Stalker
The Mirror
The Seventh Seal
Dr Strangelove
Apocalypse Now
Citizen Kane
Corbucci’s The Great Silence
Okamoto’s The Sword of Doom (Wells’s The Lady from Sanghai)
Stalker
Mysterious Skin
Paris Texas
Close Up
Stranger Than Paradise
Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Persona
Im a sucker for a good twist ending, thus Soylent Green gets me every time.
Mouchette
Tokyo Sonata
Night of the Hunter
The Wind Will Carry Us
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Colossal Youth
Winter Light
Throw Away Your Books, Rallye in the Streets!
always loved the ending of Bottle Rocket…Dingnan getting caught during the heist then dramatically messing with his friends to bust him out of prison…funny yet tragic
THE SACRIFICE
THE STALKER
ZORBA THE GREEK
SUBARNAREKHA
DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE
Spirit Of The Beehive
I love the monologue at the end of American Beauty…
There Will Be Blood, Pulp Fiction, Oldboy!
life of brian
In addition to the excellent endings mentioned above (I’m glad someone finally added the Antonioni films + JULES ET JIM), how about:
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
CORNER IN WHEAT (Griffith, 1909)
NOSFERATU
A WOMAN OF PARIS
MODERN TIMES
THE KID
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
THE MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA
UN CHIEN ANDALOU
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC
OUR DAILY BREAD (King Vidor, 1934)
THE LAST LAUGH (not the “tacked-on” happy ending)
THE BLUE ANGEL
BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING
GRAND ILLUSION
CITIZEN KANE
LADY FROM SHANGHAI
WHITE HEAT
DOUBLE INDEMNITY
SUNSET BOULEVARD (“I’m ready for my close-up”)
BICYCLE THIEVES
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
ON THE WATERFRONT
A FACE IN THE CROWD
JOHNNY GUITAR (two women shoot it out!)
IMITATION OF LIFE (Sirk, 1959) – especially Mahalia Jackson singing the hymn
THE KILLING
THE SEARCHERS
LA JETEE
WAVELENGTH
O LUCKY MAN!
PERFORMANCE
ANNIE HALL
THE CONVERSATION
NIGHT MOVES
THE GRADUATE
MEDIUM COOL
PIXOTE
BLACK GIRL
BELLE DU JOUR
Back to the Future.
The ending is actually mitigated by the fact that there are sequals, which was not the initial plan as far as I know. Taken on it’s own, the ending is pretty funny.
Pretty much every great movie ever has been mentioned on this thread.
Comrades (1986)
Nostalghia (1983)
Mouchette (1967)
Quatre nuits d’un rêveur (1971)
Így jöttem (1965)
Údolí včel (1967)
Lebedyne ozero-zona (1990)
Warum läuft Herr R. Amok? (1970)
La Captive (2000)
Maboroshi no hikari (1995)
Natvris khe (1976)
I’m sure I have hundreds of options, but the first off the top of my head would be …………………………………..Annie Hall.
Annie Hall
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Graduate
There Will Be Blood
Dancer In The Dark – I know its disturbing, but I think I love it because it really affects me.
Memento
The Prestige
The Life of David Gale
A Clockwork Orange
Psycho
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
No Country For Old Men
I think people have pretty much said them all.
I still say Spirit of the Beehive has the best ending, because it makes me feel so hopeful and frightened and sad all at once. It’s like a beam of light bursts back on in the darkness, but it’s oddly different than what has gone before. But it’s really one of the happiest endings I think I’ve ever seen, but it is made great because it is masked in depression and sadness. It actually brings me to tears, because I have so many strong emotions at once. It really affects me.
before sunset.
Since I haven’t seen it mentioned here.
Dogville
There is so many to chose from, but if i had to widdle it down to a few then ‘2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY’ has a masterful ending, with an enchanting musical score and its powerful imagery of the iconic star child floating in space, i would say it is one of the best film endings. Another one of my favorite endings is ‘THE PUBLIC ENEMY’ (1931), after a dramatic shoot out which we never actually see (but we hear it), Cagney comes stumbling out into the wet and rainy street, he falls to his knee’s, and then says the most famous line of the film…….. “i aint so tough”, then he drops dead. its an ending you got to see (its on youtube). Then there are the ones that everybody has seen like FIGHT CLUB, BASIC, THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968) , WITHNAIL & I (withnails speech in the rain), GLADIATOR.
