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Staff Picks: Guy-Cry Movies

Ourweekly columnStaff Pickstakes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme andthe "Staff Picks" section was the placetofind outwhat films were worthy of one's time.Of course, our version ofStaff Pickshas a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, men can prove they have emotions too with the subgenre commonly known as Guy-Cry Movies.

There are a great many films that make people cry, from classics like Chaplin's City Lights to more modern films like pretty much every Pixar movie not about cars. Crying at the movies is a time honored tradition and one that a great many filmmakers could achieve with relative ease. But what about those manly men out there who wouldn't ever cop to shedding a tear at a movie? Surely there are exceptions to that rule, movies guaranteed to reduce a grown man to fits of blubbering hysterics in the blink of an eye. They do exist and they've even got a fun name attached to them: Guy-Cry Movies.

A substantial portion of the best known Guy-Cry Movies center around sports. Macho dudes the world over are hard-pressed to keep it together when Kevin Costner asks the ghost of his dad if he wants to have a catch at the end of Field of Dreams, or when any number of football coaches make their rousing halftime speech to their team on the brink of unthinkable defeat. However, most of those sporting flicks are light on nudity and heavy on the melodrama, making them seem like fairly obvious targets for a good Guy-Cry.

This week, we're taking a look at four flicks not centered around the sports world that are guaranteed to produce a tear from even the driest of tear ducts. These films mostly center around men and problems that have faced many a man, giving them the instant emotional baggage to end up blowing through a box of Kleenex—or the sleeve oftheir shirt if they're too manly to use a tissue. These movies tap into those primal urges that arise when men face adversity and, no matter how hard they struggle, just can't seem to get out from under their weight.

Some non-sports-related Guy-Cry movies without female nudity that are also worth checking out include Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump, Tim Burton's Big Fish, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Wolfgang Peterson's The Perfect Storm, Rob Reiner's Stand by Me, Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society, and the Frank Darabont/Stephen King double feature of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Without further ado, please enjoy our Staff Picks for four great Guy-Cry Movies. **Spoilers to follow**

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Portions of the following text are excerpted from our SKIN-depth Look at the Sex and Nudity of Miloš Forman's Films...

Eager to make a name for himself apart from his incredibly famous father, Michael Douglas put his burgeoning acting career on hold in the mid-70s to produce a feature film version of Ken Kesey's novelOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Partnering with Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz, who was looking to break into the film business himself, Douglas decided that Miloš Forman was the man for the job, though Forman claims he got the job because he was the only director whose salary quote matched their budget. Apparently, it was Forman's detailed approach to the material—along with the strength of his anti-authoritarian attitude present in his four prior films—that won him the job.

Forman's pitch for the material was that he was like lead character Randall P. McMurphy, rebelling against the strict communist rules imposed by the Czech government, represented in the story by Nurse Ratched. Set in a mental institution in the Pacific Northwest, the film revolves around Randle PatrickMcMurphy (Jack Nicholson) being committed to the asylum after claiming that his criminal behavior was the result of a mental disorder. The ward's chief, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), is convinced that McMurphy is not insane, particularly once he begins to rally the other patients to rebel against her strict rules.

One of McMurphy's most startling acts of rebellion involves him chartering a bus for his fellow inmates to take a fishing trip, convinced that getting these men out of the institution even for a day will be good for their health. McMurphy enlists one of his old flames, Candy (Marya "Mews" Small), to join him on the boat, and later below deck, while the inmates do some fishing. The two are interrupted as the men scream for McMurphy's help, and we get a quick look at Mews' left breast as she struggles to get her clothes back on...

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Tragically, McMurphy's rebellion eventually sets him—and a good number of the other patients—on the path to destruction. After sneaking some alcohol and girls (including Small's Candy) into the hospital after hours for a goodbye party—McMurphy and Chief (Will Sampson) plan to escape that night—things start to go wrong. Stuttering patient Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif)asks if he can have a "date" with Candy and loses his virginity to the empathetic young woman. However, the next morning, Nurse Ratched finds Billy and Candy together and threatens to expose what has happened to Billy's mother.

Left alone in the doctor's office, Billy kills himself, sending McMurphy into a rage. He begins choking Ratched and is eventually restrained and sent off to be lobotomized. When Chief sees what has become of McMurphy, that vital spirit of rebellion and all the life drained from his eyes, he begins to cry and whispers, "Let's go," before smothering McMurphy with a pillow, pullingthe hydrotherapy foundation out of the floor, throwing it through the window, and running off into the Pacific Northwest wilderness.

It's a moment of stunning triumph, but you won't come around to that until long after the film is over because you're guaranteed to be sobbing through the film's final minutes.

**Available to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video

Braveheart (1995)

Another Best Picture Oscar winner is Mel Gibson's 1995 "biopic" of the life of Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace and his late 13th and early 14th Century rebellion against England's King Edward "Longshanks" for the freedom of his country. After his father and brother are killed by Longshanks, a young Wallace escapes Scotland with his uncle,the seeds of his eventual rebellion having been sown. When he returns to his village, he is reunited with his childhood love Murron (Catherine McCormack), the two falling in love and getting married.

On their wedding night, we get a very tender love scene between the two, with McCormack going topless for the encounter in one of the only happy moments in the film before a whole mess of bad stuff gets underway...

Longshanks has granted his noblemennot onlyland rights within Scotland, but also Prima Nocte, allowing them to sleep with anywoman they please, particularly those who have just been married. When Murron fights off the English soldiers' advances not once but twice, she is taken to the public square and executed, cementing Wallace's hatred of the English and sending him on his righteous mission not just for revenge, but for the freedom of all Scottish people.

