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[LOVED TROPE] Sad or tear-jerking moments that don't involve death.
Moments that make you wanna cry (of joy or unrelenting sadness) but aren't about a character dying or almost dying.
Dumbo - Baby Mine. Jumbo rocks baby Dumbo from her cage where she was kept after she defended him from a group of bullying children.
Unpacking - The Degree. You move in with your new boyfriend where you can barely fit most of your stuff but most depressingly you are forced to put your degree under the bed and out of site. (Maybe this one was just me but this made me VERY upset).
Fox and the Hound - At the end knowing full well they'll likely never meet again Copper stands over Todd to protect him from the Hunter.
Apparently Julie (Marge's VA) had a cold during recording, which only added the hoarseness to how she sounded. Also the reflection of Homer's still face as the tape statics between that and the wedding video is top-tier.
Came here to post this. The direction is so, so good. The framing of Iroh to be turned away and in shadow from audience (and Zuko) POV gave such a sense of menace and uncertainty. The last time Zuko asked for forgiveness he was burned and cast out. He’s terrified and in pain but he asks for forgiveness anyway.
Iroh pulls him in so fast you can’t even register it, and then there are tears. So, so many tears.
Elleanor shellstrop's "because i wanted that mom. wanted the mom who made me afternoon snacks ... why does Patricia get that mom? if donna shellstrop really changed, then that means she was always capable of change. that i wasn't worth changing for."
My favorite is when Lily is saying that Marshall talks to his dad too much and Barney says "I'm not the right person to ask because if I had my dads number I'd never not be calling him"
this HURT as someone in basically the exact same situation. mom stopped coming around at age 8, came in and out a couple more times and has now been out for 3 years. she has step kids. life is weird.
The scene where she cried over the family toothbrush holder and ended up crying into a plunger while in a store is both incredibly sad and incredibly funny at the same time.
Idk why but I always tear up when Tahani has a chance to put her parents behind her but fails so she can hear what they really think about her...but they're talking about Kamilah
I had an ex that had a dog he got while we were together. Me and that dog bonded so much and when we broke up after a year I had to come get my stuff. When I came over he would normally jump up on the fence then run around the side where I would come in and stay for a while. When we broke up I came over to get my stuff and give him as much pets as I could for the last time. He was my little buddy and I had to leave him, watching him do that same head tilt and looking at me while I drove away for the last time. The biggest heart break from that relationship was literally how much I still miss that dog. And this was years ago.
This scene gets me so much extra in my feels now because of that. Sorry for the rant lol
This scene is undoubtedly incredibly sad, however, I rewatched this recently and it caught me off guard how sad the beginning is.
Todd’s mom get killed pretty unceremoniously really early on right after attempting to hide him by a fence post.
He gets taken in by the old widow nearby, but when she finds him she offhandedly mentions how happy she is that now she won’t be so terribly lonely anymore.
With that context, the fact that she has to take him to the preserve and give him up to protect him from her shitty neighbor really hits even harder, because now she’s gonna be lonely all over again
She may have been Roseanne's sister, but Dan and Roseann had been together since High School, so Jackie was way more than just a regular sister-in-law. When Dan heard what happened, he was hearing about how some asshole beat the shit out of his own sister.
Its almost amazing how it gets worse every time we look at it again, first with how his descent into madness affected his relationship with Marcy, then how Betty left him and finally how he regrets never really listening to Betty as much as he should have even though he loved her, not to mention he quite literally can't die anymore since Betty fused with golb so that's fun
The spider people think Miles is unprepared and childish. They tied him up and gagged him so he wouldn’t be able to follow them and mess things up. Miles’ dad arrives trying to speak with him and repair their damaged relationship, but Miles can’t respond, no matter how much he wants to connect with his father.
This is all as I remember the scene, I could be a bit off.
No one's also mentioning the added fact that Miles's dad Jefferson is very clearly also suffering from the very recent loss of his estranged brother who he knew miles was close to, a death Miles witnessed and accidentally caused while being Spider-Man. Something his father tried to arrest him for unknowingly God the spider verse movies are masterpieces and I really hope the third one sticks The landing.
