Tear Jerker / Seven Samurai

• While it's hinted at before, seeing Kikuchiyo break down crying over the orphaned toddler and exclaiming that he'd had the exact same thing happen to him is quite jarring.
• Kikuchiyo angrily tells the peasants at a funeral to stop crying over Heihachi's death. But it's plain to see that he's torn up about it himself and really misses Heihachi.
  • Shortly before that, the groups attack on a bandit encampment is where Heihachi dies. Why? The group burned the hideout and Rikuchi approached one of the bandits' women, who runs back into the burning building in grief and shame. Heihachi goes to get him out, pulling him away from the burning building as Rikuchi struggles, before a rifle round rings out and Heihachi is mortally wounded. Who was the woman? Rikuchi's wife. She was kidnapped by the bandits, explaining his breakdown whenever the samurai mention him getting a wife. And in the end, his wife dies in the fire, disgraced after being kidnapped and raped, so it was all for nothing.
  • Shortly before when they set the hideout on fire, Rikuchi's wife sees the smoke and the fire building up, but does not cry out to warn the bandits, instead letting it burn. After so long as a prisoner and Sex Slave, it's clear by the end of the scene that she feels she's been defiled and would rather die than return home in disgrace.
• Similarly, Kikuchiyo mourning over Yohei's grave, knowing that it's his fault the old man died.
  • Before his death, Yohei gets a moment as well, pitifully but proudly telling Kikuchiyo that he defended the post.
• Kikuchiyo's "The Reason You Suck" Speech is a sad and awesome moment for him. Just watch him pace up and down, brutally verbally rip apart both farmers and samurai spectacularly, his eyes brimming with tears, his voice full of searing rage.
  Kikuchiyo: What do you think of farmers? You think they're saints? Hah! They're foxy beasts! They say, "We've got no rice, we've no wheat. We've got nothing!" But they have! They have everything! Dig under the floors! Or search the barns! You'll find plenty! Beans, salt, rice, sake! Look in the valleys, they've got hidden warehouses! They pose as saints but are full of lies! If they smell a battle, they hunt the defeated! They're nothing but stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean! God damn it all! But then who made them such beasts? You did! You samurai did it! You burn their villages! Destroy their farms! Steal their food! Force them to labour! Take their women! And kill them if they resist! So what should farmers do? [Kikuchiyo suddenly sinks to his knees, bending his head. He begins to sob uncontrollably] Damn it... damn it...
• Katsushiro delivers a Death Wail, sobbing in the rain, because he can't even ease his grief with a Roaring Rampage of Revenge: the last of his friends to die, Kikuchiyo, wiped out the one who killed them.
• There's also something a bit sad about Kikuchiyo becoming nervous after confronting Kambei for the first time. He tries to say that he would like to follow Kambei as an apprentice but each time would end in awkward silence from him.
• The Grandmother, a withered old woman who had lost her entire family to bandits. She says she hopes she dies soon, but is afraid the next life will be as bad as this one. When the Samurai bring in a captured bandit, she approaches carrying a hoe, wanting to take revenge. The rest of the village doesn't stop her and even tries to help her, knowing how she suffered.
• Three of the houses of the village have to be abandoned because they fall outside the protective moat the samurai built. As expected, when the bandits attack, they're quickly set on fire. Their previous inhabitants scream and break down crying as one of them, through his tears, screams that they're just rickety old shacks and attempts to get them back to their posts as the houses collapse. Even Kickuchiyo is affected by it.
• Manzo beating poor Shino after finding out she had sex with Katsushiro.
• Gorobei is Killed Offscreen, and we don't even get to see him taking down any bandits shortly beforehand either.
• When Kambei initially rejects the farmers' plea for him to help them, Rikichi is absolutely crushed. For a moment it seems like all of the farmers' long, hard search to find samurai to protect them was All for Nothing.
• The final scene, where Kambei and the other surviving samurai mourn their fallen comrades as the villagers celebrate their victory all around them.
  Kambei (1972 PBS subtitled version): Again we couldn't win. The farmers were the winners. Not us.
  Kambei (1998 Criterion subtitled version): Again we're defeated. The winners are those farmers. Not us.
  Kambei (2006 Criterion subtitled version): In the end, we lost this battle too. I mean, the victory belongs to the peasants, not to us.