The tear jerking moments in this flick are multitudinous, but I defy any man to sit stone faced as Wallace is told before having his head lopped off that he can end it all by asking for mercy and instead, with his last breath, cries "Freedom." He looks out into the crowd and sees his one true love Murron beckoning him to the afterlife. Gibson then twists the knife by flashing forward to the victorious battle led by Robert the Bruce (Angus Macfadyen) against theEnglish army, rousing his troops with a speech remembering Wallace, culminating in Wallace's friend Hamish (Brendan Gleeson) tossing Wallace's broadsword in the air.

Basically, your reward for sitting through two and a half hours of Wallace and Scotland's pain and struggle is towatch the last thirty minutes of the filmthrough an uncontrollable stream of tears. And we wouldn't want it any other way.

**Availableto streamfor members viaHBO Max or to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video

Blue Valentine (2010)

So many films have dealt with the dysfunction inherent in any relationship, but none have so brazenly and blatantly opened wounds that all of us who have loved and lost know so well as Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine. The film takes a nonlinear approach to telling the story of high school dropout Dean (Ryan Gosling) and pre-med student Cindy (Michelle Williams), a mismatched couple the audience can't help but root for, even long after we know that they're just not right for one another. After a meet-cute right out of the most twee indie comedy one can imagine—it involves Gosling playing a ukulele, for goodness sake—their story takes a rather dark turn.

Cindy is assaulted and impregnated by her ex-boyfriend, and after confessing what has happened, Dean promises her that he will be there for her and help raise the child, even though he knows it isn't his. The two get married and things go okay for a while, but it isn't long before cracks begin to show in the façade erected by this grossly mismatched couple. Dean's utter lack of ambition begins to make Cindy feel as though she's having to raise both him and their daughter, but the film's script is savvy enough to never turn her into a nag or Dean into anything but a lovable loser. You like both characters, but you also recognize that their love is simply not meant to be.

With a disjointed narrative, it's sometimes difficult to tell where in the story you are, but the film does contain a number of knockout nude scenes from Williams. In an attempt to save their marriage, Dean checks them into a cheesy motel for a little fun 38 minutes in, with Williams baring TA in the shower when Gosling joins her and goes down on her. In fact, he goes down on her a few times in the flick, which I guarantee is one of the reasons Gosling is so beloved by women the world over...

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While this is another one of those films with several scenes guaranteed to make a grown man cry, the ending of the film is absolutely devastating, particularly to any fathers watching. Cindy tells Dean of her intention to seek a divorce, but Dean implores her that they should stay together for the sake of their daughter, Frankie. Cindy retorts that she would rather have Frankie grow up not seeinghow destructive relationships can be, though Dean is not quick to accept this.

The film ends outside of their house where Dean begins to walk away. Frankie chases after him and begs him not to go, so he agrees to race her back Cindy. They both take off running, but Dean eventually falls behind and walks in the other direction while Frankie is distracted, a painful reminder that he just can't face the truth.For audiences, the dam then breaks as the fountain of tears that's been welling for the last fifteen minutes suddenly explodes.

**Available to stream for members via Netflix

Logan (2017)

While audiences the world over where beside themselves with emotion over the ending of last year's Avengers: Endgame, not every guy in the audience was able to work up enough tears to shed them over Tony Stark. Two years earlier, however, grown men the world over had a good, long cry over the ending of perhaps the most bittersweet comic book movie ever made, Logan. The culmination of Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart's 17 year journey as the two most famous X-Men of all-time came to a heartbreaking conclusion for them both.

Set in the year 2029when Logan's healing powers and Professor X's telepathy have both failed them to the point that they've been responsible for a lot of death, the film follows the two friends as they embark on one final mission. They mustprotect a girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) who has broken out of a facility where she was undergoing the same experiments that turned Logan into Wolverine many years earlier. Their goal is to take her to a remote refuge in North Dakota known as Eden, where she will be safe from the government agents looking to weaponize her to their own ends.

When we first meet Logan in the flick, he's working as a limo driver and one of his customers among a rowdy group of bachelorettes is Lauren Gros, who lowers her dress to flash her breasts while Logan gets a nice look in the rearview mirror...

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While it may seem like a no-brainer for any film featuring the death of two major and beloved comic book characters to elicit tears, the film's Academy Award nominated script knows better than to go for any sort of easy route to get there. Instead, the audience watches in horror as Professor X's constantly deteriorating mental state makes him an increasingly dangerous companion on their trip, punctuating it with moments of lucidity that remind the audience of why they loved Stewart so much in the role.

His death at the hands of another younger Wolverine clone comes in the midst ofa seriously intense home invasion scene that doesn't grant the audience enough time to grieve. Thankfully when Logan comes to his end in the film's final moments, the memories of Professor X combine with the catharsis of seeingLogan finally at peace become too much for the audience to bear. Logan has completed his mission and gotten Laura and a gaggle of other young mutants to safety before sacrificing himself to put an end to his more vicious clone.

Few films are able to take advantage of nearly two decades of familiarity with its characters and not make it feel exploitative, but Logan managed this balance gorgeously. While there were a handful of women in attendance the first time I saw the film, the vast majority of them were men, and there didn't seem to be one among them that wasn't overcome with the film's finale. It may well be the ultimate Guy-Cry movie of new millennium.

**Available to Rent or Own via Amazon Prime Video

EnjoySome More of Our Staff Picks

Barbarian Movies of the Early 80s

Blaxploitation Horror Cinema

Cannibal-spolitation Movies

Ozploitation (First Wave)

Dystopian Future Movies

Sketch Comedy Movies

Neo-Noir of the 1990s

New French Extremity

Nuevo Cine Mexicano

Revisionist Westerns

Inside the Industry

Lovers on the Run

Hyperlink Cinema

Stoner Comedies

Musician Biopics

Southern Gothic

Nunsploitation

Mumblegore