The 33 Best Sad Movies on Netflix in 2024

Everybody has days when they just want to cry a lot. We may lose ourselves in the sorrow of made-up people and feel less isolated. Fortunately, Netflix offers incredible moving films with emotional, cathartic moments. These sad movies allow you to express your emotions in a secure environment, whether you want to escape reality or indulge your gentler side. You can now locate the ideal tearjerker to binge-watch more easily, thanks to the abundance of options accessible on the biggest streaming service globally.

This article features the saddest movies to watch on Netflix. Whether searching for a joyful or a sad cry, expected or unexpected tears, this list has everything you need.

Top 10 best sad movies on Netflix – Quick list

Best sad movies on Netflix – Detailed list

1. Big Fish

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 5min	Adventure, Fantasy, Drama	Tim Burton	Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup	8.0	2003

Since Burton’s mother passed away in 2002, only one month before he was set to direct the movie, and his father passed away in 2000, the film’s topic of reunion between the deceased father and his young son held particular meaning for him. Big Fish is a collection of fairy tale miniatures that were shot on-site in Alabama with a feel reminiscent of Southern Gothic fantasy. Big Fish debuted on the 4th of December 2003 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Columbia Pictures then released it in restricted quantities on December 10, 2003, and it was made widely available on January 9, 2004.

William Bloom’s father, Edward, talks about the day he was born at the wedding reception, saying he used the wedding band as bait to catch a huge catfish. Having grown up hearing these tales, Will starts to suspect that his father is lying, which causes him to have a falling out. When Edward is diagnosed with cancer three years later, Will and his pregnant French bride Joséphine visit his father at their boyhood home in Alabama.

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2. Marriage Story

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 17min	Romance, Drama	Noah Baumbach	Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Julia Greer	7.9	2019

Noah Baumbach is the writer and director of the drama film Marriage Story, which he co-produced with David Heyman in 2019. The cast was revealed for the movie in November 2017, the same month it was released. From Jan to April next year, filming was done in Los Angeles and New York City. The Netflix-produced movie debuted on the 29th of August 2019 at the 76th Venice Worldwide Film Festival. It was then released in restricted theatres on November 6 and became available for viewing on the 6th of December.

Charlie Barber, a prominent theatre producer in NYC, owns Exit Ghost, a theatre company directing a play starring his spouse Nicole, an actress from the past who is thrilled to be retired from acting. The mediator proposes that the pair write out their favorite things about each other because they have marital problems. Nicole is too shy to recite hers, so they decide not to pursue counseling.

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3. Titanic

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	3h 14min	Romance, Drama	James Cameron	Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Billy Zane	7.9	1997

James Cameron is the director, writer, producer, and co-editor of Titanic, an American romantic catastrophe movie from 1997. Based on stories of the RMS Titanic disaster in 1912, it combines elements of fiction and history. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are starring as members of various socioeconomic groups who fall in love on the ship’s inaugural trip. Cameron’s obsession with shipwrecks served as the basis for the movie. He believed that to portray the emotional effect of the calamity, a love tale interwoven with human grief would be necessary.

Cameron started filming the Titanic wreck on the 1st of September 1995, marking the start of production. In 1996, Brock Lovett and his colleagues investigated the RMS Titanic wreckage on board the study vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. They find a safe that they believe has the Heart inside the Ocean, a massive diamond necklace. Rather, all they discover is a sketch of a young, naked lady donning the necklace. The date on the sketch is April 14, 1912, which also happened to be the day the Titanic hit the iceberg and sank.

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4. All Quiet on the Western Front

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 28min	Action, War, Drama	Edward Berger	Albrecht Schuch, Felix Kammerer, Aaron Hilmer	7.8	2022

German epic anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front, released in 2022, is based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name. After the films in 1930 and 1979, this is the third adaptation of the novel for the big screen. It centers on the life of a young, idealistic German soldier called Paul Bäumer and is set during the First World War. Bäumer and his buddies enroll in the German Army, where he soon learns the harsh reality of war and loses his early dreams of being a hero in the process of trying to live. The movie adds a parallel plot following the ceasefire talks to end the war, which is not in the book.

Paul Bäumer, at seventeen, enlists in the Imperial German Army with great enthusiasm in 1917, three years into World War I, along with comrades Franz Müller, Ludwig Behm, and Albert Kropp. A school official gives a patriotic speech, and they unintentionally get uniforms belonging to troops who died in a past conflict. Following their deployment, they become friends with an older soldier named Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky at La Malmaison in Northern France. The brutality of trench combat on the Western Front destroys their romantic perception of the conflict, and on the first night, artillery kills Ludwig.

