Tear Jerker / Rambo IV

• The massacre of the Karen Villagers, as well as the bittersweet finale when the titular old warrior looks over the carnage he has caused. The music climaxes when Sarah finally finds Michael, symbolizing that Rambo and the others had done their jobs ("This is what we do. Who we are."). Yet it immediately becomes somber and mournful with Sarah staring tearfully at Rambo and the others, who all remain silent and stoic. She's crying because she realizes that it's her fault that they had to go through this. They had to risk their lives, kill countless others, and will endure nightmares for the rest of their lives (as Rambo does early in the movie). Yet, they don't even ask for a simple "Thank you". That in itself is a Tear Jerker.
• Brian Tyler's musical motif "Battle Adagio." It would take one with a heart of stone to not get teary-eyed to this theme.
• Due to Richard Crenna passing away in 2003, Col. Trautman is confirmed dead in this movie. This in itself is a tear-jerking moment alone, but once you think about the events of the last three movies and knowing what happened to Rambo and his men in Vietnam, it becomes much more saddening considering that John Rambo is now the last of his kind.
• The nightmare Rambo has mid-way through the film symbolizes the struggle he's dealt with since the first film. In the nightmare, Rambo recalls the difficult situations he was in during the last three movies, and how violence seemed to follow him at every stage of his life no matter how much he tried to run away from it. Right before Rambo wakes up, in his dream, he wakes up as his younger self when he was navigating his way out of the cave in the first film. That's who Rambo really is: on the run, outgunned, back against the wall, desperate to survive at all costs — the warrior he was back then never went away. No matter how much he wanted it to go away, he just can't turn it off.
• The ending has to be mentioned. After years of not going back home, Rambo finally headed there after all the hell he went through and "cleansed" the demons in him. Without any corrupt cops stopping him.

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