10 Heart-Breaking Moments Of Self-Realisation That Defined Great Movies

2. Vanilla Sky - Everyone Is Dead

Ignoring the fact that there probably isn't going to be a cure for suicide by overdose in any future, unless some major things change, Vanilla Sky is built on an irresistible concept - of living a lucid dream to avoid the awfulness of your reality (or your death in the case of Tom Cruise's character.)

When David's dream starts to go wrong, and he becomes aware that he is in a nightmare, his call to tech support initially feels like a release, and like he might be offered the chance to escape. But then in the memorable elevator scene in which David's reality is laid out in stark clinical terms by the tech support, the moment of revelation really dawns, both for David and for the audience.

And unlike most of the other examples on this list, the self-realisation for David is two-fold: not only has he been frozen for 150 years and all of his loved ones, and indeed anyone he ever knew, are dead, but he also killed himself to get away from the pain of his love leaving him, making his decision one of two unknown Hells.

Ultimately David chooses to wake up - somehow shrugging off his overdose death (good doctors in 150 years, presumably) - but the moment of revelation is no less painful to watch.