you cry?

I’ve seen Hot Tub Time Machine like four times in a roughly 14-month period, and I don’t even care.  It’s become one of my favorite movies, and since my brother is staying with me for a couple of weeks, we decided to watch it again tonight.  Keep in mind that we watched this movie like two months ago. It’s such a dumb movie but it embraces its own stupidity and it’s AMAZING.

There are so many things I love about this movie, but Rob Corddry pretty much makes this movie for me.  There are so many quotable lines his character has that I think my brother and I will be incorporating into regular conversation:

“WHAT THE EFFING FUCK?”
“Get out of my way, STOOL!”
“YOU SUCK AND YOU KNOW IT!”

And because of this scene, I will never be able to hear “Home Sweet Home” without thinking of this movie:

Last night, my friend and I went to the Drafthouse to see Super 8.

(Quick aside – I am absolutely loving the publicity that the Alamo Drafthouse has been receiving for the woman who was kicked out for texting.  It’s my favorite theater and even though the food is a tad pricey, it’s an amazing place).

I had been a little hesitant to see this movie.  The trailer didn’t look all that exciting. One of my friends will burst into a rant if you even mention this movie, because supposedly it’s taking J.J. Abram’s attention away from writing the script for the sequel to Star Trek. “It’s just a War of the Worlds ripoff,” he griped. But I heard it was good, and I liked all the secrecy surrounding it. In an age where anything is leaked to the internet months in advance, I respected the effort it took to make this a complete surprise.

I really enjoyed it.  I read the reviews fully afterward (I don’t like reading reviews beforehand, because I don’t want them to bias the way I feel about a film, and too many reviews inadvertently reveal spoilers) and could agree that this film is not as fluffy and light as most summer blockbusters are supposed to be.  When you think of a typical summer film, you think of Michael Bay-type explosions, cliche, one-note characters, and a storyline barely capable of standing on its own (I’m looking at you, Fast Five.)

While this movie did have action sequences, it was a fully developed film. The ensemble cast of teens were probably the best I’ve seen in a long time – they were all talented and really funny.  The film was humorous (which is what sets it apart from the dreary War of the Worlds), it was sad (I teared up once or twice, but mainly because I’m a sucker like that), and had moments where I genuinely jumped in my seat.  I didn’t get bored at all and even though I was very tired, I didn’t even want to fall asleep (I’m looking at you, Fast Five).  And the film is interspersed with such beautiful moments of adolescence – the feeling of a crush, being with your friends and not having any responsibilities – that I think it’s impossible to watch without feeling some nostalgia for your own adolescence, as painful as it might have been.

I’m generally not a fan of sci-fi or alien flicks, but this one was worth seeing. It probably won’t get the same box office as its competitors, which is a shame, because it has a lot more substance.

Tonight Pat, Conrad, and I participated in Hecklevision.   If you see a Hecklevision show,  you get to text whatever insult you want about the movie, and the screen shows everyone’s texts scrolling underneath the film.    It was held at this awesome theater here in town that lets you order food and drinks while you watch a movie, and usually puts on some really awesome shows.  Hecklevision tonight was the remake of Wicker Man, starring Nicolas Cage. 

“Wait, this film has Nicolas Cage in it?” you ask.  “Then it’s a 50% chance that it’ll be horrible.”  Since Nicolas Cage is starring in it, it’s pretty terrible. I forget who told me that when Nicolas Cage is starring in a movie, he completely overacts and the film is a dud, but when he’s a supporting actor, the movie is good and he doesn’t chew the scenery (as much).  I’d say that assessment is fairly accurate.

I watched this movie back in 2007 with Pat and our dad, and our general reaction when the credits rolled was, “What the fuck did we just watch?” So when Pat and I heard that we had the chance to pay $5 to see it again and be able to text insults at it while watching it, we said, “Hell yes.”

In case you haven’t had the chance to see Wicker Man, this is basically all you need to see right here:

I have a hard time finding scary movies.  I want to watch a movie and be so legitimately frightened that I can’t sleep at night.  Remember when you were a kid and the random things would scare the crap out of you?  I want to find a movie that scares me like I was five.  When I was five, I would get freaked out by the Jabberwocky, Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and the “To Be Continued” sign (don’t ask).

I was thirteen the last time I was legitimately frightened by a movie, and it wasn’t even a good movie.  My family and I were watching this cheesy B movie from the 60′s called Homicidal. I was watching it in my parents’ room, which was completely dark. I was the only one awake, as the rest of my family had fallen asleep.  There was a scene when someone was coming down the stairs in a wheelchair and then his head rolled off.  I bet I would find the whole movie laughable now, but back then, that scene freaked me the fuck out.  For days, I would lay in my bed and play that image over and over in my head.

Since then, I’ve been pretty disappointed by “scary” movies.  Signs was a piece of shit.  After years of hype and overexposure, I found The Exorcist to be such a letdown. I nearly fell asleep.  There have been several suspenseful films that I genuinely enjoyed, like The Ring, Paranormal Activity, The Others, and The Sixth Sense.   While there were really good creepy scenes in each (who could forget the, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I AM YOUR DAUGHTER?!” scene from The Others?), I can’t say any of these really affected me.

Tonight my brother and I watched a film called Session 9.  It was enjoyable and while it had some creepy elements, it was not scary.

I will not stop in my mission to find a film that scares the crap out of me.  I think I have to watch a Japanese or Korean horror film next. I hear those fuck with your mind.  I say, BRING IT!