Oh!, and another really good ending is from ‘FALLEN’ (1998), but i dont want to spoil it for anyone who aint seen it yet. but its good.
The ending to MAY, by Lucky Mckee
SPOILERS::::::::::::
May has finally finished collecting all the necessary parts to create her new “doll”, Amy, but realizes that she didn’t supply Amy with any eyes. May takes a pair of scissors and pries her lazy eye out of her own head and sticks it on Amy’s face. As she writhes in agony, May curls up to Amy’s lifeless body of mismatched body parts and pillow stuffing. Then, as she starts to drift off to sleep or possibly death, Amy’s hand reaches up to brush away May’s tears. Roll credits.
“Mother of mercy! Is this the end of Rico?”
Ace In The Hole
Chinatown
There Will Be Blood
A Clockwork Orange
Shaun Of The Dead
Fat City
The 400 Blows
Irreversible
Nights Of Cabiria
Fight Club
Midnight Run
Paper Moon
The Lives Of Others
King Of Kong
The ending of the original The Vanishing disturbed me so much that I couldn’t move for about five minutes. I had a similar reaction to the recent The Strangers (“Because you were home.” It’s not a great film, but that ending was chilling).
The ending of La Strada was so good that my foreign film-phobic partner declared the second the film finished, “THAT is ART!”
Also…
The Others (“This house is ours…”)
Memento (Consider my mind blown. Then put back together, and blown again.)
In the Mood for Love (When the music swells, I lose it every single time)
Lost In Translation (Perfect summation of these characters and their journey, shared and separate)
The Prestige (I knew what was going to happen, I just didn’t know how Nolan was going to get away with it. He did, of course. Brilliantly.)
The Blair Witch Project (Felt like a snuff film. In a good way.)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Brilliant)
Monsters, Inc. (“Kitty!”)
Death Proof (In the theater where I saw Grindhouse, people were applauding not only when it finished, but throughout the entire ending sequence.)
has anyone mentioned altman’s the player? – such a clever way to end a great film.
barry lyndon
brief encounter
full metal jacket
oldboy
American Beauty
Cop
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Some really good choices here… some I thought were ones that only impressed ME, like the end of MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL.
The policeman puts his hand over the camera. “Right, that’ll be enough of that.” Black screen. Curtains! Finito! No credits, no nothing.
What brilliance… what chutzpah!
BONNIE & CLYDE, easily. I’ve seen it— what? 25 times? More?—— and it guts me every time.
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S. You know how it goes. Reduces me to a puddle every time. Mancini’s music is devastatingly effective.
IL BIDONE. Broderick Crawford is an old swindling con artist. We’re almost sure he’s going to mend his dishonest ways… he’s shown several signs of wanting to repent and reform, hasn’t he? Yet he gets beaten up by some fellow thugs…. and left on the side of a rocky, barren mountain to die. A serene cluster of nuns and church-children go dancing by, on the road above. He calls out to them. They don’t hear him. They disappear around the corner from view. THE END. Oh, God! What a devastating end. Again, what chutzpah on the part of Fellini to give us that harrowing, sudden, downbeat ending.
I’m glad someone mentioned the end of Rohmer’s LE RAYON VERT. So sweet. The girl sees the green flash… and maybe… just maybe…. has found herself a boyfriend.
But the prize for me has to be NIGHTS OF CABIRIA. Giulietta Masina is an old whore, utterly destroyed. She serendipitously falls in line with the unknown children who are gaily singing.
She TURNS TO THE CAMERA -— TO US, THE AUDIENCE——- AND BREAKS THE FOURTH FUCKING WALL—— How many directors would dare do that in a wholly fictional film????
Breaking the fourth wall could potentially destroy the credibility of a whole film, yet…..——
…..and her face is that heartbreaking mixture of tears…. and just a glimmer of hope on her lips.
Oh, I tear up just thinking about it. What an ending.
“Papa spoke to me” – Through A Glass Darkly.
So beautiful.
Blair Witch Project
off the top of my head: The Holy Mountain, so classic, so brilliant ‘lets go out into the real world’. i mean, the absolute madness all the way through, that ending is just…brilliant. the climax of Apocalypse Now, and those shots of Martin Sheen in front of Kurtz’s worshippers….
Jamie Mattick
I’m just glad know one has said Cache