Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
I've just got some sand in my eye.
- The introduction of the Citadel with Immortan's "gift" of aquifer water to the masses. The masses are just... beyond destitute. This is about a Crapsack World as you can get in terms of humanity.
- The swelling music makes it even worse, showing how brainwashed the people are into worshipping Joe and revelling into his "gift". To show such blind adoration to a tyrant that's so overtly brutal, people either need to be indoctrinated since birth, or completely broken. Many of them are as old as, if not older than Immortan Joe...
- The death of Angharad. The worst thing is it follows just after a Hope Spot after she narrowly avoids hitting a boulder but then immediately slips off the rig.
- There's a little sadness to be had for Max, who gives Angharad a small smile and thumbs up when she survives the boulder. It's the first time he seems to connect to the wives, and the last, until the very end.
- Even worse for Max is what causes his flashback when she falls. This isn't the first time he's seen someone run down by a group of madmen.
- She also slipped on the blood seeping from the bullet wound he gave her. Just to rub salt into it.
- The very fact that she was heavily pregnant at the time of her death (and her child doesn't survive the C-section operation) is enough to make it a very emotional moment, both in-and-out of universe.
- If the baby had lived, it's actually possible that Joe would have been in such a hurry to get his "perfect in every way" preemie back to the citadel for mother's milk and medical care that he'd have given up the chase, then and there. Instead, it never takes a breath and the pursuit, and the mayhem, go on.
- Cheedo's reaction to Angharad's death is to try and go back to Joe with the wives and Furiosa holding her back. And then she breaks down in hysterics and just screams for her dead friend.
- The sheer desperation and pain in the Dag's voice as the wives hold Cheedo back from trying to return to Joe. She can barely speak, she's crying herself, and there's so much helpless fear in the way she says it. It resonates especially deeply with anyone who's seen a friend struggle to escape an abusive relationship."Wring your hands, tear your hair, but you're not going back to him! ...You're not going back."
- Rictus mourning the loss of his stillborn brother: "I had a baby brother! I had a little baby brother... and he was perfect! Perfect in every way!" It's brief, and YMMV, but still.
- Especially when you compare his reaction with that of Immortan Joe. The latter turned his own dead son into a "proof" of his might - that he is capable of fathering healthy children; Richtus, meanwhile, is on the verge of crying for the loss of his baby brother.
- Having spent the earlier half of the film wishing to die an awesome death in service of Immortan Joe, Nux finally achieves his goal. The difference, though, is that instead of dying for Immortan, he sacrifices himself
to cause a blockade in a narrow pass in order to prevent Immortan's men from pursuing the others. Rather than a "Taking You with Me" to hurt his enemies, he makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save his friends — indeed, he protects the lives of literally every protagonist still standing. The look in his eyes say that he held no fear and regret about what is to happen. His last words to Capable:Nux: Witness me.- When Immortan Joe tells Nux he will personally carry him to Valhalla the look on Nux’s face is heartbreaking. It’s the look of someone who for maybe the first time in his life feels like he’s worth something and found his purpose.
- To make the above even worse, normally when War Boys say "Witness me" they do it at the top of their lungs. Nux's voice is barely above a whisper, and almost sounds like he's going to start crying. It's almost like after everything he's gone through and bonding with Capable that he doesn't WANT to die. But he's willing to sacrifice himself to protect her.
- Capable even copies the Vuvalini hand gesture of loss, once she realizes what he intends to do.
- Really, everything about the War Boys. As Nux reveals more about himself and the life he and his fellow Boys lead, it becomes clear that a glorious death and an eternity in paradise afterwards is their only motivation to live in the first place. For Nux in particular, it's even worse; he's implied to be terminally ill, and can probably think of no worse fate for himself than simply rotting away in a zombified world without ever having proved his worth.
- The music that plays during this scene, Walhalla Awaits, is very fitting for Nux's Heroic Sacrifice.
- After Furiosa finally kills Immortan Joe, while Max, Furiosa, the Wives, and the Vuvalini escape on the Gigahorse, the Dag takes the Keeper's seeds before escaping and takes one last look of her dying with a smile on her face.
- Furiosa suffers a massive Heroic BSoD when she finds out that the Green Place has been turned into a quagmire. Prior to that, Furiosa comments that she was taken away from her home by Immortan Joe along with her mother about 7000 days prior, that amounts to about twenty years. She then adds that her mother died on the third day.