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5. The Notebook

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 3min	Romance, Drama	Nick Cassavetes	James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Rachel McAdams	7.8	2004

On May 20, 2004, The Notebook debuted worldwide at the Seattle Worldwide Film Festival. On June 25, 2004, the movie was distributed in theatres nationwide. Gosling and McAdams received special recognition for their roles despite the critics’ usually negative assessments of their performances. With a $117 million box office take against a $29 million budget, it has become a cult classic.

The aged Duke tells a female inmate at a contemporary nursing home a love story from a notebook: Logging into a funfair at Seabrook Island, South Carolina, in 1940, lumber mill employee Noah Calhoun spots heiress Allison ‘Allie’ Hamilton, a seventeen-year-old who is spending her summer there. He shows interest in her, and they start dating. Frank Calhoun, Noah’s father, likes Allie right away when they first meet. But when Noah sees her parents, they don’t think much of her. That evening, Allie is taken to the deserted Windsor Plantation by Noah, who promises to purchase and renovate it.

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6. Call Me By Your Name

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 12min	Romance, Drama	Luca Guadagnino	Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Armie Hammer	7.8	2017

Luca Guadagnino is the director of the 2017 coming-of-age romance drama film Call Me by Your Name. James Ivory, who also served as co-producer, wrote the script inspired by André Aciman’s 2007 novel. This movie completes Guadagnino’s “Desire” trilogy, which began with I Am Love (2009) and ended with A Bigger Splash (2015).

The love connection between 17-year-old Elio Perlman and Oliver, a 24-year-old doctoral assistant to Elio’s dad, Samuel, an archaeological professor, is the focus of Call Me by Your Name, set in northern Italy in 1983.

A seventeen-year-old Jewish teenager named Elio Perlman resided with his parents in a remote area in Northern Italy during the summer of 1983.

Oliver, a Jewish-American doctoral student, is invited by Elio’s father, an archaeology professor, to spend the summer with the family and assist with his schoolwork. Oliver is 24 years old. She seems carefree and confident, while Elio, an introverted reader and musician, first feels he has nothing in common with him. For most of the summer, Elio reads, plays the piano, and hangs out with Chiara and Marzia, his childhood pals.

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7. Awakenings

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 1min	Drama, Biography	Penny Marshall	Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, Julie Kavner	7.8	1990

In 1969, Dr. Malcolm Sayer worked as a committed and kind medical professional at a neighborhood hospital in New York City’s Bronx. Sayer finds that some stimuli can transcend the catatonic states of the patients after working thoroughly with those who survived the 1919–1930 encephalitis lethargica epidemic. Activities like grasping a ball, getting familiar with songs, being called by name, and loving human touch have different effects on different patients and provide insight into their worlds.

Sayer thinks the medication might be a game-changer for her patient group after hearing a talk at a conference about L-DOPA’s effectiveness for Parkinson’s disease patients. Amazing results come from an experiment run with Leonard: he fully “awakens” from his paralyzed state. Sayer’s success prompts her to approach benefactors for financial support, enabling all catatonic patients to get the L-DOPA drug and experience “awakenings” to the present moment.

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8. Roma

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 15min	Drama	Alfonso Cuarón	Marina de Tavira, Yalitza Aparicio, Diego Cortina Autrey	7.7	2018

Alfonso Cuarón wrote and directed the drama film Roma (2018). He also produced, filmed, and co-edited the movie. In Roma, a semi-autobiographical portrayal of Cuarón’s childhood in Mexico City’s Colonia Roma neighborhood, the life of an indigenous (Mixteco) housekeeper for an upper-middle-class Mexican household is followed throughout 1970 and 1971. On August 30, 2018, the movie made its world debut at the 75th Venice Worldwide Film Festival, where it took home the Golden Lion. It debuted in select theatres around the United States on November 21, 2018. After that, it became available on Netflix in the USA and other countries.

In the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City in 1970, Cleo Gutiérrez is a Mixtec maid employed by an upper-middle-class family. Sofía, her father, Antonio, their four school-age children, and Sofía’s elderly mother, Teresa, comprise the household. Doctor Antonio frequently travels for work-related seminars, but Sofía seems upset when he doesn’t return, raising suspicions that he may be having an affair.

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9. Beasts of No Nation

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 17min	War, Drama	Cary Joji Fukunaga	Emmanuel Affadzi, Abraham Attah, Ricky Adelayitor	7.7	2015

The 2015 American military drama Beasts of No Nation was written, co-produced, filmed, and produced by Cary Joji Fukunaga. It centers on a young youngster who, during his nation’s horrifying civil war, is forced into the military. It was exhibited in the 72nd Venice International Film Festival’s main competition section, where the Marcello Mastroianni Award was awarded. On October 16, 2015, the movie was distributed on Netflix worldwide through a limited distribution deal with Bleecker Street. It premised in the Special Presentations category of the 2015 Toronto Worldwide Film Festival.

