Heartwarming / Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

• Really any time you see Indy and Short Round together. For a gruff, gun slinging adventurer, Indy is so deeply protective towards the kid at all times that it's hard not to smile. When they're all sleeping on the plane escaping China, Indy's got a protective hand on Short Round, when they travel by elephant Short Round frequently rides with Indy as his elephant needs to be rested, while Indy seems to be delighting in pointing stuff out ot the kid. Later when they camp they joke around and play cards and Indy clearly just loves the kids gumption and general fearlessness. Even before their big emotional ending, it's clear Indy has a pretty strong paternal instinct.
• When Willie starts hyperventilating during the first human sacrifice scene, Indy briefly puts his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. Quite touching considering she's mostly gotten on his nerves.
• When Shorty gets caught by the Thuggees, rather than scream for help, the first thing he does is shout to Willie to run for it. Gotta admire the kid valuing her life over his. This might be especially true when you consider that Short Round doesn't really like Willie, considering her more an annoyance than anything else.
  • And it goes both ways — Willie refuses to step onto the rope bridge, but when Shorty falls through the planks she runs out to pull him back. This is the same Willie who earlier nearly let both him and Indy be squashed because she didn't want bugs on her hand.
  • A Deleted Scene shows that Willie got back to her room and valiantly tried to get help, only to be dismissed as a hysteric.
• Indy willingly blowing his cover throwing a rock at the head of the brutish Thugee Captain to stop him from whipping a helpless child to death. He wore a warm and satisfied grin even as he was caught and interrogated by Mola Ram, too glad that the little boy survived to even regret his decision.
• Indy and Short Round's big emotional scene mid-movie:
  • Short Round's clearly heartbroken declaration of "Indy! I love you!" before burning him to snap him out of his Brainwashed and Crazy madness.
  • Indy just barely snaps out of his Brainwashed and Crazy state before the guards throw Short Round to his death, but in order to save him, he snaps at the guards that he wants to handle the kid himself. Indy has Shorty by the collar; the boy is understandably terrified...and then Indy whispers, "I'm all right, kid," and gives him a wink. Followed by a Moment of Awesome as Indy and Short Round punch out the guards, Indy rescues the girl, and the mood shifts from horror to awesomeness.
  • Unlike some cases, the heroes actually have time for a moment after the fight. Short Round and Indy, Young Warrior and Old Warrior, exchange hats in apology as Father and Son, then embrace.
    Short Round: Indy, my friend.
    Indy: I'm sorry, kid.
• Just before Indy is dosed with the brainwashing stuff, what really gets him mad? When the cult whips Short Round in front of him. The seeming mercenary yells, "Leave him alone, you bastards!" at their captors.
• Indy being genuinely frantic and worried over Willie's condition when he releases her from the cage, as she's nearly dead from heat exhaustion. But when she proves she's very much okay by slapping him in the face—either out of anger for his previous failure to help her, or still trying to snap him out of it—he reassures her that he's okay too, and they happily hug and kiss for a few seconds.
• As Indy knocks out the various guards, we get numerous shots of him, Willie, and Short Round grabbing their keys and unlocking the children, all of them smiling at the sheer exuberance they have at finally being free.
  • Not only that, but Indy can also be seen with the biggest grin on his face as children swarm him to be freed from their chains, even though he has dozens more kids than he can handle asking for their bonds to be undone at once.
• As Indy fights a Giant Mook on a conveyor belt that leads to a rock crusher, the enemy gets his sash caught in the roller which starts pulling him in. The mook starts shouting for help, even referring to Indy as "sir" in Hindi. Instead of running away, Indy tries to pull his shash off; when that fails, he hands him a rope attached to a pulley and pulls down on it to try and lift him out. It doesn't work, but it was certainly a noble effort on Indy's part.
• Willie keeping Shorty from helping Indy during his fight with the Giant Mook. It seems like her being The Load yet again, but considering that the guy's already beating the crap out of Indy, it's not hard to imagine what he could do to a little kid. Willie, for all her bumbling and annoying ways, genuinely does not want Short Round to get hurt.
  • It immediately turns into a funny moment when she sees the Giant Mook is clearly winning the fight, then nods and turns Shorty loose to help:
    "Okay, save him."
• The triumphant finale wherein hundreds of happy children reunite with their parents to the Heroically Uplifting tune of "The Raider's March."
  • What sells it is that the last time Indy was in the village, it was dull and lifeless with no color at all. When the kids and Indy come back, the entire village is alive and bright with colors.
  Elder: We knew you had succeeded, when life returned to our village.
  • Willie making the identical gesture of respect to the elder that Indy made earlier in the film, showing that she's matured — her behavior is a complete 180 from how she acted when they first came.

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