Best film endings of all time

[WilliamPitt]

Poll question: Best film endings of all time

[GOPisEvil]

1. Good choices, but I must go with the end to the best film ever made:

Casablanca!

Usual Suspects is good, too.

[ashling]

42. Interesting to note that "the usual suspects"

gets its name from a line in Casablanca.

:bounce:

[TahitiNut]

48. "The Sting"? "Mr. Holland's Opus"? "Psycho"?

I agree. Casablanca is truly the best film of all time. "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (That ending was a last minute rewrite, too.)

[GOPisEvil]

54. Oooh...The Sting was good too.

And, to the previous poster, you're right! I didn't even think of that. :dunce:

[BurtWorm]

72. The Sting and Psycho! Great choices!

:thumbsup:

[jayfish]

2. "To Live And Die In LA" -NT-

Jay

[MrSandman]

3. Bogey saying good bye to Ingrid...

For all the right reasons.
They'll always have Paris.

[Fleshdancer]

4. Either Usual Suspects,

Sixth Sense, or Unbreakable.

There's also that other movie that I can't remember the title...it's the one where Kevin Beacon had his full nude scene.

[peekaloo]

15. 'Wild Things' I believe

Neve Campbell and Bill Murray had 'em all snookered.

[Fleshdancer]

30. Ah yes, that's it

I loved the twists and turns in that movie

[DS1]

5. Deep Impact had a good start

[jus_the_facts]

6. Raiders....just 'cos I was on shrooms once...and that face meltin' off....

....was some SCARY shit!! :evilgrin:

[BlueEyedSon]

7. Some like it hot.

"Nobody's Perfect!"

[BurtWorm]

70. Good one!

That movie is as close to flawless as they come. :thumbsup:

[mitchum]

8. The look that Dunaway and Beatty exchange at the end...

of "Bonnie & Clyde" Heartbreaking.

[VOX]

51. A masterwork of editing.

A series of swift cuts heightens the emotion and the loss.

Great choice! :toast:

[Doctor_J]

9. Hard Times

Cheney (not DICK) finds that he has enough money for "the in-betweens", gives Poe and Speed $500 or so "to look after the cat", and strolls out of town.

Speed: For a man who came to town to make some money, you're sure leaving alot of it behind
Cheney: You're forgetting about the in-betweens
Speed (to Poe): He sure was somethin'
Poe: Let's go get the cat

You XX'ers may cry at the end of An Affair To Remember, but this one makes me get all misty...

[Faygo Kid]

10. Think you'll get more (aka, "Rosebud. . ."). Casablanca will win.

And well it should. But, you have bitten off a mighty big topic here. What about Hitchcock's "Rebecca," "North by Northwest," "Rear Window" or "Vertigo?" Comedy? The aforementioned "Some Like It Hot," "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Young Frankenstein?" I can't go on. My head is swimming. Oh yeah - what about "Jaws?" See, I told you so.

[chrisesq]

11. Either Se7en or Fight Club.

[neoteric lefty]

33. another

nod to Seven.

[fknobbit]

12. Hannable Lecter

"I'm having an old friend for dinner"

[MissMillie]

77. I like that one too (n/t)

.

[Bossy Monkey]

13. Do you mean ending or climax?

Raiders had a great climax, but the ending was intentionally anticlimactic. Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade was the one with a good ending.

People don't much remember (apparently), but the ending of Casablanca was Rick and Louis heading off to the Free French base (the "start of a beautiful friendship"). I myself voted for Casablanca, meaning the final scene with Bergman, but of course the actual ending is great, too.

[LiviaOlivia]

The Red Shoes

a dancer, a composer, a crazy boss and a train.


Honorable mention to Papillon, The Wild Bunch and The Sand Pebbles.

Last line from The Sand Pebbles:

"What happened? What the hell happened?"

[mitchum]

20. Good call on "The Wild Bunch"

"Pike...Pike..." Took me a few viewings over the years to twig to just what Ernie's deal was :)
A great movie

[-..__...]

14. Casablanca, Usual Suspects

Not mentioned...

Shane
Bridge Over the River Kwai
Planet of the Apes (original)

[SarahB]

16. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

was a good ending. I like movies that don't end in some false tale of "everything's going to be just fine". Those are often too cutesy sweet and nowhere near reality.

