FAVOURITE DOWNBEAT ENDING
A Boy and His Dog, that’s a film that used to be a fave of mine, haven’t thought about it in a while. Yeah, the first time I saw that ending, I thought, Whoah. I love the scene at the drive-in theater, where they’re watching this ultraviolent, rough-cut movie — like, this is what films will be after a nuclear apocalypse. Just sex and murder and cutting to the chase. I thought that was brilliant.
The Searchers
The Dark Knight
Chinatown
Nashville
Blade Runner
Citizen Kane
Vertigo
The Third Man
(similarly) The Long Goodbye
THREADS
Bad Lieutenant
Two-Lane Blacktop
Dead Ringers
The Brown Bunny
Easy Rider
Who can Kill a Child?
Stroszek
Rosemary’s Baby
The Swimmer
The Wicker Man (original)
Bunny Lake is Missing
Electra Glide in Blue
The Purple Rose of Cairo
The deer hunter, china town, crimes and misdemeanors
Leaving Las Vegas, Vertigo
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is certainle an obvious choice (well,to some of us, that is). Few horror films were allowed to end happily after that one.
(Though to be fair, there were precedents. ROSEMARY’S BABY came afew months earlier – and the novel, of course, came afew months before that. Plus Terence Fisher’s Hammer films may have ended witha restoration to order, but there was generally an ambiguous melancholy about them.)
My favorite, though, has to be the end of GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933. Wow. What a dash of cold water in the face that must’ve been to Depression audiences.
King and Country
I agree with angel an, I also think the purple rose of cairo – i was going to put it in my first posting but couldn’t decide if it was my “favourite” downbeat ending – it upset me so much! I didn’t think rosemary’s baby was that downbeat – just chilling!
The Passenger
The Last American Virgin
we’ve got “Brazil” but I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned “12 Monkeys/La Jatee”… That one is hard to top. I suppose “Vertigo” ties into it. In some ways so does “Brown Bunny” (more distantly).
anyway, others I don’t believe mentioned yet;
L’Argent / Mouchette / Pickpocket (Bresson was the master of downbeat endings)
Winter Light / Shame (Bergman wasn’t so bad either)
The Bed You Sleep In / Last Chants for a Slow Dance / Slow Moves (Jost)
My Own Private Idaho
La Notte
Ran
Dust in the Wind (Hou)
Thief
Ugetsu
Faces
I think if I had to chose one though, probably “Vertigo”.
Another vote for Funny Games. More than Dancer In the Dark, I think Breaking the Waves is one of the all time downer films. I wanted to punch anyone who said a word to me for at least an hour after seeing that one…sometimes you need time to yourself with these, you know? The Deer Hunter is good too, I would third (fourth?) that one as well. I didn’t really think that Vertigo was as downbeat as some do, it is certainly sad for the character, but for the audience? Not I.
How bout Inside? Irreversible has a fucked up ending, given that the story is told backwards. But the ultimate “punch the screen” ending has got to be Funny Games. I couldn’t believe it.
Wheweee! A good topic, and there’s so many “good depressing endings.” A few have already been mentioned above: The Mist (just when you thought there couldn’t be another decent movie made based on a Stephen King story) Au Revoir Les Enfants, Chinatown and Midnight Cowboy. Here are a few other of my favorites on this subject:
1) Leaving Las Vegas
2) American History X
3) The Wrestler
4) Swimming with Sharks
5) Days of Heaven
The one that came to mind when I read the title of this topic was The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. When I saw that for the first time in one of my film classes, I was blown away that a musical could have some heavy stuff in it and not just be all light hearted an goofy (not to knock the musical).
I also saw that people mentioned Weekend, which is another one that kind of blew me away. I can tell you, too, that the first time I saw it, it was in an early class after a long night of no sleep, so I dozed a bit in the middle, which made the movie just seem totally nuts by the end. When I watched it again later, it made more sense. A little, at least.
I’m a big fan of non-hollywood endings. It generally irritates me that they feel the need to slap a happy ending on almost everything, even if the lead up is somewhat far fetched and drawn out.
Those “all-that-for-nothing” endings, in which characters survive horrific ordeals throughout the film, only to succumb before the credits roll, are just brutal.
Grave of the Fireflies, El Norte and Das Boot spring to mind.
RAN gets my vote. One of the few movies where I’ve had to take a deep breath after I finished it.
I found the end of BREAKING THE WAVES strangely uplifting. Then again, it was a confusing movie in general, messing with a lot of my emotional reactions and expectations.
Has anyone seen The Sand Pebbles? the ending is awesome
SPOILER ALERT Lilja-4-ever
Nothing mentioned here tops Lilja-4-ever – after being abandoned, lied to, kidnapped, drugged, physically & sexually abused, she throws herself off a bridge.
Actually, when you think about it, the ending was a breath of fresh air, no?
The Great Silence
Oh god, the ending to The Mist was so depressing…Poor guy. My favorite downbeat ending is Requiem for a Dream. Also, why is it that nobody on this forum will ever mention American movies?
David Cronenberg’s endings are completely downbeat. At the end of Naked Lunch Bill and Joan re-enact their William Tell act. Though the screen goes to black, we know the tragic result. This gives way to Crash and the thrill-seeking couple, having barely survived a car crash, looks optimistically towards the future, another attempt, and, “Maybe the next time…” These characters have so deeply embraced their peculiar psycopathies that one hopes for their eventual success. Depressing, no. Downbeat, yes. And Liberating.
the mist teaches a good lesson 2 never give up hope!
Early kaurismaki
Good call on Cronenberg – definitely, The Fly is extraordinarily downbeat. I also second Grave of the Fireflies and Dancer In The Dark. An American film? In The Bedroom, with Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek.
Good call on Cronenberg – definitely, The Fly is extraordinarily downbeat. I also second Grave of the Fireflies and Dancer In The Dark. An American film? In The Bedroom, with Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek.
A few of my all-time favourites (although there are far too many to list – I think I only watch movies with downbeat endings for some reason). I probably I saw these when I was young and impressionable and used to love it when movies were brave enough not to cop out at the end. Not that I still don’t enjoy it now, but I like happy endings occassionally too nowadays.
Get Carter
Time Bandits (spent a great deal of my childhood coming to terms with that one).
Ran
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (OK, so I did laugh the first time – I was a morbid kid).
Repulsion
daisy
brazil for me too. howards end. (can I get back to you????!)