DocDaneeka started a thread recently regarding great closing (film) lines…I wanted to hijack that thread to make mention of a movie I saw a few weeks ago and figured I’d just start another thread. Best closing scenes anyone?
This is probably not my favorite closing scene ever, but has anyone else seen Pay It Forward? I don’t recall any threads started about this movie and I just have to mention somewhere how much the ending of this film affected me. No spoilers here, just wanted to say that I don’t remember the last time (if ever) a movie had me bawling like a baby at the end. I’m not normally a weeper, but jeez, were the tears flowing at this one.
Slim Pickins riding the big one down in Dr. Strangelove.
(I think the gradually expanding panorama of the closing scene of The Untouchables, with Robert DeNiro (Capone) caught up in the midst of the chaotic courtroom after his sentence is passed, is vastly underappreciated)
Planet of the Apes. Who can forget Charlton Heston and his classic reaction?
More recently, The Sixth Sense. I went into the movie knowing that there was some sort of “twist.” I had it in my mind to try to figure it out, but the movie captivated me so much that I never came close to even trying. I was totally drawn in. One of the few times I’ve said “Oh. My. God.” at the end of a movie.
Yep, Planet of the Apes is probably the ultimate ball-grabbing closing scene.
I loved Nicholas Cage’s pondering of the future in Raising Arizona “…a place where all children are loved, and all parents wise and strong… And if it wasn’t Arizona, I dunno, maybe it was Utah.” By the time of the “where all children are loved” line I’m weeping, but the “Utah” remark gets the laughter going again. The guy is on the brink of enlightenment, then slips back to thinking Paradise is a geographic location, not a state of mind.
Along with Slim Pickens’ final ride in Doctor Strangelove, I was grabbed by Peter Sellers rising from his wheelchair: “MEIN FUHRER, I CAN WALK!!!” and the movie abruptly cuts to the series of nuclear explosions: “We’ll meet againnnnn, don’t know where, don’t know whennn…” Hilarious, bizarre, haunting, depressing.
Glory, in which the Union dead are piled into a mass grave, and Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick tumble down face to face in the ultimate equality.
My favorite is the close of To Kill a Mockingbird, with the grownup Scout’s voiceover describing how Atticus would stay with Jem through the night and would be there when he woke in the morning. A very gentle and beautiful ending.
The entire movie is twisted and remolded in less than five minutes, to become a bright shining gem of lies, suspicions and deceit. No other closing scene inspires the level of paranoia this one does, as we wonder just how much of the movie we can trust, or even how much of the movie actually existed. Kevin Spacey and Chaz Palminteri do a brilliant job of realization and revelation, as the brilliant cinematography and editing sweep us along.
Forget Eastwood riding off at the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I’ll take Verbal Kint walking off into oblivion.
It’s gimmicky, but the first time I saw it I actually yelped. Carrie’s hand coming out of the ground to grab Amy Irving (it was Amy Irving, wasn’t it?) as she lay down those flowers
The closing scene in “Field of Dreams” where the camera pulls back and upward as Ray and his father play catch as night is falling. You see all the cars lined up for miles between the cornfields, filled with people coming to see a special baseball game.
I personally think the most poignant final scene is the ending of one of my favourite movies: Ran, aka Chaos by Akira Kurosawa (the story of King Lear adapted to japanese noblemem). At the end a young blind man is waiting for his sister to come fetch him (his sister having been killed previously) and he is tapping with his cane at the edge of a cliff. Very moving.
It certainly isn’t one of the best endings ever, but I like Bottle Rocket’s ending. The guys are talking and Dignan explains how he has CRS Disease (Can’t Remember Shit). Then, Dignan, the eternal optimist says something like “We did it didn’t we?” and then Anthony replies, “Yeah, we sure did.” This conversation is taking place in the prison yard. Then as they’re walking out Dignan has his crazy plan to escape. The last line is something like, “isn’t it funny how I used to be in the mental institution and now I’m in here.”
Call me a sentimental old fool, but my vote’s for Casablanca. Rick does the right thing (although it breaks his heart,) Louis does the right thing, the Nazi dies…it’s ideal.
I concur also with The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects.
Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”. Not what I expected at all. I left the theatre felling too stunned to talk to the friend I went with, and stayed that way for a couple days. When I saw it again a few years later it whacked me upside the head again.
Felt much the same way the first time I saw “The Wicker Man”. You get so used to last-minute rescues and twists that some thing like that really catches you, even though it is happens at a fairly leisurely pace.
John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. Just two guys in the snow. Over the previous two hours you’ve learned that you really have no clue about when something really scary is about to happen. Remember the blood in the Petri dish? Caught you off guard, didn’t it? Or the defribrilator scene?
Then, it comes down to just these two guys in the snow. McReady says, “I think if either of us has a surprise for the other, we’re both too tired to do anything about it.” And you’re nerves are totally flayed…but you’re waiting, ready to jump out of your seat again…it’s gonna be scary…and nothing happens.
My jaw dropped when I saw Swimming With Sharks and I realized at the end who got shot. One of Kevin Spacey’s best performances. If you think Usual Suspects turns his character upside down, you have to see this movie.
Schindler’s List, when the children and grandchildren of the people he saved, as well as his former wife, filed one by one to his gravesite and put rocks on his headstone. It just doesn’t get any more moving than that.
a British comedy-caper film from the 60s starring Michael Caine (think “Gumball Rally”). At the end of the movie Caine and cohorts drive a van filled with gold towards a cliff and they end up halfway over a sheer precipice, with the weight of the gold dragging them toward the edge. The van is perched precariously over the cliff and nobody dares move lest they plunge to their deaths. Suddenly, Caine says, “I’ve got an idea!”, and the movie ends right there.