ECOMOG forces maintain a “buffer zone” around the tiny West African town where Agu and his brothers and parents reside. The hamlet is told that military-aligned rebels have taken over the country and toppled the government. Many residents seek refuge in the nation’s capital as rebel troops approach the town. Although he purchases secure transportation for his wife and the two youngest children, Agu’s father is forced to remain with Agu and his oldest son.

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10. Tell Me Who I Am

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 26min	Documentary, Mystery, Drama	Ed Perkins	Alex Lewis, Andrew Caley, Marcus Lewis	7.6	2019

British director Ed Perkins is the director and producer of the 2019 documentary Tell Me Who I Am. The main subjects are Alex and Marcus Lewis, twin brothers. After losing his recollection in a motorbike accident when he was eighteen, Alex’s twin brother assisted him in reconstructing his missing early recollections. Marcus fails to mention, however, that both of them were abused sexually until they were 14 by both their mother and her acquaintances, who were involved in a network of child abuse.

There are three sections to the documentary. In the first segment, the audience follows Alex as he attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding his history and discover his identity following a motorbike accident that left him memory-impaired at the age of eighteen in 1982. After coming out of a coma, he only recalls his twin brother Marcus, not even himself. Marcus assists him in readjusting to life. Alex first acts like a little child, relearning how to operate a bike and asking simple questions like “What is that?” to almost everything. As he “matures” quickly, Alex inquires about their early years. Marcus presents Alex with an idyllic, affluent, and socially connected household.

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11. Nocturnal Animals

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 56min	Thriller, Drama	Tom Ford	Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon	7.5	2016

Susan Morrow owns a posh art gallery in Los Angeles. Her latest performance features overweight majorettes in a nude dance routine. Susan gets an invitation to supper with her divorced ex-husband Ed Sheffield when he comes to Los Angeles, along with an outline for a novel he wrote. Distressed by her failing marriage to disloyal billionaire Hutton Morrow, Susan is engrossed in the book Nocturnal Animals, named after Edward’s pet nickname for her.

During a road journey across West Texas, Tony Hastings, a family guy, encounters Ray Marcus, Lou, and Turk, three local troublemakers in this tale. Tony finds himself with Lou after being driven off the road and unable to prevent Ray and Turk from taking his wife Laura and their child from India. Ray then forces Tony to drive Ray’s car to a dead end, where he is left on his own. When Ray and Lou come back seeking Tony, he manages to escape them and heads to a neighboring farmhouse to phone the police.

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12. A Man Called Otto

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 6min	Drama, Comedy	Marc Forster	Mariana Treviño, Tom Hanks. Rachel Keller	7.5	2022

American comedy-drama A Man Called Otto, directed and written by Marc Forster in 2022, was based on a script by David Magee. It reimagines the Swedish movie A Man Called Ove (2015), centered on Fredrik Backman’s 2012 book. Otto Anderson, a 63-year-old widower, resides in a rowhouse in a Pittsburgh suburb. After losing his schoolteacher wife, Sonya, six months ago, Otto has turned into a jaded, meticulous prick. After being forced to resign from his steel mill work, he cancels his utility and makes arrangements to take his own life to be with his late wife.

Otto is about to hang himself until new neighbors Marisol, her spouse Tommy, and their kids Abby and Luna arrive. Marisol tries to make friends with Otto. The noose breaks when he tries suicide, so he goes to Sonya’s grave and experiences memories of their early years together. He was turned down for the army as a young man because of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and he met Sonya on a train, where she gave him a 1964 silver quarter that he has kept ever since.

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13. tick, tick… BOOM!

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 55min	Biography, Drama, Comedy	Lin-Manuel Miranda	Alexandra Shipp, Andrew Garfield, Robin de Jesus	7.5	2021

In 1992, Jonathan Larson, joined by pals Roger and Karessa, presented his rock play Tick, Tick… Boom! At the NYC Theatre Workshop. He starts telling his narrative by constantly describing a ticking noise he hears in his brain. According to an unidentified narrator, the film is based on Larson’s experiences, “apart from what parts Jonathan cooked up.” Early in 1990, Jonathan juggled his employment at SoHo’s Moondance Diner with getting ready for his passion project, Superbia, to go to the workshop.

With his birthday coming up in less than a week, he feels under pressure to succeed before turning thirty. He views the session as his final opportunity. He throws a party at home with his fiancée Susan, his old roommate Michael, and other servers, Freddy and Carolyn. After telling him about the position, Susan invites Jonathan to teach at Jacob’s Pillow.

