Memento.[spoiler]
Yes, I know it is not really the end.[/spoiler]
Regards,
Shodan
Birdie
The Verdict
Apocalypto - out of the frying pan, into the fire
Beautiful Thing - dancing
The Color Purple - redeemed / reunited
The Dark Crystal - apotheosis
Fight Club - watching the world fall away
Gattaca - pee left handed before you reach the stars
Joe vs the Volcano - those darn suitcases!
Memento - the beginning, middle, and end
Mission to Mars - holographic powerpoint
Serenity - River’s rampage, restoration
Se7en - what’s in the box?!?
Skyline - everyone else hates it but I love it’s twistedness
Shortbus - let’s just bring in the marching band
Slumdog Millionaire - hey, it’s not why I’m here, but thanks for the million anyway
The Fall - I don’t like your ending, I demand a new one, OK that’s better thanks
The Matrix - machine code
The Princess Bride - maybe a little kissing wouldn’t kill me
Young Einstein - splitting the beer atom
Watchmen - 35 minutes ago
Inception - old men, filled with regret
Office Space: Peter finally gets a productive job (albeit construction), Samir and Michael also get new gigs, Initech burns down, and Milton winds up on a beach somewhere with the money.
It got mentioned twice in the other thread, but the ending to The Mist really belongs in here. The ending to that movie was like getting kicked in the solar plexus. Fucking brilliant.
“It’s the stuff dreams are made of.”
-The Maltese Falcon
History of Violence, when he just sits down at the table for dinner.
It’s not a great film by any measure, but The Lost Boys has, hands down, one of the best endings in movie history.
“…all the damn vampires.”
I guess it’s not technically the ending, but I loved the “kicks” scene at the climax of Inception.
You know it’s coming; they’ve spent enough time setting it up; but still the breathless series of kicks is like coming up from drowning, through several layers of water.
I think the ending of Fail-Safe was perfect.
A series of shots of all sorts of people in the city going about their business, then a staccato burst of stills of each of the people you’ve just seen moving, then a blinding white screen of nothingness. More meaningful and more powerful than just showing a nuclear fireball.
Nailed it (see what I did there?)
Again, not necessarily a great film, but one movie that I think did an excellent job of pulling people in at the end was Quarantine. I saw it in the theatre, and as the credits began, not a single person got up. Though I see movies literally every weekend to review them, I can honestly say I never saw that happen before or since – usually it seems like at least a quarter of the audience is packing up to leave as the credits start to roll. Black Swan came close, though, with only a couple of people bolting for the door.
“Big Night” - the long scene of the two brothers making breakfast with no dialog.
Yup. And it was perfect; just watching them, you knew what they were feeling.
Two-Lane Blacktop
This is a bit of a car nut movie from producer Monte Hellman that I saw at the drive-in movie in '73 or '74. I was enthralled and told my girlfriend to put her shirt back on, we were watching the movie.
The characters don’t have names, there is The Driver, James Taylor (yeah, the singer), The Mechanic, Dennis Wilson (of the Beach Boys) driving a '55 Chevy, and they meet Warren Oates in a role that should have won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, driving a new '70 GTO Judge. Also a young Harry Dean Stanton as a gay hitchhiker, and Lauri Bird as The Girl. Even the cars get equal billing as stars during the final credits.
The movie starts out as two rival teams racing across country for pink slips. Somewhere along the way they all bond and the race becomes secondary.
At the end, The Girl hops on some stranger’s motorcycle and leaves all three men.
James Taylor is last seen driving off, punching through the gears, and then the film breaks in the projector and burns and melts off the screen. The best ending for a movie that started nowhere and in the end characters realized they had nowhere to go.
It was genius on Monte’s part. Maybe not the best ending to a movie, but certainly the best one for this movie, one of my personal favorites.
James Taylor and Dennis Wilson can act about as well as your dog can sing. But this is a movie that connoisseurs should see.
…no-no. BEST ENDINGS… not shock for the sake of shock endings.
…seriously… Yes it’s a great visual but loathsomely stupid. Why does he keep all the water tanks WHY???
My Favorite Year, starting with “Porthos!”
I’m surprised no one has mentioned A Boy and His Dog.
Has there ever been a more [ahem] satisfying ending to a film?
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Gone Baby Gone. Ben Affleck’s 1st director job. Breaks my heart that the mother didn’t know the kids toys name. You knew she was a miserable person.
toy story 3