Warning: Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages.
"It was me. Couldn't kill me."
- Vanessa's death within minutes of the opening of the film. The humor's still there afterwards, but Wade has become a Death Seeker for real, and his grief is all too genuine and palpable.
- While chasing after the boss after the latter gets hit by a truck, the first thing Wade does is drag him out of his escape vehicle is to stare at him, hug the guy, then swing him into an oncoming truck as if saying, "I'm taking you with me".
- In light of Vanessa's death, the opening scene (where 'pool seems to be vegetating in his usual zany manner) is a lot less funny and a lot more sad, and seems to hint that he's trying to kill himself. To wit:
- Going over to the toaster, taking out some burned strudels, and just tossing them away. We later learn he was making toaster strudel the night Vanessa died; it seems like they've been in there the whole time and he just lost interest in eating anything the entire time.
- He goes over the oven and turns on all the knobs... so he can inhale some of the fumes. He's either hoping it'll manage to kill him or, perhaps, the cigarette isn't doing it for him and he's desperate to feel something.
- Then he just blows himself up. All the while he's playing "All Out of Love" by Air Supply.
- Later on Wade tells Colossus that one of Vanessa's killers got away.Wade: It was me. Couldn't kill me.
- While it's a deliberate Mood Whiplash with the gag opening titles ("Presented by What the Fuck") and Deadpool acting like James Bond and the Bond girls, the opening song, "Ashes" by Céline Dion, gives the very powerful context of the film really well.
- Wade drowning his sorrows at Sister Margaret's, rambling about how George Michael is gone, and saying, "At least we still have Bowie." Weasel can't bring himself to tell him the truth.
- Russell having been a victim of the evil headmaster and his cronies at the school, along with other mutant children, and we get to see some of it.
- After Colossus tackles Wade for shooting two of the headmaster's cronies, Wade's response isn't a joke. It's this:Wade: That kid was abused. You can tell, you can always tell.
- Russell overhearing Deadpool saying he doesn't care about him, after the kid tried so hard to become DP's friend. It's especially painful if you notice that Deadpool noticed too and clearly was trying to make Russell stop trying to save him and just escape already. Instead he accidentally sets him down the path to becoming a potential supervillain and makes the poor kid feel like he can't trust anyone.
- Cable's backstory: Russell grew up to become a murderous maniac and reduced Cable's wife and daughter to charred bodies. Cable's teddy bear is a Tragic Keepsake, and the time-traveller rightfully points out to Deadpool that they're not so different towards the end.
- When Cable informs X-Force about this, even the Merc with a Mouth drops his humor to say that he's sorry. When something is so serious that even Deadpool stops making jokes, you know he's feeling it. He does follow up by saying that Russell might have a learning disability and diabetes, but he might not even be joking then — he may see these as legitimate issues that he needs help with.
- The scene where Deadpool shields Russell from Cable's bullet is accompanied by "Tomorrow" from Annie (1999). It's a funny case of Soundtrack Dissonance, until you remember that it was the last song that Cable's wife and daughter were listening to before they were brutally slain.
- Wade dying after putting on the power-nullifying collar and taking the bullet for Russell. Yes, it's obvious that it won't stick, but it doesn't make the scene any less tragic.
- What makes the scene worse is Russell desperately clinging to Wade's hand and crying his eyes out as he realizes that Deadpool was serious when he said he cared about him, and that his actions cost one of the few people who cared about him his life. It's not even ruined by Wade's constant fakeouts either.
- Also of note is Wade singing "Papa, can you hear me" and asking "Do you want to build a snowman?" as he is dying, as he has been referencing the two throughout the movie when thinking about how he wants to die.
- When Wade is shot at the very end of the film, he asks the others to stay, because "I don't want to die without an audience." He's trying to make a joke, but what he's really saying is he doesn't want to die alone.
- Even more teary: just after asking (begging) his friends to stay around while he dies, Colossus gives DP a reassuring "We're not going anywhere."
- Wade finally reunites with Vanessa in death. The acoustic version of "Take on Me" really hits their reunion home. In the Super Duper Cut, the song instead is the acoustic version of "Ashes".
- Zeitgeist's jump scene. Unlike Deadpool, who can take the damage of landing hard, and Domino who could outluck it, the rest of the team is taken out by reality. Zeitgeist gets the worst by having the most lingering death. He lands in a branch shredder feet-first, and screams in agony and fear as he starts being sucked in. It's not shown, but it's implied that his feet are already gone by the time time Peter arrives. Peter, being either stupid or unknowledgeable, doesn't think to turn off the machine, and no one else who does know the machine turns up to save him. In a panic, Zeitgeist vomits, accidentally hitting and killing Peter, and without Peter there, Zeitgeist gets pulled in having doomed them both. It's played for laughs, but anyone who knows how quickly he gets offed in his comic counterpart's origin issue may not be laughing. It's just sad.
- Just before Cable goes back in time to save Deadpool, he takes the teddy bear hanging from his belt and presses it to his face, seemingly to smell it. Smell is one of the most powerful memory triggers, so it's almost certain that Cable is trying his best to remember his family and what they look like before he loses any chance of ever seeing them again. The agonized expression on his face seals the deal.
- Also, after Deadpool takes the bullet for Russell, the moment Cable notices that the teddy bear on his belt is cleared of ashes, it takes him a moment to realize that the bad future that he tried to avert was finally undone, but at the cost of someone's life. Deadpool went out of his way to prove that anyone can change, but risked his own life to prove his point. Cable realizes that despite wanting desperately to change the future, it's not worth it if someone who went out of his way to prove his point wrong died to prove it.
- Cable and Deadpool's conversation before heading to the orphanage to save it from Russell and Juggernaut focuses on how two characters, Wade and Cable's wife, use humor as coping mechanisms for terrible trauma in their lives. When they arrive at the orphanage, Domino starts cracking jokes about how she used to live there and how much fun tearing it apart will be, implying that she also went through the same horrible abuse that Russell and the rest of the kids did.
- Colossus's behavior after Deadpool shoots the people responsible for torturing Russell and at the X-Mansion later can be seen as this. He believed in Deadpool to be a genuine hero, and while Both Sides Have a Point, Deadpool didn't do what Colossus believed was right and almost ruined their friendship. At least they make up.
- At the end of "Once Upon a Deadpool", there is a touching tribute to Stan Lee.
