10 Most Devastating Movie Openings That Totally Broke You

4. Toy Story 3

One of the main reasons there was so much concern about Toy Story 4 over-extending the franchise and muddying how perfect the message of the original trilogy is was how well-formed Pixar's ideas about mortality were across those films. Starting out with the first movie, the single most compelling thread of each of the films was the question "what happens when toys are no longer played with."

Obviously, that's also loaded with a secondary concern (the idea of love being finite and the inevitability of abandonment and rejection - THANKS Pixar!) but chiefly, we're watching an existential crisis from the perspective of some toys. And as a handy reminder of how traumatic that whole rejection transaction is for the toys, Toy Story 3 begins with a brief, bullet-quick reminder that it doesn't matter how much fun you provide a kid, they'll grow up to abandon you all the same.

It doesn't QUITE rank up there with the "When She Loved Me" sequence from Toy Story 2, but the harsh cut of the opening play sequence to Woody and the surviving toys lying half-forgotten in a toy chest is just awful. Particularly when Toy Story 2 ends on such a note of hope.