There might not be a better animation studio when it comes to making audiences cry than Pixar. The animation studio was an instant success when it launched, with Toy Story proving to the world that people should take notice. Over time, they helped change the way animated movies were made, both by influencing other companies like DreamWorks and by forcing Disney to up its game and improve its output, which created an explosion in creative animated films in the 2000s and beyond.
When it comes to the groundbreaking brilliance of Pixar, it's not just about the technical merits of the company, but it is also about the storytelling. For many years, it seemed that animated movies were meant to keep kids occupied and offer little to their parents or even a general adult audience. That all changed when Pixar created a nostalgic look at the love of toys and then expanded to develop movies that offered as much to adults as they did to kids.
This included adding an emotional layer that often had the entire audience crying, thanks to perfectly told stories about loss and love. These moments had everyone in tears, from the kids who didn't expect something sad to happen to parents who ended up devastated thanks to a loss that went much deeper than even the kids might have expected. From sad deaths to moments of intense grief, Pixar knows how to tug at the heartstrings.
Cars 3 - Lightning Sees Hudson's Letters
For many years, the one Pixar movie that received the most critical disdain was the Cars franchise. Despite this, Pixar kept making Cars movies, mainly since they did well financially and the kids loved them. The first movie remains highly misunderstood, as it is a great story of the death of small towns in Middle America, thanks to the interstate system putting away traffic. It is here that hero Lightning McQueen ends up stranded, and it is here that he meets Doc Hudson.
The third movie remains the best, as Lightning mentors a younger racer and teaches her what he learned, much of it from Doc's lessons in that first movie. When racing legend Smokey invites Lightning into his garage, he shows him letters and newspaper clippings that Doc Hudson sent him. Almost every one of them is about how proud Doc is of Lightning. Since Doc's voice actor, Paul Newman, had died, unused audio recordings of him play over archival footage of Doc, and it delivers an emotional moment for Lightning and the audience.
Inside Out - Riley Finally Collapses Into Parents' Arms
Inside Out is a movie that shows an 11-year-old girl who struggles to adapt to her new home in San Francisco after growing up in Minnesota. However, most of the moments take place in her mind, where her emotions live as characters in their own right. While Joy fights to keep Riley only feeling happiness, it makes things worse, even as Sadness wants to offer help along the way. It isn't until the end that this happens.
Riley decides to run away and take a bus back to Minnesota, and Joy realizes she has made things worse. When Joy gives the controls to Sadness, this is where it proves that all children need sadness and happiness to form genuine memories of the past. When Sadness adds her own touch, Riley races back home and falls into her parents' arms, crying and finally telling them how sad she is. As the family cries together, the audience does as well.
Finding Nemo - "When I'm Looking At You, I'm Home"
Finding Nemo is a Pixar animated movie about a father who loses his son and sets out to find and rescue him. The film switches between the young clownfish Nemo trying to survive while his father Marlin searches for him. Along the way, Marlin meets a fish with short-term memory loss named Dory, and she agrees to help him find his son. This leads to the moment near the end of their journey, when Marlin has given up and believes he has failed to save his son.
Just as he tries to leave Dory and go back home empty-handed, Dory begs him not to leave, saying no one has ever stayed with her so long before. She says she remembers things better with him than ever before. Dory then says this poignant line, saying that when she looks at Marlin, she is finally at home and doesn't want to forget. When Marlin says, "I'm sorry, Dory, but I do," it reveals the heartbreaking bond between the unlikely companions.
WALL-E - EVE Tries To Fix WALL-E
WALL-E is one of Pixar’s most daring movies because it plays out as a silent film for a majority of its running time. The main character is the robot, WALL-E, who lives on the abandoned planet of Earth, cleaning up while humanity's survivors orbit around in space as Earth is now uninhabitable. However, as WALL-E and the robot EVE attempt to get word to the spaceships that Earth might be safe to return to, WALL-E is damaged, seemingly beyond repair.
This leads to EVE desperately trying to get him to remember her after his memory banks are erased, and he loses his personality. Knowing WALL-E's love of the musical Hello, Dolly, EVE starts playing it only to see that it was also erased. This leads to the heartbreaking moment where EVE begins to hum the tune of "It Only Takes a Moment" and then gives him a kiss, which sparks and suddenly brings him back. There is no dialogue, and it still leaves the audience in tears.
