# Final film shot
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 21, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764 "2020-01-21T19:38:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/1 "2020-01-21T19:38:47Z")
From [this post](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22092893&postcount=27) in the “don’t remember name of” thread, it got me thinking of more final shots that totally lingered in the mind, like the freeze frame at the end of _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_, or Leatherface swingng his chainsaw around in _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_.
This includes final shots that the end-credits roll over, like the awesome zoom-out of Fonda’s burning bike in “Easy Rider”, or the exterior shot of the house as we hear an increasingly loud telephone ring in _Black Christmas_ ('74).
Surprised there hasn’t been a thread on favourite final film shots, unless my search has failed.
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### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/2 "2020-01-21T19:48:23Z")
400 Blows. [This has the freeze frame.](http://screenprism.com/insights/article/ask-t-professor-why-does-400-blows-end-on-a-freeze-frame-what-was-influenti)
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### Author:  [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/3 "2020-01-21T20:24:08Z")
Freeze-frame at the end of _Thelma and Louise_
_Revenge of the Sith_ - The prequels may have been uneven and messy, but George totally nailed the feels with the final shot of Obi-Wan staring into the dual sunset while the John Williams score swelled up on the soundtrack.
Not a shot, but the final intertitle card at the end of Peter Jackson’s _Heavenly Creatures_ was one of the biggest gut-punches I’ve ever had at the movies. The entire theatre exited in complete silence after that one.
Speaking of Peter Jackson, the final shot of Aragorn and the others kneeling before Frodo and Sam at the end of _Return of the King_.What’s that? There were _three_ more endings after that? Lalala I can’t hear you!!
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/4 "2020-01-21T20:28:42Z")
The subway train pulling away with the alien at the end of _Brother from Another Planet_.
It took me a while to realize that he (effectively an alien slave) was being spirited away on an _Underground Railroad_.
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### Author:  [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/5 "2020-01-21T20:28:46Z")
Sully’s smile at the end of Monsters Inc when he goes looking for Boo.
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### Author:  [@Garak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garak)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/6 "2020-01-21T20:37:55Z")
I guess I gotta mention Michael shutting the door closed on Kay at the end of The Godfather
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### Author:  [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/7 "2020-01-21T20:49:59Z")
The Third Man.
[
> [@](#):
>
> The final scene in “The Third Man” is a long, elegiac sigh. It almost did not exist. Selznick and Greene originally wanted a happy ending. (Greene originally wrote, “. . . her hand was through his arm”). Reed convinced Greene he was wrong. The movie ends as it begins, in a cemetery, and then Calloway gives Holly a ride back to town. They pass Anna walking on the roadside. Holly asks to be let out of the jeep. He stands under a tree, waiting for her. She walks toward him, past him, and then out of frame, never looking. After a long pause, Holly lights a cigarette and wearily throws away the match. Joseph Cotten recalled later that he thought the scene would end sooner. But Reed kept the camera running, making it an unusually long shot, and absolutely perfect.
]([The Third Man movie review & film summary (1949) | Roger Ebert](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-third-man-1949))
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/8 "2020-01-21T20:52:23Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> The subway train pulling away with the alien at the end of _Brother from Another Planet_.
Speaking of trains, the one _penetrating_ the tunnel at the end of _North by Northwest_.
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### Author:  [@Rough\_Draft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rough_Draft)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/9 "2020-01-21T21:16:28Z")
John Wayne left all alone on the porch at the end of _The Searchers_
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/10 "2020-01-21T21:16:35Z")
The final shot of, “Kingdom of the Spiders,” should have been awesome, but it just looked cheapjack.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/11 "2020-01-21T21:30:43Z")
_Aguirre_ on his raft, monkeys his only remaining crew.
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### Author:  [@Rough\_Draft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rough_Draft)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/12 "2020-01-21T21:52:35Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> _Aguirre_ on his raft, monkeys his only remaining crew.
Good one!
That movie also has a great opening scene, with the conquistadors making their way down a seemingly impossible mountainside.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/13 "2020-01-21T22:03:53Z")
Ben and Elaine on the bus in _The Graduate_.
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### Author:  [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/14 "2020-01-21T22:37:54Z")
The red phone box, and its ring, at the end of _Local Hero_ (1983).
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/15 "2020-01-21T22:58:52Z")
An increasingly darkening picture as Anthony Perkins loses his sight (again:p) in _How Awful About Allan_. Best ever [end title!](https://youtu.be/B-OYLc0z934?t=4380).
Fun, Mozart-fuelled tracking shot through the offices in [_After Hours_.](https://youtu.be/MyTohkwk1_k?t=43)
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/16 "2020-01-21T23:04:16Z")
> [@garygnu](#):
>
> Ben and Elaine on the bus in _The Graduate_.
The story behind this is that this was filmed by a backup director who forgot to say cut, so the two actors stayed in character, but looked lost because they weren’t sure what to do next, which meshed nicely with their character arcs.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/17 "2020-01-21T23:18:49Z")
The inside of a warehouse, _the Raiders of the Lost Ark_.
A pair of lost souls hold hands while towers fall,\* Fight Club.\*
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### Author:  [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/18 "2020-01-21T23:28:14Z")
Verbal Kent transforming as he walks down the sidewalk in _The Usual Suspects_.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/19 "2020-01-21T23:46:09Z")
> [@USCDiver](#):
>
> Verbal Kent transforming as he walks down the sidewalk in _The Usual Suspects_.
That’s the second-to-last shot. The _last_ shot is a fragment of a scene from earlier in the movie, with Verbal saying, “And poof! - he’s gone.”
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### Author:  [@Mike\_Mabes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Mabes)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2020, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/20 "2020-01-21T23:47:49Z")
Since you mentioned scenes where the credits roll over the shot, the truck driving away in Five Easy Pieces.
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