Saying goodbye is never easy, and when it comes to the saddest TV show finales, it’s practically impossible to keep a dry eye. Whether it’s the death of a beloved character, the parting of soulmates, or the bittersweet conclusion of a long journey, some TV shows notoriously pulled no punches when it came time to wrap things up. Great finales don’t just conclude stories, they evoke emotion, offer closure (or sometimes don’t), and remind viewers why they fell in love with the show in the first place. Some, however, go a step beyond, and it’s these TV show endings that had me and many others reaching for the tissues.

From gut-wrenching flash-forwards to quiet moments of personal growth, these endings are tearjerkers of the highest order, and many I still can’t get through without an involuntary sob or two. Some left viewers reeling with tragedy, others with a melancholic sense of peace. But all of them hit hard, especially for fans who stuck around from beginning to end. These are the final episodes that linger long after the credits roll, the ones fans (myself included) return to again and again, knowing full well they’ll end up crying. Many series have sad endings, but these 10 TV show finales are absolutely devastating in the best way possible.

10 The Good Place (2016-2020)

Saying Goodbye Has Never Felt So Good (Or So Crushing)

Not every tearjerker TV show finale had my weeping from sadness. Sometimes there are happy tears too, and that’s definitely the case with The Good Place. The Good Place delivered one of the most philosophical and emotionally satisfying finales in modern television, and it still hurts. After four seasons of cosmic ethics, afterlife loopholes, and a ton of personal growth, the show ends with its main characters realizing they've found peace. Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani each make the heart-wrenching decision to “move on”, a euphemism for stepping into whatever lies beyond even paradise.

The Good Place is a farewell not just to the characters, but to the idea of eternity, and it’s handled with a gentle, profound beauty that never stops being emotional. As Chidi disappears in a swirl of golden light, and Eleanor’s spark returns to Earth in a poetic final gesture, The Good Place makes it clear: the most human thing of all is learning when to let go. It’s an ending that dares to be quiet and kind, and it leaves viewers crying not because it’s unfair, but because it’s so perfectly right.

9 Shameless (2011-2021)

A Chaotic Show Ends With A Quiet Heartbreak

If nothing else, the ending of Shameless proved to me that even the most questionable characters can bring viewers to tears if their death is handled right. After 11 wild seasons of Gallagher family antics, Shameless signs off not with a bang, but with a gut punch. The finale sees Frank Gallagher, the Gallagher family’s reckless, self-destructive patriarch, die alone in a hospital bed from COVID-19, hallucinating his own eulogy. It’s a sobering end for a character who outlived decency for over a decade. Despite everything, his death still hits hard, especially because none of his kids are by his side when it happens.

The sadness in the Shameless finale comes not from some grand emotional payoff, but from the absence of one. The Gallaghers continue on, partying and squabbling, unaware of Frank’s death. Life goes on, which somehow makes it all more painful. After all the chaos, he simply slips away - alone, forgotten, and mostly unloved. It’s a reminder that not every ending is cinematic, and sometimes the real heartbreak is the quiet stuff. Shameless ends like it lived: messy, real, and completely unwilling to sugarcoat the truth.

8 How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014)

A Legendary Twist That Shattered Hearts

How I Met Your Mother spent nine seasons building up to the moment Ted finally meets Tracy, the titular mother. And for a brief, beautiful stretch of the finale, it all feels worth it. Tracy is charming, perfect, and everything fans hoped for. But then comes the gut-punch: she’s dead. Ted has been telling this entire story to his kids years after her ing, as a way to honor her memory, and, in a controversial twist, to get their blessing to move on with Robin.

The show’s relentless optimism is undercut by a heavy dose of realism - sometimes the right person doesn’t get a happy ending.