Soul - When Joe Realizes How Much Life He Missed Out On
Almost the entire movie Soul is guaranteed to make the audience cry. The movie is about a man named Joe Gardner, who has been chasing his big break for his entire life, and when he seems to finally catch his break, he dies in an accident when he falls down a manhole. As he is on his way to The Great Beyond, he realizes he spent his entire life chasing a dream, rather than enjoying his time on Earth.
In his journey with a soul known as 22, Joe begins to see the everyday small moments, from the taste of a slice of pizza to a falling maple seed, to the music he loves so much, and just looking into the sky. He realizes too late that there is beauty all around him, and he never took the chance to live while he was still alive. It is what the movie is about, and this one scene hammers it home.
Onward - Saying Goodbye To Dad
Onward was an unfairly overlooked Pixar animated movie because it came out right before the pandemic lockdown, and it ended up flopping at the box office and was mostly forgotten thanks to real-world issues. However, Onward is a fantastic fantasy film about two teenage elves who are looking to deal with the trauma of losing their father at a young age. That leaves the movie open to an emotional ending, and it doesn't disappoint.
The movie sees a botched spell bring their father back from the dead, but only in his lower half. The brothers then race to complete the spell before it expires at midnight. By the end, they realize they only have time for one of them to see their dad fully reformed, and Ian gives that moment to Barley, who was very young when their dad died. Barley finally gets the goodbye he never got to say before his dad died, and it delivers a heartwarming message.
Toy Story 3 - Woody Tells Andy Goodbye
The Toy Story movies have always had emotional moments because of Woody's relationship with Andy, as well as the other toys. However, the most emotional moment comes in the third movie, which is when Woody says goodbye to Andy after so many years as his favorite toy. This was a highly emotional moment because the audience had grown up with Andy as much as Woody had over the years since the first movie.
In Toy Story 3, Woody and his friends all realize it is time to say goodbye to Andy and move on to their next kid, who is Bonnie. When Andy doesn't want to give up Woody, he realizes at the last minute that Woody is better off with a new kid who will play with him, rather than sitting on a shelf in his college dorm room. When Andy drives away, Woody says, "So long, partner," and this moment ends the trilogy on a tearfully happy note.
Coco - Remember Me Scene
Throughout the Pixar animated movie, Coco, a young boy named Miguel loves to sing and perform music, but his grandmother forbids it because of her complicated past. The main song in the movie is called "Remember Me," and it is a song written by Miguel's great-great-grandfather for his daughter, Coco, before he left. During the movie, Miguel goes to the Land of the Dead and returns home to his aging great-grandmother, Mama Coco.
Miguel sits by his great-grandmother and begins to play his guitar and sing "Remember Me" to her, which angers his grandmother (Coco's daughter) momentarily. However, she stops and waits, and soon, as Miguel sings, Mama Coco's memories of her father are unlocked, and she begins to sing it with him, the first time she has spoken in a long time. As the entire family cries, this moment ensures that Hector is not lost to the memories of time.
Inside Out - Bing Bong's Demise
While the scene with Riley embracing her parents ends Inside Out on a tearfully happy moment, there was a much more depressing moment earlier in the film. While Joy and Sadness are looking for ways to save Riley's crumbling happy memories, they find a familiar friend named Bing Bong. This is Riley's childhood imaginary friend, someone lost to time, but still there in the depths of her memory banks.
There is a place where all memories go to die, and when it seems that Joy and Sadness might end up lost there, Bing Bong comes through. He saves them both, but it is the ultimate sacrifice, and by saving the two, all memories of him die forever. Bing Bong's final words, "Take her to the moon for me," deliver a deeply upsetting moment, and one of the best in Pixar's history.
Up - The Opening
The one Pixar movie moment that is more depressing and emotional than any other in the studio's history also might be the one animated movie moment that leaves more people crying than any other. This is the opening of the movie Up. This scene opens the movie with a young boy named Carl, who meets a young girl named Ellie. The two share much in common, including a sense of adventure.
The opening montage then follows them from their childhood meeting to their wedding, as they grow up to their dreams of one day traveling to Paradise Falls. However, it then flips to the realization that they can't have a baby, and then eventually they grow older together, and Ellie falls ill and dies. This is the opening of Up, and by the time the actual story starts, there isn't a dry eye, one of the saddest moments in any Pixar movie.
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