This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.
Given
what the movie is about, you can expect that there were a lot of these in
Titanic. In fact, for a while, the film surpassed
Bambi as a byword for "a film which makes you cry" (which was probably spurred on by having that reputation starting two days into wide release).
- During Brock's expedition, you can hear certain musical cues that appear distinct from the main soundtrack, like a single violin or a piano. It's almost like the ghosts of Titanic speaking.
- As they're making their pass over the officers' quarters, you can distinctly hear shouting from the ship's final moments.
- Initially, the ship's band finishes playing, and the violinist, Wallace Hartley, sees the other members off. But as they move toward the panicking passengers, Hartley stays where he is and starts playing "Nearer My God To Thee". A second band member looks at him in confusion. And then comes to the same conclusion. It's all they can do. A third and fourth follow.
- The scene is so powerful that just listening to the recording of the song on the soundtrack is enough for most people to relive it and the disheartening scenes of people panicking or accepting their fate.
- And when they finish as the water rushes towards them:
- Jack's death. He noticed Rose when she was at her most vulnerable (trying to kill herself) and was willing to listen and care about how she felt when no one else would. Just the thought that someone you need most comes into your life and just as quickly leaves it, yet they became so important to you and left such a lasting impression that you have changed for the better and will never forget them is a sad enough concept. This is not helped by the fact that Jack is one of the kindest, noblest, and most good-natured characters in the movie.
- When Jack is in the water, clinging to the door. He knows he's not going to make it but keeps hanging on as he slowly freezes to death. The last time you see him alive, his body is clearly starting to shut down, yet he still tells Rose not to say goodbye.
Jack: Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you.
- The companion book for the film that chronicles the production has a chapter dedicated to the filming of the scene. The very last page of it is a still image of Jack's death, with the caption being Kate Winslet giving her observations of Jack and Rose's relationship and the emotional impact it had on her.
Kate Winslet: One thing that's very important to me in life is, through having a relationship with somebody and loving that person and being allowed to feel the whole emotion of love despite all of the risks, you can find out who you are. And when Rose meets Jack, she cuts through all of the class and money nonsense and connects with something real and alive and passionate in his soul. And when I read the script, I was in floods of tears because it takes you to the point where you would do anything-absolutely anything-to stop that ship from sinking.
- Arguably the most tear-jerking moment was Rose trying to tell Jack, who succumbed to the cold, a boat is coming and she eventually realises he is dead and seeing her have him buried at sea is so heartbreaking and one of the saddest scenes in cinema history.
- And then seeing Jack's lifeless body disappear into the black depths of the sea, with his right hand seemingly reaching out for Rose.
- Even if Jack survives which is what many people would like to see, 1000+ lives were still lost. It ends on a bittersweet note no matter how everyone looks at it.
- Old Rose's little cry of joy can be quite guilt-inducing if you were angry at her for going to throw the necklace.
- The woman putting her children to bed and talking to them about Tír na nÓg. It's a traditional Irish tale about an island far to the west where hunger, thirst, sickness, and death don't exist. It could rate as Fridge Brilliance if she'd previously told her children that America would be like that when they arrived. It also amplifies the Tear Jerker. The woman probably knows she and her kids are going to die and there is no hope for their escape. Not having the heart to tell them that, she's repeating that story to them to make them feel comforted and safe.
- Even sadder, earlier in the movie they were seen in a stairway behind a locked gate, waiting to get to the boat deck. The woman even tells her children that they'll get to the deck when they're done with first class.
- The Tír na nÓg = America thing is even worse when you remember at the time, Irish-Americans were subject to harsh discrimination and poverty thanks to the anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment of the time, so even if they survived and made it, everything she listed would have been way too common.
- As the ship begins to sink, we see the elderly couple of Ida and Isidor Strauss, the owners of Macy's Department Store, huddled in their bed together. The water starts rushing into their room, and Isidor can do nothing but pull his wife closer and kiss her cheek gently as she looks at him with a mixture of utter fear and sadness on her face.
- What makes it worse is that this sacrifice actually happened: As the ship was sinking, Isidor and Ida were both offered a place on Lifeboat No. 8 because Isidor was aged. But realizing that not everyone will make it on the lifeboats, Isidor chose to stay on the Titanic so long as there were women and children who remained on the ship, and Ida refused to abandon her husband. Witnesses on the deck and in Lifeboat No. 8, including Second Officer Charles Lightoller, heard Ida tell her husband, "We have been living together for many years. Where you go, I go." The couple was last seen sitting on a pair of deck chairs. Only Isidor's body was recovered and identified. Ida was buried as an urn of seawater collected from the area by their family.
