The famous soap based around the imaginary town of Weatherfield, Manchester, is the longest running TV show in the UK, having first been screened in 1960. As a result, it has delivered over 40 years of trauma, but standout moments of sadness include the death of Stan Ogden after being in the show for 30 years and Alma losing her battle with cancer.

After 30 years of hurt, England got the chance to play in another major tournament on home soil at Euro 96. Have beaten Scotland, demolished Holland 4-1 and with Gazza playing like he was back in Italy, they were through to another semi-final match with Germany. The game ended 1-1 after extra time - with Anderton and Gazza both inches away from scoring winning goals. A nerve shredding penalty shoot-out was level at 5-5, when a plucky young Gareth Southgate stepped up. The nation screamed "hit-it", but the German keeper easily saved his tame effort and the tears followed.

Poor, minimally educated Iowa mother, Lucile Fray, learns on the birth of her tenth child that she is dying of cancer and sets out to find foster homes for them all. This devastatingly sad, American made for TV movie starring Anne-Margret manages to avoid being as depressing as it might have been. Still, it's hard not to sob whilst Lucile first tells her children that she is going to die and then begins to hand them over to their new parents.

Think beauty, think drama, think controversy, think tears, think Miss World. Founded by Eric Morley in the UK in 1951, Miss World became hugely successful after the BBC started broadcasting the event in 1959. Controversy has never been far behind the tears of the winners and losers. Marjorie Wallace was forced to resign as the 1973 winner for serial dating, and who could forget the 2002 Miss World, abandoned because of riots in Nigeria. Possibly the most tears were shed by Mary Stavin, whose moment of glory in 1977 was overshadowed by a UN boycott of the event and a protest walkout by six contestants due to the South African entry.

This 70s divorce drama bagged Oscars for both Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as the titular Kramers battling it out in the custodial court. After his wife walks out on him, Kramer is left looking after their son, until Mrs Kramer returns to reclaim their boy. The leads convey real emotional conflict, and one of several effective moments occurs when Kramer reads aloud the letter from 'Mommy', as the little boy lies in bed with tears in his eyes.

With nearly every line of its script engraved on the collective unconscious, and the central performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman defining iconic cool, Casablanca is an exultant classic. Bogart is an avowed cynic, having had his heart broken some years ago, whose wartime world is turned upside down when Bergman walks into his bar. Every scene is a classic, but save your tears for the moment the stars bid farewell to each other at the airfield and Bogart says "Here's looking at you kid".

This Oscar-winning comedy plays the Holocaust for laughs, with Italian Jew Guido (Roberto Benigni) turning the horrific reality of a concentration camp into a vivid fantasy land in order to his shield his young son Joshua from the terrible truth. Although the film begins as slapstick, there are obvious undertones of darkness, and one particular lump in the throat moment comes when Guido play-acts at being a soldier in an attempt to escape and gets shot in front of his son.

For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Zeffirelli's 1968 movie is not as gutsy or MTV as Baz Luhrmann's version, but it has greater emotional sweep and beauty. The masterful Italian director ravishingly dresses and photographs his youthful actors and it's impossible not to be swept up in Shakespeare's heartbreaking tale of doomed love. Few stories have as sad an ending as the moment Romeo takes his life next to his beloved Juliet, only for her to awaken moments later.

Mike Leigh's superb comedy-drama of family relationships. Heart-rending, bitter and delightful by turn. The story centres on a woman, Cynthia Purley (Brenda Blethyn), whose mid-life crisis is exacerbated by the appearance on the scene of the daughter she gave away at birth, the wonderfully named Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) - a young, beautiful, professional black woman who causes a few eyebrows to be raised in the family, and forces Cynthia to come to terms with her past. The film's final family confrontation, where all the secrets are painfully dragged out, is tearjerkingly poignant.

Judy Garland's attempt to revive her flagging career after the infamy of her dismissal from MGM in 1950 turned out to be a triumph. One of the saddest Hollywood heartbreakers of all time, the story of a hoofer (Garland) spotted by a fading star (James Mason) who helps her shoot to fame, is made all the more poignant by Garland's real life story. As she grows more famous, Mason descends deeper into alcoholism, leading to tears all round when Garland finally breaks down in her dressing room at the pain of it all.