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14. Les Misérables

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 38min	Drama, Romance, Musical	Tom Hooper	Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway	7.5	2012

1815 French prisoner Jean Valjean was released from the Bagne of Toulon after serving nineteen years for stealing bread. Because he is on parole, he cannot get work or lodging, but the kind Bishop of Digne takes care of him. The bishop, behaving with great grace, tells Valjean that he gave him the silver and tells him to use it to live a virtuous life when he is discovered trying to take his silverware. Motivated, Jean Valjean gives up his parole, adopts a new persona, and embarks on a mission to help others.

After eight years, Valjean is a well-known manufacturer and the mayor of Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais. He is shocked to see Javert, a former Toulon correctional officer, as his new police chief. Following Valjean’s rescue of a peasant stranded beneath a wagon, Javert wonders who the man is. In the midst of all of this, Fantine, an employee of Valjean’s, is fired by the foreman when it is discovered that she has an illegitimate daughter named Cosette who lives with the rapacious Thénardier family, to whom Fantine pays her salary.

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15. Still Alice

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 41min	Drama	Wash Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer	Alec Baldwin, Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart	7.5	2014

The 2014 American drama film Still Alice, directed and written by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, is based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 novel. Glatzer’s ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) diagnosis in 2011 prompted Westmoreland and Lex Lutzus to discuss modifying Genova’s work. Moore was their first choice for the lead role. She studied Alzheimer’s disease for months to get ready for the role. Budgeted at $4 million, the movie was shot in March 2014 in New York.

Alice Howland, a linguistics professor at Columbia University, is turning fifty today. Her husband, a doctor, and their three adult children join her in celebration. After Alice gets lost running on campus and forgets a word during a lecture, her doctor diagnoses her with early-stage familial Alzheimer’s disease. Alice’s oldest daughter and son, Tom and Anna, undergo genetic testing to determine if they will have the condition. Alice’s younger daughter Lydia decides against taking the test since she wants to be an actress.

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16. Mudbound

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 14min	War, Drama	Dee Rees	Carey Mulligan, Jason Mitchell, Jason Clarke	7.4	2017

Dee Rees is the director of the 2017 British drama film Mudbound. It was composed by Virgil and Rees Williams, who took inspiration for their screenplay from Hillary Jordan’s 2008 novel Mudbound. Henry and Jamie McAllan, two white brothers, struggle to drop the body of their father’s coffin into the grave they dug amid a downpour in the Mississippi Delta. He approaches the father, Hap, to seek assistance as the family Jacksons drive by in a wagon. Henry asks awkwardly, and Hap is hesitant to answer.

A few years earlier, Henry and his wife Laura, their kids, and his violently racist father Pappy are forced to move to a farm outside of Marietta, Mississippi, where they live next to sharecroppers after being duped out of renting a house. The Jackson family, headed by tenant farmers Hap and Florence, toils in the cotton field on the farm with the hope of one day purchasing their piece of property. Jamie and the Jacksons’ oldest child, Ronsel, enlist in the US Army Air Corps and the U.S. Army.

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17. The Bucket List

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 37min	Adventure, Drama, Comedy	Rob Reiner	Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson, Sean Hayes	7.4	2007

The Bucket List is a 2007 British buddy romantic comedy film starring Jack Nicholson as the lead and Morgan Freeman as the lead. It was written and directed by Rob Reiner and produced by Justin Zackham. A road trip with a bucket list of objectives to accomplish before “kicking the bucket” is the central story point, which centers on two guys near death.

Zackham drafted his own “List of Stuff to do When I Kick the Bucket” and abbreviated it to “Justin’s Wish List,” which is how the term “bucket list” originated. “Get a movie made at an important studio” was the first thing he listed to do. His first studio picture, The Bucket List, was inspired by this list, and he wrote the script for it.

Following their respective diagnoses of terminal lung cancer, blue-collar automotive technician Carter Chambers and wealthy Edward Cole, both of whom are old, first meet at a hospital run by Edward. Carter, a talented amateur historian and devoted family guy, originally intended to pursue a career as a history professor but decided against it to raise a family. Healthcare billionaire and four-time divorced Edward is a refined recluse who likes to make fun of his valet Matthew, whom he mistakenly but purposefully names Thomas, and drink kopi luwak, one of the priciest coffees in the world.