- Speaking of kids, remember that lost crying boy in the flooding hallway before he and his father get engulfed by a wall of water? Or how about that crying girl hiding behind the davit motor? Or the mom telling her son that "It'll all be over soon" during the final plunge?
- The scene where Jack convinces Rose to get on one of the lifeboats, assuring her that he and Cal will catch another one later. When it becomes clear that there isn't another boat waiting (for Jack at least), he continues to watch Rose being lowered down with the rest of the passengers. Then Rose, unable to go through with it, scrambles up the side of the ship and back to Jack. Of course, his reaction is what makes it all the more heartrending ("I couldn't do it, Jack!" "You're so stupid Rose, you're so goddamn stupid!" all the while kissing and hugging her).
- While Rose is in the lifeboat, Jack and Cal are watching her: "I always win, Jack."
- Because at that moment, he almost does.
- The cluster of people seen clinging to one of the deck fixtures as the stern tips up, clutching at one another and reaching out to the priest, whose voice trembles with fear even as he keeps on praying aloud, offering all those desperate, doomed souls what little consolation he can.
- That priest was Thomas Byles. He had spent much of the time helping third-class passengers to the lifeboats and refused passage. His body was never recovered. One of the current-day priests of his old parish has campaigned to have him made a saint.
- At the very end, when Rose dies, we get a shot of the sunken ship transforming to all its former glory as she kisses Jack, and we see all those previously mentioned 'alive' again, applauding.
- And the scene before that, where we see the elderly Rose sleeping in her bed, surrounded by photos of all the experiences she's had in her life, thanks to Jack's sacrifice... recalling his earlier line "you're going to go on and you're going to make babies and watch them grow and you're going to die an old lady, warm in your bed."
- The shot of the sunken ship alone at the bottom of the ocean is enough to induce tears. To see such a marvelous and magnificent vessel silently decaying on the ocean floor, a ghostly shell of its former self. Titanic was a beautiful ship that really didn't deserve her terrible fate.
- The scene at the end where Rose, after failing to shout to the rescuers, takes the whistle and blows frantically so they will know she is alive.
- Including her just barely able to whisper "Come back- come back!" Ugh.
- The expression on her face, utterly miserable and determined — her eyes dull with grief. Well played, Ms. Winslet. Well played.
- Rose was barely able to talk or move due to being frozen within an inch of her life, the boat was on its way out and if it wasn't for Officer Wilde's whistle being close to her the boat would have unawarely left her for dead. Now what if at that moment there were more survivors there who were in the same shape as Rose but couldn't move, couldn't yell, and had no whistle? Some people were probably still alive but just barely that the boat probably missed them.
- Speaking of Officer Henry Wilde, determined to continue exercising his authority to aid the 1,500 people in the freezing water, he constantly blows his whistle and calls out to the crew in the boats to bring them back over. He was trying his hardest as a senior officer to save as many lives as he could until his final minutes of life. While this was made up for the film, the real Henry Wilde was as brave and determined as his film counterpart. Several survivor testimonies claim that he was actually last seen either struggling with the Collapsable B lifeboat or was on the bridge when it went under. Either way, his body was never recovered.
- Officer Lowe in the lifeboat returning to the sea of frozen corpses, crying out desperately "Is anyone alive out there?! Can anyone hear me?!" Especially when he moves his torch around and sees a dead woman and baby right next to him in the water; the direction given in the script is 'the worst moment of his life'. As he's on the verge of tears he orders the sailors to keep checking, hoping against hope that they'll be able to save someone.
"Careful with your oars—don't hit them!"
"We waited too long..."
- The Unsinkable Molly Brown ordering the women in the boat to grab an oar, and Quartermaster Hitchens, who is in charge of the lifeboat, refuses because they'd swamp the boat, and her reply, "I don't understand either one of you! What's the matter with you?! IT'S YOUR MEN OUT THERE!" Also constitutes a CMOA for her.
- The Syrian family is seen in the corridors near the beginning of the sinking, trying to translate the direction signs. They don't speak English and they probably aren't getting out.