[HERVEPA]

17. The Graduate

and of course Casablanca.

[peekaloo]

18. Chinatown

*bleak mood*

[sir_captain]

19. Chaplin's City Lights

Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick agreed with me on this one!

But seriously, City Lights is an incredible film with an even more incredible ending. I encourage everyone to check out the new DVD.

[BurtWorm]

71. Another excellent choice!

Talk about heartbreaking! :thumbsup:

[Insider]

21. West Side Story

my old standby, good for any thread. but seriously, all those oscars can't be wrong.

"CHINOOOOO! come and get me too, chino"

bang

"YOU KILLED HIM! YOU ALL KILLED HIM!"

"chino, do you have another bullet for me? how many? enough for him, and him?"

te adoro, anton

boohoo boo hoo hooooo

[salinen]

22. Bridge on the river kwai

[VOX]

53. "Madness! Madness!"

A classic.

[kodi]

23. Parallax View or Manchurian Candidate

thrilling, chilling.

[arwalden]

24. I Voted For Thelma And Louise...

But I wish it had ended differently. I really cared about the characters and wanted a happy ending... or at the very least a Thelma & Louise II.

-- Allen

[Bertha Venation]

65. It DID have a happy ending:

Callie Khoury's Oscar! In her acceptance speech she said "For everyone who wanted a happy ending to 'Thelma & Louise,' this is it." :loveya:

[theoceansnerves]

25. planet of the apes?

the original (and i hate that i have to differentiate between two of them.)

[indigo32]

79. Yes

eom

[Fenris]

26. The Empire Strikes Back

If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.

He told me enough. He told me you killed him.

No. I am your father.

[FDRrocks]

27. Army of Darkness

by far!

[sir_captain]

28. Which ending?

There are two...

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

29. "The Wild Bunch" and the Italian film "Il Sorpasso"

The bad guys who are the film's good guys decide to face the Mexican warlord and rescue their friend, knowing they will die. They machine gun (gattling gun?) the entire encampment and each and every one of them die. It uses a hellish Hollywood finish of blood and violence but with no traditional Hollywood message. There is no moral center in the film. The heroes are flawed bad men. They are old and ugly and over-the-hill. Yet, we feel a certain joy at the end as they go out in a blaze of violence and a sadness or emptiness when others arrive to find them.

Il Sorpasso is a fantastic Italian film of the early 60's. I saw it with subtitles on TV when I lived in Oakland many years ago and I actually went out and bought the video: Vittorio Gassman (a great Italian actor) and the French actor Jean Louis Trintignant, directed by Dino Risi. It's about a shy law student (Trintignant) who is studying for a college exam when this loud-mouthed Italian guy (Gassman) who is basically good but overly self-assured and bombastic asks to use his telephone. He ends up inviting the shy law student in his sports car driving cross country through Italy, trying to get the shy guy to open up (and also getting the law student to finance their adventures with his money). At the end, just as the shy college student starts acting more cool and looks forward to going back to his dorm to ask that girl next door out on a date, the loud-mouthed guy tries to pass a car at high speed and drives off a cliff into the Mediterranean. The loud-mouthed self-assured guy of course manages to save himself. The shy guy gets crushed on the rocks below. Although I don't like Hollywood remakes, I'm surprised that a film this good was never Americanized and updated into an American film, as Hollywood seems to be short on ideas of late.

[VOX]

52. The flawed "heroes" of "The Wild Bunch" are full of mythical life...

Thus the enormous sense of loss when they are gone.

Good call on this one -- :toast:

[_Wayne_]

31. A great topic-here's my top 10

Best movie endings ever are as follows...

#1 The Shawshank Redemption

#2 Apollo 13

#3 Citizen Kane

#4 Fight Club

#5 Singin' in the Rain

#6 Do the Right Thing

#7 Jaws

#8 Dead Poets Society

#9 The Wizard of Oz

#10 In the Bedroom

[Dr Fate]

32. The Original "Planet of the Apes"...

"You bastards!!!..."

Good ol Chuck...

[GumboYaYa]

34. The Bicycle Thief, when Ricci has to chose whether to steal the bike.

IMO this is one of the best scenes in the history of cinema. I always pull for him to steal the bike.

