10 Movie Goodbyes That'll Break You (When You Know The Truth)
These cinematic farewells are crushing once you know their true meaning.
Saying goodbye to a beloved movie character can be tough for audiences, because if they've gotten to know them over the course of many movies, they can basically feel like a close friend or even a member of the family.
Cinematic farewells can be hard going at the best of times, but sometimes there's an added layer or two which makes it that much more heartbreaking - once you know about it, anyway.
And that's absolutely the case with these 10 movies, each of which sent characters off into the sunset, but there was also another story going on behind the scenes.
More often than not we're sadly talking about actors who passed away shortly after the film's production.
And whether it came totally out of the blue or the actor knew they didn't have long left, it completely coloured how each of these performances were perceived by audiences, making them all the more devastating as a result.
While casual audiences might've watched these movies totally unaware of the wider outside context, once you know what was really going on, these farewells become something else entirely...
10. Sunrise For Roosevelt - Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
The third and final entry into the live-action Night at the Museum franchise, Secret of the Tomb, had something of a melancholic pall cast over it by the tragic death of Robin Williams barely four months before release.
The film ends with the New York exhibits losing their ability to come to life, and that includes Williams' Teddy Roosevelt, who gets his own distinct farewell with museum guard Larry (Ben Stiller).
Roosevelt doesn't merely say goodbye to Larry, though, he tells him, "Smile, my boy, it's sunrise," before turning to wax forever more.
It's basically impossible to watch this scene without thinking of how Williams' own life ended, and so this served as a seemingly inadvertent goodbye to the millions of fans who had adored the actor's work for decades.
It becomes even more bittersweet in light of more recent revelations from the film's director, Shawn Levy, that Williams struggled to get through the shoot and was anxious about the quality of his performance.
We were in the midst of a man suffering through something truly horrible, and yet, he still managed to bring warmth and humanity to this character as he returned to wax.