- The moment where the young woman walks up to Captain Smith with her little baby and asks, "Captain, where should I go?" and he doesn't know what to say to her.
- Another moment is when the band splits and leaves the one man alone before they listen to the music and wordlessly choose to die together.
- "It's goodbye for a little while. Only for a little while."
- "After this, another boat will come, and Daddy will be in it." That poor family.
- Worse, that scene is based on an eyewitness account...
- That scene is based off of Eva Hart's final goodbye to her father.
- If you listen closely, while Jack and Cal are trying to convince Rose to board the lifeboat, the man is still reassuring his girls and his wife is saying she'll pray for him.
- Watching the deleted scene where Cora and her parents die because of that locked gate.
- The little girl with the doll. Dear God, the little girl with the doll. She's just so cute and innocent, you hope she makes it out. Then we get a shot underwater, outside the ship...Just floating in her little white dress... Then the ending where we see her ghost. Oh, dear God!
- The pained look in Bruce Ismay's eyes when he looks back at the Titanic sinking.
- It's even worse when you know what happened afterward. The real Ismay was also guilt-stricken and had his reputation destroyed by the event. He retired from White Star at the end of 1912 and spent the rest of his life as a recluse.
- But wait, it's even worse than that. Ismay willingly testified at both inquiries, offering all the information he had, in no way attempting to deflect or clean things up. He told the whole truth. Ismay was publicly crucified by none other than William Randolph Hearst, who cast him as a coward and a villain because he survived. It was so bad, that Hearst-run papers listed the names of the dead but listed one name as having survived: Ismay's. By the time Hearst was done, the savaging of Ismay became self-sustaining. Ismay lived the rest of his life essentially as a walking ghost so that Hearst could pin the blame on him and sell more papers.
- What's even more tragic is that there are multiple accounts that the real Ismay helped passengers board lifeboats and refused to board one until he was sure there were no other passengers around, with at least one report saying that an officer forced him into a boat. There are also reports that, unlike in the film, Ismay was more concerned with making sure that the voyage was safe while Captain Smith was the one who wanted to reach America early.
- The quiet dignity that Thomas Andrews (the shipbuilder) retains as his masterpiece, the Titanic, sinks.
Rose: Won't you even make a try for it?
Andrews: I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship, young Rose.
- The way he resets the lounge mantelpiece clock to the proper time before it goes under. It's like he knows it's the only thing he can do now.
- As we briefly see in the film, Andrews was a perfectionist, determined to make the ship as perfect as possible. Adjusting the time is the last thing he can do to make sure everything is flawless.
- Adding to it, he corrects the clock to the time of 2:10, ten minutes before the Titanic goes under.
- What makes it even sadder is that, from historical accounts, we know that Andrews really was that much of a nice guy, as well his final fate in the movie being based completely on eyewitness accounts.
- Andrews could well have been thinking of his wife, Helen, and their two-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. He had last seen them two weeks earlier, unaware that they would never see each other again.
- Even worse is his behavior from the moment the iceberg hits. When he's going over the damage with Captain Smith and Bruce Ismay, you can see the horror wash over his face when he realizes that his ship is doomed. From that moment on until his death, he tries his best to get people off the boat, all the while checking his pocketwatch and just barely managing to keep from shutting down into a Heroic BSoD.
- As mentioned above, the last time we see Andrews is him resetting the mantelpiece clock. Then he just puts his hand on the mantle and lowers his head in despair.
- Finally, his last goodbye to Rose, who hugs him one last time before she must leave him to accept his fate. In their short time together, Rose had come to see Mr. Andrews as her friend, and in all their moments it's as if they had been so for a lifetime. Rose was one of the last to see him alive and, as with nearly everyone else on the ship, would have to go on accepting that there was nothing she could've done for him. His own sadness as he watches her and Jack leave, knowing that their chances of survival were no better, further cements the guilt he feels for what is happening.
- "He exists now only in my memory."
- After that line, we see the MIR submersibles at the wreck site when they receive word that the expedition is over. As they begin their long journey to the surface, Titanic once again vanishes into the darkness of the Atlantic depths.
- After the emotional journey that is Titanic finishes, we get to hear Céline Dion belt out "My Heart Will Go On" during the closing credits, followed by the optimistic, upbeat "Southampton", bringing the voyage of the Titanic full circle and tears to one's eyes.