It’s a polarizing finale, but there’s no denying how emotional the ending of How I Met Your Mother truly was. The reveal that Tracy died hits like a freight train, especially since viewers barely get to know her before she’s gone. Ted’s heartbreak is palpable, and while the ending tries to spin a hopeful second chance at love, it’s the loss of Tracy that sticks. The show’s relentless optimism is undercut by a heavy dose of realism - sometimes the right person doesn’t get a happy ending. For all its sitcom laughs, How I Met Your Mother leaves a lasting impression as one of the most emotionally raw TV finales in recent memory.

7 Fleabag (2016-2019)

She Smiled, But We Definitely Didn’t

If Frank Gallagher’s death in Shameless was a case of a character getting a more emotional sendoff than they perhaps deserved, then Fleabag is the opposite. Fleabag’s ending is the definition of bittersweet. After two seasons of sardonic humor, raw grief, and deeply human introspection, the show’s unnamed protagonist finally opens up. She falls in hopelessly and convincingly in love with the charming but unavailable Hot Priest. Their connection is electric and undeniable, which makes the inevitable goodbye all the more devastating. He loves her too, but he chooses his calling and devotion to his faith.

The final scene is of Fleabag achingly simple, which is why it’s so effective and prime tearjerk material. Fleabag sits at a bus stop, tears in her eyes, watching the man she loves walk away. Then she looks directly at the audience, as she’s done throughout the show, and shakes her head, silently telling us this is the end of her story. No more asides, no more performances. Just her, alone, moving forward. It’s a quiet mic drop of an ending that feels like a punch to the chest. Fleabag doesn’t just break the fourth wall, it breaks hearts in the process.

6 Better Call Saul (2015-2022)

Jimmy McGill Finally Finds Redemption Just As He Loses Everything

Of all the TV shows that made me cry at the ending, none were more of a shock to me than Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul pulls off the impossible: making viewers cry for Saul Goodman. After six seasons chronicling Jimmy McGill’s descent into criminality, the finale flips the script. In court, Jimmy confesses everything - the scams, the lies, the people he hurt - not to escape punishment, but to reclaim his soul. His full-throated honesty costs him any chance at freedom, but for once, Saul is gone. It’s Jimmy again, and he finally does the right thing.

The Better Call Saul finale’s final moments are quiet, tragic, and beautiful. Jimmy and Kim share one last cigarette, separated by prison bars, and with just a glance, everything is said. It’s not a happy ending, but it’s a cathartic one. Redemption comes with a price, and Jimmy pays it in full. For fans who followed his journey from Breaking Bad to this thoughtful, character-driven spinoff, the ending is a perfect full-circle gut punch. He was always a tragic figure, and his goodbye feels earned, even if it’s utterly heartbreaking.

5 Six Feet Under (2001-2005)

The Only Finale That Turns Your Entire Life Into A Flashback

Six Feet Under didn’t just end when the finale arrived in 2005, it gave fans one of the most haunting, unforgettable send-offs in television history. The HBO drama about a family-run funeral home closed with a perfectly devastating twist: instead of leaving the future open-ended, the final montage shows every major character’s death. From Claire’s long, quiet ing at age 102 to the more sudden, tragic deaths of others, the sequence plays out over Sia’s “Breathe Me” in a gut-wrenching visual crescendo.

The montage at the end of Six Feet Under is poetic and brutal, underlining the show’s central message: death is inevitable, and what matters is how we live until then.

There’s something incredibly raw about watching characters you’ve come to love literally age and die before your eyes in a matter of minutes. The montage at Six Feet Under is poetic and brutal, underlining the show’s central message: death is inevitable, and what matters is how we live until then. By the time the credits roll, it’s hard to breathe - not because the ending is hopeless, but because it hits so close to home. Six Feet Under embraced mortality from the start, and its finale forces the viewer to do the same. It’s stunning, it’s powerful, and yes - it will have all but the most hardened viewers wiping tears from their eyes.