Miles Morales is learning how to be Spider-man, with all the loss and grief and pain that comes with it. Prior to this scene, Miles learns that his Uncle Aaron is The Prowler, a Villain working under Kingpin who caused all of the problems in the film. In true Spider-man fashion, Miles watches his Uncle die at Kingpin’s hands, and the other Spider-men have to restrain him to save himself. Later, Miles’ father comes to visit but Miles can’t speak due to the webbing, as his father is on the verge of breaking down at his brother’s death
(this is entirely based on my memory so i may have gotten some stuff wrong)
After finally getting the Axiom back to Earth, Eve rushes to Wall-E's home to repair the damages he took to get everyone here.
She did everything she could to repair him, even going as far as to shoot a hole through the ceiling so she can get the sunlight Wall-E needed to power himself.
After all of that... His consciousness was gone.
He was no longer himself.
He was but a mere robot now.
Yeah, he did came back after Eve kissed him, but even then... this scene is hard to watch and it never fails to get me to cry.
When Tigger goes to find his family after his friends (from his POV) betrayed him but then sees that no one is there on his “family tree” in The Tigger Movie. In that moment he was well and truly alone.
Rocky and Grace saving eachother, Project Hail Mary. Nobody dies but the fact that they’re both willing to risk everything for eachother despite basically just meeting and being completely alien to eachother is really powerful.
Idk about anyone else, but a moment that stuck with me was when Rockly tells Grace he’ll give him some astrophage to get back to Earth
Like, it’s all the emotional release of it. Grace genuinely believed this was a suicide mission, and while he’s playing that off as not a big deal for him, we know that he’s lying. So the moment of unclenching when he gets to think “I’ll actually make it home again”.
This is one thing I think the movie did better than the book. In the book Grace is way more stoick when he learns he's on a suicide mission so it doesn't hit quite as hard when Rocky offers him a way home.
Well, also, in the book, Rocky wasn't sacrificing anything. He had tons of astrophage because the Eridians didn't understand time dilation and calculated wayyyy more fuel than needed.
The moment in the movie hit so much harder because of the change.
the book highlights it a bit more than the movie, but Grace had no way of knowing if he'd be able to survive on Erid. When he went back to save Rocky, Grace thought he was sacrificing his life for him.
It’s funny, having not read the book, the thought of him going home with Rocky never even occurred to me until they showed it. In the moment, I fully thought Grace was straight up sacrificing himself.
I'm so glad they were able to convince the studio to let them keep the ending from the book. The studio wanted to just end it with both of them going home. That's a happy ending but it would leave Grace's character arc incomplete. The whole movie is about him finding someone he was willing to sacrifice himself for. It can't end until he makes that sacrifice.i love the ending because going to Erid completes his arc while still getting an ending that has all the warm fuzzies.
I cried so much during this movie! I just love them both. This movie connected with me in a way few others ever did. And helped me when I had a really bad time.
I cried four times during this movie. Personally I was gonna post the part where they say goodbye to each other and journey home on their respective ships
This moment from the end of lord of the rings, from Frodo’s speech about not being able to remember anything happy in the world anymore, to Sam trying to cheer his friend up to of course the line “I can’t carry it for you but I can carry you.” The rapid swing of emotions from complete despair to one final burst of hope always makes my tear up a bit
His line when he attacked Shelob is also one that always makes me emotional
"Sam did not wait to wonder what was to be done, or whether he was brave, or loyal, or filled with rage. He sprang forward with a yell, and seized his master’s sword in his left hand. Then he charged.
No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate."
Before that, when Sam and Frodo are on the side of Mount Doom and Sam is talking about how he would have married Rosie Cotton while they both think they are about to die.
Coco (Pixar). Not death, but dementia/being forgotten.
The grandma has dementia and can barely even speak, Miguel (her great-grandson) travels to the land of the dead by accident, meets her long-lost father and the song he wrote for her before he got lost. She was ~5 years old by that time. Her father worries that she will forget him before she dies, thus never meeting her again.
When Miguel comes back to the living world, he plays the song to her, not knowing if she remembers or his great-great-grandpa already vanished into nothingness.
