MELODRAMA FILMS

Selection of Greatest Melodramas and Tearjerkers:

(Entertainment Weekly's November 28, 2003 issue listed their choices for the Top 50 Greatest Tearjerkers, each marked with a rotating star () in the following list)

-- See this site's own extensive, illustrated compilation --
Greatest Tearjerker Films, Moments and Scenes

Greatest Early Classic Melodramas:
Broken Blossoms (1919)
Way Down East (1920)
Orphans of the Storm (1922)
Stella Dallas (1925) (remade in 1937)
Sunrise (1927)
Street Angel (1928)
Anna Christie (1930)
Morocco (1930)
The Champ (1931) (#38)
Back Street (1932) (remade in 1941, 1961)
Blonde Venus (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Cabin in the Cotton (1932)
A Farewell to Arms (1932)
Little Women (1933) (#40)
Imitation of Life (1934) (remade in 1959)
Of Human Bondage (1934)
Dangerous (1935)
Magnificent Obsession (1935) (remade in 1954)
Camille (1936)
Madame X (1937)
Marked Woman (1937)
A Star is Born (1937) (remade in 1954, 1976)
Stella Dallas (1937) (#19)
Dark Victory (1939)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) (#24)
Love Affair (1939)
The Old Maid (1939)
The Wizard of Oz (1939) (#35)
Wuthering Heights (1939)
All This and Heaven Too (1940)
The Letter (1940)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Penny Serenade (1941)
Bambi (1942) (#2)
Casablanca (1942)
Kings Row (1942)
Now, Voyager (1942) (#41)
Old Acquaintance (1943)
None But the Lonely Heart (1944)
The Purple Heart (1944)
Since You Went Away (1944)
The Sullivans (The Fighting Sullivans) (1944)
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
Brief Encounter (1945) (#12)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Tomorrow is Forever (1945)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Humoresque (1946)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946) (#5)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
To Each His Own (1946)
The Yearling (1946) (#36)
Possessed (1947)
I Remember Mama (1948)
Johnny Belinda (1948)
Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)
The Snake Pit (1948)
Beyond the Forest (1949)
The Fountainhead (1949)
The Heiress (1949)
My Foolish Heart (1949)
All About Eve (1950)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Blue Veil (1951)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Ruby Gentry (1952)
Umberto D. (1952, It.) (#39)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
A Star is Born (1954)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
The Cobweb (1955)
East of Eden (1955)
Written on the Wind (1956)
An Affair to Remember (1957) (#4)
Old Yeller (1957) (#11)
Peyton Place (1957)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Some Came Running (1958)
The Best of Everything (1959)
Imitation of Life (1959) (#32)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
A Summer Place (1959)
This Earth is Mine (1959)

Other Greatest Melodramas:
Home From the Hill (1960)
Strangers When We Meet (1960)
West Side Story (1961) (#31)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (#27)
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Stolen Hours (1963)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Charly (1968) (#23)
Romeo and Juliet (1968) (#30)
Love Story (1970) (#17)
Brian's Song (1971) (#7)
Sounder (1972) (#42)
The Way We Were (1973) (#28)
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
Rocky (1976)
Taxi Driver (1976)
The Turning Point (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978) (#26)
An Unmarried Woman (1978)
The Champ (1979)
The Great Santini (1979) (#25)
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) (#13)
Ordinary People (1980) (#18)
Somewhere in Time (1980)
Gallipoli (1981) (#21)
Rich and Famous (1981)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (#8)
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
Sophie's Choice (1982) (#3)
Tender Mercies (1983)
Terms of Endearment (1983) (#1)
Places in the Heart (1984)
Cocoon (1985) (#29)
The Color Purple (1985)
Beaches (1988)
Cinema Paradiso (1988, It.) (#48)
Dead Poets Society (1989) (#43)
Field of Dreams (1989) (#10)
Glory (1989) (#16)
In Country (1989)
Parenthood (1989) (#49)
Steel Magnolias (1989) (#20)
Ghost (1990) (#9)
Longtime Companion (1990) (#6)
Dying Young (1991)
My Girl (1991)
Truly Madly Deeply (1991) (#44)
Forever Young (1992)
The Joy Luck Club (1993) (#22)
My Life (1993)
Philadelphia (1993) (#33)
Rudy (1993) (#50)
Schindler's List (1993)
Shadowlands (1993)
Untamed Heart (1993)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Little Women (1994) (#40)
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Ponette (Fr.) (1995)
Sense and Sensibility (1995) (#45)
Waiting to Exhale (1995)
The English Patient (1996)
Fly Away Home (1996)
Jerry Maguire (1996) (#34)
Titanic (1997) (#15)
City of Angels (1998)
Life is Beautiful (1998) (#14)
Patch Adams (1998)
The Iron Giant (1999) (#37)
The Sixth Sense (1999) (#46)
My Dog Skip (2000)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Moulin Rouge (2001) (#47)
Far From Heaven (2002)

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