- What makes it even more tragic is that the Titanic set sail from Southampton during the height of the 1912 UK coal strike when many other companies like Cunard had scaled back or cancelled their trans-Atlantic voyages entirely due to a lack of coal which had resulted in many people being transferred to the Titanic which was why she was overcrowded (especially in third class). The guilt the striking miners felt in the aftermath must’ve been enormous: their efforts to secure better conditions for themselves had cost 1500 innocent people their lives.
- White Star itself never truly recovered from the loss of the Titanic, with the outbreak of the 1st World War 2 years later, the sinking of the HMHS Britannic 4 years later in 1916, the crash of 1929 signaled the death kneel for White Star as the company was forcefully merged with and ultimately absorbed by its long time rival Cunard by the mid-1930s, with the RMS Olympic the namesake and last of her class, pulled from service, gutted of all her interior furnishings, and her hull sold for scrap in the 1930s.
- Benjamin Guggenheim had told his valet no one will die because he was a coward, and he said, "We are dressed in our finest and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. But we would like a brandy.". Pithy and memorable words to go out on, but rather than leave that as the last sight of him, the camera returns to show Guggenheim in his chair, watching his own death approach as the water rises towards where he's sitting—and full of other people struggling to escape—and he's clearly thinking "Not like this, oh God, I don't want to die here, not like this." One of Cameron's stated goals with this film was to contradict other portrayals that had made the sinking out to be a "stately" affair where everyone was noble and dignified—it was desperate and horrifying, and showing what Guggenheim's real last moments may have been (instead of allowing the last sight of him to be his brave, quotable declaration) are a crystallization of that goal.
- Guggenheim's valet is seen struggling to stay afloat as the water rushes into the Grand Staircase. Aside from knowing he's not likely to survive, there's no sign of Guggenheim and you have the horrifying realization that he's already perished.
- As the water rapidly rises in the Grand Staircase, there is a closeup of the wall clock, "Honor and Glory Crowning Time," showing the time as 2:15. Titanic has only five minutes left.
- As J.J. Astor steels himself for the end, the glass roof over the Grand Staircase finally gives in and dumps the freezing ocean on the people still trapped inside the ship, killing everyone; worst of all are the screams of the women trapped against the banisters. Even more horrifying considering the actor who played Astor survived the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff, the worst maritime disaster ever. note Depending on the statistics, 9,400 people died: more than six times the death toll of the Titanic.
- In real life, the last sight of Astor was somewhere on the deck before the ship broke apart. He had been given a place in a lifeboat because his wife was pregnant, but just as it was about to be lowered, a group of women came on deck and Astor immediately gave up his seat, saying "The ladies must go first." When his wife tried to join him, he simply smiled and said "Stay in the boat, to please me," before lighting a cigarette and telling her "Good-bye, dearie, I'll see you in a bit."
- The Grand Staircase was the symbol of Titanic's opulence and J.J. Astor was the richest man on the ship, symbolizing no matter how much money and power you have, it's worthless against nature, disaster, and death itself.
- The very first shot of the movie: the faux-newsreel footage of the departure, everyone standing at the rails cheerily waving goodbye as the new ship sets out on its first voyage... with no idea of what's waiting for them in the middle of the Atlantic.
- Just the act of Fabrizio removing Tommy's life jacket is tearjerking. It almost seems as if he is avoiding looking at Tommy's body as he removes it like he can't stand (even in the midst of the terrifying imminent death) to remove something off of a dead friend's body so he could possibly survive.
- Just contemplate: The names on any list will be the ones Jack won the tickets off. So Fabrizio's mother will NEVER know where her son is and if he is alive because he isn't on the list, and it's not exactly clear if Rose ever spoke about him to one of the list people.
- Everything that happens to Jack in the second half of the movie, from getting framed for theft and handcuffed to a pipe, to freezing his ass off in the Atlantic. It's even sadder considering how happy he was to be on the Titanic two days earlier.
- The whole reason he boarded the Titanic was because he wanted to go back home. Instead, he gets his life cut short. Harsh.
- The two Swedish men, Sven and Olaf were probably relieved they lost their tickets to Jack and Fabrizio after hearing about the sinking. But right when Jack and Fabrizio enter their cabin and say hello to their roommates, one man asks another in Swedish "Where's Sven?" It's a possibility the four Swedes were friends traveling to America on Titanic together and the two who made it onboard probably didn't make it.
