There are plenty of moving scenes in Avengers: Endgame but we sat down and came up with our
list of the moments that hit us the hardest.
Grab a box of tissues and settle in we're bringing you our rankings for the most heartbreaking
Endgame moments.
First up, we have Black Widow's recruitment of Clint Barton.
Old Hawkeye isn't handling the loss of his family who, if you'll recall, were dusted
by Thanos following that snap particularly well.
He's off traveling around the world, fighting gangsters and dispensing his own brand of
cruel justice.
So when he reunites with his old crime-fighting partner, it's a poignant moment.
Especially after the scene earlier in the movie where a teary-eyed Natasha asks Rhodey
to continue searching for Barton, even though they both know they're not going to like what
they find.
Romanoff's devotion to one of her truest and oldest friends is impressive, as she follows
Barton's bloody trail across the Pacific all the way to Japan.
All of this comes to a head in their brief exchange when she finally confronts him in
the rainy streets of Tokyo and tells him that they might've found a way to reverse Thanos'
Decimation.
The utter despair on Barton's face is just as heart-wrenching as the pain and empathy
on Natasha's as she looks at the cold, heartless killer that her friend has become.
And yet, her belief in redemption is strong, and it's clear that she doesn't consider him
to be truly lost.
Thor is an emotional guy.
It doesn't matter if he's raging, laughing, or crying the dude feels all the feels.
So it's hard not to get upset when Thor and his friends pay a quick visit to Thanos early
on in the film.
During the events that follow, the Mad Titan reveals that he's reduced the Infinity Stones
to atoms, and that it has become impossible to reverse the snap.
Realizing the utter finality of the action, a glassy-eyed Thor well …
"What… what did you do?"
"I went for the head."
The emotion of the scene is palpable, especially considering the fact that Thor rarely, if
ever, kills in cold blood like that.
Sure, he's always up for a brawl, whatever the reason, but vengefully striking an enemy
when they're defenseless just isn't his style.
The scene is upsetting enough on its own, but knowing that it leads to an entire spiral
of depression and despondency gives it that much more gravity.
While we've seen Marvel torture Thor for years now, it isn't until Endgame that the Asgardian
truly breaks, and it's difficult to watch.
Early in the film, Captain Marvel retrieves Tony Stark and Nebula after they've been drifting
through space for weeks.
The Tesseract-infused hero quickly flies the pair of survivors back to the Avengers compound
on Earth.
As they exit the ship, Captain America comes running up to help his friend, and the two
come face to face for the first time since the disastrous ending of Captain America:
Civil War.
They both explain that neither of them could stop Thanos.
Then Stark, his lip quivering, drops a bombshell that totally obliterated our hearts, when
he tells Cap, "I lost the kid."
Of course, he's referring to Peter Parker, who was dusted right in his arms in one of
the most tragic moments of all of Avengers: Infinity War.
For all of Tony Stark's other cares and concerns, it's Peter that's at the front of his mind.
Fans absolutely adored their master-apprentice, father-son dynamic, so Tony's devastated face
makes for one of the most moving moments in the entire story.
While Thor's arc throughout Endgame ends on a positive note, he certainly experiences
more than one emotional moment along the way.
One of those takes place when he and Rocket travel back to Asgard in 2013 to retrieve
Aether.
While Rocket eventually heads off in search of the angry sludge, Thor completely breaks
down and runs from the entire situation.
He doesn't get far, though, before he's confronted by his mother, Frigga, who immediately sees
that this is her son from the future.
The two end up having a long talk together during which Frigga reignites Thor's passion
and convinces him to stop living in apathy.
The scene would be heartwarming on its own, but the heartbreaking part of it all is the
fact that it takes place right before Frigga is going to be killed by Dark Elves and the
Odinson knows it.
Moments from death, she takes the time to talk to him and give him exactly the kind
of encouragement that only a mother can deliver, helping him to rise to the challenges he's
facing and rediscover that, for all of his failures, shortcomings, and lapses in judgment,
he is indeed still worthy.
Not long after Stark's moving last words which come via a hologram projection from his helmet,
because Tony Stark the scene shifts to the porch of his country home, where the ever-faithful
Happy Hogan sits with Tony's daughter, Morgan.
The two have a little conversation that turns into a heartbreaking nostalgia-fest.
Happy asks Morgan if she wants something to eat, to which she replies, “Cheeseburgers.”
Now, that might just sound like a kid who's too young to understand what's going on naming
their favorite food — but when Happy tells young Morgan …
"You know, your dad liked cheeseburgers."
… it sure feels like a punch in the gut.
The callback to Tony Stark's first meal after escaping captivity in Iron Man is immediately
recognizable, and for the poor audience watching, Happy's line makes the tears flow that much
more.
As Avengers: Endgame approaches its climactic conclusion, an exchange takes place between
the children of Thanos that contains one of the saddest moments of the entire film.
After Clint Barton successfully escapes from the rubble of the demolished Avengers facility,
he meets Nebula.
Taking her for a friend, he lets her have the Iron Man Gauntlet, only to find out moments
later that rather than the current 2023 Nebula who's aiding the heroes, this is the 2014
version, a Nebula who's still emphatically loyal to her Titan father.
