More Lars von Trier. Aside from being one shithead of a creepy misogynist (Björk hated him), he is the king of bleak. I won’t willingly sit through any of his dismal work ever again.
His douchebagginess outweighs his dismalness. For that reason I’m out.
The Thief (1997)
A bleak but captivating Russian film.
I hope to go to my deathbed without ever seeing a Lars von Trier movie. What a tool.
Being John Malkovich. The only character in the movie who isn’t a monster is Malkovich himself, and he ends up suffering a fate far worse than death.
Agreed. The cinematic ending of The Mist was mean for the sake of being mean. Supposedly, King prefers Darabont’s ending… but then again, he also did a lot of drugs over his life.
I’ve always considered the novella’s ending to be one of the better endings King has ever written.
Gallipoli. I don’t care if it wasn’t 100% historically accurate, it was gut-wrenching.
I agree with CalMeacham about On the Beach with its Waltzing Matilda finale.
There is still time…brother.
Seven.
“What’s in the box?!?!”
Eh. I knew what was in the box the first time I saw it. But I knew she was dead woman walking when we met her. When we find out she’s preggers, that’s 100% confirmed. Just a lame movie.
Inside - the villain climbs up the stairs and cuts the baby out of the lady, killing the lady. She takes the living baby and rocks it back and forth in a rocking chair. It’s even worse when you see it.
Martyrs - Make sure you see the original French one. Girl skinned alive. And more.
Goodnight, Mommy - Again, see the original, this time in German. They set their mother on fire and she burns alive…
The 2008 film Valkyrie has a pretty bleak ending: evil wins and the good guys all die. Bryan Singer does try to sell the idea that their rebellion was successful in inspiring others, in order to lessen the dismal sight of all those men being hanged or shot—but it’s small comfort.
My problem with Se7en was that I watched it on a (non-large screen) TV and the lighting was so dark that I could barely see what was going on.
Are you recommending this movie?
I would actually recommend another movie from the same director more.
Too much. Redacted.
j
To be honest, there are no good guys in that film. The cabal only wanted to kill Hitler because he was losing the war.
Hitler was still trying to find and punish all the conspirators a year later, when the war was almost over.
All Quiet on the Western Front.
The whole movie is bleak, but the final segment, where they decide on one last charge after the treaty has been signed (but before it takes effect) just to satisfy the General’s ego…truly tragic.
Made worse by the fact that it’s what actually happened (I mean the characters are fictional, but that ass hole actually did cause thousands of meaningless deaths because he wanted to take some territory)
I think that was a dismal-appearing ending, but was actually uplifting if you’d paid attention to the movie.
It was made clear throughout the movie that you can’t actually change the past. The whole point of everything they did with the time travel was to acquire a sample of the virus, so they could create a vaccine in the future, allowing humanity to return to the surface world.
And despite the main character’s failure, and ending, he did find enough information on where and when the virus was released for the other people in the future to go back to exactly where they needed to be to get that sample. The implication is that ultimately the program worked, and humanity in the future will be saved.
I saw that They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? was mentioned upthread. And yes, I agree that it has a bleak and dismal ending.
But having read the book by Horace McCoy, I’m confident in saying that the filmmakers made a film that was slightly more cheerful than the book, as unbelieveable as it sounds. If they were going to make a movie out of that book, which they obviously did, there was no way that the film could have anything approaching even a slightly happy ending.