- After Max refuses her offer to follow her and the Vuvalini across the salt, Furiosa nods bitterly, like she's saying "who am I kidding". She really is disappointed at parting with someone with whom she's Birds of a Feather so soon after meeting him.
- Nux's backstory in the tie-in comics. As a young toddler, he never knows that his father dies. Then thinking he can find his father, he clings onto the ascending ramp toward Joe's Citadel, proves his worth to the guards, and he welcomed up there. But Moment of Awesome aside, the comic narration forlornly notes that his innocence will be swept up and corrupted into Joe's cult.
- For the gearheads out there, the fate of the Interceptor. Finally on the big screen again for the first time in decades, and Max only gets to be in it for a few scant seconds of screen time before it's wrecked. Unfortunately, even after it's repaired, it winds up in the hands of the War Boys, and it gets trashed again between two War Rigs during the final leg of the chase.
- In the one true moment of calm in the film, when the Vuvalani women recount how life used to be like before, there's a strong sense of regret, remorse and sadness in their words knowing that those days are over. "The planes of silence" is just the tip of the iceberg.
- During the final climax, the death of the Valkyrie is witnessed by two of the women who say nothing but with visible deep sadness and a hand gesturing farewell. Made more tragic as she was the youngest of the group.
- The look of utter anguish on Nux' face when he epically disappoints Immortan Joe. Especially when Capable sees him curled up on the floor, muttering about disappointing Joe, and she understands he's just a lost delusional boy who wanted so much to be witnessed by his idol.
- Furiosa's anguished, barely heard plea to Max: "Take them... home...", whispered with the last effort as she lies dying. She's sure she's gonna die (and she would have, were it not for Max being a universal donor) and still she does all she can to ensure the Wives will reach their home.
- You can't help but feel sorry for the Coma Doof Warrior as you see his double-neck guitar burst out of the wreckage in front of the camera. Despite being on the side of bad, he was Too Cool to Live.
- Max telling Furiosa his name - and the real sadness is that he's reminding himself he has a name.
- The whole scene with the wives, Max and a dying Furiosa is painful. Cheedo tearfully asks Max what's wrong with her, and all four of the girls are visibly tearful and terrified when he reinflates her lung, trying to keep her awake and help him however they can.
- A polecat grabs Toast, and it's painful to hear Furiosa's Big "NO!", and watch the other wives desperately try to grab her. Joe taunts Furiosa from his car, and the look in Furiosa's eye is haunting. Even worse still, Max finally gets back to the rig when Furiosa is injured, and is immediately grabbed up as well. Cheedo and The Dag grab for him and you can hear Cheedo yell "NO!". They're going through hell and still just trying to keep their makeshift family together.
- The backstory of Glory the Child in the tie-in comics and how she became involved in Max's life. Some time before, she had been kidnapped by the Buzzards during a raid on a trading convoy, and her mother searched and searched for someone who could find her daughter and bring her back. After saving Max's life, he owed her a favor which was finding and returning Glory to her mother. After a harrowing excursion into the Sunken City, Max managed to both save Glory and retrieve his stolen V8 Interceptor. Unfortunately, the remaining pursuing Buzzard ran over both the mother and child, eerily re-enacting the deaths of Max's wife and child. Max killed the attacker and found the mother dead on the scene, while Glory was holding onto her last breath. Glory's last words to Max was to tell him to look after her mother, not knowing she was already dead. This event arguably destroyed pretty much all the psychological development Max had undergone during the events of Beyond Thunderdome, resulting in him being the shell of a man he is in the opening of Fury Road.Glory: You... came back. I knew... you would. Is... mamma all right?
Max: She's fine.
Glory: Look... after her...
Max: I will. - Amidst the triumphant anointing of Furiosa as the new leader of the Citadel, we are treated to one last shot of Max disappearing into the crowd, letting Furiosa have her moment in the sun. It's rather heartrending to think that, even though he underwent so much Character Development and experienced so much with her and the Five Wives, in the end he seems forever doomed to be Walking the Earth. And, barring a connected sequel (unlikely, considering the "mythology narrative" note of Mad Max and his exploits), this will be the last time that Furiosa and Max ever see each other. It's slightly less sad when you realize Max may have resumed his quest to get to Sydney where Savannah has been rebuilding civilization herself.
- A minor Fridge Tear Jerker: Nux doesn't know the word "tree". Not only has he never seen one, nobody even bothered to teach him the word, never expecting it to be needed.
