Not So Stoic / Live-Action Films

• Animal Kingdom has Joshua, who carries a dull, blank expression through most of the movie, including when his mother dies at the beginning, and barely seems to react to anything. However, after his girlfriend is killed, he finally breaks down and cries alone in the toilet.
• Blade (1998): While in the climax there's a Say My Name moment where the typical raspy title character emotes more, earlier the trope is hilariously Played for Laughs when two hospital guards fire at Blade and their bullets bounce off against his body armor prompting him to yell "MOTHERFUCKER, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND???" with a more high-pitched voice.
• In Bridge to Terabithia (the Film of the Book), Mrs. Meyer is the typical Stern Teacher, very uptight and severe. She breaks into sobs while she explains to Jess and that she understands how he feels because of Leslie's death since she had a very harsh time after her husband's death.
• Zus Belieski in Defiance is a cold-hearted bastard. When his younger brother was sobbing helplessly over the recent deaths of their parents, Zus shook him roughly and shouted at him to stop crying. The one heartwrenching moment when his armor cracks comes after he learns that the wife and son he'd left in a then-safe city had been killed by the Germans.
• Matt King in The Descendants is usually completely stoic, especially around his kids. It makes the few moments when he breaks and finally gets angry or cries extremely effective.
• Die Hard with a Vengeance has two female examples:
  • Action Girl Connie Kowalski is pretty hard-boiled — as are almost all of the NYPD cops — but during the evacuation of the elementary school (when it's believed that a bomb has been planted there) she confesses that she might "pee [her] pants."
  • Katya, Simon Gruber's Dark Action Girl, never smiles, never speaks, never even makes a sound throughout all her scenes...until the film's climax, when she and Simon are interrupted by John McClane and Zeus Carver at a very inopportune moment — and she completely loses her cool, firing off a machine gun and screaming in rage.
• Dredd drops his usually unflappable demeanor when he's faced with rotary cannons and runs like hell. Though, being Dredd, he still manages to flee in a fairly composed (given the situation!) and manly way.
  Dredd: Oh, shit.
• First Man:
  • At a funeral, Neil imagines seeing his dead daughter, and promptly leaves, banging his car into another in the process. Earlier on in the film, at his daughter's wake, he keeps his cool until he heads alone into his study, at which point he promptly bursts into tears.
  • Janet, who is as stoic as her husband is, completely loses it when she realizes Neil intends to leave for the Apollo 11 mission without preparing their sons for the possibility of him not making it back.
• Richard Kimble in The Fugitive is a Stoic Woobie the entire film, but very clearly almost breaks when Sam calls out to him that he knows he's innocent.
• Egon in Ghostbusters (1984) is the calmest and least emotional of the four... until Peck shuts off the protection grid for the Busters' ghost containment despite his specific warnings not to do it, resulting in the firehouse exploding and Peck holding them responsible for it. Then Egon screams "Your mother!" and attempts to throttle him.
• In The Godfather movies, Michael Corleone is generally The Stoic, even when someone is threatening him, except when Kay gets him angry, such as when she asks him about his business, or when she tells him she had an abortion, not a miscarriage, in the second film.
• Grizzly Man: While listening to an audio recording of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend being ripped apart by a grizzly bear, the famously stoic and unflappable Werner Herzog shows obvious emotional distress at what he's hearing. After pulling the headphones from his ears, the haunted director earnestly advises the owner of the tape to destroy it without listening to it.
• Done in a particular heartwrenching way in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 during Snape's flashback sequence. First he's weeping when asking Dumbledore to protect Lily, then he's bawling as he cradles her dead body.
• Will Kane in High Noon is a calm, collected, responsible former marshal who needs deputies to help him fight Frank Miller, who's arriving into town on the noon train, but no one is willing to help him. Finally, when the marshal realizes he's utterly alone, he hides his face away, near tears, in the solitude of his office.
• In Inglourious Basterds,
  • Nazi colonel Hans Landa has a cordial talk with a French farmer about the Jews he's hunting. The farmer is hiding the Jews beneath his floorboards but keeps up an impenetrable poker face throughout until Landa reveals that he already knows about them, at which point tears start streaming down the poor man's face.
  • Another, slightly more disturbing example is Landa himself. Throughout most of the movie, he is Affably Evil, almost never wavering in his soft-spoken cordiality...until he calls out Von Hammersmark on being a spy for the Allies, then strangles her to death.
