Der Siebente Kontinent (1989)
Grave of the Fireflies. Who says anime can’t have emotional impact?
i agree with a lot of the choices here, especially I Stand Alone, Requiem for a Dream, A Clockwork Orange, and Breaking the Waves. I’d add Carlos Reygadas’ Japon to the list, too — the final shot is so gorgeous and painful — as well as The Marriage of Maria Braun.
Wow. Lots of good discussion on this one. Some of my favorites have already been mentioned: Nights of Cabiria, Passion of Joan of Arc, La Strada. I like Grave of the Fireflies and Dancer in the Dark despite the melodrama. Let me add:
Lost in Translation (truly poetic to me)
Casablanca (can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned. It isn’t too Hollywood for me)
Oasis (an obscure Korean movie that hit me in the gut)
and my favorite ending of all time: Once upon a Time in the West. It’s my favorite Sergio Leone shootout. You finally realize how cruel Peter Fonda’s character truly is and why Charles Bronson MUST kill him.
kids. definitely.
requiem for a dream. absolutely.
Well, call me a hack, but I have to say De Palma’s Carrie. Mortifying.
Hoskins at the end of The Long Good Friday.
Open Water: the woman, alone, deciding her own fate, rather than leaving it up to the sharks.
I don’t think these have been mentioned: Straw Dogs and Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
I definitely second A Short Film About Killing and Stroszek. And speaking of Herzog, Even Dwarfs Started Small left me with a very weird feeling.
That final shot in “Public Enemy” when Mike Powers opens the door to the house and Tom is tied up and falls to the floor dead.
Maybe not the most dramatic or the greatest, but it sure traumatized me when I was 10.
Traumatic: Gus Van Sant’s Elephant – you know happens, but the fact that they don’t show you leaves your mindto wander to the darker possiblities, if there are any.
Dramatic: Tarkovsky’s Solaris – Really makes you think.
Most definitely, “Irreversible” had the strongest final minute I have ever seen in any motion picture. “Chinatown” is a good entry as well as “There Will Be Blood”; for the latter, I knew it was coming but I didn’t expect the spectacle that would be the “I’m finished”.
There Will Be Blood is the most recent example that comes to mind. The end of No Country for Old Men is also quite devastating in it’s honest admission that some troubles are not for certain men, that their hopes lies in their death and freedom from the perils of the world.
If I might evoke a television show, even though this is a site for movies, I will evoke the conclusion of the Sopranos. Utterly profound, baffling, perfect.
The Deerhunter is an ending that haunts me always. Such a perfect depiction of the hopeless grief of the situation. Scrambled eggs, booze, God Bless America.
Though I won’t argue with any of the titles I’ve read so far, for me it’s “Days of Wine and Roses” with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. I first saw the film when I was about 13 and I think it made the impression it did on me simply because…..the film did NOT end happy. Nobody died at the end of the film, but it sure as heck doesn’t fall under many people’s definition of a happy ending. And to this day, I STILL can’t watch the ending and not cry…………..
Sergio Corbucci’s Spaghetti Western The Great Silence has as shocking an ending as I’ve ever seen. I’ll never forget it. Unfortunately, not many people have seen it since it was never released theatrically in the U.S. It’s my favorite western and features Klaus Kinski playing as memorable a villain as there’s ever been. This film needs a Criterion release ASAP!
“ass to ass”
you know what i’m talking about… Requiem for a Dream.
When I was 2, my parents took me to see GREASE. It was my first movie. I was apparently entranced and completely silent with wonder for the whole thing. They say that, when it was over, I cried and screamed “AGAIN! AGAIN!” I haven’t had such a severe reaction to anything since, but I keep looking…
Recently ? The Mist.
I could not believe they actually went there.
not really disturbing, but the ending of no country for old men stayed with me, as did the ending of talk to her.
the ending (read begging) of irreversable with the 2 guys in the motel room left me feeling sick
Dramatic ending: it’s pretty hard to top Wilder’s ‘Ace in the Hole’ – now that’s the way to end a film!
Anyone seen a nice little lighthearted flick called “Vengeance is Mine”? It’s Japanese and it’s about a man on the loose!
The ending to that is probably one of the most impacting I’ve seen in a while. Leave it to a good filmmaker to make murder spiritual and poetic and terribly haunting.
Yeah, I’d have to agree with the ending for “The Mist”. I don’t know if it was good that Darabont decided to go that far, but I respect the man for having the guts to film the scene. It screwed up my week completely. Couldn’t stop thinking about it, it just shook me up that bad.
Other than that, the other ending I can think of at the top of my head was “A Ma Seour!”. That just came out of nowhere, just totally took me by surprise. It was shocking and bloody and perverted and completely off-tone from the rest of the movie… but man, that was nasty stuff. My introduction to the works of Catherine Breillat.
Yes! The Mist. That was a doozy of a movie. The riskiest American “horror” film in ages with an ending like that. (If only they’d released in B & W like it was originally intended!)
So I’ve heard 29 Palms (?) has a horribly traumatizing last few minutes. Any comments?
Requiem for a Dream terrified me as a teenager. I don’t think I’ll ever watch that movie again. It might not be as scary as I remember it being. Show that to kids….no one would do drugs.
Also, when they slaughter the animal at the end of Apocolypse Now. That stuck with me. Made me feel strange. Like the scene earlier in the film when they are all eating the shrimp and roast beef….the squishy noises.
Oh yeah, Don’t Look Now. What was up with that little troll guy? That freaked me out too.
I’ll third Herzog’s “Stroszek”…..just a man in a strange land, riding a ski lift, with a gun…all while chickens crazily dance. My jaw dropped on that one.
There haven’t been many ‘wow’ endings for me in a while…..maybe “There Will Be Blood”……I was the only one to stand up in the theater and applaud. Everyone gave me an evil stare after that gesture. I thought it was poignant….bastards.
I see a lot of people mentioning Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark, but my favourite dramatic Lars von Trier ending is that of Dogville.
This probably says a lot about me, but it is one of the most satisfying endings to a film that I’ve ever seen.
Los Bastardos, by Mexican director Amat Escalante.
I highly recommend you guys watch that film.
The ending was basically the same as if a fist came out of the screen and punched me in the face.
I wish I could talk more about it, but I don’t want to give away the ending.
Just watch.
I recently saw au hasard balthasar for the first time and can’t get it out of my head.
Boy A
Vertigo for drama… and The Palm Beach Story for comedy!
The ending of Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces is complex, and subtle, but also morally devastating – due to what you gradually learn about the two primary characters. If the film has twin interpretations – one a Quixotic pursuit of freedom, the other a horrifying avoidance of responsibility, the ending really hammers it home.
The ending of L’Eclisse, simply because it’s so unexpected and visually striking.
The ending of The Conversation. All the many disparate themes of the film lock together; if you’ve seen the film – think about (a) the main theme of the film (the type of work the principal character does for a living), and then (b) think about what the camera is quietly doing, while the character does his thing in that long final scene. As great Coppola, this film may not knock Godfather s, or Apocalypse out of the running as his best, but (that noted) it is still a great, great film, and definitely Coppola’s most underrated. And the things it says about the intrusions of technology into our everyday lives make it a very prescient film indeed.
I first saw the film Being There when I was 10. Much of it went over my head, but I got enough of it, and it’s at the foundation of my film-o-philia. The ending is magical realism (think Gabriel Garcia-Marquez), wonderfully done, and the varied spiritual interpretations of the principal character are nicely underlined there. Beautifully shot.
jimmymarkum
Deep End (1971)