Can someone recommend a sad book or movie?

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Umm,

King of California
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
What Dreams May Come

just a few. they're good though.

AI is sad and stays sad right till the end. it's rather depressing.

you peoples took all my choices...err...*looks at movie collection*
Life Is Beautiful (happy in the beginning and the happy/sad after first half. you have to think about the main character's situation)
all the movies i can think of are just depressing...nothing really happy happens at the end.
if you're looking to exhaust all your emotions then watch Candy. i watch it when i need a good emotional awakening. plus heath ledger just rocks.
also Trainspotting is a good ride(warning: not too much empathy felt for characters from me).
i think i'm just into those crazy drug type movies.

The Kid(charlie chaplin, silent) certainly saddens up at the end, loads of empathy. please don't run away from it because it's a silent.

I am surprised that nobody noted Grave of the Fireflies yet. I cried for hours after I saw it for the first time. It may be an animated film, but it is a real heartbreaker.

Another film that had that same effect on me was Requiem for a Dream. That film is, quite frankly, distressingly brutal in its depiction of drug addiction. Both of these are also amongst the most genuinely humane films I have ever seen. That may sound contradictory, but it's true. The humanity of the characters in these films is what makes what happens to them all the more painful.

Takeshi Kitano's Hana-Bi is another film that has the same effect on me. I can't even listen to the soundtrack of that film without crying.

The Color Purple book or movie

The Book Thief.

Life Is Beautiful, Doctor Zhivago, The English Patient, Amistad

or maybe The Notebook or A Walk To Remember if you want sad and romantic

*edit* thought of a couple more Lorenzo's Oil and Nicholas' Gift (Although that's a TV movie)

the only movie that i ever felt sadness about at it's conclusion was "audrey rose".
it is an excellent movie that i saw on a 747 on the way home from singapore when i was 12.

Well, I don't get it, but I think I can come up with some.

Charlie Chaplin is a special one, a guy who can make you sad and make you laugh. City Lights is one of his most brilliant examples of this, along with The Kid. Watching that little boy cry is heartbreaking. I still can't believe he grew up to play Uncle Fester. Also, even though it is very funny, The Great Dictator is also a very sad movie. This is partially because Chaplin made it so, and partially because we can look back with a different view, knowing it was far worse than even he projected.

Another- Empire of the Sun with Christian Bale, age 13. I don't think he could really sing that well... but he could act even then. This is a strangely beautiful movie about a British kid in China who gets separated from his parents and ends up fending for himself, going into an internment camp, getting out again, etc. It reminds me a little of Europa, Europa, which was another sad movie with some redeeming qualities. However, Europa, Europa is a true story, I believe.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv9rirLk2kA[/youtube]


I really don't have much else, though. I prefer sadness in movies to be gently offset with comedy, maybe action, certainly with hope. So I know many movies and books that have sad parts, but have more funny or happy ones... like The Truman Show, or Holiday, or Corpse Bride, or Harold Lloyd movies... his characters too often went about doing these half-baked things only to later have a rude awakening... for me, seeing that moment of metaphorical slap-in-the-face is very sad. He actually has a laugh that makes him look like he's about to cry.

oh yeah! empire of the sun! i watch that every year at least.

silent films just rock. limelight(non silent but still chaplin) gets pretty sad at the end as well.

the road by: Cormic McCarthy

one of the bleakest books i have ever read. movie coming out soon with the king dude from lord of the rings

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Movie: No Country for Old Men

It's depressing, it's tense, and you might feel
like someone beat you up at the end of the movie.

Book: The Notebook

This is a case of feeling sad throughout.

The book Sans Famille (Nobody's Boy) by Hector Malot, if you found the anime it's even better for crying. It' inspiring too, as Rémi never lose is courage.

The anime serie The Snow Queen by the same director that the aferomentionned serie Nobody' Boy: the episode with the little match girl is really. really, really sad.

The anime serie Romeo's Blue skies

The anime Now and Then, Here and There. beware it's about war and it's very violent, but mostly VERY VERY VERY HARD.

The webcomic By Moon Alone

The Quebec movie Babine

If you can understand french, this serie: http://lagalere.radio-canada.ca/?p=93 (It's the second season though) One minute you're laughing , the next one you're crying.

I found Gertrude by Herman Hesse quite sad. Moviewise I would say A.I. or The Notebook.

Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain - I adore this film.

Also, What Dreams May Come.