The 25 Saddest Movies on Netflix, Because Feelings Are Good
There are no gains without pain.
How we define a “sad movie” is often how former United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once defined obscenity in film, i.e., hardcore pornography: we know it when we see it. Still, we think we could do a bit better than intuition. For the sake of consistency, we might say that a sad movie is one that creates a particular mood.
But that mood must be deeper than mere depression. Sad movies can’t just be those films that are relentlessly dark—films that depict suffering just for the hell of it, what we might label “poverty porn,” “war porn,” and overall “suffering porn.” (Shoutout to the Book of Job for this trend.)
Neither are sad movies (only) movies that make you cry. Take Up. The Pixar film has one of the saddest opening sequences of any movie, yet the film isn’t a “sad movie.” Often times, we might conflate “sad” with “tragic”—because all tragedies tend to be sad—but not all sad movies partake of traditional tragedy (the fall from some height, the absurdity of some undeserved pain, etc.) Besides, the tragedy’s downfall isn’t always sad as much as just pathos-inducing—the literary term for, “damn, that really sucks, bro.”
Ultimately, the genre is about a sustained mood. These are films which end without resolution. Joy is suspended, delayed. We are left in uncertainty. Yes, sometimes we are left with death and loss and sometimes we cry, but the sadness is deeper. We’re going to venture to call this mood “melancholy.”
Melancholy is really what we think about when we think about sadness in cinema. Melancholy, Italo Calvino wrote, is “sadness made light.” That doesn’t mean sadness made funny, but sadness made bearable—able to be endured throughout the course of the film. Films that bury you with sadness are not ultimately effective; in order for something to be truly sad, it must provide the possibility of salvation; there must be room for grace.
These are movies that slap you across the face with some good old ennui—that feeling encapsulated in the street-side view of a black cat vacantly staring out of a suburban window.
So while we could just hit you with some tearjerkers (and, don't worry, we still will)—those films where the dog dies or the lover contracts cancer or literally nothing happy ever happens—we’re also gonna go a little deeper. We think these movies are all the sadder because of this complexity, anyway.
Here are the saddest movies on Netflix you can stream right now. Don't just reach for the tissues. Reach for the glass of red wine and your high school yearbook.
If Anything Happens I Love You (2020)
This recent short film is about loss and grief, but it's the way the 12-minute short unravels this pain that will stab you in the heart. Best not to know too much about this going in. Just give it a watch.
Tell Me Who I Am (2019)
The dramatized documentary follows twin brothers, one of whom, an amnesiac, must rely on his brother to reconstruct his childhood. The truth of that childhood becomes the main point of conflict between the siblings. Some things are better left unknown.
A Ghost Story (2017)
A Ghost Story is maybe the best example of Calvino's "melancholy" on this list, tackling grief with an honest degree of levity. It also features the most heart-wrenching pie eating scene in all of cinema.
The Burial of Kojo (2018)
Reality and dream combine as a young girl journeys through a mystically-rendered Ghana to save her father. It's a story told through cinematography, like the best of movies.
Us and Them (2018)
What makes a romance sad is not always an eleventh hour death or breakup; it's a continual feeling of loss and doom, a nostalgia that seems almost baked into the actual moment. It's a realization that this too shall pass. Watch Us and Them during New Year's for maximum effect.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Did someone mention doom? Charlie Kaufman's surrealist breakup Odyssey portends just about every type of loss one can imagine: memory, sanity, life, age. It's the perfect example of mood and it makes us want to go for a long drive with no destination.
The Florida Project (2017)
Maybe the best film of 2017, The Florida Project explores life from three feet off the ground, following the apartment exploits of children living at the edge of Disney World and below the poverty line.
Moonlight (2016)
Taking childhood into adolescence and adulthood, Moonlight falls much heavier than The Florida Project, but it's perspectival framing is similar: it resists being completely despondent. The result is something real and, at times, really sad.
I Lost My Body (2019)
I Lost My Body uses the grotesque to illuminate the real—an animated severed hand journeying back to its owner provides insight into loss, memory, and belonging. The film is also complimented by an epic soundtrack by Dan Levy. Just watch it. France invented ennui, after all.
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Guillermo del Toro's adult fairy tale/coming-of-age story/war thriller/etc. is set amidst conflict and violence, but somehow blossoms into discovery. Still, the pervading mood of the story makes all its redemptive acts all the more gutting.
Marriage Story (2019)
The film opens with a couple reading "what I love about my partner" notes to their therapist, because, that love is failing. It's not tragic in some epic Greek sense. It's just real. And that's why it's so damn sad.
Happy as Lazzaro (2018)
Read nothing about it, and give it a chance. Separated into two distinct parts (and maybe a little longer than it needs to be) this Italian film will slap you across the face with ennui. Never have we felt more out of place in the world than when watching this film.
Roma (2018)
The sadness at the heart of Roma comes from its authorial framing: a work of autofiction, in which director Alfonso Cuarón returns to his Mexico City childhood to tell the story of perhaps his family's most overlooked member, a domestic worker. Sadness is endemic to the film as it is to lived experience—it is an inescapable part of the whole. Maybe the best movie of the century.
Cities of Last Things (2018)
The film is separated into three parts, each chronicling a different night in the same man's life. The nights are filmed using separate cinematic styles and proceed chronologically backwards. Cities of Last Things, in the end, is an experience. Even if you do not understand it at first, you will feel it.
22 July (2018)
While not quite as powerful as Norway's Utøya: July 22, the American retelling of the 2001 Norway terrorist attacks still makes for an emotional historical drama. It focuses less on the shooting than the lingering trauma, the lives left to pick up the pieces.
Holding the Man (2015)
Okay, let's get into the romantic tragedy. Sadness, here, however, isn't onset, but oncoming. We have some time to process the coming tragedy but we can do nothing to prevent it.
About Time (2013)
In the same tissue-grabbing spirit is About Time. The film employs science-fiction elements to brilliant melancholy effect.
Someone Great (2019)
If you find the traditional tragic romance too sentimental, there's Someone Great, the anti-romcom/anti-sentimental movie about being alone in a city of millions (and yes, with some laughs along the way for good measure). Damn, if that description doesn't already bum us out.
Okja (2017)
Bong Joon-ho's (Snowpiercer, Parasite) film about a girl and her genetically modified pig is zany seriocomedy. But "seriocomedy" contains a heavy heart, and Okja will leave you on your knees by the film's end.
Blackfish (2013)
What makes Blackfish sad—besides the obviously painful visuals—is the fact that we know how the story ends. The documentary is never not a gutting watch. It never fails to pleasantly ruin an afternoon.
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