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18. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 4min	Drama, War, Romance	Mike Newell	Tom Courtenay, Jessica Brown Findlay, Michiel Huisman	7.3	2018

In April and June of 2018, the films The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society debuted and were distributed in theatres in the United Kingdom and France. The picture made $15.7 million globally and garnered generally good reviews. Netflix released it as an original movie on August 10, 2018, in various worldwide regions. Four companions are stopped by troops in 1941 for breaking the curfew during the German occupation of the island of Guernsey. They quickly dubbed their reading club “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” they allege they were returning from a meeting to escape being arrested.

January 1946, five years later, novelist Juliet Ashton is marketing her most recent work, which she wrote under her name Izzy Bickerstaff. She just signed a contract with her publisher, Sidney Stark, to contribute pieces to the literary supplement of The Times about the advantages of reading. After obtaining Juliet’s manuscript of Charles Lamb’s Poems of Elia, a Guernsey man named Dawsey Adams writes Juliet a letter asking where to find an English bookstore where she may get another book written by the same author.

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19. The Fundamentals of Caring

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 37min	Drama, Comedy	Rob Burnett	Paul Rudd, Craig Roberts, Selena Gomez	7.3	2016

Based on Jonathan Evison’s 2012 novel The Updated Fundamentals of Caregiving, Rob Burnett wrote and directed the 2016 British road comedy-drama film The Fundamentals of Caring. The movie starred Craig Roberts, Selena Gomez, and Paul Rudd, debuted globally on January 29, 2016, at the Sundance Film Festival, and debuted on Netflix on June 24, 2016. Ben is a writer in Seattle who is unemployed and evades his wife’s efforts to provide him with divorce papers.

Trevor, Elsa’s eighteen-year-old son with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is placed in the care of Elsa’s bank staff member from England after he completes a six-week program to become a registered carer. Ben becomes used to Trevor’s routine and develops friendships with the snarky, sexually dissatisfied adolescent. Trevor says that his father abandoned him when he was three years old and that he still gets letters from him, which he disregards.

Trevor and Elsa know that Ben is dealing with losing his little kid. Elsa cautions Ben against becoming too intimate with Trevor because she thinks it will harm Trevor when Ben eventually goes on.

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20. Blue Jay

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 20min	Romance, Drama	Alex Lehmann	Sarah Paulson, Mark Duplass, Clu Gulager	7.3	2016

Based on a script by Mark Duplass, Blue Jay is a 2016 British romantic thriller produced by Alex Lehmann in his first fictional feature film. Sarah Paulson and Duplass are the stars. On September 12, 2016, the movie made its global debut at the festival’s opening night. Before being made available on demand on video on the 11th of October 2016, the movie had a limited theatrical release on October 7, 2016. Jim Henderson returns to his California hometown with plans to remodel and sell the property he shared with his late mother.

He runs upon Amanda, his high school sweetheart, while grocery shopping. They generally say hello, but Jim says he is not keen on interfering with her schemes. He runs into her twice in the parking lot and agrees to have coffee at Blue Jay. They debate over the happenings in their life that have occurred since their last encounter. When Amanda gets married, she becomes their stepmother to two kids. Jim plans to renovate his late mother’s house and spend time with his uncle, rehabilitating antiquity ones.

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21. A River Runs Through It

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 3min	Drama	Robert Redford	Brad Pitt, Craig Sheffer, Tom Skerritt	7.2	1992

Robert Redford helmed the drama film A River Runs Through It in 1992; it starred Brad Pitt, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Lloyd, Tom, Craig Sheffer, and Skerritt. It is based on Norman Maclean’s semi-autobiographical novel A River Runs Through It, which was adapted by Richard Friedenberg for the big screen in 1976. The story, which is set around the city of Missoula, Montana, centers on the two rebellious and educated sons of the pastor of the Presbyterian Church as they mature and grow up in the area of the Rocky Mountains between the early years of the Great Depression and World War I, as well as during the Prohibition era.

The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, are raised in Missoula, Montana, by their parents, Rev. John Maclean, a Calvinist minister, and Clara. It is through their father that they develop a passion for fly fishing the Blackfoot River for trout. Paul and Norman are homeschooled and are subject to their father’s rigorous academic and moral standards. Norman departs to enroll in Dartmouth College. He discovers that Paul has developed into a very accomplished fisherman and a hard-drinking, courageous investigating reporter working for a media outlet in Helena when he returns six years later, during the Prohibition and Jazz eras.

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22. Five Feet Apart

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 56min	Romance, Drama	Justin Baldoni	Cole Sprouse, Haley Lu Richardson, Moises Arias	7.2	2019

The 2019 American love drama film Five Feet Apart was written by Tobias Iaconis and Mikki Daughtry and directed by Justin Baldoni, who is making his feature film debut. The cystic fibrosis patient Claire Wineland served as the inspiration for the movie. Two teenage cystic fibrosis patients, played by Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson, attempt to date while being required to keep a six-foot distance between them. Lionsgate and CBS Films jointly distributed the movie in the US on March 15, 2019. It made $92 million worldwide and had mixed reviews from reviewers.

