The Saddest Romance Movies That Will Make You Cry

Jason  Bancroft
Updated June 12, 2025 60 items
Ranked By
3.1K votes
522 voters
Voting Rules

Vote up the romantic movies that fill you with such sorrow that your cry every time.

Latest additions: When I'm Ready, Girl Haunts Boy, White Bird
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Over 500 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Saddest Romance Movies That Will Make You Cry

At first glance, the idea of the best sad romance movies would seem to be a paradox. People watch romantic films so that they can be inspired to find love in their own lives. Having the film end on a sad note often points to the all-too-poignant reality that romance is never as everlasting as we like to think it is. The protagonists in these movies may have been in love at one point, but their tragic love stories were doomed to fail. Or perhaps they stay together and the film is sad for an entirely different reason. When it comes to Hollywood, there's more than one way to make you cry. 

The best example of this would be Romeo + Juliet. The audience knows right from the beginning that these two star-crossed lovers will perish before they can truly be together. But sadness doesn't have to be synonymous with death. In La La Land, it seems as though Sebastian and Mia will end up together, but alas, their love story wasn't meant to be as they pursued their careers. 

There are many romantic movies with sad endings, middles, and sometimes even beginnings. Which ones do you put on when you want a good cry? Vote for your favorites below.