- It's very minor in comparison to all the other Tearjerkers that happen later in the movie, but Rose's attempted suicide is wrenching, especially in the extended scene where she trashes her room before sprinting to the stern of the ship. Even though you know she has to survive it since she's the one telling the story, she just seems so lost and scared — she's trapped in this life that she has no chance of breaking free from and that's it. The scene where she runs the length of the boat gasping and sobbing, looking like a complete trainwreck is very sad and almost kind of scary. Then you remember that she was 17. She probably wouldn't even be out of high school these days...
- When Jack and Rose are trapped inside that gate, and the one man drops the keys, imagine what he was thinking as he ran up the stairs. He's terrified, and he's failed at saving their lives, selfishly leaving them and saving himself. He must have thought he was hearing their last screams as he ran off... that must have stayed with him, especially if he survived and had to wonder if he could have saved them for the rest of his life.
- He actually does survive the sinking. Look closely and you can see him in the vicinity of the overturned Collapsible B and then on Carpathia in front of the pile of life jackets. He has a distressed look on his face, meaning he likely is thinking about that couple he saw behind the locked gate.
- And as shown later with the fate of Cora and her parents, just imagine how many third-class passengers were trapped behind those locked gates. They knew the ship was sinking, but they were effectively sealed in the maze-like passages of Titanic's lower levels.
- The sentence "This is where we first met!"
- And Rose looking at the people around her in that very scene, particularly the blonde girl (who later falls to her death when the ship breaks in half) and the guy with the drink, who all (including Rose) look absolutely terrified and horrified by what they are seeing, and knowing they are about to die, and trying to offer what little comfort they can simply by looking into other people's eyes.
- Kate Winslet ad-libbed that line.
- The shot of Jack and Rose standing on the railing at the bow, as the ship slowly transforms into the sunken wreck, going from their joy and love to the harsh reminder that it can't last.
Old Rose: That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight.
- For a few moments as the scene dissolves, Jack and Rose can be seen lingering on the rusted bow, like ghosts.
- Also, while Rose is trying to find the key for the handcuffs, we briefly cut to the bow going underwater. The spot where they had their first kiss is gone.
- The simple fact that the ship is going to sink, there's nothing anyone can do about it, over a thousand people will die, and it all really happened.
- Emphasized by the fact that, at the time, this was the most accurate depiction of the sinking ever made. Whenever the scenes of the sinking aren't Nightmare Fuel, they fall squarely into this category.
- One of the most impactful shots of its reality is when the ship has finally, completely submerged under the Atlantic, leaving the only sight and sound above the water of the surviving passengers screaming into the completely empty night. It's a sobering reminder that most people didn't die in the wreckage, they died in the water, freezing to death in the middle of the ocean with nowhere to go and no sign of help to come.
- Old Rose's summary towards the end of the film.
Rose: Fifteen hundred people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby, and only one came back. One. Six of us were saved from the water, myself included. Six. Out of fifteen hundred. Afterward, the people in the boats had nothing to do but wait. Wait to die. Wait to live. Wait for an absolution that would never come.
- While all of the above are clear, obvious, heart-wrenching Tear Jerker moments, of note is the fact that right after the "Nearer, My God to Thee" montage but before things start leading into the climax and many of the other traumatic deaths, there is the Moment of Silence just before the wheelhouse explodes and drowns the captain — and then right after this we're treated to a montage of the water bursting through the corridors, the dishware falling in the kitchens, the Grand Staircase dome breaking, and various moments of destruction and death, all of it underscored by a heartbreaking Ethereal Choir. (It was said somewhere, either by Horner himself or someone else speaking about this movie, that the human voice is the most versatile and emotion-inducing of musical instruments. This scene, like many others with the One-Woman Wail, proves the truth of that statement.) At this point, it isn't just the countless deaths and the horrific tragedy of all these people who are about to die that the audience knows cannot escape—it is the death of the Titanic herself (in fact the soundtrack piece is named "Death of Titanic"). Some might see this as bemoaning the loss of a piece of decadence, a symbol of the classist mindset of the time period, but it can't be denied that seeing a thing of such grandeur and beauty be destroyed only adds to the tragedy. As Old Rose said, she was a ship of dreams, and it is heartbreaking to see her destroyed along with those whose dreams she personified (Smith, Andrews, the Irish family, Fabrizio, and many others already named). On a related note, when the audience first gets the wipe from the sunken wreck to how she looked in Southampton, the fact that that very piece in the soundtrack is later reworked into a tragic mood for the sinking scenes only makes it more powerful.
