cryfest

plural cryfests

1. informalSomething sad or moving, especially a film.

   Main songwriter and pianist Dan Messé makes each song a regret-soaked cryfest, […]

   2002, Tom Mallon, Rabbit Songs review, CMJ New Music Monthly, July 2002, page 42

   2 more examples

   The Sin of Madelon Claudet was another hugely successful exemplar of the crime-and-punishment cryfests that shopgirls and housewives took to heart.

   1999, Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 130

   But if heartfelt, sensitive, talky, emotional cryfests have become scarce at the multiplex, we also have seen the rise of the He-Woman, the battling babe who can tote that gun and sling that punch and close that business deal.

   2002 May 26, Dave Gathman, “Movie Review”, in The Beacon-News, Aurora, Illinois

   Synonyms: sobfest, tearjerker

2. informalAn episode of intense crying.

   Tears were a part of who he was. But this wasn't the usual cryfest. It was a deluge.

   2010, Gregg Olsen, A Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder That Destroyed a Church, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 234

   2 more examples

   Knowing that I had but seconds left before my kid exploded into a full-blown cryfest and knowing that I absolutely had to have an article of clothing that could camouflage baby barf, I raced to the register with my sapling tucked under my arm.

   1997, Anne Voelckers Palumbo, The Stay-At-Home Mom's Survival Guide, White-Boucke Publishing, →ISBN, page 7

   Her eyes were raw and crusted from her big cryfest the day before, which had lasted late into the evening.

   2011, Jennifer Ziegler, Sass & Serendipity, Ember, →ISBN, pages 65–66

   Synonyms: sobfest