Why Films Make Us Cry | Ideas in English (2024)

Why do films make us cry, or generate any emotional response, when we know what’s happening isn’t real? Why do some people enjoy this when most don’t enjoy feeling sad in real life? And why is it that it’s often the happier moments in films that bring tears to our eyes?

Our emotional response to films is (at least partly) caused by a hormone called oxytocin, according to Professor Paul Zak. Oxytocin plays a role in our experience of empathy, he explains – it’s released when we have close interactions with people, and it makes us care about and feel for them. However, it’s also released when we watch people on a screen, he says, which means we can have quite strong feelings for characters in movies and TV shows and really care about what happens to them.

Our emotional response may also be connected to our tendency to mirror other people’s expressions, says Dr. Jeffrey Zacks. This happens both in the real world and when watching films, which means that when we see someone on screen smiling, we tend to smile a little, and when a character has a sad expression, we may also mirror that expression. The emotional response comes because our facial expressions affect how we feel, Zacks explains: when we smile we tend to feel happier, and if we have a sad expression, we will feel a little sad. Add music and close-ups of faces, and we can have quite a strong emotional response to what happens in films.

This may explain why we feel sad when watching sad films, but why people enjoy this, or enjoy any sad art, is another question. It’s known as the paradox of tragedy, and there are a few theories that attempt to explain it. Philosophers Daan Evers and Natalja Deng believe that it’s because sad art acknowledges some of the sad aspects of our lives and shows us that they’re significant. Professor Brene Brown believes that it’s because we like to feel moved and reminded of our connection to other people. And others have argued that watching sad films can be cathartic, allowing us to experience difficult emotions that we don’t have much opportunity to experience in everyday life.

However, it’s not just sad films or sad scenes that make us cry; often happier moments bring tears to our eyes. For me, themes like kindness and acceptance tend to create that emotional response – think Robin Williams telling Matt Damon, ‘It’s not your fault’, in Good Will Hunting. And when I asked friends what makes them cry, other ‘happier’ themes such as redemption, forgiveness and characters getting through difficult situations came up. Why these happier moments have such an effect might be connected to sad aspects of our own lives and / or feeling safe enough to allow ourselves to feel.

Philosopher Alain De Botton believes that these happier moments make us tearful because of what’s happening in our own lives. He says that, especially as we get older, we tend to cry not so much at sad scenes, but more often when people are kind or tender. The reason for this, he explains, is that the loveliness on screen is making us aware of some of the difficult or sad things in our own lives, perhaps the things we want but are finding it hard to get. It’s the suffering in our own lives that makes the scenes moving rather than just nice, De Botton says.

Psychoanalyst Michael Bader focuses on why we cry at happy endings in films; he argues that it’s because it feels safe enough to allow ourselves to feel. This safety idea comes from an older theory by Joseph Weiss about getting through difficult situations. Bader explains that during difficult situations survival is key, so we tend to protect ourselves by repressing painful feelings, and then allow ourselves to feel them when the danger has passed and we feel safe. In a film, that safe moment might come at a happy ending, he says, and explains that it’s not the happy ending that makes us cry, but that it’s safe enough for us to feel the feelings that were there from before.

– Paul Zak’s article in Psychology Today about oxytocin.
– Jeffrey Zacks has been interviewed and talked about mirroring in several articles; here are two:
Article in Today.
Article in Vice.
– Dan Evers and Natalja Deng’s philosophy paper about the paradox of tragedy.
– Brene Brown’s website. The information here came from her book Atlas of the Heart.
– YouTube short by Alain De Botton about why we cry at movies.
– Michael Bader’s article in Psychology Today about safety and happy endings.
– Photo byAdrian SwancaronUnsplash