Teens Will Newman and Stella Grant suffer from cystic fibrosis (CF), a hereditary illness that worsens over time and destroys organs while leaving sufferers susceptible to infections. Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) should avoid being more than six feet apart from one another due to their weakened immune systems. Stella takes her medicine as directed by her doctor and tries to keep in charge of her daily routine as a coping mechanism for her sickness. Much more careless is Will, the cynical rebel whose future is dire; this attitude irritates the careful Stella.

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23. First They Killed My Father

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 16min	Biography, History, Drama	Angelina Jolie	Phoeung Kompheak, Sareum Srey Moch, Sveng Socheata	7.2	2017

Five-year-old Loung Ung is the daughter of an officer in the Khmer National Military in the 1975 Khmer Republic; he is referred to as “Pa” by his seven children. As the US military starts bombing North Vietnamese soldiers trying to take refuge in the neutral zone during the conflict in Vietnam, the war spreads to neighboring Cambodia and sparks the Cambodian Civil War.

The United States then withdrew from Cambodia and closed its embassy. The film, which takes place in 1975, follows five-year-old Loung as she is made to train as an infantry soldier as her siblings are taken to work camps by the Khmer Rouge government.

The movie received favorable reviews when it was published on Netflix globally on the 15th of September 2017, after having premiered at the Film Festival of Telluride and the 2017 Toronto Worldwide Film Festival. As they get closer, the Khmer Rouge conquers Phnom Penh and orders every family to flee the town as refugees because American bombs will destroy it. Pa’s brother-in-law, “The Uncle,” finds the family, and Loung’s family spends some time with the Uncle’s family. However, Loung’s family is forced to go at Aunt’s urging because she worries about what would happen if Pa’s identification is revealed.

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24. The Age of Adaline

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 52min	Drama, Romance, Fantasy	Lee Toland Krieger	Michiel Huisman, Blake Lively, Harrison Ford	7.2	2015

The year 2015 saw the release of the American romance fantasy film The Age of Adaline, written and directed by Salvador Paskowitz and J. Mills Goodloe. In addition to Kathy Baker, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn, Michiel Huisman, and Amanda Crew, Blake Lively plays the movie’s lead role in supporting parts. The narrative, which is narrated by Hugh Ross, centers on Adaline Bowman, an adult woman who, at the age of 29, is revived from a life-threatening injury and ceases to age.

After buying fictitious identification, Adaline Bowman finds a box containing film reels that depict historical events. Adaline’s life is told via voiceover. She was the initial child born in San Francisco on New Year’s Day, 1908. Her husband was murdered in 1937 while building the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving her widowed. She had married in 1929 and had a baby girl, Flemming, in 1932. Adaline was struck by lightning and resurrected ten months after she fell into a ravine on her way to her parent’s home in Sonoma County, a cold lake. Adaline never grew older than 29 after that.

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25. Pieces of a Woman

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 6min	Drama	Kornél Mundruczó	Shia LaBeouf, Vanessa Kirby, Ellen Burstyn	7.0	2020

The film, a global co-production of the US and Canada, tackles issues of loss and grief and is partially based on the same-titled stage play by Mundruczó and Wéber. At the 77th Venice Annual Film Festival, where it had its debut on September 4, 2020, Kirby was awarded the Volpi Trophy for Best Actress. It gained notoriety for its drawn-out birthing scene at the movie’s opening and was released in a few theatres on December 30, 2020. On January 7, 2021, it was made available for digital streaming on Netflix.

A beautiful Boston pair named Martha and Sean anticipate their first child. Martha’s mom Elizabeth, a rich Holocaust survivor, is purchasing them a minivan, which pisses Sean off. When Martha goes into labour at home, Sean phones their midwife, Barbara, but she is unavailable, so he sends Eva, another midwife, in her stead. During Martha’s contractions, she has agony and nausea. Eva notices the baby’s respiration rate has plummeted dangerously low when Martha reaches 10 centimetres. When Sean asks Eva if it’s safe for them to go on, Eva advises him to call a paramedic. Soon after, Martha gives delivery to a daughter who first appears healthy.

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26. The Zookeeper’s Wife

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 7min	Biography, History, Drama	Niki Caro	Johan Heldenbergh, Jessica Chastain, Daniel Brühl	7.0	2017

The story’s setting, Warsaw, Poland, had the film’s international debut on March 8, 2017, and on March 12, 2017, the US saw the film’s opening at the Cinequest Festival of Films in San Jose, California. Focus Features released the movie in the US on March 31, 2017, while Universal Pictures International released it in the UK on April 21, 2017. It made $26 million globally in revenue despite receiving negative assessments from critics and a strong reception from audiences.

