…cry. Our friend Sandy got misty at the end of Field of Dreams, and we concur, especially the catch between father and son. My Dad and I used to have catches, too, in the front yard that faced Huasna Road, so that scene set off my personal sprinkler system 

For me Glory also came immediately to mind. Here’s the closing scene, after the failed attack on Fort Wagner:

In Finding Forrester, Sean Connery is a reclusive writer—a J.D. Salinger archetype—who grudgingly takes on a student, Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown). Their relationship becomes a friendship when Forrester appears, to the total shock of all, at Jamal’s university to read a manuscript aloud. Jamal has been ejected from a professor’s class (F. Murray Abraham) for insubordination, a charge that’s been leveled against me more than once. He is awaiting an expulsion hearing.

The scene picks up after Forrester has finished his reading.

Yep. I wept buckets at the closing credits, just after Jamal reads a letter from Forrester, who has died in Scotland.

Yes, I was blind-sided—AND misty-eyed—at The Sixth Sense’s reveal, when Bruce Willis’ character realizes that he’s dead. The way that Shyamalan reveals it stunning. You first clue comes from hearing, not seeing.

One more comes to mind. I lose it when Maximus starts to glide in Gladiator.

I have no idea why all these films just happened to appear in 1999-2000. Was I extra susceptible because of the Millennium’s end? I don’t know.

But here’s one that bucked the trend. Places in the Heart (1984) ends with a communion scene in which characters, both living and dead, have a moment of reconciliation. The film’s so evocative of my father’s childhood in the Depression-era Ozarks, but, like The Sixth Sense, the reappearance of the dead was unexpected. It was also comforting. The reading from Corinthians and the hymn “In the Garden,” which is beautiful, comfort you just as much.

I’d have to say that if a film made you cry or get misty-eyed, Mission Accomplished.