Disney / Tear Jerker

"For every laugh, there should be a tear."

— Walt Disney's personal opinion on how tearjerking and heartwarming moments should be equally balanced

While Disney movies will probably revolt you with their kid-friendliness, they can also be genuinely saddening. With features such as Bambi, Dumbo, the Winnie the Pooh films, The Fox and the Hound, Tangled, Frozen (2013) and Big Hero 6, Disney animation, as well as that of Pixar, manage to tug at many viewers' heartstrings.

Disney TV

Other Disney TV

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
- The third part of "To The Rescue" has a moment: Gadget has just met the chipmunks and seen Monty for the first time since she was a little girl, and Monty asks for her father. She says he's gone, in a tone that tells everyone that he's gone permanently... everyone, that is, except Dale, who asks when he'll be back. She reveals that he won't be coming back; she had lost him about a year prior. To compound this, when Monty says he'll be missed, she tells him, "He already is." Then she cheerfully offers to make them a chair. That's right, make them a chair.
- "The Case of the Cola Cult" when Gadget decides it's better for the Rescue Rangers if she leaves them. She packs her tools and walks out in the rain, crying. Not only is this a sad scene, it's also hard to see Gadget cry.
In A Sitch In Time right at the start where Kim and Ron are saying their goodbye's as his family is moving to Norway and the two of them are standing on the top of a hill desperately trying not to cry and in proper teen fashion completely unable to tell the other how much this separation hurts.
- Also, in So The Drama, when Kim ends up betrayed by Eric/Synthodrone 901 and is on the verge of the Despair Event Horizon, bitterly declaring, "Drakken's won. I should have stuck to babysitting," until Ron talks her out of it.
TaleSpin has the episode "Her Chance to Dream", where Rebecca falls in love with Captain Stansbury, who is really a ghost that haunts the island where Louie's business now resides. She is so enamored by the ghost that she believes that she's dreaming when the ghost summons up his old ship and tries to spirit her away so that they can be together. The scene where Baloo and Louie try to get her to summon the ghost back to the afterlife becomes downright tear-extracting when Rebecca screams "I just want to be happy!" and when Baloo makes her snap out of her dream state by telling her to think of her daughter Molly.
Witch in "H is for Hunted". Nerissa turns a soulless clone of Will into an actual living optimistic girl with a huge passion for life, with the plan to drive her to such desperation she'll kill the real Will Vandom to take her place. The plan itself fails when both Will and her altamere realize they aren't actually enemies. Nerissa uses the distraction to try to kill Will more directly with a lightning bolt ... which the altamere jumps in front of. Fading rapidly she manages to say "that's what sisters do... right?"
Even Playhouse Disney has crossed this territory. In PB&J Otter, there's the song Nothing Lasts Forever from the episode "Hope Castle".
The Timmy Time episode "Timmy's Snowball". In it, Timmy makes a snowball which he cherishes deeply and wants to take everywhere with him. He then tucks it into his lunchbox with a handkerchief, and (predictably) it melts and Timmy becomes understandably upset and confused. Anyone who has ever lost something they loved dearly as a small child can definitely relate.
The finale of Pepper Ann as well, it reminds you to never let go of your friends.
Walt Disney Presents has the episode "The Goofy Success Story", as Goofy becomes a huge movie star, but then becomes depressed when he doesn't win a single Oscar, to the point he nearly commits suicide. He gets better, thankfully. (For those wondering why it takes this dark a turn, it's a parody of the climax of the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born, which was released the year prior.)

Other Tearjerkers

Other Animated Films

James and the Giant Peach. "My Name Is James." 'nuff said.
Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers where Mickey is chained in the dungeon and left to die and realizes that all of his friends have either been killed or abandoned him, his supposed greatness was all just a setup by the Big Bad, and he's utterly failed in everything, including protecting his charge and love interest. The look of utter hopelessness on his face is heartbreaking, and he tosses aside his Musketeer hat and just cries.
- There's such utter despair from Mickey Mouse, and it didn't help that five minutes later the tide comes in and he comes within a hair's breadth of drowning - passing out and sinking and everything - believing himself to be completely alone.
- Released on the same DVD is Don Bluth's Disney Swan Song, The Small One: after an unsuccessful day of Small One's owner trying to find someone who will love him as much as he did, Small One leads them back to the Tanner, prepared to give up his life, until Joseph buys him, and then the title song plays as the star appears over the manger.
"The Little Matchgirl": The music, the atmosphere, everything about it will make even the most bitter man cry. And a little hint: they didn't change the ending; somebody dies.

Pooh

"Wherever You Are." Have fun.
- That entire movie is traumatic.
Rabbit's vision of his future in "Springtime With Roo", showing that he's such a Control Freak, all his friends have abandoned him. Finding all their houses completely empty and covered with dust and cobwebs is just...
Rabbit: I don't understand. Roo was looking so forward to—
Narrator: Spring Cleaning Day, was it?
Rabbit: No...Easter.
- The flashback showing what pivoted Rabbit's mean spiritedness. He gleefully took up the role of Easter Bunny every year, though his usual meticulous work-obsessed attitude sucked the fun out of it for the others, leading them to give Roo an egg hunt without him. Rabbit feels rejected, especially since he is convinced Roo, who he was trying to impress, likes Tigger more than him. When a guilt ridden Tigger finds this out, he apologizes and claims he was just trying to keep Roo happy. Rabbit however is still hurt and miserable.
"Forever and Ever" hits even harder when you find out how much the real Christopher Robin grew to resent Winnie-the-Pooh...

Theatrical Adaptations

Frozen (2018)

Other Media

Video Games

Disney Dreamlight Valley
Kingdom Hearts
Soon after Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was revealed to return to Disney, and appear as a main character in Epic Mickey, the internet quickly made him look like The Woobie, or an Eldritch Abomination. A comic appeared where a little girl, named Priscilla I believe, goes to hug Oswald, and tells him "My friends call me crazy, but you're my favorite". As she gets pulled away by her mother, she says "Good bye! I love you Mickey!" The last panel shows Oswald, crying, a forced smile on his face, waving to the girl.
- Seriously, if you can read these without breaking up, you are pretty tough.
- Speaking of Epic Mickey, during one of the cut-scenes, Mickey and Gus come across the iconic statue of Walt holding Mickey's hand—supposedly. Mickey looks absolutely overjoyed to see Walt's likeness again...and then looks down and notices it's Oswald's hand he's holding, not Mickey's. The look that comes over Mickey's face can only be described as "heartbreak."
- When you finally manage to enter at Walt's apartment at the Wasteland. Not only because Gus says "Mickey... you know what's this place, right? I can't say it. I'm going to start crying", but because the fact that it's Walt's apartment on the Wasteland, the place "where forgotten characters go". And the image of Walt Disney actually becoming depressed after losing Oswald, not creating Mickey Mouse and making us lose the best animation company in history just knocks me off.

Tear Jerker / Disney
aka: Walt Disney

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Tear Jerker / Disney
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