Tear Jerker / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

• As you go through the film, most of the people Benjamin meets either die or leave his life never to return. The first death is the woman who taught him piano, and he can't even remember her name. And true to life, a lot of the time Benjamin isn't even there for it. As Benjamin arrives home one afternoon, looking for Queenie, he's simply told she died.
• Mr. Gateau unveiling his clock that runs backward and his speech of how it represents his son and the others who died at war. Rather than be angry, the town fathers and other bystanders - many of whom have likely lost sons of their own - look deeply moved and respectful throughout the scene.
• Caroline not finding out about Benjamin being her biological father until she gets to that story point in the diary - "This Benjamin was my father? And this is how you tell me?"
• Benjamin goes to see Daisy at a show, and unfortunately things are left quite badly between them. Daisy even tries to defend her dismissive way of treating him with "I had no idea you were coming". In the present, Daisy reveals Benjamin had come to tell her his father had died. Even on her deathbed, she still feels guilty about it.
• Daisy reuniting with the preteen Benjamin (making him an elderly man in his aging process) in her older years. As he now has dementia, he no longer remembers her. After spending the remainder of his life taking care of him, she says that when he lay dying in her arms as a baby, he looked at her. In that moment, she knew he finally recognized her one last time before closing his eyes and peacefully dying. It's said that she eventually moved into the home to be near him.
• There is something quite bittersweet about Elizabeth just leaving in the middle of the night with only a note, never to be seen again. She was Benjamin's first lover too.
• Captain Mike bleeding out in Benjamin's arms.
• Benjamin learning the truth about his father and hearing about his mother.
• The drawn-out for-want-of-a-nail description of how Daisy got injured.
• Benjamin leaving to give Caroline and Daisy a normal life with a "normal" man. He didn't want Daisy or his daughter taking care of him when it should be the other way around. He just packs up his things and goes in the middle of the night, all while Daisy simply glares at him from the bed - knowing she can't stop him.
• In the Keys, Benjamin jokingly asks Daisy if she'll "still love me when I have acne? When I wet the bed? When I'm afraid of what's under the stairs?". She did.

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