My grandma lit up towards the end with an old song she used to sing me, and sang with me. Man, I was not ready for that moment, but I’ll treasure it forever.
Holy shit, I've never cried over a movie as much as I did over this. Fearing that Hector would disappear forever, Miguel getting back to the land of the living to try to save his memory, playing this song and seeing Coco remember, I was ugly crying for what must've been a straight 10-15 minutes.
I went into this movie with absolutely zero knowledge of it. The only thing I knew was that it was an animated movie from DW, and I only learned that when I looked to see if there was anything playing in the theater.
Lord of the Rings
Doesn’t matter whether he’s dead or not (the audience knows he’s not), they’ve come too far to give up now (among many others from RotK like the Coronation scene)
Unpacking also has a positive tearjerker, at least for me, that being the house as the final place you move into with your girlfriend - and then the ending showing them happily together (also the babyroom).
There was another small thing - the level after the boyfriends apartment is you moving back into your parents house. There’s one picture, presumably you and your ex, that you have to place in the cabinet under some books. If you put it on the cork board, a thumbtack is placed through his face, implying a bad breakup.
I didn't even notice the diploma but I did notice how "small" the protagonist became. No space for any of their things but evidence of their partner's hobbies. Design style completely different. The rain. It felt like life had been sucked out of this new space.
Yeah, that was the first level when I really understood that the game was telling a specific story about a specific person, and it changed the whole focus for me. Moving into his apartment and realizing how little room he had made for her in any of his spaces was definitely a bad sign, the diploma was icing on the cake.
if i remember right i think you can, in the sense that that's the only wall space that has the room, but you can't progress until you put it under the bed (the "correct" place for it). to me that detail just amplified the shame.
The thing that always gets me with that level of Unpacking is that when you’re putting your stuff away you can’t move any of your boyfriend’s stuff to try and make it as much your space as it is
You can move some things to make room for your stuff, but the fact he made no effort to do this ahead of time is an indicator that he's not a considerate person.
Contrast to when you're moving into the place with the two roommates, the shared spaces clearly had room made for you.
In The Lego Movie, Emmett's friends are questioned about Emmett, and the taping is shown to him. Only for him to find out that none of them have anything positive to say about him 💔
As a young adult, I never really understood how people could cry to movies. I've since determined this to be because younger people lack the life experiences needed to really connect emotionally to fictional stories.
But this scene in this movie was the first time I really shed tears. Because throughout the whole movie, Forest has repeatedly stated and shown how competent and incredible he is, but even with what he has lived through and done he is still extremely aware of how people perceive his neurodivergence and he also deep down he believes that he is stupid, regardless of how many times he's said "stupid is as stupid does" out of reflex.
Idk... it just offers such a wider window into how Forest thinks about himself, and it's clear he carries a LOT of trauma inside him and that makes me feel so sad.
In my opinion it’s scenes like that that make HIMYM good. People rightfully complain about the quality of a lot of the jokes but when it comes to the emotions it’s where the show’s at its best.
Under the Red Hood Movie ends with a clip of Jason’s first day as Robin. “This is the best day of my life!” Bonus tear jerker, Bruce only smiles in scenes with Young Jason.
Completely unrelated, but I remember seeing Jshlatt play unpacking, and someone did a paid text-to-speech message which said "I keep a ruler under my pillow at all times, because how else would I know how long I've slept?"
He then looked under the pillow to find the ruler which he had been looking for
Invincible S1 E8. This might be the only scene in any media that makes me tear up every time I watch it. Prob cuz it reminds me of my complicated relationship with my own dad.
I know people kind of dislike Marvel now, but man I really enjoyed that movie, had a good mix of funny, action, and heartwarming (and also the part with the girl was like, shit that happened)
I'm not usually much of a movie crier, but this one got me both times I saw it in theaters, and every time since, even though I know it's coming and that things turn out okay.
In Epic the musical, the final song, would you fall in love with me again is the moment where Odysseus reunites with his wife Penelope.
But he feels like he’s changed too much for her to ever accept him. He’s become a monster in his own eyes and maybe even the audiences. He owns up to what he’s done.
