The Best Movies to Cry to Streaming in 2025

Sometimes you need a good cry, and these films deliver. Whether you prefer subtle emotional devastation, sweeping romantic tragedy, or animated films that ambush you with feelings, every movie on this list has earned its tears through genuine storytelling rather than manipulation.

How We Selected: We measured options using full-season viewing, critical analysis, and production quality assessment. We considered pacing consistency, thematic depth, production values, narrative quality. No manufacturer or developer paid for or influenced any recommendation.

Guaranteed to Destroy You

Grave of the Fireflies (various) is Studio Ghibli’s devastating animated film about two Japanese children trying to survive the firebombing of Kobe during World War II. It is one of the saddest films ever made, and it earns every tear through restraint and specificity rather than sentimentality. The film opens by telling you the protagonist dies, then spends ninety minutes making you wish it were not true.

Schindler’s List (Peacock) will leave you emotionally emptied. Steven Spielberg’s black-and-white Holocaust drama is not just sad — it is a moral reckoning that leaves you questioning the capacity of human cruelty and the fragile persistence of human goodness. Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley deliver performances that stay with you permanently.

The Farewell (Amazon Prime Video) stars Awkwafina in a career-redefining dramatic performance as a Chinese American woman who returns to China to say goodbye to her dying grandmother — who does not know she is dying. The family’s decision to hide the diagnosis drives a story about cultural difference, love, and the things we cannot say to the people we care about most.

Romance That Hurts

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Hulu) is Celine Sciamma’s 18th-century romance between a painter and the woman she is commissioned to paint. The love story unfolds through glances, gestures, and an understanding that their time together is finite. The final shot is one of cinema’s great emotional gut punches.

Marriage Story (Netflix) is Noah Baumbach’s painfully honest portrait of a divorce, with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver delivering performances of such raw specificity that you feel you are intruding on a private conversation. The argument scene — the one where they finally say everything they have been holding back — is almost unbearable in its honesty.

Call Me by Your Name (various) captures a summer romance in 1980s Italy between Elio (Timothee Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) with a sensory richness that makes the eventual loss feel physical. The final shot of Chalamet staring into a fireplace is one of the great performances of grief in modern cinema.

Animated Emotional Ambushes

Inside Out 2 (Disney Plus) takes Pixar’s exploration of emotions into teenage territory, and the introduction of Anxiety hits differently for anyone who has experienced it. Coco (Disney Plus) uses Dia de los Muertos mythology to tell a story about family, memory, and the importance of being remembered. The final act will break anyone who has ever lost a grandparent.

Up (Disney Plus) famously destroys its audience in the first ten minutes with a wordless montage of a marriage from beginning to end. The rest of the film is a delightful adventure, but those opening minutes represent Pixar’s emotional storytelling at its most concentrated. Soul (Disney Plus) examines what makes life worth living through a jazz musician’s existential crisis, and its answers are quietly devastating.

Based on True Stories

The Pursuit of Happyness (Netflix) stars Will Smith in the true story of Chris Gardner, a homeless single father who lands a stockbroker internship while sleeping in subway bathrooms. The scene where he gets the job is catharsis earned through genuine hardship. Lion (various) follows a man (Dev Patel) who uses Google Earth to find the Indian family he was separated from as a child. The reunion scene is one of cinema’s most emotionally overwhelming moments.

When They See Us (Netflix) is not technically a movie but at four episodes it functions as one, and Ava DuVernay’s account of the Central Park Five wrongful conviction is among the most emotionally devastating viewing experiences available on any platform.

The Catharsis Factor

A good cry film works because it connects to something real — loss, love, injustice, or the bittersweet passage of time. Every film on this list earns its emotional impact honestly, making the tears feel like release rather than manipulation.

For more movie recommendations, see Best Movies Streaming on Every Platform and Best Streaming Services Compared.