Favorite Movie Endings

I'm pretty sure there have been previous threads on the subject but a friend of mine asked me to post it here because he was curious what responses here would be. What do you consider the best movie endings? Now this doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending or the ending you wanted, but the ending is appropriate the story that you have been presented with up that final scene. What movies do you think have the best endings? I'll throw a few titles out there to get things rolling:

Hannah and Her Sisters...first of all I want to say that I think there are very few screenwriters out there who write better endings than Woody Allen and this is one of my favorites.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?..Haunting and creepy, just like the rest of the movie.

The Way We Were...Yes, we all wanted Katie and Hubbell to work out but we knew it was never meant to be, but the movie doesn't end with them being bitter enemies and I love that.

Murder By Death- That double reverse whammy ending was a doozy

Cassandra's Dream - Another double reverse whammy ending

Greedy- The final scene had me cheering

The Purple of Rose of Cairo- This one had me weeping the first time I saw it.

Happiness by Todd Solondz. I... guess it was a happy ending? I don't know, but it was perfect.



A Man Escaped by Robert Bresson. It says it all in the title, but the expected can oftentimes be exactly what is perfect---especially when the build-up is handled by a master like Bresson.



I also can't not pick Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. He did what needed to be done, exceeded the representational quality of film to create an artwork that actually enacts its meaning upon the viewer.

Great topic! I agree that Hannah and Her Sisters and Greedy are two perfect movie endings that make me smile just thinking about them.

Just going off the top of my head:

To Kill a Mockingbird While the fate of the accused, and the evil man responsible had come about, the former sad and the latter deserved, it was the small nucleus of the Finch family enduring (with the help of a watchful "angel") that made the ending perfect.

The Bridge on the River Kwai The tension of everything coming to a head, with the disbelieving utterence of "Madness! Madness" summing up the film.

The Road Warrior Our hero Max having ensured the survival of the besieged community, is left standing in the middle of a desolate highway, surrounded by carnage he took a huge part in, seemingly abandoned.

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

My 'best' movie endings are the credits when it's something I hated watching. I honestly can't think of a movie where the ending stays with me.

I'm a big fan of movies that leave that lasting impression in their last moments.

Recently I wrote about how much I liked the last act--and that includes the very last scene--of Aftersun despite having been a bit tepid on the film up to that point.

I love the ending of Memories of Murder, which crashes together the movie reality and the true-crime story that inspired it.

The very ending of A Touch of Zen is amazing, visually and thematically.

And it will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that I'll cite Brain Damage as having a phenomenal ending: weird, horrifying, a little funny, an ending-and-beginning, and just a powerful way to end an outlandish story.

Likewise, the ending of Cemetery Man is funny and sad and strange.

But how do you feel about post-credit scenes?

I hate those...of course!

And here's a (maybe?) controversial opinion: I really like the ending of Sunshine. And I'm not necessarily talking about the third act (which I don't mind as much as some others do), but the actual last moments of the film when (MAJOR SPOILERS, DUH)

Watching them eat shawarma after the credits in Avengers was clearly peak cinema.

I haven't seen this in ages but I loved that ending! A crazy, entertaining movie all the way through but the ending just sealed the deal with a certain person talking.

The ending of Lars von Trier's The Boss of it All was also pretty funny and unexpected. It definitely summed up the movie very well.

I wouldn't touch Avengers with a 10 foot remote control

And then the .

It's a wonderful kind of madness.

Very wise.

Nah not really wise of me. There's no unilaterally bad movies just movies that some or most don't like. I don't do superhero films, that's all. But I do watch stuff so cheesy that you could spread it on a saltine...and yet I'll love it.

A random jumble off the top of my head:


The Thing

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Room

The Book of Henry

The Best Years of Our Lives

The Little Foxes

The Dark Knight Rises

Avengers: Endgame

The Sixth Sense

Whiplash

10 Cloverfield Lane

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Burn After Reading

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington


Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

The Poker House

Rocky

The Diary of Anne Frank

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Slither

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey

The Sound of Metal made me question if it was time to retire from movie watching.

I'm not as down on endings as some people are, but my favorites would be:

The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Stalker (1979)

I'm probably missing some, but endings typically don't leave a large impact on me unless they feel "separate" from the rest of the film or change/add a new dimension onto the themes. Most of the time, even with films I consider among my favorites, they just feel like extensions of what I already love about them.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

What's Up Doc? (1972)
It ends with a line mocking the movie Love Story (1970) and a Bugs Bunny cartoon! (What could be better?)

I did get a kick out of the homage to the post-credit Ferris Bueller scene in the Deadpool post-credit scene!