To start off with the one of many embarrassing admissions, the first film that brought tears to my eyes was the 1978 TV Jan and Dean bio-pic Dead Man’s Curve.
In my defense:
I was about nine years old at the time.
I was sick, home from school, and on some brand of mind altering cough medicine.
I started watching it because I saw Richard Hatch and thought it was a Battlestar Galactica rerun.
The point is not that I am pathetic, although a case could be made for that argument, but rather that movies have great powers to tap into emotions. Even for a geek (who are supposedly rational and dispassionate) like me.