- A deleted scene has John Jacob Astor tell Benjamin Guggenheim, after they know that the ship will sink, that he's looking for his dog and can't find him. It's especially heartwrenching when you realize that Astor's wife Madeline was on a lifeboat and he probably wanted to be with his dog so that neither of them will die alone. Of course, his actual death was just as gutwrenching: After his wife was loaded into the lifeboat, he asked if he could join her, since she was pregnant, and was told that he could not until all the women and children were loaded first. His last known words were to ask the crewmember to tell him what the number of the lifeboat was so he could find his wife later. Then he got crushed by the first funnel.
- Even worse when you realize there were probably plenty of pets on the ship who died alone and scared because most people couldn't be bothered with getting them out of there when their own lives were at stake. Understandable but still heart-wrenching if you're an animal lover or if you compare it to what happened to the third-class passengers; they got trapped in the lower levels of the ship so the first class could get out because many thought their lives were worth less than the rich people's... yeah.
- There were at least twelve dogs on the ship. Three made it because they were small and owners refused passage unless their dogs were allowed. Some people stayed on the ship with their pets.
- There's a real-life example of Ann Elizabeth Isham leaving her lifeboat because her beloved Great Dane was too big to join her in it. She was one of four first-class female passengers to die, and it's rumoured she was found frozen to death while cradling her dog in her arms.
- The suicide of First Officer William Murdoch. After he accidentally shoots Tommy, he has a look of complete despair on his face before he shoots himself.
- Fabrizio yelling "Bastardo!" in response to Tommy getting shot, and wailing over his dead friend while begging for someone to help him.
- Standing at the edge of the deck, Murdoch salutes his superior Chief Officer Wilde, silently saying it's been an honor. When he puts the gun to his head, Wilde cries out "No, Will!" and then Murdoch pulls the trigger.
- The two women and a man in one of the hallways are frantically paging through a translation book, futilely hoping to get to the lifeboats.
- Fabrizio getting crushed by the collapsing first funnel.
- In a way, the reactions of a good number of the first-class characters after the sinking begins. Many of them refuse to accept the notion that the ship could be in trouble, and when they do, they treat it as more of an amusement than a crisis.
- Ruth in particular fully expects to go back to her stateroom in no time (she even tells her maids that she wants tea when she comes back) and later asks if the lifeboats will be seated according to class and hopes "they aren't too crowded." Even when Rose screams at her that half the people on the ship are going to die, Ruth isn't fazed. But when Rose goes back for Jack, the whole situation finally seems to set in and Ruth starts to scream in despair, especially as the boat is lowered. Later, she's seen watching the sinking ship with an expression of pure horror.
- One of the actor commentaries revealed that, for the moment when Rose leaves her mother and Cal to go and find Jack, Kate Winslet asked Kathy Bates for advice on how to play the scene. Bates told her, "You're looking at them for the first time, and you're looking at them for the last time." Winslet captured this mix of disdain and regret perfectly when she says "Goodbye, mother," and turns away from her previous life.
- An added bonus: Ruth knows her daughter is onboard that ship and might not even survive. Even for her, it couldn't have been an easy thing to watch. The last we see of Ruth is shortly after the ship goes into the water. She's covering her ears to block out the screams of all those who are freezing to death. It's not hard to imagine she rightly fears Rose is out there.
- Rose changed her name and lived a new life on her own after Titanic, Ruth, however, had to live the rest of her life believing her daughter stayed on the ship and died. Adding to that, she lost Cal and his fortune and thus probably had to live with her fear of being a broke seamstress. Depending on one’s opinion of Ruth, you could say that she loved Rose a little too late and would have probably changed for the better had she found her.
- The shot of them looking back at the sinking ship, hearing distant screams. Even for stuck-up rich people, imagine hearing all those terrified screams, and finally realizing. These people are gonna die.
- When Jack gets a cigarette from Lovejoy, there's a quick shot of his boots. Fridge Horror sets in when you realize those are the same boots the ROV saw at the bottom of the ocean at the beginning of the movie.
- Unlikely, as those boots were deep inside the wreck and Jack's body would have settled somewhere in the debris field. Still, it's a reminder that someone had died there and there's nothing left of them except their boots and (if you look closely) glasses.
