22 TV Shows That Will Make You Ugly Cry
Heartwarming TV shows guaranteed to cause serious strain on your tear ducts.
Winter is a time to walk through the door after work, immediately slip on a pair of pyjamas, make a bowl of piping hot linguini, and sit in front of the TV surrounded by a mountain of Quality Street wrappers.
To amp up the cosy feeling, we agree there's nothing better than sticking on a feel-good comedy to momentarily distract ourselves from the gloomy weather outside, an uplifting film to remind us of happy times, a brand new series to invest energy in some new characters or a heartwarming, emotional TV show in order to release pent-up feelings and help unleash all the feels.
As we all know, it can be cathartic to have a good cry - it's not weak or selfish, it's human - and a TV show which triggers an emotional response, while also ultimately conveying a message of positivity and a reason to be optimistic, might just be the ideal way to make this happen.
Here are some brilliant TV shows, past and present, to give you a good old weep and restore your faith in humanity.
The Handmaid's Tale (2017-)
The award-winning adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name has become a fan favourite thanks to its heart-wrenching subject matter and powerful performances.
The show, which is now in its fifth season, tells the story of Offred, played by Elizabeth Moss, a ‘handmaid’ living in a dystopian world, who is tasked with bearing children for the elite of the Republic of Gilead. The show effortlessly tackles themes of the patriarchy, loss of female agency and individuality and the overall suppression of women's reproductive rights. And if that isn’t enough to make you cry, we don’t know what will.
The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022-)
Amazon Prime’s hit series The Summer I Turned Pretty might be intended for teen audiences but, upon the first season's release in 2022, had adults the world over crying tears of happiness, sadness, laughter and joy — almost all at the same time.
The series, which first launched in 2022 and is an adaptation of the trilogy of young adult novels written by Jenny Han, is the coming-of-age romantic story about first love, heartbreak and the one summer that changes everything as a teenager.A League of Their Own (2022-)
This queer remake of A League of Their Own is an absolute must-watch that didn’t get a fraction of the credit it deserved. Abbi Jacobson, half of the brains behind Broad City, co-created, co-wrote, and starred in this masterpiece, and we desperately need another season.
Set in the 1940s, a women’s baseball team rises to stardom as they progress in the new All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. As Jacobson herself only came out at 32, she tenderly captures the pain of the characters who were forced to live life closeted.
What we love the most about this remake is the addition of the storyline of baseball obsessed Max – as an African American woman, she is rejected from both the African American men’s baseball teams and the white women’s teams. Her struggle with her own identity addresses the intersections of race, gender and sexuality in a way that many narratives fail to do.
Old Enough (1991-)
Since 1991, this Japanese cult classic has been making audiences weep at footage of kids running errands alone for the first time. It may not sound immediately like a tear-jerker – but watching the sense of achievement and pride spread over their little faces as they fetch groceries or deliver lunch to a parent is enough to give anyone the sniffles.
The Good Place (2016-2020)
Existentialism at its finest, The Good Place holds morality at its core. Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) realises she was accidentally brought to heaven after being mistaken for someone else, and turns to a new friend to help her earn her place there. Looking at what we owe each other, this series invites you to be a better person, too.
Dead To Me (2019-2022)
After her husband was killed in a hit and run, Jen (Christina Applegate) meets the eccentric Judy (Linda Cardellini) at a grief support group. It’s truly refreshing to see a show focusing on the friendship of two women, which always comes above and beyond work, sex and any romantic relationships in the show. Reflecting on what it means to love and die, Dead To Me makes you want to keep your heart open to new friends, and get out there and live.
The Affair (2014-2019)
When a struggling writer on holiday meets a local waitress in Montauk, their stories intertwine forever, exploring the ripple effect of extramarital relationships. Each episode is separated into two halves from the point of view of different characters. The lack of a reliable narrator has you second guessing everyone, and also reminds viewers that nothing is black and white. Wanting the best for every character, The Affair will have you bawling on your sofa.
Schitt's Creek (2015-2020)
If you make it to the end of this riches to rags show without shedding a singular tear, we have a strong suspicion you are, in fact, not human. Created by father and son dream team Dan and Eugene Levy, there is a huge heart to Schitt’s Creek that makes you feel as if the characters are truly your friends. Watching the Rose family grow individually and as a unit provides hope that we all can change for the better, no matter what point you’re at in life. And the behind the scenes documentary Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt's Creek Farewell? Pass the tissues…
Jane The Virgin (2014-2019)
An homage to the telenovelas that the titular character Jane Villanueva has adored all her life, the satirical Jane The Virgin manages to be heartwarming without being cheesy amid an almost outrageous amount of drama. Long lost twins, fake deaths, miracle pregnancies… this series has it all. As Jane is an aspiring writer and a hopeless romantic, love is the central theme – familial, intimate, and platonic.
Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)
'Life’s short, talk fast,' is the tagline for Gilmore Girls that perfectly encapsulates this quick-witted sit-com. Actors had to undergo intense dialogue coaching to keep up with the amount of lines crammed into each episode, taking audiences on a rollercoaster of emotions along the way. The sisterly relationship between Lorelai and her teenage daughter Rory, who she had at sixteen, is as captivating as Stars Hollow, the quirky new-England town they call home. Never failing to keep you on your toes with family conflicts and dramatic romances, its cross-generational storyline makes it a great watch for all ages while reminding you to hold onto loved ones that little bit tighter. It's also worth watching the miniseries, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, set nearly a decade after the finale of the show.
Modern Love (2019)
If you've ever read the New York Times column of the same name, on which the show is based, then you might be expecting that the TV remake will bring on the tears.
You are not wrong.
Season one of the Amazon Prime Video show launched last year with each episode telling a different modern love story. Featuring an all-star cast (Anne Hathaway, Dev Patel, Tina Fey and more), each tale is unique and individual yet manages to command empathy and understanding from its viewers. Some stories have happy endings, some don't. Either way, the power of love is enough to make you really cry in this phenomenal series.
Queer Eye (2018-)
In 2018, Netflix revamped the early noughties reality show Queer Eye For The Straight Guy accelerating five Queer men to household name status, breaking boundaries like no other on mainstream television and leaving the world weeping over the episodes.
Tan France, Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness, Bobby Berk and Antoni Porowski all endeavour to improve the lives of an individual from the deep south of the USA who deserve it for one reason or another. Often, the individuals are kind, warm people who have frank and honest about the hardships they have experienced while the Fab Five do their best to help them while displaying an unrivalled level of empathy, vulnerability and honesty. It's this combination along with the humanity and kindness the show promotes which makes it the ultimate heartwarming tearjerker.
Cheer (2020)
While at the outset, a reality series following a junior college cheerleading squad from Texas might not sound like a tearjerker, by oh boy are you wrong.
The elite Navarro College cheer squad is made up of fearless, talented cheerleaders who all come from a huge variety of backgrounds where personal stories include close family bereavement, abandonment, abuse and drugs.
Though being in the squad is hard work (we're not talking chants and pom poms, here), it is a literal lifesaver for some of the students.
Pose (2018)
The Ryan Murphy-produced show tells the story of a group of LGBTQ people of colour living in New York City in the 1980s- 1990s against the backdrop of the Aids/HIV epidemic.
Outcast from society, and for many of them from their own homes and families, they come together in the underground Ballroom scene to form a formidable, tight-knit community.
This Is Us (2016 -)
The powerful character-driven drama, which premiered in 2016 and is now on its fourth season, deals with hard-hitting themes from cancer to weight and body issues, and is played by an impeccable cast including Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore. Every episode will give you that good cathartic cry - so much so that viewers have been trying to change the twitter hashtag #ThisIsUs to #DisTewMuch, testament to the series' ability to melt the most stoic of viewers.
Transparent (2014 - )
In our expanding landscape of boundary-pushing TV, Transparent, which debuted on Amazon in February 2014, is riding the waves. Directed by Jill Solloway, the show centres around the wealthy Jewish Pfefferman family from LA following the discovery that their father Mort is transgender. Each tightly crafted episode unapologetically explores the themes of Judaism, trans politics and inherited trauma.
Call The Midwife (2012 -)
The much-loved BBC drama follows the lives of midwives working in East London's fictional nursing convent, Nonnatus House in the late 1950s-1960s. Covering tough subjects like Down's syndrome and Female Genital Mutilation, as well as domestic violence, its plots are gritty and hard-hitting, and its Christmas specials will tug at your heart strings like you never thought possible.
Watch seasons 1-9 on BBC iPlayer
Parenthood (2010-2015)
This six-season series follows the messy lives of the Braverman clan through their many sit-down meals and montages is the ultimate tear-jerking TV fodder. Adam coming to terms with his son Max's Asperger's and later watching the videos that his sick wife Kristina left her three children in the event of her death will have you blubbering like a baby.
Six Feet Under (2001-2005)
On paper, a show that centres around a family who own a funeral home smacks of doom and gloom. But, Six Feet Under is laden with dark situational humour and irony, and is in fact all about our interaction with death and how we cope with it. Its heartbreaking final episode will surely go down in history as one of the greatest TV series finales of all time.
Black-ish (2014 - )
Black-ish, about a family man who struggles to gain a sense of cultural identity while raising his kids in a predominantly white, middle-class American neighbourhood, is a comedy that places race issues at the fore. In one emotional episode, Hope, we get the incredibly tear-jerking moment where Dre explains to his wife that he was 'terrified' watching Obama's inauguration. 'Tell me you weren't worried that someone was going to snatch that hope away from us like they always do,' Dre says to Bow. 'That is the real world, Bow, and our children need to know that that's the world they live in.'
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