Heartwarming / Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

• The scene from the end Joel's first and final memory. The beach house falls apart. When Joel runs out of the house, Clementine asks him to stay this time. Joel says that he walked out the door, but Clementine decides to pretend to have a proper good-bye. Her last words are "Meet me in Montauk."
  • All the attempts to hide and prevent Lacuna Inc. from erasing his memory, and this one simple act manages to subvert the whole thing. So simple, yet so powerful.
• The scene where Joel hides Clem in his most painful memory, essentially living it all over again, just because he loves her that much.
• "Please, Mierzwiak, let me keep this one memory..."
• Joel begins to remember his childhood memories ^note Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Gently Down the Stream.... in order to hide Clementine from the erasure. Joel becomes a young boy playing outside the rain, then shifts to himself sitting under the kitchen table. This, and with a slow and relaxing score during this scene, helps make a heartwarming experience.
• The scene when Clementine visits Joel's apartment where he finds all his files sent from Mary. Joel hands one of his drawings to Clementine, then she apologizes to him for screwing with him. He offers her a glass of whisky and they both listen to his tapes. She becomes overwhelmed and nervous, then apologizes that she shouldn't be here. He lets her leave with a goodbye at his front door and she says "It was nice meeting you at all." There is a slow and relaxing "Oh My Darling, Clementine" score during this scene.
• The final scene of the film, with the two having realized their history with one another and — possibly for the first time ever — finally making it clear their own personal failings that led to their relationship falling apart to begin with, allowing them to better accept each other. It's deliberately left ambiguous as to what this actually means for their future — maybe they will end up falling into the same form of destructive behavior that tore them apart, maybe they have grown enough to give it a better try, or maybe they won't even get back together at all — but the sheer sincerity of their exchange suggests that there is still hope for both of them.
  Joel: Wait!
  Clementine: What?
  Joel: I don't know!
  Clementine: What do you want, Joel?!
  Joel: I want you to stay just for a while.
  Clementine: Okay.
  Joel: Really?
  Clementine: I'm not a concept. I'm just a fucked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. I'm not perfect.
  Joel: I can't say anything I don't like about you. Right now, I can't!
  Clementine: But you will! You know? You will think of things! And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me!
  Joel: Okay.
  Clementine: (slowly starting to smile) ...Okay.
• Most importantly, the song "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" during the end credits. This song is an ode to regret.
• Maybe more on the heartbreaking side, but when Joel goes to Lacuna with his bags of things that remind him of Clementine, he sits next to a woman in the waiting room holding her own box of things containing a rawhide bone, a framed picture of a dog, and a water dish that says "Buster". She loved that little dog so much that she'd rather never have known she had him than to live another painful day without him again.

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