  • Landa has another NSS moment at the end when Aldo Raine shoots the German soldiers they were escorting along with him. His reaction is most likely the initial shock of the unexpected gunshots giving way to growing realization that the Basterds have just broken the same contract that protects his own life.
• Forms part of the plot of The Invisible: Nick resented his mother's stoicism, especially after his father died, thinking she had no actual feelings. While he's missing and presumed dead, he finds her still keeping the facade and rants furiously (and uselessly) at her. She can't see or hear him. Then she upsets a teacup and abruptly breaks down sobbing...
• Silent Bob's outburst in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
  • And before that, when he weeps (silently but heartwrenchingly) over Bethany's death in Dogma.
    • And even before that, when he laments the tale of his one true love whom he rejected in a fit of indignation brought on by fear and feelings of inadequacy, in Chasing Amy.
• The Lord of the Rings
  • Éomer is a mix between The Stoic and The Berserker, depending on whether he's in battle or not. But in the extended edition of The Return of the King, when he finds Théoden dead and Éowyn nearly dead, he runs over to them screaming wordlessly in horror and grief. It's so at odds with his normal persona that it's actually quite effective.
  • Legolas reacts to most things with Dull Surprise. Orcs? No problem at all. Oliphaunt? He's a bit awestruck by the sight of it but he brings it down anyway. The Balrog? He's not just scared, he's absolutely flat terrified.
  • In The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Legolas takes on Bolg in hand-to-hand. Not only does he fail, but the Orc gives him a bloody nose, finally averting Beauty Is Never Tarnished. Legolas' face has barely contained rage all over it.
  • Thorin in The Hobbit has lost his cool a few times. During the stone giants' battle, he started frantically calling his nephew's name when he believed Fíli had died. And after Bilbo saved him from Azog and his orc mook, he furiously yelled at the latter for putting himself in danger before pulling Bilbo into a hug.
  • There are a few times that Thorin smiles.
• In The Magnificent Seven (2016), Billy Rocks. Billy's companion Robicheaux, a PTSD-addled veteran of the Civil War, directly states he relies on Billy to keep him steady, and with Billy's stonefaced calm, it's easy to see how. But when Robicheaux himself freaks out and abandons the group the night before the final battle, it turns out the Living Emotional Crutch aspect of their relationship goes both ways, as Billy shuts himself away and hammers down a bottle of whiskey. It's the first and only time in the movie he appears out of control of himself, and even the other members of the group steer clear of him.
• Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) briefly loses his casual cool to a bit of nervousness and fear when he was about to be tortured by Uncle Rudi.
• When Agent Kay is forced to relive a devastating memory in Men in Black II, there's a brief but powerful shot of him quietly crying.
• MonsterVerse:
  • Ford Brody in Godzilla (2014) is a very calm and tough man, but when he sees the dead body of his father, he tears up.
  • Emma Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) clearly tries to be The Unfettered, but the facade cracks when her daughter or ex-husband angrily calls her out on responding to her son's death by committing to an Eco-Terrorist plan to dabble with animalistic abominations that she doesn't fully understand and attempt to effectively commit mass genocide upon humanity.
  • Although Dr. Serizawa for the most part is presented as The Stoic, there have been a couple instances where something pushes him too far for him to not show emotionIn the 2014 film, he has a Thousand-Yard Stare response to the aftermath of Hokmuto's devastating escape. In King of the Monsters, he ' visibly distraught when Vivienne Graham is murdered by Ghidorah, and he's practically shell-shocked when Godzilla is seemingly killed due to the military's stupidity.
• In the Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper movie, Murder by Decree. In it Holmes (played by Christopher Plummer), who remains characteristically Stoic after watching the first four corpses the Ripper leaves behind, starts to show signs of this when he sees what the Ripper did to Mary Kelly, whom he swore to protect moments before her death and finally breaks down in front of Watson over the realization that even though he has figured it all out, the cold bastards behind it will never be punished and all the people they have wronged will keep suffering.
• Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West remains calm for the most part, and even when he is annoyed it comes off as mild. But he's crying in the flashback of his brother's death.
• Marshall Pentecost raises his voice three times in Pacific Rim: first to shut up Hermann after Newt Drifts, then a short moment while chewing out Raleigh (before going back to his calm), and finally, raising his voice for the Rousing Speech.