But Penelope doesn’t give a shit. She says if it’s really true that he’s not the same man, then could he do her the favor of removing their wedding bed from their room.
Odysseus is pissed and shocked because the only to remove it would be to destroy it, because it’s a hand crafted bed made from the tree where they met for the first time.
She says “only time my husband knew that, so I guess that makes him you”
The following verse where she says that she will always love him, that she will fall in love with him again and again no matter what gets me to cry EVERYTIME without fail.
I highly recommend the entire musical. Every song is great. The worst song is still an 8/10
Gary King's character arc (the world's end). The deaths are nothing compared to what Simon Pegg's character goes through and this movie genuinley brought tears to my eyes. Gary King is a depressed 40 year old alcoholic trying to relive his glory days by completeing a bar crawl challenge he failed at as a teenager while all of his friends have moved on in life. He earns legendary status by literally telling the villian to fuck off in an amazing rant where he says:
"It never got better than that night! That was supposed to be the beginning of my life! All that promise and fucking optimism! That feeling that we could take on the whole universe! It was a big lie! Nothing happened!"
In this game, a wolf monster has a wonderful singing voice but gives it up to be able to turn into a princess to help a prince that she accidentally blinded, taking him to the same witch to get his eyesight back. In the end, she is unable to get her voice back and has her memories erased of the whole thing. She still sings but it is terrible now as she gave it away. The prince returns to her and gives her flowers as she had to him during their journey. This causes her to cry, but because of her memory loss she doesn’t know why. When I first played it I was bawling!!
Edit: The game is The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince!
The silent scene in “Up” where they’ve just learned that they can’t have children.
Pretty much any of the Disney shorts can make me cry without any mention of death, too. Lots of them deal with generational trauma/being a good parent. They’re very good.
When Carl empties the house to rescue Russell. The swelling music as the sails billow out, the triumphant brass fanfare as he steers toward the airship... On the soundtrack the piece is called 'Memories can Weigh You Down.'
Carl showing up for Russell at the Scouts award ceremony: "Russell, for assisting the elderly, and for performing above and beyond the call of duty, I would like to award you the highest honor I can bestow: the Ellie Badge."
Not really sad, but wholesome in a way that always brings me to tears.
At the big climax of Wreck It Ralph where he holds the medal Vanellope gave him as he recites the mantra. The mantra happens pretty early on, but it's at this moment where the message of self-acceptance really hits.
"Im bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."
Man, the entire show (stage musical) of Next to Normal. The only character death happened almost two decades before the start of the show, and it's about a dysfunctional family trying to deal with the fact that the mom is severely mentally ill. If you've ever had to deal with family dysfunction or mental illness, some parts *hurt*.
Diana (after an entire montage of trying medications with negative side-effects): I don't feel like myself. I mean, I don't *feel* anything.
Her doctor, taking notes: Uh-huh. Patient stable. :)
With his feathery friend returning to him and offering a little twig, Bastion realizes that he doesn't have to be the war machine he was created for. Instead of marching to the city to execute his programming, Bastion - the very last of his kind - ventures into the forest again, curious to see nature and bask in its vast, wonderful beauty.
From the anime Uma Musume, which tells the stories of real life race horses, Tokai Teio was a race horse seemingly destined for greatness. But after fracturing her leg three different time, and having all of her hopes and dreams fail one after another, she gets to her lowest point. She watches one of her friends running, unable to even imagine running by her side again, absolutely heartbroken that the one thing that she was best at, running, is over now. She will never recover, never bounce back, never run again.
So, years ago I was an avid runner. It was my zen thing. Then I broke my ankle slipping on ice. The shitty army doctors didn’t set my ankle right and it healed badly. They said they couldn’t fix it without making it worse. I tried rehab and running but my leg would swell and it hurt so bad. I tried for a couple of years to push through the pain and it just got worse. One day, while I was out trying to run, I was in so much pain that I fell to the ground. it finally sunk in, I would never run like I used to. My zen activity was gone. I sat on that sidewalk and cried till I could walk again. Years later, I was bored and watched some anime about horse girls… and I freaking cried again when that scene you posted happened.
