Tragic endings or happy endings?

Perhaps the most fundamental question of movies.

What are your views on happy endings vs tragic endings ?

I personally am somewhat neutral on the topic, in fact I may even prefer tragic endings when they’re properly earned. The one exception is probably LGBT romance movies, I think tragic endings are too much of a trope of that genre.

So what do you prefer ? A happy ending or a tragedy ? Or does it depend ?

I don't really have a preference. It depends on the context and what's more appropriate for the story. Lazy tragic endings can bug me, but effective tragic endings can be just as powerful as effective happy endings. I've seen many great example of both.

I have favorite movies I love that end happily and some that end tragically, but I think I tend to prefer tragic endings.

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Would you classify the end of Heat as happy or tragic?

Whatever suits the story. That being said, I am more likely to be put off by what I perceive as an unearned or poorly executed tragic ending than a happy one.

In order of personal satisfaction:

1) An earned happy ending
2) An earned tragic ending
3) An earned ambiguous ending
4) Artificially tacked-on happy ending
5) Artificially tacked-on ambiguous ending
6) Artificially tacked-on tragic ending

I’ve never watched Heat bizarrely enough. It’s kind of odd, there are so many exotic and weird movies I’ve watched but there are so many obvious movies that everybody has watched like Heat or Top Gun that I’ve just never watched barring the occasional snippet on tv here and there. I don’t know why, maybe it’s my contrarian nature.

Heat is a very good film, not ‘obvious’.

Oh, I’m sure it is. I will get around to watching it one of these days.

Well said by both of you. I hate the artificial tacked on ending...also I hate the lazy Scooby Doo ending, if you know what I mean by that.

Tacked on tragic endings make me almost viscerally angry, and I usually encounter them with subpar horror films.

Like, okay, this movie was mostly garbage. But you did get me to care just a little bit about their wellbeing. And then, for absolutely no reason, you kill them at the end just to be "edgy". NOPE.

I prefer tragic endings over happy endings... more things in life are tragic than happy... so in reality, that's what I choose.

I agree with you when it fits the story.

When it seems like the filmmaker threw something sad or tragic at the end just to evoke emotion from me as a viewer, well, I get put off because (1) now I'm sad and (2) at the same time I can feel that I'm being manipulated.

If a filmmaker is going to cynically toy with my emotions, I'd rather everyone in the movie be happy!

Yeah, what most people have said. It's what best serves the story. Anything forced/tacked-on, whether it's a "happy" or "tragic" ending, will diminish the end product.

For the sake of discussion, I'll say that I do find a good amount of films with "tragic" endings among my favorite films. There's something about an unexpected shock that just gets to me.

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More on this... I was thinking about romantic films and how 2 of my 3 favorites end up with the lead couple *not* together. However, my favorite one, which covers several years over which the lead couple are often on-and-off, does end with them together. The thing is that this always makes me think how a "happy" or "tragic" ending is all a matter of when you "stop" the story. It's all a matter of perspective and vision at the moment. I mean, if you stop The Mist five minutes early, you have an ambiguous ending; but if you added a 10-15 minute coda, where David gets his sh*t together after psychological treatment and therapy, where he meets and starts dating someone, then you have a sorta "happy" ending

There's a film (that I won't name for spoiler reasons) about a group of kids. It was charming. And then there was this (tacked-on feeling) epilogue where the narrator basically went "So anyway, what a great summer. Then we all grew up. Stevie died 20 years later. Peter died in a car crash. But we always loved talking about that great summer."

I was like . . .

If the film you’re talking about is what I’m thinking of then that ending was arguably the best part of the movie for me, barring the performance of a certain OITNB emeritus.

I'm talking about . I thought that the epilogue probably worked in the original novel, but felt very awkwardly pinned on in the film.

Oh I thought you were talking about

Yeah, I think whatever fits the narrative and tone (unless you want to subvert it, then do the other) or either if it's executed well.
I'm happy with movies ending in a positive way or in certain contexts, where justice is served, where goodness prevails, where love succeeds, what have you. But I'm also fine with bitter reality ruining everything.
I think it ultimately comes down to execution.