• Predator The Magical Native American Billy is portrayed as The Stoic, but he out-of-character guffaws at a vagina joke in a Late to the Punchline moment. He then screams (offscreen) as the alien is killing him.
• Downplayed in Ripley's Game. When Jonathan asks Ripley if he's afraid while they're waiting for a bunch of mooks to come and try to kill them, he replies "No...I'm fucking terrified." Even then, his veneer of calm only cracks slightly.
• Maurice the orangutan from Rise of the Planet of the Apes is typically much less physically expressive than his fellow apes and usually has the same look on his face all the time, however he loses his composure twice. In the first movie, he gets an enraged expression after witnessing a chimpanzee get shot and fall off a bridge, and again in the third movie he cries when Ceaser dies of his injuries.
• In Saving Private Ryan In the first ten minutes, Captain Miller sends a dozen of his men to their deaths on the beach at Normandy without blinking an eye. He's had 94 men under his command die since the war began. One of his lieutenants is blown in half while Miller tries to drag the wounded man to safety, a squad member dies after ignoring an order to leave refugees where they are, and he watches his medic die painfully, bleeding out crying for his mother and it only registers a scowl with Miller. After all that Miller angrily tells the squad's rookie to help the German who shot the medic bury the bodies after the inexperienced soldier begs for Miller to spare the German's life. Miller then stalks off to sit at the edge of a bomb crater to check his map and, while out of sight, bursts into uncontrollable sobbing as the horrors he and his men have endured come crashing down on him.
• The famous scene from Schindler's List when Oskar Schindler breaks down in front of all of the Jews that he saved. As the Tear Jerker page will attest, many tropers found this moment to be more than they could bear.
• In Serenity, when The Operative realises who Mal has brought with him to get past the blockade, he drops the calm, soft-spoken demeanor that he has exhibited throughout the movie and screams in terror:
  Operative: Target the Reavers! Target the Reavers! Target everyone! SOMEBODY FIRE!
• A disturbing example in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is Moriarty cheerfully enjoying his chilling torture of Holmes.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. When the killer turns out to be a protégée of Spock's, he smashes the phaser out of her hand in a brief burst of anger after she refuses to shoot him. The feelings of pain and betrayal are written all over Spock's face.
  • There's also the fact that she refuses to do the logical action and kill him.
• Star Trek (2009): Spock proves to be Not So Stoic after Vulcan is destroyed.
  • ...And even then, he's still pretty composed. It's not until Kirk says he didn't love his now-dead mother that he FLIPS HIS SHIT.
  • An indirect example, but after the same events mentioned above Old Spock as part of a mind meld, transfers his emotions to Kirk. Kirk, visibly shaken, says, "You do feel."
• In Star Trek Into Darkness, Spock makes it clear to Kirk and Uhura early on that he does feel; it is a conscious effort of his to not feel fear, doubt, etc. His emotional control is worn down over the course of the film, culminating with him not being able to contain himself when he and Kirk are having (what he thinks is) their last conversation then completely losing it when Kirk dies and Khan is still alive.
• A major aspect of Darth Vader's personality in Star Wars. His helmet and tendency to only speak when he needs to give the illusion of stoicism and rationality. In reality, his power in Dark Side of the Force comes from the fact that he's in near-perpetual anger and depression. Thus when someone manages to really push his buttons, he proceeds to absolutely lose his shit.
• 1st Sgt. Welsh in The Thin Red Line is normally aloof, indifferent, and composed, yet he sheds some Manly Tears at Witt's grave.
• Uncut Gems: In a film filled with vulgar profanity and characters talking over each other, a stand-out scene involves a posh-accented English woman on the phone with Howard who starts out as clipped and professional until Howard starts getting rude, in which case she starts hurling insults and profanity with the best of them.
• Myra from Waterloo Bridge keeps a stoic facade in her dire situation as a prostitute. But she completely loses this facade when Roy proposes marriage and invites her to meet his family. She's so ashamed of her situation and fears Roy finding out this secret that she tries her best to get rid of him and has a mini-meltdown.
• In Zathura, when Lisa sees Walter and Danny stoking a fire in the kitchen, she delivers this gem:
  Lisa: YOU GUYS ACTUALLY SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE?!!

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