What is your favorite ending?
The Passenger
Dead Ringers
Don’t Look Now
The Birds
Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train
Andy Warhol’s Empire
Darling
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (nice to see SOMEONE catching up, KJ)
Some Like it Hot
****(Four Stars)
Une condamne a mort s’est echappe
8 1/2
Lola Montes
Muriel
The Record of a Tenement Gentleman
City Lights
The Red Shoes
Salo
The ending of The Red Shoes is the one part of the film I didn’t like…
Anyway.
PICKPOCKET (Robert Bresson, 1959)
La Maman et la putain (Jean Eustache, 1973)
Sud pralad (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
Jeanne Dielman… (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
Stellet licht (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)
Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
“I was cured, all right.”
There may be some spoilers!! But who am I kidding, we’ve all seen these movies
2001 – Loves me some psychedelic freak outs.
Dr Strangelove – Mein Fuhrer! I can walk! Hysterical. Love the song.
Apocalypto – There goes the neighborhood!
Planet of the Apes – “You maniacs! You finally did it!”
Beneath the Planet of the Apes – A dying Chuck Heston detonating the “Alpha and Omega”
Six Sense – Yeah, I know, but at the time, it worked like gang busters.
Flesh for Frankenstein – Over-the-top Grand Guignol. Almost everyone dies!!! Bloody and creepy. Gotta love it.
Someone mentioned Chaplin’s City Lights – absolutely.
The Vanishing
The usual suspects
Boogie Nights
Paris Texas
Get Carter
Breathless
Local Hero
This is England
Koyaanisqatsi
John Cassavetes Faces
Woody Allen Husbands and Wives
@David
I was just going to add A.I. to this thread (as a result of reading some discussion of it on another board) & I spotted that you beat me to it. Yes. A lovely, lovely sad ending. David curling up with his mother as their “lives” both end & Teddy crawling up on the bed like a faithful pooch to sit there with David presumably for the rest of eternity …
And thankfully SS didn’t muck it up by laying things on with a trowel as he so often does.
The end of the greatest film of all, Sansho the Bailiff of course deserves its reputation, and i especially love this one:
The Green Ray (Rohmer)
2046, Ugetsu Monogatari, Kill Bill, The Deer Hunter, Sevmek Zamani.
chinatown ending
must see again some day, but remember feeling tremendously elated at the end of Zorba the Greek. I just don’t remember why…
The first movie that popped into my head was Ran. I think the ending is extremely powerful, and is a nice subtle close after all the violence in the climax.
Andrei Rublev. The ending left me so exhilarated, I’ve never experienced anything like it since.
Also the ending to The Mirror (Zerkalo), so simple and masterful.
I love the ending to Roman Holiday. For me, it is hands-down, the most touching, bittersweet, and lovely ending I’ve ever seen in any film. It makes me believe that Gregory Peck (not Audrey Hepburn, as wonderful and charming she is in the film) is the very heart of this unconventional romantic comedy masterpiece classic.
Other endings that I find quite perfect are Psycho, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Chungking Express.
Can’t stand Adam Sandler but got sucked into watching 50 First Dates. Found myself enjoying it but was sooooo sure they would mess the ending up. The face that they came up with an ending even better than I thought would be preferable was a genuine feel-good moment.
Dancer in the Dark
There Will Be Blood
Eyes wide shut (yes, I said it!)
The Thin Red Line (That final shot… good god)
Au Hassard Balthazar (Saddest moment ever…)
Drag Me To Hell
Downfall
Schindler’s List
Reservoir Dogs
Pan’s Labyrinth
I will take the liberty to list ending s
- In the Mood for Love – I never saw it coming, I thought they were going to get together…grrrr but it remained one of my favorite endings, set in Angkor Wat ruins, whispering secrets into holes…. The Godfather – as a teenager what can be better than sweet revenge…raging hormones and all…
-- Jules and Jim – I was agape at the end and my mouth never closed for the next few minutes…. Alexis Zorbas – dance at the end of all that happened, only a wonderful film can pull it off
-- Chinatown – futility of good intentions much like life… Pierrot Le Fou (Godard and death at end Trilogy – Contempt, Breathless and this)
-- Scenes from a Marriage Amarcord
-
— Company
I would watch these movies again and again just to get to the end, If I may…
Seabiscuit. That fade is marvelous.
The Mist
“This is England” – I like that the character played by Thomas Turgoose seems to have a true moment of clarity and forward progression, facing the camera as he begins his life with newfound power and knowledge.
“The Thing (John Carpenter)” – Guess we’ll wait and see…
“No Country for Old Men” – I believe there are very few movies who come full circle with closing lines as well as this. If you don’t understand it, you probably weren’t paying close enough attention.
“The Great Silence” – This ending works so well to me because Kinski is given less screen time, but actually speaks, in contrast to the hero of the film. Pretty heavy, and if you don’t like this ending, then watch the alternate “happy” ending and figure what makes more sense.
“A Clockwork Orange” – It’s hard to mention this ending without comparing it to the book, but I believe that by watching the film, we are carried through Alex’s adventures in a more detailed and familiar fashion, which allows us to, in some form, enjoy watching what he does. I think the ending of the book, being much more about Alex and his understanding of the things that he does, makes it clear that the story is about him and his embodiment of “A Clockwork Orange.” I feel that the film gives equal weight to both Alex and the system that tries to change him into a model citizen. I like the ending because I feel I am watching both of these subjects come to important conclusions; Alex is “cured,” and the system realizes in some sense that it cannot change it’s citizens’, only influence them.
La Dolce Vita – So tragic, prophetic and cathartic.
Chinatown – As perfect as any ending. A whole film set up to say, “Forget it Jake it’s Chinatown”, a line that really should not mean that much, but hits you like a ton of bricks, we call that genius where I come from.
Lawrence of Arabia – Everything about this movie is great, people complain about the ending being anti-climactic, but I have never seen anything so honest.
Carnival Of Souls ending, is……something, well I don’t now, is a experiment, between Surrealism, and Horror class-B……… EXELENT
Au Hasard Baltasar. No ending more moving.
Some recent ones…
Irreversible
Cleo from 5 to 7
Sans Soleil (thanks JH)
Platform
A couple of you have just mentioned it, Au Hassard Balthazar. The emotion of it took me by complete surprise.
After that I’d swap between a few e.g. Vertigo, Fitzcarraldo and United ’93 all for different reasons. Also have a soft spot for Ginger Snaps.
Edit: Forgot to put Whatever Happened To Baby Jane in there too.
Conor
The Truman Show – that ending gets me every time, just the contrast between his world and the real world. Argh, so amazing!
The Wrestler – awesome ending, just let’s you make up your mind whether it’s happy or sad.
Burn After Reading – not the greatest film ever but one of the funniest endings.