When we go to see a Marvel movie at the theater or stick on a Marvel show on Disney Plus, we’re mostly there for the superhero spectacle of it all, but the reason the MCU has been so phenomenally successful is that its action-packed storytelling is rooted in their characters’ emotional arcs. Fans have lost count of the times they’ve been reduced to blubbering wrecks by the franchise over the past 14 years. But what are the absolute toughest scenes to watch in the whole saga?
Redditor sr_waffles_ asked this question to the Marvel Studios subreddit, and received a wealth of interesting responses. Although the OP specified that what someone constitutes a hard scene to sit through can be because it’s either poignant or cringey, folks decided to mostly put aside their snarkiness for this thread and instead got real, with users sharing those Marvel moments that really hit them hard and why.
Understandably, any scene that involves one of the heroes losing a parent is a lot to handle for many.
For others, it’s the characters struggling with a physical or medical condition, like Strange damaging his hands.
Arthur Harrow’s habit of walking over broken glass in Moon Knight was particularly wince-inducing for some.
Unsurprisingly, Avengers: Endgame came up a whole lot in this discussion, with the 3-hour epic essentially being one long series of emotional triggers.
The traumatic opening received a bunch of votes.
For others, it was Thor reuniting with his late mother, Frigga.
Anyone who says they weren’t weeping by the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home has had their memory wiped.
Moon Knight episode five’s flashbacks to Marc’s mother abusing him as a child were pretty shocking to see in a Marvel show, with many finding them difficult to watch.
Following on from this thread, we’re expecting the next MCU movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, to feature some gut-punch moments, too, seeing as it comes from Taika Waititi, the man who gave us JoJo Rabbit. Catch that in cinemas from July 8.