25 Movies to Stream on Netflix That Will Definitely Make You Cry – Esquire

Richard Dreyfuss stars as an aerial firefighter who is killed on the job and returns as a spirit to mentor another young pilot (Brad Johnson). The plot gets complicated when the younger pilot falls for the elder pilot’s widow (played by Holly Hunter).

Joe Wright’s romance follows the relationship between a wealthy woman (Keira Knightley) and a working-class man (James McAvoy) at three points in their lives, and the way their affair is tested by a misunderstanding and an ensuing criminal accusation.

How do you spice up the story of a child orphan searching for his birth parents? Make him a musical prodigy! The ending—which culminates in a gorgeous musical composition—will have you reaching for tissues.

Russell Crowe stars as Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash, whose diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia disrupts his career and marriage to his wife Alicia, played by Jennifer Connelly.

Two teenage French girls fall in (and out) of love in this sexy and intensely emotional coming of age film that picked up the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

This heart-wrenching drama about a couple (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) looks at their relationship from all angles (and its realistic sex scenes almost earned it an NC-17 rating).

Richard Linklater’s three-hour drama, which he filmed over the course of 12 years, follows Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as he comes of age in Texas—and nabbed a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Patricia Arquette.

Ben Whishaw plays the famed English poet John Keats in this lush romantic film about the last three years of his life—which ended when he was just 25—and his relationship with Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish).

John Irving adapted his novel for the big screen, which stars Tobey Maguire as an orphan who ventures out into the real-world, only to return home to the orphanage run by his father figure, a kind-hearted abortionist played by Michael Caine.

This Civil War epic stars Nicole Kidman as a woman on the home front waiting for her beloved (Jude Law) to return to her in this award-winning adaptation of the bestselling novel.

This film tells the true story of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), an AIDS patient who smuggles pharmaceutical drugs to distribute to others afflicted with the disease (including a transgender woman played by Jared Leto).

This romantic epic stars Ralph Fiennes as a dying man in the final days of World War II who recounts his torrid affair with a married British woman in the years leading up to the war.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet play two lovers, both distraught over the end of their relationship, who undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories—which only reignites their passion for each other in this inventive and emotional film from from Michel Gondry.

Playwright J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) befriends a widow (Kate Winselt), the mother to four young boys, and the ensuing friendship inspires his greatest work: Peter Pan.

Matt Damon (who co-wrote the film with Ben Affleck) stars as a working-class troublemaker and (secret genius) Will, who studies with a Harvard professor and meets with a therapist (Oscar-winner Williams) to confront his demons and establish a better life for himself.

Frank Darabont’s follow up to The Shawshank Redemption is another adaptation of a prison-set Stephen King tale, this time about a guard (Tom Hanks) whose life is changed by a mystical death row inmate played by Michael Clarke Duncan.

Based on a true story, this weeper tells the story of a young boy who is separated from his family in India. Years later as an adult (and played by Dev Patel), he embarks on an international search to find the family he lost two decades before.

Sean Penn plays activist Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay elected official in California before he was shot by a fellow member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Hillary Swank and Clint Eastwood form an unlikely duo as an aspiring boxer and her disgruntled older coach in this Oscar-winning sports film with an emotional gut-punch of a third act.

Dee Rees’s Academy Award-nominated drama tells the story of two families—one white, one black—who are linked by their neighboring land in post-World War II Mississippi and are caught in the complicated racial tensions of the era.

Come for the infamous attack on the Hawaii naval base that launched the U.S. entry into WWII, stay for the melodramatic love triangle between Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, and Josh Hartnett.

A young widow (Hilary Swank) grieves her husband (Gerard Butler), who died of a brain tumor. As she avoids moving on from her sadness, she begins to find messages that her late husband left behind for her in order to inspire her to move on and find happiness on her own.

Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite in this period drama about a successful New York City couple who move to the suburbs, only to find themselves struggling to adjust to their suddenly slow-paced life.

Brie Larson plays a woman who was abducted and held captive by a stranger in a one-room shed. There she raises her young son, Jack—until the pair of them are able to escape, and Jack learns that there is a big, scary world outside of the room he has come to know.

Two polar opposites—a hard-partying high school senior (Miles Teller) and an unpopular misfit (Shailene Woodley)—find unexpected romance in this teen drama.