9 Disney Movies With Upsetting And Dark Moments

Finding Nemo is the tale of an overly attentive father desperately searching for his son, and it sets up this story in shocking fashion. Just after we are introduced to the domestic bliss inside Marlin and Coral's anemone, that image is shattered by the arrival of a barracuda.

This is the first instance of Pixar's mastery of visual storytelling; we aren't told that the predatory fish's silhouette spells terrible danger, but the agape expression on Coral's face as she glances between it and their eggs in the hollow beneath the anemone tells us we should be worried. The super-quick cuts between shots of the fish's jaws and eyes once it speeds towards their home and attempts to eat Marlin whole culminate with a cut-to-black after our protagonist is knocked unconscious by the predator. This is a marine home invasion, and an extremely violent one at that.

This scene perfectly establishes Marlin's obsessive parenting style, for he was unable to protect his family and wants his only surviving son Nemo to thrive. The aggressive barracuda is a perfect menace in these first few minutes, devastating Marlin's home life and leaving a lifetime of guilt on the shoulder-fins of a single, solitary clownfish.