15 dog movies ranked by how much you’ll cry

6. Marley & Me (2008)

Marley & Me, based on John Grogan’s 2005 memoir of the same name, follows the lives of Grogan and his wife Jenny (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston in the movie, respectively) after they get married and move to Florida, where they work for competing newspapers. They discuss having kids and a friend suggests that they get a dog to see if they’re ready for the responsibility.

Enter Marley, an incorrigible yellow lab who can’t even pass a dog training course with a woman who believes all dogs are trainable. He’s adorable, and rambunctious, and exactly the kind of dog that you can’t help but fall in love with, even when he’s misbehaving. He is a good dog!

Marley & Me is mostly pretty funny, but — spoiler alert — the dog dies at the end, which makes it one of the saddest dog movies in recent memory. Watching Marley live a long, happy life with his humans is great until it becomes obvious that the movie is truly following his entire life, including his death. There’s also a point where Jenny, suffering from postpartum depression, tries to give Marley away.

This film is likely to make you cry if you grew up with a family dog, or just if you have a heart. Marley & Me is a cute comedy but it’s also pretty darn sad, and no amount of dog antics leading up to his death can make up for the number of tissues you’ll go through in those final scenes.

Likelihood of making you cry: 7/10