Tear Jerker / The Iron Giant

Ted: Hey, do me a favor. Keep an eye on these guys, 'cause around the seventy-four-minute mark, there's gonna be a room full of grown men crying.
Beard: I'll be one of 'em.

— While Ted's football team, AFC Richmond, watches the film, Ted Lasso, "Make Rebecca Great Again"^note The players do indeed weep as the Giant performs his Heroic Sacrifice.

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• Watching the Giant struggle in pain when he's trapped in the electrical wires at the power plant. It's the first indication that this isn't just a monster, but a sentient being with feelings, which is why Hogarth goes back to save him.
• Literally the entire scene once the air raid siren starts going off.
  • Starting with Hogarth explaining to the Giant what it means.
    Hogarth: It's a missile. When it comes down — [crushing realization] — everyone will die.
  • This exchange of dialogue. Just the hopelessness in Dean's voice:
    Annie: Shouldn't we get to a shelter?
    Dean: It wouldn't matter.
  • The Giant's Heroic Sacrifice: "You...stay. I...go. No following."
  • Hogarth tearfully clinging to the Giant's finger as he pulls it away.
  • The way Hogarth whispers "I love you" as The Giant takes off.
  • "Superman..."
    • Who knew that Vin Diesel could reduce grown men to tears with a single word? Kal-El himself would be honored.
  • The utter exhaustion in General Rogard's voice after the Giant's sacrifice. He understood the Dramatic Irony, that the "monster" they were sent to fight ended up being the hero that stopped the missile from destroying them all - a missile fired by forces under his (indirect) command. It says a lot that instead of cheering with the soldiers over their survival, he salutes the Giant like he lost a soldier under his watch and paid his respects.
    Rogard: (Heartbroken) Let's go home.
  • And hell, just the realization that the Giant takes Hogarth up on his advice of proving to the town that he's good... by sacrificing himself. Feasibly, he could've shot the missile down, but no, he chose to do this so he'd never bring all this chaos to anyone again. Oh, Giant.
• "Souls don't die..."
• The deer in the forest and Hogarth's explanation of the concept of death to the Giant. Even sadder considering what happens to him later on.
  Hogarth: Things die... It's a part of life. It's bad to kill. But it's not bad to die.
• The Giant after believing Hogarth to be dead. Even savvy viewers that knew otherwise got choked up by the Giant grieving for his friend. Especially when he starts trembling and buries his face in his hands.
  • If you listen closely during that scene, you can hear the Giant whimper, "Hogarth."
  • The way he nudges his unresponsive body, just like the deer, and puts two and two together.
  • Watching the Giant succumb to the defense mechanism that he so desperately wants to defy, especially after almost killing Hogarth with it. It's both tragic and horrifying to see this Gentle Giant give in to his rage and turn into the monster he doesn't want to be.
  • The Giant hyperventilating like a frightened child once he snaps out of it and comes back to normal.
• The scene after Hogarth nearly gets vaporized by the Giant when they were playing a game and the Giant mistook Hogarth's toy gun for a real weapon, and Dean yells at him, calling him "a big gun that walks." Giant then gets a "My God, What Did I Almost Do?" moment when he sees a bus with a vaporized hole as Dean tells him, "You almost did THAT to Hogarth!"
  • "I- I not gun."
    • Later echoed for a Awesome Moment.
• A minor moment, but after Hogarth meets the Giant for the first time, Annie finds and hugs him. And when Hogarth does his Motor Mouth behavior about what he just saw, Annie angrily tells him to stop. Given how he wasn't home during a blackout, her anger is justified.
• One of the alternate scenes on the DVD gives us one. In the alternate introduction of Annie and Hogarth, they get their truck unstuck from a mud pit during a rainstorm, and Annie gets covered in mud in the process. Hogarth can’t help but giggle at his mother’s appearance, so she pulls him close and tries to get mud on him in retaliation, making him laugh even harder. This cute moment takes a sad turn pretty quickly though, at the mention of Hogarth’s father, who passed away.
  Annie: Oh, you laugh just like your father.
  Hogarth: …I miss him…
  Annie: (sighs) So do I, honey… so do I.
• Similar source to the above, the deleted scene where the Giant has a nightmare. The way he twitches in his sleep and shouts when he wakes up is simply heart-wrenching.
  • And then there's Dean's reaction. Because the Giant's dream was being projected through the TV, Dean sees exactly who the Giant was, where he came from and what he was created to do. He immediately becomes afraid for Hogarth's safety upon realizing he just befriended a weapon of mass (or even global) destruction.
• Hogarth has his own My God, What Have I Done? moment in the original book where he feels sorry for the Giant being buried. He does apologize for trapping him later on though.

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