100+ Good Tear-jerker Movies & Shows to Watch

When a movie is made from the heart, it can get the most hardened viewer’s eyes to well up. Grab that box of tissues and check out this list of best heartfelt movies and shows to stream now.

Come See Me in the Good Light (2025)
Come See Me in the Good Light (2025)
7.7
Movie|Sundance Winner

Come See Me in the Good Light (2025)

Come See Me in the Good Light takes a somewhat conventional approach in documenting poet Andrea Gibson’s battle against cancer,…

Scrapper (2023)
Scrapper (2023)
8.3
Movie|Sundance · BAFTA

Scrapper (2023)

Be prepared to have the expectations you form after reading Scrapper’s synopsis shattered: though it is about a 12-year-old dealing…

Daughters (2024)
Daughters (2024)
8.1
Movie|Berlin

Daughters (2024)

There are three threads in Daughters that directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton weave beautifully together. The first thread follows…

A Real Pain (2024)
A Real Pain (2024)
8.0
Movie|Golden Globe · Oscar · Sundance Winner

A Real Pain (2024)

A Real Pain is a deceptively simple film. There’s not a lot going on on the surface, but Eisenberg’s smart…

Frankenstein (2025)
Frankenstein (2025)
8.1
Movie

Frankenstein (2025)

After more than 400 separate film adaptations, is there anything new to say about the monster that birthed the sci-fi…

The Eternal Memory (2023)
The Eternal Memory (2023)
7.9
Movie|Berlin · Sundance · Oscar

The Eternal Memory (2023)

Documentaries about people suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other neurodegenerative diseases will always occupy a bit of an uneasy space—how…

The Old Oak (2023)
The Old Oak (2023)
7.9
Movie|Cannes · BAFTA

The Old Oak (2023)

Renowned British director Ken Loach’s signature traits are present in The Old Oak: simple, humanistic, and unapologetically hopeful. But this…

Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024)
Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024)
7.5
Movie|Sundance

Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024)

Exhibiting Forgiveness does what it says in the title. The plot moves when a repentant family member returns to the…

To Leslie (2022)
To Leslie (2022)
7.9
Movie|Oscar · Spirit

To Leslie (2022)

To Leslie follows the eponymous Leslie (Andrea Riseborough), a Southern woman who finds herself at the bottom of the barrel…

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)
8.3
Movie

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)

In the first twenty minutes, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin seemed to be quite unremarkable, with the usual way a…

Out of My Mind (2024)
Out of My Mind (2024)
7.3
Movie|Sundance

Out of My Mind (2024)

You’d think a Disney movie about a sweet kid overcoming the difficulties of cerebral palsy would be overly sweet or…

Lucy and Desi (2022)
Lucy and Desi (2022)
7.6
Movie|Sundance

Lucy and Desi (2022)

Saying that the program I Love Lucy paved the way for television would be an understatement. Lucille Ball inspired a…

Alice in Borderland
Alice in Borderland
8.0
Show

Alice in Borderland

Alice in Borderland is a fast-paced heart-wrenching puzzle of a show that will have you wracking your brain and wiping…

Suncoast (2024)
Suncoast (2024)
7.0
Movie|Sundance Winner

Suncoast (2024)

In Suncoast, writer-director Laura Chinn takes the personal tragedy of losing her brother to cancer and weaves it into something…

Tuesday (2024)
Tuesday (2024)
7.0
Movie|Sundance · Cannes

Tuesday (2024)

Death often gets a bad rep in movies. When The Grim Reaper comes for the main character, they usually try…

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)
7.8
Movie

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)

Grandparents are often depicted as innately loving, especially towards their grandchildren, so it’s a delight to see someone like M’s…

Jules (2023)
Jules (2023)
7.8
Movie

Jules (2023)

Jules’ wacky premise — an extra-terrestrial crash-lands in eccentric widower Milton’s (Ben Kingsley) flowerbeds — is a bit of a…

Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023)
Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023)
8.0
Movie

Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023)

Biographical documentaries tend to depict exceptional people– people who are so great that everyone wants to know about them, and…

The Summer I Turned Pretty
The Summer I Turned Pretty
7.6
Show

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Stills and synopses of The Summer I Turned Pretty make it seem like typical teenage fluff. It isn’t. Sure, it…

