Tear Jerker / The Abyss

• Lindsey drowning herself. Especially as the water goes up to her chin, she screams out "remind me why I thought this was a good idea". The scene from that moment until she revives is a pure mix of Nightmare Fuel, and Tear Jerker. Especially the moment she loses consciousness, when Bud lets out his anguished Big "NO!".
  • Bud's increasingly frantic efforts to resuscitate her afterwards.
  • Everyone around the scene begins to break down as it's becoming apparent this is seemingly not going to work. First, and most especially, One Night, who had a very nasty attitude toward Lindsey's mere presence on Deep Core. When Lindsey does revive, she's openly sobbing in relief and shame.
• During Bud's dive to neutralize the nuclear warheads, One Night tells Lindsey to actually talk to him, not merely give him information on the dive. She proceeds to bare her soul, and parts of it are very cathartic as she explains things that might have contributed to their estrangement.
  Lindsey: It's not easy being a cast iron bitch. It takes discipline and years of training. A lot of people don't appreciate that.
  • Also her reaction when Bud begins the pre-breathing with the breathing fluid, and initially appearing to be drowning. Punctuated by Lindsey's panic watching him struggle before his body realizes it's still receiving oxygen, and he relaxes.
• The look on Coffey's face before his sub-pod drops into the abyss, dooming him to being crushed by the pressure of deep water really reminds you that while he wasn't a nice guy to begin with, he was under the influence of a serious condition that severely clouded his judgement. Even Lindsey and Bud, who he tried to murder only moments earlier, are horrified by this as they watch.
  • The novel makes it even sadder: it reveals that Coffey had a hard life growing up, and only found true happiness and purpose in the military. Throughout the story, he's followed his orders without question, but at the very end, when he realizes that he's going to die, he has a a realization:
    "A moment of lucidity. A moment of outrage at the fact that they had ordered him to do this. Why should I die for this? Why shouldn't I, just once do, what I want? No orders, no assignment, just what Hiram Coffey wants to do... What I want is to rise up out of the water, to breathe clean air under the open sky, to see other people and not have to decide whether they're my enemies, decide whether to kill them or use them."
• Prior to the final confrontation is a very brief shot, shown only in the special edition, of Coffey coming down from the standoff between his team and the Deep Core workers over the nuclear warhead by taking a moment to just stare out the bubble viewport of their module. He is very clearly in distress and just barely holding himself together as the camera pans out and down to look into the seemingly bottomless depths of the ocean right in front of him. It's at this moment that viewers are probably reminded that this is a human being doing his best to keep going under circumstances that no human was ever intended by nature to deal with.
• Bud's seeming final message after disarming the warhead, and finding out he doesn't have enough oxygen to survive the return trip, resigning himself to stay at the bottom of the ocean.
  Don't cry baby. Knew this was one way ticket but you know I had to come.
  Love you wife.