Disney makes magical, whimsical movies that have captured the imaginations of children and adults alike for generations. But as much as they're the top of the game for bringing wonder to the world, they're also the best at just totally and completely destroying your emotions.

Fair enough; after all, without the hardship and suffering of life's worst moments, we'd never be able to appreciate the beauty and wonder of its best. “Life is composed of lights and shadows" Walt Disney famously said, "and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows,” And boy do Disney's storytellers love offsetting their moments of brilliant light with darkness.

Of course, that's part of what's made Disney's stories so enduring, and why they can continue to re-tell them with live-action renditions that reinvent those profound, often deep-cutting life lessons for a new generation. Just think, a whole new batch of kids are about to learn the harsh realities of death when the watch Mufasa die in the upcoming The Lion King remake. And they're lessons well worth learning.

With that in mind, we're running down some of the most devastating moments in Disney's history. For the purpose of this article, we're sticking to the animated theatrical releases, including those at Pixar, where the Disney tradition of storytelling forged a sister studio of beautiful, heartbreaking films. Their live-action fare has plenty of tear-jerking moments (don't even talk to me about Homeward Bound), not to mention the emotional warfare that goes on in the MCU, but we're honing in on the animated classics, from the earliest days of Walt Disney Animation Studios, to the latest Pixar releases.

There's no shortage of damaging Disney moments and these are just a few personal favorites (or maybe least favorite would be more appropriate given the emotional toll), so sound off in the comments with the moments that messed you up the most. Obviously there are a lot of spoilers here, so if you get to a movie you haven't seen, just scroll on by.

The Festival of Fools, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is easily one of Disney's darkest movies. While it's not quite as hardcore depressing as Victor Hugo's literary classic that inspired it, the film is still downright grim at times. Hell, the villain's big song is all about his sinful lust for Esmerelda, and that's not quite the kind of material you usually get in a Disney film. But The Hunchback of Notre Dame's most disturbing and devastating moment arrives in the form of a party, when Quasimodo zips down from his bell tower to take part in the Festival of Fools.  Crowned the King of Fools, Quasimodo has a few blissfully happy moments in the spotlight before Frollo's guards start pelting him with tomatoes and eggs, turning the crowd against him, and ruthlessly roping him to the spot (starting with his neck!) Quasimodo is such a tragic, sympathetic character and his treatment at the hands of a fickle crowd is the perfect crystallization of the casual cruelty people are capable of towards those they consider "other".

Widow Tweed Gives up Tod, 'The Fox and the Hound'

Honestly, pretty much all of The Fox and The Hound is an emotional assault, but no moment is more shattering than when the kind Widow Tweed is forced to abandon Tod in the woods for his own safety. After Tod is orphaned as a baby fox, some local animals work together to make sure he's adopted by the loving farmer Widow Tweed and the two share a lovely bond -- until her horrible hunter neighbor Slade forces her to give up the painfully cute creature. Knowing that Tod is no longer safe with her, Widow Tweed drives Tod out to the forest and every single artful frame of animation in the sequence will absolutely shatter your heart. The contrast between Tod's eager excitement and the Widow's sorrowful grimace, the way Tod tries to comfort her when he sees she's sad, and ultimately the heartbreaking moment when she forces herself to let him go; it's all primo tear-jerker material, and the cherry on the salty tears cake is the shattered and confused look on little Tod's face as he processes the fact that he's been abandoned. Sure, the impossible friendship between Tod and Copper is bittersweet, but the lost love between Tod and Tweed is the true tragedy of this super sad tale.

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, 'Frozen'

Frozen wastes no time getting right to its messy emotional center. From the moment we see Anna and Elsa playing together as children, there's a sense of melancholy that hangs over the film. Elsa, gifted (or cursed) with magical Snow Queen powers, just wants to have fun with her little sister, but it almost costs the younger girl's life. From then on, Elsa locks herself away in a room, and with the fantastically catchy and gorgeously animated Do You Want to Build a Snow Man? sequence, we watch the sisters grow farther and farther apart over the years as Elsa's powers become more dangerous with each passing day. In just a few brief minutes, Frozen packs in a lot of heartbreak -- Anna, who's lonely and desperate to play with her big sister; Elsa, who's utterly isolated and terrified of what she can do; and their parents, who try their best to cope with a daughter they can't understand. And then the parents die. This is all in one brief song, and it's just a shattering way to start your movie. From a narrative perspective, it's also a damn impressive way to communicate years of a strained family relationship and catch the audience up to the action of the film, but above all, it's just sad as hell.