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)
8.0
Movie

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

There’s a lot of good to be found in the charming, poignant, and endlessly quotable Marcel the Shell With Shoes…

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived (2023)
David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived (2023)
7.8
Movie

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived (2023)

The Harry Potter movies undoubtedly changed the lives of its young stars forever — but a stuntman whose future the…

I Am: Celine Dion (2024)
I Am: Celine Dion (2024)
7.6
Movie

I Am: Celine Dion (2024)

Celebrities are often described as being “vulnerable” in documentaries, but it’s never been more fitting in this case. Here, Celine…

The Eight Mountains (2022)
The Eight Mountains (2022)
8.0
Movie

The Eight Mountains (2022)

Spanning over decades and continents, The Eight Mountains depicts the kind of childhood friendship that remains central to one’s whole…

Lost Ollie
Lost Ollie
8.0
Show

Lost Ollie

The Netflix four-part miniseries Lost Ollie is a bit like if Toy Story was adapted into a live-action dramedy. You’ll…

Our Father, the Devil (2023)
Our Father, the Devil (2023)
7.0
Movie|Spirit · Oscar Winner

Our Father, the Devil (2023)

There are horrors in the world that people have faced, and if they survive, they live with the trauma for…

Extraordinary Attorney Woo
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
7.9
Show

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Despite their rising popularity, K-dramas have sustained a reputation for being, at times, too sentimental for their own good. Extraordinary…

Rocks (2019)
Rocks (2019)
7.5
Movie|Oscar

Rocks (2019)

It’s rare now to hear the phrase “girl power” without being immediately suspicious of its intentions, reduced as it were…

Kaala Paani
Kaala Paani
7.6
Show

Kaala Paani

There’s a lot happening in Netflix’s first Hindi survival thriller series Kaala Paani. The main plot follows the discovery of…

Mr. Dress-Up: The Magic of Make Believe (2023)
Mr. Dress-Up: The Magic of Make Believe (2023)
7.6
Movie

Mr. Dress-Up: The Magic of Make Believe (2023)

Just like with his mentor and contemporary, Fred Rogers, there are no dark secrets to Ernest Coombs’ earnest belief in…

Let Go (2024)
Let Go (2024)
7.4
Movie

Let Go (2024)

Let Go follows the same structure as many modern family dramas. You can practically tell how it ends five minutes…

Blue Giant (2023)
Blue Giant (2023)
7.5
Movie

Blue Giant (2023)

2023 was a great year for animation with films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, and The Boy and the…

The Saint of Second Chances (2023)
The Saint of Second Chances (2023)
7.5
Movie

The Saint of Second Chances (2023)

You don’t need to know a lot about baseball to appreciate The Saint of Second Chances. It has enough going…

Move to Heaven
Move to Heaven
8.0
Show

Move to Heaven

In Move to Heaven, a man and his son clean up after the dead—specifically, the dead who have no one…

The First Wave (2021)
The First Wave (2021)
8.0
Movie

The First Wave (2021)

Focusing squarely on two families and a select few health workers, The First Wave gets intimate access to the fears…

Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
8.0
Movie|Sundance · Spirit · Cannes

Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)

This slow-burning drama is set in an Indigenous reservation in South Dakota, where Johnny is a teenager who dreams of…

Abang Adik (2023)
Abang Adik (2023)
7.4
Movie

Abang Adik (2023)

At the fringes of society, sometimes, all you have is your family. You would do all you can to feed,…

Spoiler Alert (2022)
Spoiler Alert (2022)
7.7
Movie

Spoiler Alert (2022)

It may seem like it’s targeted at a specific demographic, but Spoiler Alert is actually a universal tale about love,…

Human Flow (2017)
Human Flow (2017)
7.5
Movie|Venice

Human Flow (2017)

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei directs his attention towards the ongoing refugee crisis, the biggest displacement of people since World War…

Divorce Attorney Shin
Divorce Attorney Shin
7.4
Show

Divorce Attorney Shin

There are plenty of divorce-related Korean dramas, but Divorce Attorney Shin is a gem among them. Based on the webtoon…

The Father (2020)
The Father (2020)
8.0
Movie

The Father (2020)

The Father is a compelling inner look at the ways dementia distorts memories. By occupying the unstable headspace of 80-year-old…

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