Cause I’ve already seen it? Cause it’s frustrating enough to see it in real life and downright dull and tedious to watch it happen again in fiction?
I like to see realistic characters in interesting situations. Needy guy gets screwed over by asshole friend and bimbo isn’t by itself an interesting situation.
Million Dollar Baby.
I very strongly agree with **Max Torque ** about “Sleepy Hollow.” That was an extremely powerful, scary and well-crafted scene in a shamefully underrated film.
And, as I’ve written elsewhere in SDMB, please run - do not walk - to go see “Breaker Morant.” It’s a great movie with the definitive non-copout ending: dramatic, powerful and (bonus!) historically accurate.
Much as I love breaker Morant, I have to point out that the author of one of the books it’s based on (“The Breaker”) admitted a few years ago that he’d learned that Harry Morant really was “a bastard”, and not quite the gentle but tough poet portrayed in the film (although exactly what he’d learned I still haven’t found out. The book’s a good read, by the way.)
I just re-watch Good Fellows last night and this fits your description very well.
The movie ends with almost everyone in Jail, Dead or Witness Protection. This is also one of the rare movies where no character is likable and yet the movie and stories are still compelling.
Godfather I & II were already mentioned and neither copped out, but the Godfather and Mama Corleone were actually likable characters.
This is the perfect example of a how a movie can have a happy ending and not cop out.
The Bears lost the Game and their season ended but they are happier than the win at all cost Little League Yankees and a truly happy to have gotten as far as they have.
You know this is probably one of the top 10 sports movies also.
Harold and Maude, without a doubt (or am I prejudiced because that’s my all time favorite movie?)…
and I agree with Crab Rangoon about The Pledge. I thought the ending was brilliant because crap does happen like that in real life where people are destroyed without knowing why. Never saw it coming.
Here’s some info on Morant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_Morant
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1281411/posts
I can’t find any references to it, but I clearly recall news reports of author Kit Denton saying that he’d learned new information that made him reconsider the flattering picture he drew of Morant. I never did learn what it was, but these sites and the book still suggest that he was railroaded, nonetheless.
Heresy, schmerecy. Earlier in the movie, Rachel asks (regarding a possible escape from “retirement”) “What if I went away, went north?” (more or less). And at the end, by gum, they do go north, hence the flyover of the pine trees that presumably will still be there in northen California, Oregon and Washington 2019. I don’t see a “utopia” anywhere, it’s a damn forest! The city of Los Angeles may have become a polluted rain-soaked hellhole and a good recruiting ground for offworld colonists, but I don’t recall any indication that the entire planet had crumbled.
There’s no indication that Deckard and Rachel lived happily ever after, only that they’d live, but how well or for how long, they couldn’t know. Who does? If this is simply cut, ending the movie with Deckard and Rachel getting into an elevator and the door sliding shut… well… where the fuck are they going?!
Anyway, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, since Blade Runner analysis really requires a thread of its own, and has received several in the past.
A case could be made for Clockwork Orange. A dark and morbid case, yes, but a case nonetheless.
And Eyes Wide Shut, for that matter. The promise of coitus is almost always a happy thing.
Mad Max and The Road Warrior… Max has a perfect ending with the hero spiraling into madness and despair after killing everyone responsible for the death of his family because he doesn’t even have revenge to live for… And then TRW where he takes baby steps back towards humanity by helping out a bunch of strangers against some truly bad people. Neither comes close to copping out at any point, which unfortunately is made up by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome…
The Shawshank Redemption - textbook execution of an earned happy ending, 100% non-cop out and worthy of the struggles endured by the main character.
*Unforgiven *- sets up the story to potentially have a typical western tacked-on happy ending, but since nobody in the movie is wearing a white hat it can’t happen.
The Ox-Bow Incident - another western that could have copped out completely, but stayed with an ending that was true to the characters and the situation they were in.
As Good As it Gets - A romantic comedy of all things that has a happy ending that’s not a syrup-drenched, forced group hug. Real people with real problems overcome themselves and find happiness as a result… But they have to WORK to do it. Great show!
Good thread, too – I’m seeing some movies in here I need to add to my Netflix queue. 
EZ
He wasn’t the first one to do this. Sergio Leone had Henry Fonda (defiantly cast against type) gun down a child in cold blood in Once Upon a Time in the West.
I think a lot of people think of Rain Man as kind of a sappy movie, but the autistic character is completely true to life - you expect him to open up a bit and learn to love his brother, but he never does, he never changes. Tom Cruise’s character changes, sure, but at the end he makes the adult decision to send his brother to the place where he will be happiest. There’s never that emotional money shot from the autistic character, and I had a lot of respect for the film for that.
Rocky is a happy, non-cop-out ending. There’s never any suggestion that Rocky can win, but he meets his own goal: to “go the distance”. And he and Adrian fall in love.
A thousand times better than any of the sequels.
Good calls. I’ll add Friday Night Lights.
I always like the ending to The Good Son A family takes in their orphaned nephew the same age as their own son. The son is a little psycopath and the mom realizes it. Not a typical Hollywood ending.