Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- Julia's death and subsequent funeral. It's utterly tragic seeing the effect her passing left on the two main characters, with her husband descending into madness and obsession from the grief and her friend wracked with guilt from the knot she asked for. And when a rage and grief-stricken Angier demands, "Which knot did you tie, Borden?", the distraught Borden genuinely doesn't know: his more aggressive twin brother is the one who tied the knot.
- Sarah. Not only did she accept that her husband apparently only loved her half time even though that wasn't true and continued to stay with Borden despite her unhappiness, she eventually kills herself from the agony after a particularly bad fight with "Freddie".Sarah: I want you to be honest... no tricks... no lies. Do you love me?
Borden: [beat] No. Not today. - Angier looking on with jealousy at Borden happily with his family. Even being what he is, it is damn hard not to feel for him in that moment.Angier: He had the happiness that should've been mine.
- On a second viewing Borden and Fallon's final goodbye is heartbreaking.
- The bird trick, once you learn how it works, as one little boy does.
- Angier's death and his parting words with Borden. Even after everything he did, you can't help but weep.Angier: You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special... you really don't know?... it was... it was the look on their faces...
- Angier lets slip that he cares more about figuring out Borden's trick than his wife's death, showing just how powerful his obsession had become.
- During the fight scene between Borden and Sarah, Jess is listening outside the door. The resigned look on her face shows this is not the first time she had seen and heard her parents (or, rather, her mother and her uncle) arguing like this.