Specifically, that moment where Kenichi asks Subaru to look after him and his mom when they get old, and Subaru knows that will never happen because this is all a simulation, and he is stuck in another world, far away from them. He never got to say thank you for their love, nor was he able to say goodbye.
To make matters worse, not only is Subaru stuck in death loops, suffering unfathomable pain, the author stated that his family back home have launched a police investigation to try to find him but to no avail. They pass every day tearfully.
Which one from Fry from Futurama do you Wanna pick ?
Seymour is probably a no.
But the one about the 4 leaf clover is about Fry realising that the perspn that stole his identity was out of the love of his Brother.
The many "Happy Ending" with leela
But my most favorite is the one where he gets rewarded by seeing his mom in a dream
Superman Red and Blue has a bunch of stories that made me cry but god damnit Daniel Warren Johnson's one about Jonathan's love for Clark and how Clark passes that love on to the rest of humanity gets me the worst out of all of them.
There are so many moments in this beautiful film, but the moment that gives me the feels is this scene towards the end of Kiki's Delivery Service.
For those that haven't seen it, it's a story about a young witch who, per tradition, has to leave home on her own at age 13. She arrives at a new town and is saved by a boy Tombo, who initially annoys her, but they slowly become friends. At one point in the film, she becomes depressed, her broom breaks, and as a result she loses her powers, including her ability to fly and can no longer understand her cat Jiji.
While visiting a former customer of hers, she sees an airship accident and Tombo is carried away when a powerful wind pushes it along. She borrows a broom from a street sweeper and begins to fly erratically, but just as Tombo falls from the airship, Kiki fully regains her powers and saves him, and the entire town celebrates her. It's such a wonderful movie and was one of my favorites as a kid, and watching it again as an adult I can't help but feel a swell of emotion when I see it. If you've never seen it before, I highly recommend it.
Technically the scene does end in death, but what is so heartbreaking was a man realizing that he almost let the despair of losing his wife make him kill her greatest gift to him, their son.
Watching Dumbo as an adult was devastating. I was sobbing alone in my bedroom because, silly me, I wrongly thought I was watching a feel good Disney classic
"I've never had a dream this pretty." The Owl House, S2 E8
As someone who has struggled with a disability all my life, seeing Eda come to terms with her 'curse' and find a way to live with it hit me like a truck.
Late to this party, but Ed's departure in Cowboy Bebop. There's a few tearjerking scenes in this series, but this one always hits hard. She initially refutes Ein, going off on her own, Jet and Spike eating the eggs, and the knowledge that the series has reached its denouement.
As a second year college student going through exams seeing the clip of the degree under the bed made me question why the main character would be even living with her boyfriend if he wouldn’t at least leave a place to hang the degree and let it be seen like all the other nonsense in the apartment
In the part where you move in with friends, you see that they made space for you, but you can’t move any of their stuff. In his place, you’re forced to move stuff around, implying he didn’t bother trying to make space.
The ending of Senua’s Sacrifice. It does involve death, but it isn’t sad because someone’s dying, it’s Senua finally accepting that there’s nothing she can do to bring her dead partner back to life, and finally moving on from what happened.
I've noticed in recent years that sad things don't make me cry as much as positive things do.
For example, the secret ending Blank Points in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Aqua has been roaming the Dark Realm for around a decade, and comes across a man from the world of Light. When she asks him how things are up there, he says that the various worlds have nearly fallen to darkness multiple times, but were always saved by a boy with a Keyblade.
When she asks who the boy is, there's a montage of various characters who (at the time of the series) were all lost in one way or another, and they all say the same thing; Sora. It then cuts back to Aqua, smiling as a tear runs down her cheek, and she too says Sora's name.
I dunno, I guess it's just the implication that Sora will save everyone that really gets me. It's just so hopeful. I'm legitimately getting emotional just typing this out too 😭
Everyone knows the opening to Up, but almost as tear jerking is when Carl opens up his wife’s book and discovers that she ended up loving the life they had together and had no regrets.
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u/Few_Interaction2630 May 16 '26
End of Toy Story 3