The invasion of Poland and air strikes on Warsaw began on September 1, 1939. Ryszard, Antonina’s son, and her barely make it. While Jan is abroad, Dr. Lutz Heck, the chief zoologist of Adolf Hitler and the director of the Berlin Zoo, pays a visit to the zoo; in his capacity as Hitler’s top zoologist, he is also responsible for managing the Warsaw Zoo. He offers to keep their precious pets in Berlin until the end of the war but then reveals his true nature as a terrible man when he returns with troops to slaughter the others. He develops feelings for Antonina.

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27. Our Souls at Night

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 43min	Romance, Drama	Ritesh Batra	Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Matthias Schoenaerts	6.9	2017

The 2017 American romantic drama film Our Souls at Night was written and directed by Ritesh Batra and stars Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter. Reviewers praised the picture for its directing, fidelity to the text, and performances (particularly Fonda’s), with many highlighting the pairing of Redford and Fonda and their rapport. The story takes place in the made-up little Colorado community of Holt, where widow Addie Moore and widower Louis Waters have lived next door for decades yet barely know one another.

One evening, Addie goes to see Louis and suggests that to combat their loneliness, they enjoy the night together without having sex. Louis is a little apprehensive at first, but he quickly agrees, and they begin spending the weekends and evenings at Addie’s place. Addie’s son Gene, whose marriage has collapsed, drops off his kid Jamie at Addie’s house at the beginning of summer. Jamie stays with Louie and Addie for the whole summer, and they also get Jamie a puppy.

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28. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 34min	Music, Drama	George C. Wolfe	Chadwick Boseman, Viola Davis, Glynn Turman	6.9	2020

Based on August Wilson’s 1982 play of the same name, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is an American drama film released in 2020 that was produced by George C. Wolfe and composed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Michael Potts, Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Chadwick Boseman, and Viola Davis are among the film’s stars. The film dramatizes a chaotic recording session in 1920s Chicago and is inspired by the career of Ma Rainey, an important blues singer, and the film’s main character.

Ma Rainey is a well-known and independent blues singer who was signed by white producers not too long ago. The narrative begins on July 2, 1927, when Ma’s manager Irvin arranges for her to have a recording session at Paramount’s Record Studios in Chicago. Mel Sturdyvant, her producer, becomes irritated when experienced Georgia Jazz musicians such as Cutler, Slow Drag, and Toledo show up on time without Ma. Levee Green, the group’s cocky trumpet player, soon joins them, having presented Sturdyvant his unique tunes in the expectation of splitting from Ma and landing a solo record contract.

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29. The Boys in the Band

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 1min	Drama	Joe Mantello	Zachary Quinto, Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer	6.8	2020

Joe Mantello is the director of the 2020 American action film The Boys in the Band, based on Mart Crowley’s 1968 musical. Crowley co-wrote the script with Ned Martel. Crowley first adapted The Boys in the Band for a 1970 William Friedkin film adaptation, which starred the cast from the 1968 Off-Broadway production[1]. The entire cast of the play’s 2018 Chicago revival, which consists solely of performers who identify as openly homosexual, appears in the movie. The movie debuted on Netflix on September 30, 2020, and critics gave it positive reviews.

Michael gets to his Manhattan flat on the upper region East Side in 1968 for Harold’s birthday celebration. He gets a call from his friend Donald, who has to arrive early since their appointment with the psychiatrist has to be canceled. Michael feels sorry for his aging and heavily indebted lifestyle when Donald comes.

He gets a call from his former Georgetown flatmate Alan, who is crying and says he must talk to Michael immediately. Alan receives an invitation from Michael to the party, but not before he informs everyone else that Alan is straight and is unaware of Michael’s sexual orientation.

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30. Kodachrome

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 45min	Drama	Mark Raso	Jason Sudeikis, Ed Harris, Elizabeth Olsen	6.8	2017

According to a 2010 New York Times article by A.G. Sulzberger, Kodachrome is a 2017 British romantic comedy film produced by Mark Raso and composed by Jonathan Tropper. Matt Ryder, an A&R representative for a Manhattan record company in late 2010, may lose his job when the largest client of his firm contracts with a different label. Ben’s nurse and helper, Zooey, tells his father that Ben, a well-known photographer, has liver cancer and is near death. Ben asks Matt to bring him to the Kodachrome, Dwayne’s Photography Store in Parsons, Kansas, which processes Kodachrome despite him and Ben last communicating over a decade ago.

