Tear Jerker / Brightburn

• The simple fact that unlike Clark Kent/Kal-El, who embraces and cherishes his humanity, ironically embodying the very best of human nature despite not being a human, Brandon Breyer ends up drawn to his true alien nature, and becomes further detached from human compassion, and instead becomes intoxicated and twisted by his superpowers, knowing that because he is not human, he has even less reason to care about them, thus turning against even his parents.
• Tori Breyer truly does love her son and considers finding him a gift. She and her husband raise him with love and tell him that he is meant to do great things. But then, even as Brandon becomes darker and twisted as he discovers his powers and starts to use them in violent ways, she still believes in him, despite increasing evidence of his instability as well as her husband's well justified fears.
• Kyle Breyer, despite being able to see Brandon's instability and the danger he poses better than his wife, still raises him. It is implied he had a more loving relationship with his son before he got his powers, only for things to go downhill when Brandon gets his powers and shows homicidal tendencies. He outright tells his wife that Brandon is not their son.
  • Before leaving on the "hunting trip" in which he plans to kill Brandon, Kyle looks through a stash of old handmade birthday and father's day cards and school photos, mementos of the time before Brandon's powers manifested and his alien nature revealed itself.
• In the scene where Kyle tries to shoot Brandon and fails, Brandon actually looks shocked, even hurt, that his father has just tried to kill him. Of course, he quickly becomes homicidal and murders Kyle, but it serves as a reminder that he was at one point, a normal kid who loved his parent.
  • Before Kyle tries to kill him, Brandon is acting completely normal and non-creepy for the last time in the entire movie. He really believes that he is just on a normal deer hunt with his dad, who he trusts and loves, and is clearly enjoying himself. After his dad shoots him, he waits and watches him for a few seconds, apparently hoping that it was just an accident. Only when Kyle reloads the gun and levels it at him again does he attack him.
  • Brandon clearly knows it wasn't an accident, but there seems to be a moment where he'll let it slide at that. Almost like "I know what happened, but if you want to say the gun just went off and you're sorry, I'll let it slide." But then Kyle panics and starts to reload, and Brandon knows only one way to deal with that...
  • Even if Brandon immediately knew that Kyle intended to kill him as soon as Kyle shot at him, this still counts as a Tearjerker because Brandon's body language indicates that he is heartbroken that his father Kyle tried to kill him, even though Kyle opposing Brandon is completely justified.
  • What makes this even more of a Tearjerker than it already is, is that Kyle's body language shows that he is reluctant to kill Brandon even though Kyle is justified, showing that to an extent Kyle still loves his son even though his son has done horrible deeds.
• The scene where Tori frantically tries to call Kyle after discovering the drawings in Brandon’s notebook, not knowing that it’s already too late. The moment she hears Brandon’s voice on the other end, the look on her face says it all. Deep down, she knows that her son has just killed her husband, but she desperately doesn’t want to believe it.
• Finally there's Brandon himself. He was a normal little boy with a loving relationship with his parents before he discovered his powers. But then we see him slowly become corrupt and twisted as he starts abusing his powers to hurt people, even turning against his own parents. His powers are corrupting him, which means a normal kind little boy is being turned into a monster by his powers with his parents having no idea how to help him.
• The sad way in which Brandon says "I want to do good, Mom. I do." It's a reminder that Brandon only became evil because of his ship brainwashing him to "take the world".
  • What makes this sadder is the theory that follows: Brandon could have been good HAD Tori not tried to kill him. Also, he does look awfully heartbroken before he kills her.
• All that above is even worse is that Brandon knows of his alien nature. He tries to fight it for his loving mother but fails, all while the mother didn't know until it's too late.
• Even after everything, including about to be dropped from thousands of feet in the air, Tori still shows affection towards her son by stroking his face before he lets go. It's almost like an apology after she tried to kill him.
• According to director David Yarovesky, there was a planned post-credits scene where Caitlyn Connor, the girl who Brandon stalked and ended up breaking her arm when she called him out on it, and later resulted in killing her mother Erica Connor, is shown in a lab getting a robotic arm attached to her mangled one, with a pissed look on her face, which means she clearly plans to get revenge on Brandon for ruining her life. The heartbreaking thing being this middle school-aged girl, who had showed an outcast boy kindness and even seemed to be attracted to him, ended up severely crippled and her mother brutally murdered because said boy severely overreacted to being called out for his stalking her, showing just how thoroughly he has ruined poor Caitlyn's life.
  • Possibly making this scrapped scene even more awful to think about is remembering that Brandon is a Walking Techbane when he wants to be. Had that scene been made, Caitlyn's new arm would have ended up being an absolute nightmare for her. In a cruel irony, her attempt at becoming stronger would have just made it even easier for Brandon to hurt her.
    • Unless she tracked down a piece of the spaceship in which Brandon arrived, which appears to be this movie's equivalent of Kryptonite.
• The film starts with home movies of Brandon as a baby, just doing baby things with Kyle and Tori so happy to finally have a child. Even if you haven't seen Brightburn before, you'll almost certainly know going in that this is Beware the Superman taken to one of its darkest extremes, and that all of this will only end in tears and terror. It makes the pure innocence of Brandon's childhood all the more tragic, knowing what's coming.