- The final shot of Chief Engineer Joseph Bell and his engineers/electricians remaining at their posts to ensure the ship has power and lights right until the very end, supporting each other and struggling to keep the power on...right until one of them is electrocuted and the power fails.
- In real life, most engineers and engine crews did make it out of the ship before it sank; however, they were still among the last to escape and none of them survived the sinking.
- The Carpathia emerging at last to retrieve the Titanic's survivors just as the sun begins to rise. And all throughout, we see the exhaustion and trauma of the hundreds of people who had lost everything on the voyage, searching for their loved ones who were nowhere to be found and having no idea how to carry on with their lives, only that they are alive and that perhaps everything they once knew is now gone.
- Even more tragic when you consider that Carpathia did everything in her power to reach Titanic (Captain Rostron very nearly blew his engines up pushing her to 17.5 knots; Carpathia would never exceed 12 knots again) but even at her top speed — dashing through the night, in the very heart of the same ice field that had already laid Titanic low, to the point where Rostron later said that "I can only conclude that another hand than mine was on the helm" — the brave little Cunarder could not hope to save those on board before the Titanic made her final plunge. All hope for salvation is lost after Mr. Andrews states that the ship had no more than two hours to remain afloat before she is lost to the Atlantic, with wireless operator Harold Bride reporting to Captain Smith that Carpathia, the closest ship responding, was four hours out from their location. The Captain's reaction really sums up the impending doom he knows they all face no matter what anybody does.
- In hindsight, it's also kind of sad knowing the famous Carpathia who saved Titanic's survivors ended up being sunk herself a mere 6 years later when she was torpedoed by a German submarine in World War I, and five of her crewmen were killed in the initial explosion. But the brave little liner exceeded herself to the very last; despite the severity of the damage she took, she remained afloat for over an hour and a half, allowing everyone else aboard to get away safely. Even unto the end, she went far beyond her duty.
- If you interpret the ending as Rose having died in her sleep, then her granddaughter’s going to find her dead in the morning.
- At least she can take comfort in the fact her grandmother died peacefully.
- In a deleted scene, Cal thinks he's found Rose on the Carpathia and rushes towards her, crying out her name, only to be clearly disappointed when he sees it's not her. Billy Zane packed so much emotion into that one word — joy, relief, tears — that one can't help but think he would have made a sincere effort to change and be a good husband to Rose had he found her. In the DVD commentary, James Cameron mentioned that he filmed this scene with the intent of fleshing Cal out a little bit and regretted changing it for the final product.
- In the script Cal actually finds her and the scene plays out much as written above—he sincerely apologizes for his behavior and tries to make amends, only to be rebuffed and walk away, genuinely saddened.
- The first and last words/sentences of the script.
- "Blackness. Then two faint lights appear, close together... growing brighter."
- "The passengers, officers, and crew of the RMS Titanic smile and applaud in the utter silence of the abyss."
- "My Heart Will Go On," the Award-Bait Song to end all award bait songs. It's more tragic than sad, and it absolutely aching with emotion. There's a reason it's called the "Love Theme from Titanic" and not just the theme.
- The Deleted Scene of Fabrizio trying to convince Helga and her family to come with him to try and get out and realizing that he has no choice but to leave her when she refuses (her father won't let her go and she won't defy him). He takes one last look back as her face vanishes in the crowd.
- It's even worse when you remember that Jack's gang did get out, so they really should have come with him.
- It's fairly subtle compared to a lot of the others, but the simple fact that, once on the Carpathia, everyone right down to the infants are seen wearing mourning colours of either black or dark grey — even when they hadn't been wearing them when they got into the lifeboats — can become a solid Tearjerker when you think about the implications. It really just helps to hammer home the fact that everyone lost someone or something important to them when that ship went down and they all have something to mourn.
- During the "Nearer My God To Thee" montage, there is a brief shot of the paintings that Rose bought submerged in her stateroom. She had paintings by Picasso and Monet. Seeing these priceless works going to the bottom of the ocean helps add to the sadness.
- In both the film and for the audience, finding that first scene of the sunken Titanic, or at least what's left of her. As Brock says "it's haunting".
