5 Heart-Wrenching Romance Movie Scenes Guaranteed to Make You Cry

Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece Gone with the Wind was made into a movie in 1939. It starred the then-popular actors Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

The movie’s plot revolves around the mercurial Scarlett O'Hara, who endures the hardships of the civil war while trying to sort out her feelings for the gruff, rebellious Rhett Butler. Oddly enough, one of the most harrowing scenes in the film has nothing to do with romance. At the end of the first part of the movie Scarlett arrives at Tara, her ancestral cotton plantation, only to find that it has been laid waste to by soldiers. She was hoping to be reunited with her family, but all she finds at home is bad news: her mother has died of typhus and her father has practically lost his mind from grief.

Sleepless in Seattle

In one of the most popular romcoms of the 1990s, a young Tom Hanks stars as Sam Baldwin, a heartbroken widower trying to come to terms with the loss of his wife.

And while Sleepless in Seattle ends on a relatively happy note – Hanks' character finds new love in the form of a young Meg Ryan – there are many very sad and even depressing moments in the movie. In one scene, for example, Sam Baldwin sits in the dark talking to his dead wife while their eight-year-old son sleeps in the room. And as he confesses he misses his wife, the unbearable pain and loneliness he is living through become palpable.

P.S. I love You

P.S. I Love You is one of a handful of movies you can literally cry through. Probably because of its rather depressing premise – the untimely death of a young man who leaves behind his beloved wife.

Gerard Butler's magnetism is turned up to the max in this film, while Hilary Swank's heartfelt performance can bring out tears even in the most callous viewer. In one scene, her character receives a letter written by her husband while he was still alive to discover that several months before he died, he prepared a plan to help his wife cope with his death by writing her a series of letters that she would be getting after he died. And from that point on, the floodgates open, and the tears never stop flowing.

Atonement

Joe Wright's Atonement is a sad story of regret, unhappy love, and death.

An overbearing 13-year-old girl accidentally destroys her older sister and her lover's lives in a fit of jealousy. For a while, the audience lives in the illusion that the two have finally found happiness, but in the finale, it becomes clear that they have never been able to be together. There was a war that destroyed the lives of millions of people, including those of the main characters. The scene in which James McAvoy lies on the ground with his dead eyes looking at the sky with a picture of the little house he dreamed of living with his girl next to him hits real hard.

The Fault in Our Stars

Few can watch the love story of terminally ill Gus and Hazel without shedding a tear, seeing how it's steeped in tragedy from the start.

A terminally ill girl with cancer, played by Shailene Woodley, meets a guy named Gus during a psychological support group session – there's an instant spark between them. Gus turns out to be a fun and adventurous teenager who is living in the moment. Unfortunately, in the movie's finale, Gus relapses and dies in agony, leaving Hazel alone to await the end of her own life. The scene in which the girl reads a posthumous letter from Gus at his funeral can even make a stone weep.