4 The Americans (2013-2018)

Espionage, Exile, And Emotional Devastation

Few shows stuck the landing quite like The Americans. The final episode was amazing for many reasons, but it’s the fact I was weeping hard when the credits rolled that ensures I’ll never forget it. After six seasons of Cold War spy games and moral compromises, the finale of The Americans strips everything down to one brutal truth: Philip and Elizabeth Jennings can’t have it all. Their identities exposed, they flee back to Russia, leaving behind their American-born son Henry, and shattering the family they worked so hard to protect. Paige, who had finally embraced the spy life, jumps off the train last minute, choosing to stay in the U.S. and cut ties with her parents.

The Americans is Philip and Elizabeth silently staring out at the Russian skyline, which says it all. They’re together, but utterly alone in a home that no longer feels like home. There’s no dramatic death or explosive shootout, but the emotional weight is overwhelming. They sacrificed everything for a cause that’s now gone, and all they’re left with is each other and a trail of broken relationships. The Americans ends with a cold, quiet ache that lingers long after the screen fades to black.

3 His Dark Materials (2019-2022)

A Fantasy Ending That Breaks Hearts As Much As Boundaries

Given that I’d read the Philip Pullman novels the show was based on, I thought I was prepared for the emotional upheaval of the His Dark Materials ending. I couldn’t have been more wrong. His Dark Materials may be full of armored bears and daemons, but its finale is pure heartbreak. After defeating the Authority and restoring balance to the multiverse, Lyra and Will, soulmates from parallel worlds, discover they can never be together. If they stay, their presence would damage the fabric of reality. So they make the unthinkable choice: say goodbye forever.

It’s the kind of finale that leaves you staring at the screen, wrecked, and quietly whispering “why?”

Will and Lyra’s final scene together on a bench, in the botanic garden where their worlds once aligned, is as tender as it is soul-crushing (even for viewers like me who knew it was coming). They agree to return to that same bench every year, on the same day, in their own separate worlds - a silent, eternal tribute to the love they can’t have. It’s a brutal twist that adds a deeply human sadness to an otherwise cosmic epic. No death, no villain, just two young people who saved everything, only to lose the one thing they truly wanted. It’s the kind of finale that leaves you staring at the screen, wrecked, and quietly whispering “why?”

2 One Day (2024)

A Slow-Burn Romance Ends In One Sharp, Devastating Twist

Netflix’s One Day is a masterclass in romantic storytelling and emotional sabotage. Following Emma and Dexter as they meet every year on the same date, the show tracks their evolving relationship through decades of change. Just when they finally find happiness together, tragedy strikes. Emma dies suddenly in a bike accident, leaving Dexter (and viewers) utterly distraught. The show’s entire structure builds toward their union, only to rip it away when it finally arrives.

The final episodes of One Day are suffused with grief as Dexter spirals in the aftermath. But there’s beauty in the heartbreak. The series ends with flashbacks of their earlier, lighter moments - a reminder that what they shared was real, even if it was brief. It’s not just sad; it’s infuriatingly unfair, which makes it all the more powerful. One Day tells you up front what kind of story it is, but when the end comes, it still crushes you.

1 Dinosaurs (1991-1994)

The Boldest, Darkest Ending In Sitcom History

The saddest TV show ending of all time is, without a doubt, Dinosaurs. Yes, Dinosaurs. The puppet-filled family sitcom that once felt like a live-action The Flintstones ends with a shocking, apocalyptic gut punch. In the final episode, Earl inadvertently triggers an ecological disaster that blocks out the sun, leading to global cooling. As the snow begins to fall and the world slowly freezes, the Sinclair family huddles together in their living room, trying to stay hopeful. But viewers know what’s coming - extinction.

There’s no twist, no deus ex machina, no joke to soften the blow with the final episode of Dinosaurs. The family (and, by extension, all dinosaurs) are doomed. For a children’s show, it’s absurdly bleak, but that’s what makes it unforgettable. The show used its finale to deliver a powerful environmental warning, and it did so with a somber realism that hit like a meteor. Dinosaurs dares to end not just on a sad note, but a cataclysmic one. For anyone who grew up watching it, that final snow-covered shot of the Sinclair house is burned into memory forever, and no TV show finale has managed to make me shed anywhere near as many tears.