To complement the other thread on opening scenes.
I’ll start with The Usual Suspects
Assuming you’re not counting the text/static shot at the end, I think the final scene in Unforgiven is just about perfect.
“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
Michael Clayton’s last scene, when Clooney basically levels Tilda Swinton, is one of my favorites.
The warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The door closing on John Wayne in The Searchers.
The prison rehearsal in The Producers.
The ending of Drive (2011)
Ryan Gosling is sat in his car, with the wind blowing, injured, contemplating what to do, and the song A Real Hero (By College & Electric youth) quietly builds up momentum then reaches a crescendo, and he drives away.
Sulley’s smile in Boo’s bedroom - Monsters Inc
Planet of the Apes - “you maniacs!”
The Third Man - walking right past him
Big Night. Secondo wordlessly makes an omelette for his brother Primo.
Pulp Fiction.
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Have a good laugh on me: the first time I saw Raiders, I totally whooshed on the ending. I thought the warehouse was full of bogus Arks, and they were trying to collect all the counterfeit ones that had been stolen over the years. And even though WE knew it was the real deal, the Powers That Be wouldn’t accept what Indy told them the Ark did, so it was consigned to the warehouse. I saw it at a drive-in theater, in the rain, with the windows up and the air was getting thin.
The ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was really good.
You know which one. With the song and the explosions and the cowboy hat (not in that order).
“T’was beauty killed the beast.”
“The truth is . . . I am Iron Man.”
Very good!
Rocky.
The usual answer is:
Some Like It Hot
Yeah, that one is often cited as the funniest closing line, but I prefer My Man Godfrey.
Best ever might be Life of Brian.
Kiss me deadly by Robert Aldrich. Mike Hammer’s frantic search for Velda while in the room next door hell breaks lose (she really, really had to open that box, hm?) and the eerie, no, terrifying sounds when they finally get out just in time…only in this case, there is no just in time. Amazing camerawork in an astonishingly uncompromising example of a film noir that was considered “the greatest threat to american youth” by the Kefauver commission in 1955. :rolleyes:
The original The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (I’m not sure if they repeated the ending in the unnecessary remake cause I never saw that) by the way the drama finally hinged on something as insignificant as a sneeze.
The Silence of the Lambs when Hannibal melts into the crowd and the camera just holds the shot and lets the credits roll long after he’s gone.
1408 - there were two endings for this, but the one where the main character survives.
I didn’t like the movie but the twist at the end of Saw was pretty good