Ben wants some rolls processed before he kicks the bucket, and soon, Dwayne’s will stop operations because Kodak has stopped manufacturing dyes. Ben’s manager, Larry, convinces Matt to go by setting up a meeting with Matt and his potential signees, the Spare Sevens, the band he has been trying to sign. When Matt, Ben, and Zooey went on their trip, there was an occasion when Ben wanted to go off the usual path they would have taken and take time to snap photos and see the scenery. Following dead of Matt’s mother, Sarah has been taken care of by surrogate parents Dean and Sarah, his brother. They go to Ohio to visit them. After bonding over Matt’s old record collection, Zooey and Matt become intoxicated, and Matt tries to kiss her but collapses.

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31. To the Bone

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 47min	Drama	Marti Noxon	Lily Collins, Rebekah Kennedy, Dana L. Wilson	6.8	2017

Marti Noxon is the writer and director of the 2017 thriller film To the Bone. Lily Collins plays a young lady who is followed throughout the movie as she fights anorexia. On January 22, 2017, the movie had its competitive debut at the Sundance Film Festival as one of the entries in the United States Dramatic Competition. Ellen, a twenty-year-old anorexic college dropout, goes home to live with her father and stepmother after a difficult in-patient program that did not result in improvement. Ellen’s stepmother, Susan, arranges for her to see an expert, Dr William Beckham, when her father, who is abroad, refuses to treat her.

Beckham is adamant that Ellen should enroll in his patient program. Although Ellen hesitates, her younger sister persuades her to alter her mind. Ellen comes into the residence with six other people, including Luke, a cheerful ballet dancer who has almost fully recovered from a knee injury and anorexia. The other five patients are young ladies. Luke shows the other patients that he is a moral supporter and shows a particular affection for Ellen, finally disclosing that he is an admirer of her artwork.

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32. A Jazzman’s Blues

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	2h 7min	Drama, Romance, Mystery	Tyler Perry	Amirah Vann, Joshua Boone, Solea Pfeiffer	6.8	2022

A Jazzman’s Blues is a 2022 American drama film written and produced by Tyler Perry. Netflix recently premiered A Jazzman’s Blues on September 23, 2022, after it debuted in the Toronto Worldwide Film Festival on September 11, 2022. The incumbent governor of Hopewell, Georgia, Jonathan Dupree, is due for re-election in 1987. It fails in his racist political attitude, and an older woman named Hattie Mae meets him. Hattie asks him to take a look at her child’s lynching 40 years back in Mercer County, Horace John Boyd, who was also known by the name Bayou in 1947.

She handed Johnathan a pile of letters, telling him to read them all for all the necessary information. As he is just about to throw away those letters, he sees that the letters are intended for Leanne J. Harper. Bayou is from a musical background. His father, Buster, is a good guitarist, while his mother, Hattie Mae, is a blues singer. Willie Earl, the older brother of Bayou and the son beloved by his father, is an amazing jazz trumpeter. However, although Bayou possesses a gifted singing voice, his violent father constantly mocks him; he calls him dull and sickening.

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33. Worth

Movie link	Duration	Genre	Director	Lead cast	IMDb rating	Year
Official Netflix link	1h 58min	Biography, History, Drama	Sara Colangelo	Amy Ryan, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci	6.8	2020

In the movie’s first scene, Kenneth Feinberg tells his Columbia University class how the law recognizes the worth of an individual’s life in monetary terms. The terrorist attacks on September 11 took place later. As the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund’s Special Master, Feinberg was appointed, and his legal partner Camille Biros was named his operational deputy. Feinberg creates a strict formula based on a person’s salary for each settlement, and he is told that if he didn’t get at least 80% of the projected 7,000 victims to sign on, they would have the option to launch a lawsuit, which they might lose.

Victims see Feinberg as being indifferent to their losses during an initial meeting when he tries to explain the guidelines governing the fund. When Feinberg’s husband, Charles Wolf, insists that the hostile group hear him out, the group becomes less hostile. A lady was murdered in the attacks. Following the meeting, Frank Donato, the brother of fallen NY City Fire Service (FDNY) fireman Nick, confronts Feinberg. After a warning that the structure might fail, a warning that might not have reached Nick, his brother returned to the tower to locate him.

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Conclusion

Netflix offers an enormous selection of depressing films with joyful or sad endings and ones that will make you cry or not. These 33 best sad movies include “Big Fish,” “Titanic,” “Marriage Story,” and “All Quiet on the Western Front.” These films, which appeal to audiences of all ages, address themes of sadness, grief, love, death, and heartbreak. The best depressing films on Netflix can make you laugh, weep, or just want to escape reality and indulge your softer side.

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