This article was originally published on March 17, 2023. We’ve updated it with more movies for Father’s Day . Be it father-son relationships, the agony of athletic defeat, or the heavy artillery of a German tank, there are certain themes or topics in movies that critics might categorize as the “male melodrama,” “male tearjerker,” or the “masculine melodrama.
” In a way, these terms are all just fancy ways to get at one simple truth: This is a movie that might make your dad cry. Or your boyfriend. Or any guy, really, no matter how macho they may be.
Male friendship and camaraderie is not an unusual subject for filmmakers to tackle. (See: countless buddy comedies and bromances.) But rarely do movies explore the less lighthearted side of such relationships.
Is there such a thing as a Steel Magnolias for men? What makes tough guys cry? And if there’s such a thing as a “male weepie” — a term first coined by British critic Raymond Durgnat — how can you define it? The very nature of the male weepie is elastic. Rather than love and romance, such movies evoke tears through male camaraderie and brotherhood — unsurprising, then, that war and sports films rate high on the list, at least if my boomer dad is anything to go by. Even the most earnest male weepies tend to approach the emotional inner life of men from unexpected angles.
Rather than straightforwardly address men’s domestic concerns about parenting, women, or the pressures of masculinity, male weepie.