[opiate69]

35. Four Rooms

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

57. I just watched that the other night. I loved Ted the bellhop. n/t

n/t

[grannylib]

36. Two of my faves have great endings: Hitchcock's 'Rebecca' and

'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' has my all time best ending...I cry every time I see it *lol*

[proud patriot]

37. "A Boy And His Dog"

Great ending :evilgrin:

[pfitz59]

39. I second that flavor!

Snarf snarf!

[TahitiNut]

47. Hey!! Women aren't supposed to like that movie!

It's funny as hell, though... fer sure! {burp!}

[MI Cherie]

66. But ... but ... but ...

... the young Don Johnson was SOOO cute! We are such suckers for a pretty face, we can forgive anything!

:evilgrin:

[Ricdude]

38. Fight Club n/t

[TheMightyFavog]

40. Apocalypse Now.

That sacrifice scene was really fucked up.

[Kool Kitty]

41. "Forget it, Jake-it's Chinatown."

[democracyindanger]

43. Tampopo

A movie that's a study of food and what it means to people. The final scene, under credits, is the bow on the package. No other film has ever been wrapped up so perfectly.

[Paul Hood]

44. Cooley High

Preacher comes late, out of the bushes to Cochise's burial. He stands over the grave remembering the good old days and the "high nights" of their youth. And he spills a little wine for all the brothers who aren't there. Then he jogs away to the song "I'll Be There" by the Four Tops, to become a screenwriter.

[neverborn]

45. Memento and Identity.

[alittlelark]

46. Thelma and Louise

Talk about living and dying by your beliefs!!!!

[gottaB]

49. The Shame

Breaking the Waves
Pieces of April
The Soft Skin
Leaving Las Vegas
Girl on the Bridge
Respiro
In the Mood for Love
The Shame (Bergman)

--definitely The Shame. I will never forget that.

[Pert_UK]

50. "Hold on lads, I've got an idea...........errrrr..............."

The Italian Job.....the original one with Michael Caine!

P.

[LagaLover]

55. There's no doubt, it was "No Way Out"

[FunBobbyMucha]

59. Da, Comrade.

[ScreamingMeemie]

56. There are too many to pick just one. The Deer Hunter, A Man for All

Seasons, The Agony and the Ecstasy...I could go on...

[FunBobbyMucha]

58. I enjoy all the ones mentioned, but would humbly suggest adding...

the new version of "Dawn of the Dead" to the mix. If you haven't been to see it yet, stay thru the credits, you'll see the truly heartbreaking and scary ending.

[BurtWorm]

73. The original Night of the Living Dead had a great, bleak ending as well.

:scared:

PS: The original The Vanishing (the Dutch-French one) had another great bleak ending.

[terrya]

60. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"

I loved the ending to it. The encounter with the alien spaceship, the return of the airmen abducted decades earlier (and none having aged at all), Richard Dreyfuss' character leaving with the aliens.

One of the best film endings ever.

Terry

[Burma Jones]

61. Kurosawa - Yojimbo

As Mifune shakes off the dust and rambles on to another town.

[vi5]

62. Seven....

Bleak endings are the best.

[jpgray]

63. Brazil. Love that ending (nt)

[bif]

64. The Game

You had no idea what was up until the last 5 minutes of that movie.

[Vladimir]

67. Godfather III

[skypilot]

68. The hand at the end of "Carrie"

[SaveElmer]

69. Gettysburg...the Good Guys won !!!

;-)

[Rabrrrrrr]

74. "The Thing", a perfectly bleak ending to a perfectly nihilistic movie

Carpenter is genius.

[jmowreader]

75. Death Race 2000!

No, I'm not kidding.

Other films that had good endings: The Warriors, Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke, Full Metal Jacket, and of course Black Rain.

[MissMillie]

76. The Color Purple

Shug and her dad making up and Celie getting her sister back (and Albert redeeming himself in order to make that happen).

Good stuff.

[BurtWorm]

78. "Dr. Strangelove"

[MI Cherie]

80. Swordfish ...

... both endings! I love it when they give alternate endings on the DVD!

Other good endings:

Catch Me If You Can
American Graffiti
... they give a little bit more on what happened later.

Identity
Phone Booth
Matchstick Men
... it gives a kick to an otherwise "why did I watch this?" movie.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
... just because!

[PVnRT]

81. The Killing Fields

n/t