Baby Mine, 'Dumbo'

The film that turned legions of moviegoers against the circus in a snap, Dumbo really drives home the barbarism of animal cruelty throughout, but no single sequence cuts deeper than the moment Dumbo's mom tries to comfort him while she's locked up in a cell. Like so many of Disney's great stories, Dumbo is about the cruelty towards and exploitation of those we see as "other," which makes this particular scene a powerful encapsulation of a mother's love and the hopelessness of shielding your children from the cruelties of the world. Bullied, mocked and used for his giant flapping ears, baby Dumbo turns to his mother for comfort -- except she was already locked up and labeled mad for trying to protect him. Reaching her trunk through the bars, she caresses, cuddles and rocks her baby while singing the beautiful song. It's so tender and pure that it's immediately wrenching, but when little adorable Dumbo's eyes well up with tears.... reader, I need a moment.

Bye Bye Bing Bong, 'Inside Out'

Say goodbye to your innocence and imagination kids, because adulthood comes for us all. The loss of innocence underscores a lot of the saddest moments in Disney's storytelling playbook, but it's rarely been so endearing and heartbreaking as the moment Bing Bong disappears in Inside Out. Set inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl experiencing a major life shift, Inside Out follows her embodied emotions as they try to help her cope with the new changes, but the most magical and whimsical of them all is Bing Bong, her imaginary friend, who found himself a bit underloved in recent years as the young girl grew older. When his adventure with Joy drops them in the memory pit, threatening Riley's happiness forever, Bing Bong sacrifices himself to be erased from her mind in order to save joy. "Take her to the moon for me," he tells Joy with a sad but proud expression, and suddenly everyone watching the movie is crying. I have very fond memories of seeing this one at an advanced press screening packed with professionals trying not to cry and, suddenly, everyone in that theater came down with the darndest case of coughing and sniffles. No matter how old you get, you'll always miss your childhood sense of wonder and creativity, which makes watching Bing Bong fade into non-existence a poignant, relatable moment of sadness -- after all, we all have to grow up and face reality, but we don't have to like it.

Ray Saves the Day, 'The Princess and the Frog'

There are certain characters you expect to die in Disney movies. Parents, mentors, and figures of childhood innocence are popular victims, but you just don't expect a secondary comedic sidekick to bite the dust. Damn, Disney. Savage. That's exactly what happens in The Princess and the Frog. A Cajun firefly with a big heart and a bright shine, Ray is a romantic who once upon a time fell in love with the evening star Evangeline and dreams of reuniting with his lost love one day, which almost relieves the horror of watching him get pelted against a wall and crushed by the villainous Facillier's boot. Almost. Honestly, it's so harsh and so unexpected. When Ray battles the shadow villains, things look grim, but you think, "It's a Disney movie, they wouldn't possibly," and then, with the smirk of a stone cold killer, Facillier stomps the little lightbug under his shoe. The crunch of Ray's brave little demon-fighting body will haunt me for eternity. But as far as Disney deaths go, Ray's is really quite lovely in the end and when he dies, he joins Evangeline to shine forever in the night sky with his family cheering him on. Of course, that romance just makes the tears flow more freely, but certainly he got it better than, say, Bambi's mom.

Bambi's Mom Gets Hunted, 'Bambi'

Released in 1942, Bambi is one of Disney's OG emotionally traumatic offerings. The movie starts with a bang, quite literally, when Bambi's mother is deadass shot to death at the film's first act turn. But what Bambi's writers and animators really got right was the taste and restraint they displayed in the sequence, which never shows a moment of violence, placing you firmly in the baby deer's shoes as he sprints for survival after his mother spies a hunter in the woods. Bambi's mother pleads for the young deer to run for his life and he does, believing that his mother is with him the whole way, but when we hear the fateful shot, we know. Which is what makes it so sad when Bambi finally reaches the thicket and turns around to triumphantly call out "We made it!" But they didn't, he did, and suddenly he's in the winter woods all alone. The scene only lasts just over a minute, but it's been burned into the minds (and tear ducts) for decades of moviegoers.