Suddenly, 2023 Nebula and a recently reformed 2014 Gamora enter the scene, saving Barton's
skin and turning the entire situation into a timey-wimey family feud.
Gamora pleads with her past sister while 2023 Nebula points out that Thanos is the one that
made them the way they are.
For all the entreaties, though, past Nebula reveals that she's trapped by what Thanos
has made her.
She then aims at Gamora, only to be shot by her future self before she can pull the trigger.
Tony Stark loves leaving messages in the event of an untimely death.
Yeah, sure, he does it near the end of the film after he actually dies, but it wasn't
quite as heartbreaking as the other one he makes earlier in the film.
Facing a cold, dark death in the void of space, Mr. Stark turns on his helmet in order to
record a final message for his fiancée, Pepper Potts, before he runs out of oxygen.
He keeps the tone of the conversation light, but even he knows the message is going to
be "a real tearjerker."
The scene is tough to watch on multiple levels.
Seeing an already defeated man prepare to die while faced with the infinite blackness
of space, all while thinking about the love of his life … well, it's quite a way to
kick off a movie.
During the sequence when Tony Stark and Steve Rogers head back to the '70s in order to get
the Tesseract and some more Pym Particles, Rogers finds himself being hunted inside an
underground bunker.
He ducks into a side door in order to avoid detection and finds himself in the office
of none other than Peggy Carter, the love of his life before he "went in the ice back
in '45."
As he realizes this, he suddenly sees Miss Carter enter the next room.
His face is a study in heartbreak as he stands mere feet from the woman that he's never stopped
loving, knowing that his mission, his friends, and the fate of half of the universe are preventing
him from revealing himself.
Cap's story throughout the MCU heavily revolves around feeling misplaced, and this scene sums
that up in one epically tragic expression, filled with a longing for something he knows
he can't have.
Thank goodness he finally gets that dance with Peggy once all's said and done.
After the moving arrival of Stark and Nebula back on Earth in the opening moments of the
film, the heroes regroup to figure out how to track down Thanos and reverse the snap.
But during the meeting, Stark lashes out at Steve Rogers with all of the pent-up frustration
and anger that's been building up since the two came to blows in Captain America: Civil
War.
"I said we'd lose.
You said, 'We'll do that together too.'
Well, guess what, Cap?
We lost.
And you weren't there."
During his outburst, Stark accuses Rogers of not being there when he needed him, adding
that he doesn't trust him anymore before calling the star-spangled soldier a liar.
The duo's reunion scene had been hotly anticipated for a long time, as Civil War had come nearly
three years before, and the two hadn't come face to face again until this point.
While everyone knew the get-together wouldn't be a pretty one, the burst of frustration
and the evident feeling of betrayal from Stark ends up being as miserable as possible.
At this point, it's pretty clear that Endgame is filled with heartbreak from one end to
the other.
In fact, one of the saddest moments of the entire movie is literally the very first scene.
Clint Barton losing his family was originally supposed to take place at the end of Infinity
War.
However, the production team wisely chose to save it for Endgame as a powerful reminder
of the tragic event, and it hits audiences right in the face and in the feels as soon
as the movie starts.
"Boys?!
BOYS?!"
It's been established for a long time now that the MCU version of Clint Barton is deeply
devoted to his family, and it's hard watching the fear and terror mount in his face as he
realizes that not half but literally all of his family has suddenly fallen to ashes.
It's hands down one of the most terrible moments of the entire film if not the MCU's whole
filmography.
While the Bartons end up with a happy ending when all is said and done, there's no doubt
that their patriarch takes the initial loss extremely hard.
Now we're in the endgame, and these last two scenes are about as heartbreaking as any the
MCU has ever seen.
First, we have Black Widow's death sequence.
Natasha Romanoff has a beautiful redemptive arc throughout her MCU journey, and her sacrifice
on Vormir in the name of saving the family she loves is one of the most perfectly tragic
ways to end her story.
After time traveling to Vormir in 2014, Romanoff and Barton track down the Soul Stone, only
to discover the horrible price required to possess it.
The two heroes duel each other, each striving to be the one who makes the sacrifice.
Ultimately it's Black Widow who manages to outsmart her friend and send herself hurtling
to her death on the rocks below.
The scene is a sad one, and it only gets deeper knowing that her sacrifice proves instrumental
in saving her new family and undoing the devastation from Thanos' snap.
On top of that, the drama is cranked up a notch when Barton returns home alone and delivers
the bad news to the despair of the team especially Hulk, who also had a special connection with
the heroine.
Of course, there's one scene in Avengers: Endgame that stands above all of the rest.
It's a scene larger than life, because it involves a man who's larger than life.
Iron Man's willingness to make the sacrifice play and lay down on that wire to save the
universe is arguably the most heartbreaking moment in the entire Infinity Saga.
"I… am…
Iron Man."
Not only that, but the scene that follows as Peter Parker, Pepper Potts, and others
gather round is utterly devastating.
Pepper's final words to Tony: "We're gonna be okay.
You can rest now."
… is the perfect send-off to the man who started it all.
In addition, one of the deleted scenes shows an extended cut of the surrounding heroes
taking a knee across the battlefield in honor of the man who just gave everything to save
them.
The scene is epic, beautiful, and it breaks our hearts every time.
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