- James Cameron echoed similar statements in an interview with Roger Ebert on the feeling of diving into the remains of Titanic:
James Cameron: It's eerie. I love to dive and I love shipwrecks, so the adrenaline was spiking. But there's something about Titanic that's sort of mythic, that's story-like and you don't quite believe it. It's almost more like a novel than an event that really happened — and yet here's the wreck. It really happened. People died here. That was the thing I had to take away. Not just the images of a wreck. I had to take away the sense of responsibility to do it right and to honor Titanic. The film that resulted is an expression of what happened there.
- As Jack and Rose start to make love in the backseat of a car in the cargo hold, there is a Distant Reaction Shot showing the Titanic as a tiny blip of light in a vast ocean of darkness. This demonstrates just how isolated the ship is, and in less than an hour, it will make its fatal encounter with the iceberg.
- The extended version of the Carpathia rescue. We see Rose has so little strength left that she almost collapses once she makes it on board. Then we see women beginning to ask if anyone has seen their husbands. Even Ismay gets the glares of so many survivors, blaming himself for what's happened. It ends with Ruth looking around for her daughter, and it's the last we see of her.
- The simple fact that, barring some artistic license to make it work as a movie, all of this really happened.
- Even the artistic license is a tearjerker — thanks to the fact that this movie has (as of this time of writing) become the end-all, be-all of depictions of the sinking in public memory, many of the fictional details will be taken as fact by viewers who didn’t know any better or are not interested enough to do additional research. The most prominent example is the portrayal of Officer Murdoch, which his descendants objected to. No matter what these historical people did, their portrayal in the movie would be an unwitting part of their legacy.
- When the passengers are on the poop deck before the final plunge some passengers hold their belongings and it is all their worldly processions. Many of the passengers were poor immigrants and those were everything they had.
- Trudy is seen sliding down the corridor of Titanic presumably to her death, screaming in terror, and is one of the few friends Rose loses.
- If you look in the background of some scenes, you'll see that Ruth has her own personal maid, who she orders to prepare a cup of tea even when the passengers are being told to put their lifejackets on. She appears just behind Trudy when she slips and falls down the deck. Ruth didn't even wait for her own servants and let them both die.
- Tommy pleading with the stewards who won't open the gate — "For God's sake, man! There are women and children down here!"
- Not really talked about much, but imagine how horrible that steward with the keys must have felt after he abandoned Jack and Rose to save his own life. Their screams behind the gates must've haunted him for the rest of his life, as you can see him on Carpathia the next morning.
- In a deleted scene, Bride rushes into the wireless room to tell Phillips that the water has hit the boat deck and it's time to go. Phillips remains in his chair, still sending out the distress signal, even though the power to the wireless set has already failed. This shows that while Phillips may have had a role in causing the disaster, namely neglecting to pass on iceberg warnings and rudely telling Californian to shut up, he remained at his post to the very end.
- This page◊ from the March 1995 scriptment has Rose trying to convince her mother to understand her as opposed to the final scene where she asks "How can you put this on my shoulders?". In this version, she begs "No, Mother. You look at who I am. Please, just once." But as we all know, she is basically talking to a brick wall.
- In the alternate ending, the Keldysh crew has a party that was supposed to mark the successful end of the expedition as they get ready to go home. But there's nothing worth celebrating. They didn't find the diamond, and Rose's story reminds them of the human cost of the disaster.
- It's subtle, but Jack never actually says the words "I love you" to Rose, who only says it when they're both dying in the freezing ocean. Then again, his love for her is so clear he didn't need to.
- In the years since the film's release, recent diving expeditions to Titanic have revealed that the ship is slowly decaying due to bacteria consuming the metallic ruins of the superstructure. The idea that Titanic will one day be little more than a pile of scrap metal on the ocean floor before being buried underneath the sand and lost forever is heartbreaking.
- It is estimated that if Titanic continues to decay at a significant rate, the ruined vessel might only have a few decades left at the very least according to scientific research conducted on the site. The only remains of the shipwreck will be personal belongings from the victims and non-degradable ruins located in the debris field as the last remaining elements of Titanic on the ocean floor. And that's not even taking into account the possibility the artifacts could be lost to time due to other biological factors on the ocean floor, leaving nothing remaining on the Titanic wreck site. A sad and tragic end to the Ship of Dreams.
- The June 18, 2023 fatal implosion of the Titan submersible, a vessel taking 5 people to explore the wreck, yet another tragedy to be associated with the site.
