### Author:  [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/61 "2020-01-22T19:08:05Z")
Audio, not visual: Mozart’s cackle over the last few frames of _Amadeus_.
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/62 "2020-01-22T19:10:01Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> 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.”
That’s the shot I came to post. Totally awesome how the last two words are spoken after the cut to black.
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### Author:  [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/63 "2020-01-22T19:17:03Z")
The closeup of the Tramp’s face at the end of _City Lights_.
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/64 "2020-01-22T20:20:32Z")
The end of The Shining showing an old photo from the hotel’s history; a ball from 1921, As the camera zooms in, we see Jack Nicholson among the revelers. I’ve seen the movie so many times I don’t always wait through the whole shot but the first time I saw it, it stayed with me for days. He doesn’t look particularly creepy (like poor wretched Carol in _Repulsion_\) but the implication . . .he has been absorbed by the hotel? He’s always been part of it? Great way to end it.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/65 "2020-01-22T21:05:40Z")
_Osama_. The final shot – of a man taking a bath – might be the most horrifying scene in the history of film. Though it’s meaningless out of context.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/66 "2020-01-22T21:35:27Z")
Lot of great ones mentioned already, particularly _2001: A Space Odyssey, Monsters Inc., The Godfather, Inception_ and _The Third Man_.
I would also nominate:
_Dark City_ - A man and a woman on a pier, overlooking a sun-drenched ocean. The perfect ending, given all that has come before.
_Breaker Morant_ - Two coffins being filled.
_Notorious_ - Two spies drive away to safety, and the bad guy is called back inside a house to his certain doom.
_The 39 Steps_ - The two fugitives, finally vindicated, take each other’s hand.
_All the President’s Men_ - Woodward and Bernstein keep working in the newsroom as the teletype prints out the later key events.
_Glory_ - The casualties of the attack on Battery Wagner are buried in a common grave, and then we see their monument on Boston Common.
> [@Zeldar](#):
>
> As effective and poignant as most of these examples are, is there any ending to a movie that captures the feelings evoked by
>
> Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
> Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
> The lone and level sands stretch far away.
_Planet of the Apes_? A beach and an ocean, anyway, and… you know.
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### Author:  [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2020, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/67 "2020-01-22T23:29:59Z")
What movie used Ozymandias?
My nom – _The Last Wave._
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### Author:  [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/68 "2020-01-23T00:05:19Z")
My favorite has always been the ending of “Electra Glide in Blue” with Robert Blake. His character, Big John Wintergreen, gets blown away by double shotgun blasts out of a van he is driving after. All he wants to do is return something but the bad guys think the jig is up. He slides along the highway and manages to sit up as he dies. Then a looong camera shot out the back of the van as it drives away. Big John fades into the distance as the credits start.
Skip to 1:27 of this clip. It does not show the whole shot, it cuts off way too soon.
Dennis
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/69 "2020-01-23T00:07:29Z")
Dirty Larry Crazy Mary.
Suddenly the movie just ends and the credits roll over a burning car. The biggest, and First WTF ending I can remember.
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### Author:  [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/70 "2020-01-23T00:13:38Z")
Too late to edit post #68, here is a description of the final shot from the IMDB:
“After Wintergreen is killed the camera pulls away up the road for three minutes before a freeze-frame dissolving to black and white for an additional two-plus minutes before credits finally roll.”
Dennis
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/71 "2020-01-23T00:58:20Z")
At the end of _Carrie_, the camera looks down on a screaming, hysterical Amy Irving after another one of her hand-out-of-the-ground nightmares, her mother trying to console her, then cut to black.
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/72 "2020-01-23T01:06:35Z")
**Goodfellas** - Henry Hill, in a voiceover, bitches about having to be a “regular schnook” in Witness Protection as he picks up the morning paper off his doorstep. Cut to Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy, firing a gun six times at the camera in a homage to **The Great Train Robbery**. Cut back to a bored Henry closing his front door as he returns to his now-boring existence. Cue Sid Vicious singing “My Way” as the screen goes black and the ending titles inform us what happened to the main characters.
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/73 "2020-01-23T01:09:47Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Lot of great ones mentioned already, particularly _2001: A Space Odyssey, Monsters Inc., The Godfather, Inception_ and _The Third Man_.
>
> I would also nominate:
>
> _Planet of the Apes_? A beach and an ocean, anyway, and… you know.
Of course! Makes you wonder how much Shelley affected the writer and the production
people! There must be other direct references to “Ole Percy” but this will do to prove his
influence continues…
Nice work, **EH**!
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### Author:  [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/74 "2020-01-23T07:03:36Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#):
>
> Heh - always wondered if that was borrowed from the [scream](https://youtu.be/5T2BiSAaNYM?t=165) in _The Tenant_.
Back in the '80’s, I just bought it and had planned to spend the evening watching it alone, but my friends insisted coming over and watching it with me. They were utterly bored, but I was fascinated!
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### Author:  [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/75 "2020-01-23T07:07:10Z")
Dirty Harry walking out of the quarry without his badge.
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### Author:  [@Guy\_Incognito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Incognito)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/76 "2020-01-23T14:45:27Z")
A really jarring final shot comes at the end of X: The Man With The X\_ray Eyes, where Ray Milland’s character ends up at a church revival and tears out his own eyes off-screen. The final shot is a freeze frame of him screaming at the camera with two empty sockets where his eyes used to be.
Saw this on TV late at night when I was a young teen and it shocked the hell out of me…
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/77 "2020-01-23T15:13:30Z")
> [@Guy\_Incognito](#):
>
> A really jarring final shot comes at the end of X: The Man With The X\_ray Eyes, where Ray Milland’s character ends up at a church revival and tears out his own eyes off-screen. The final shot is a freeze frame of him screaming at the camera with two empty sockets where his eyes used to be.
>
> Saw this on TV late at night when I was a young teen and it shocked the hell out of me…
I remember that!:eek: Not sure if I covered my own eyes at the end or have chosen to forget it. I remember the self eye gouging but not that they showed it.
\ Annnnnnnd now I do :eek: 40+ years of successfully blocking out that vision and now I can relive it.
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### Author:  [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/78 "2020-01-23T15:16:57Z")
Stephen King opined that
> [@](#):
>
> The final shot is a freeze frame of him screaming at the camera with two empty sockets where his eyes used to be.
…was “almost” perfect. All it needed was Milland screaming in horror: _I can still see!_
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/79 "2020-01-23T15:59:16Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#):
>
> Heh - always wondered if that was borrowed from the [scream](https://youtu.be/5T2BiSAaNYM?t=165) in _The Tenant_.
Another ending that only makes sense in context, where it’s chilling.
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### Author:  [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2020, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/final-film-shot/846764/80 "2020-01-23T16:21:51Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#):
>
> I remember that!:eek: Not sure if I covered my own eyes at the end or have chosen to forget it. I remember the self eye gouging but not that they showed it.
> \ Annnnnnnd now I do :eek: 40+ years of successfully blocking out that vision and now I can relive it.
I envy you your ability to not remember that.
> [@divemaster](#):
>
> Stephen King opined that
>
> …was “almost” perfect. All it needed was Milland screaming in horror: _I can still see!_
I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.
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