Remember Me, 'Coco'

Any movie that traffics so heavily in themes of death and legacy is bound to have a few tear-jerking moments, but Coco really taps into your water works by side-stepping mawkishness and simple sentimentality in favor of a rousing, colorful adventure that slowly warms your heart before breaking it wide open. But unlike a lot of Disney's most devastating moments, Coco's big cry comes courtesy of a lovely, beautiful moment that's infinitely more happy than it is sad. When the spirited young Miguel dreams of becoming a musician and ending his family's generations-long ban on music, his adventures bring him to the Land of the Dead, where he connects with his ancestors and discovers the sad truth broke his family's heart. But with that knowledge comes the power to right the wrongs of the past, and when he returns to the world of the living, he comes back with a song, Remember Me. Singing to his dementia-stricken great-grandmother, he unlocks the memory of her father and brings her the peace she's been missing her whole life, at the same time allowing his great-great-grandfather's soul to live on in the Land of the Dead. It's beautiful and if you can get through this scene without at least verging on ugly-crying, I have concerns.

Ellie and Carl, 'Up'

Are you kidding me? This shouldn't even be allowed. In less than ten minutes, Pixar's Up takes us through a great love story and a heartbreaking loss with the story of Ellie and Carl. Friends since childhood, the duo remains inseparable through life and marriage, the pep in Ellie's step giving Carl joy the whole way through. Hungry for adventure, Ellie's enthusiasm is contagious and their love story is elegantly telegraphed to the audience through a series of brief vignettes. But their happiness is matched with moments of sadness, including the realization that they can never have children, and of course, Ellie's crushing death. Ellie the adventurer dies without making her dreams come true and seeing the world, a heartbreaking truth that spurs the movie to come and helps turn the curmudgeonly Carl into an instantly empathetic character. It's beautiful and devastating every single time, and one of the most effective ten minutes of emotional storytelling in the history of the animated medium.

Andy Gives up His Toys, 'Toy Story 3'

It took Pixar 15 years to roll out the first three films in the Toy Story franchise, which means a whole lot of kids got to grow up with Woody, Buzz and the gang alongside Andy. And for a lot of us, that means that Toy Story 3's heartbreaking but impeccable ending came at a moment when we were also faced with letting go the fancies of youth in favor of newfound maturity. Which also means that watching Andy give up his favorite (and our favorite) toys really stung like hell. The furnace scene almost took this spot on the list, but the ending of Toy Story 3 takes the cake as the perfect ending to a near-perfect trilogy. After three films of adventure, young Andy finally came of age and handed off his beloved toys, even Woody, to the neighborhood toddler, having one last great play with the whole bunch. Listening to Andy talk about his favorite childhood friends is like listening to a eulogy for your own childhood and it's a gorgeous, graceful goodbye.

Mufasa's Death, 'The Lion King'

Parents die. It's the natural order. You could say, it's the circle of liiiiiife. If Disney films have taught us anything of value, it's that life and adventure continue even after grief, and that often, your first true moment of grief will be the loss of your mother or father. The Lion King does a great job teaching that valuable lesson, but first it absolutely shatters your heart when the nefarious Scar send his brother,  King Mufasa, falling to his death in a stampede. But first, The Lion King lets you get to know Mufasa first, and you absolutely fall in love with him. He's a great king and an even better father; the kind of parent we'd all be so lucky to have, which makes it a hundred times worse when he dies. But Disney's storytellers are never ones to hold back when they can really wreck you. Instead, they full-on devastate you by having the young Simba run up to his father's still-warm corpse(!) and nuzzle him while he pleads with his father to come back. It's been almost 24 years since The Lion King came out and I'm still traumatized by the sounds of little Simba crying "You gotta get up!" There's no way around it, this one messed up a whole generation of moviegoers and there's a reason why it's considered one of the most iconic movie death scenes of all time.