# Top 50 movie endings of all time (spoilers, natch) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 30, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602 "2006-07-30T21:10:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/41 "2006-08-01T07:49:46Z")
No **The Shining**??? The sudden cut to “Frozen Jack” was startling enough. But then the long pan in to the picture of the July 4th Ball, 1921, our hero in the middle. Shoulda been there, 38th-ish maybe, but shoulda been there. ---
**Author:** ![Whifton\_Polekitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Whifton\_Polekitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whifton_Polekitty)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/42 "2006-08-01T07:54:03Z")
What the fudge? No love for _Roman Holiday_ ? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/43 "2006-08-01T08:10:32Z")
_Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan_ isn’t there? It easily displaces at least half this list. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/44 "2006-08-01T08:23:51Z")
I’d have liked to see David Cronenberg’s _eXistenZ_ on the list The ending is a brutal twist on the ‘it was all a dream’ cliche; the characters ‘wake up’ to reality, only to find that they not yet ‘awake’, so they ‘wake up’ again, and again, and so on, until you’re never quite sure what is real ---
**Author:** ![Caparazon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b782af/32.png) [@Caparazon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caparazon)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/45 "2006-08-01T11:08:19Z")
North by Northwest has the best ending ever. For those that haven’t seen it, (go and buy it know), it’s an spy movie. Hitchcock delivers the perfect ending becuase instead of using that horrible line: “Sixth months later” he wraps up everything in 20 second or less. Just perfect ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/46 "2006-08-01T11:46:50Z")
[QUOTE=Dooku] I think that once Jose found Cole in the airport, it opened the door for other future people to arrive at the proper location. Hence, she _was_ from the future, making the “insurance” line appropriately humorous. If not, that would be one truly off-the-charts coincidence [/QUOTE] Yeah, agreed, no coincidence. I had it that Willis had tried and failed, but he brought those from the future one step closer to their goal and that the woman was from the future to try another way of stopping him. His flashback from childhood was a co-incidence though. I’ve seen other reviews though that make out that Willis was simply there to show us where the eco-terrorist was, which would make the “insurance” remark slightly redundant. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/47 "2006-08-01T11:59:46Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] but he gets shot in front of himself as a child which is why he’s been having all those dreams or preminitions or whatever [/QUOTE] Um, sorry - but I still don’t get the finish of ‘12 monkeys’. :o Who is the David Morse character? Who spread the plague and how does the ending suggest it can be stopped? Why does ‘insurance’ matter? ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/48 "2006-08-01T13:18:55Z")
What about the final scene of **Raiders of the Lost Ark**? ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/49 "2006-08-01T13:51:57Z")
[QUOTE=glee] Um, sorry - but I still don’t get the finish of ‘12 monkeys’. :o Who is the David Morse character? Who spread the plague and how does the ending suggest it can be stopped? Why does ‘insurance’ matter? [/QUOTE] From what I have gleaned… [spoiler]A plague kills of most humans and leaves the planet uninhabitable. Scientists in the future send prisoners to collect samples of the plague from the infected future or send them back throughout time to see if they can track down those responsible. The prisoners are treated to time off their sentence if they comply. Willis goes back in time to track down the army of the 12 monkeys, suspected of spreading the disease. When they are found to be pranksters, Willis is put onto the trail of the real nutcase scientist behind it all. Helped by other time travellers and a dead letter box voicemail to the future, he tracks him to an airport. Willis is killed trying to kill the scientist as he boards a plane. As he falls, a child watches and we see Willis fall and die through his eyes. The scene that unfolds, a man falling after being shot is a recurring dream for Willis’ character and we realise that the dream is really a flashback from his childhood, he recalls seeing his future self being shot dead. Meanwhile, the scientist has seated himself on board the plane. Just as we think he’s getting away, we see someone from the future has seated themselves beside them. They remark that they are in insurance and shake hands with him. The idea perhaps is that she either kills him before he can do any damage or shakes hands with him to obtain a sample of the virus and bring it back to the future.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/50 "2006-08-01T14:05:57Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] **Dirty Harry**. Cllint Eastwood guns down the killer and then disgustedly chucks his badge in the lake. Completely understated, but chilling in its implications - he’s given up being a cop, but is he turning vigilante? has he just given up on society? Sadly undercut by the sequels, where it’s business as usual. [/QUOTE] I took the ending as “Harry figures his career is washed up by hunting the scumbag down, so he tosses his badge”. I don’t think they were thinking sequel back then. But to justify sequels, it’s easy to conclude that the SFPD secretly liked his methods and didn’t call for his badge after all. ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/74df32/32.png) [@Zetetic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/51 "2006-08-01T14:11:52Z")
[QUOTE=glee] Um, sorry - but I still don’t get the finish of ‘12 monkeys’. :o Who is the David Morse character? [/quote] Dr Peters, who works in the laboratory that designs/works with dangerous viruses (virii?) and such. > [@](#): > > Who spread the plague and how does the ending suggest it can be stopped? We are led to believe early in the film that _The Army of the Twelve Monkeys_, led by Brad Pitt’s character (can’t remember the name), is responsible for releasing the plague/virus, Cole (Willis) finds out that in fact they are just kids who release all the animals from the local zoo as a prank/animal rights stunt. He tries to inform the future of this. Cole then discovers that Dr Peters is actually the baddy. IIRC, early on there is a scene where future-Cole is reciting where the virus had broken out and timescales. Later (well, later in the film, but actually in the past) Dr Peters is going through passport control and the airport check-in person makes a reference to the destinations on his itinery (and i think also to the short times spend in each place) which correlates. The ending has Dr Peters taking his seat on the plane next to a woman we have previously seen giving Cole instructions in the future. As mentioned above, this is too much of coincidence to be her-from-the-past and I took it to mean that they had received Cole’s message and had now identified the corerct person responsible. > [@](#): > > Why does ‘insurance’ matter? I thought it was just a small joke, she was “ensuring” that the end of the world would not happen. regards, mtk\_ ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/52 "2006-08-01T14:13:41Z")
[continuation of _Twelve Monkeys_ hijack]The past **cannot** be changed. That’s the whole point of the film: “time travel” as understanding the past. The woman sitting next to the disease-spreader can’t stop him - apart from anything else, he released the contagion at the checkpoint - but she can get information, maybe even an uncontaminated sample. > [@](#): > > _Bippy the Beardless_ > No mention of Life of Brian? Maybe they only cared about shocking or deep film endings? The ending to _Life of Brian_ **is** shocking and deep. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/53 "2006-08-01T16:03:50Z")
[QUOTE=Caparazon] North by Northwest has the best ending ever. For those that haven’t seen it, (go and buy it know), it’s an spy movie. Hitchcock delivers the perfect ending becuase instead of using that horrible line: “Sixth months later” he wraps up everything in 20 second or less. Just perfect [/QUOTE] Especially the wonderfully phallic train-going-into-the-tunnel shot. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/54 "2006-08-01T18:10:19Z")
To elaborate, the Future People’s goal in _12 Monkeys_ was not to stop the plague from happening, but instead to retake the surface by developing a vaccine to the deadly virus. A pure sample was needed to do this. Thus, the time-travelling. ---
**Author:** ![Zetetic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/74df32/32.png) [@Zetetic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zetetic)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/55 "2006-08-01T18:43:25Z")
[QUOTE=hawthorne] [continuation of _Twelve Monkeys_ hijack]The past **cannot** be changed. That’s the whole point of the film: “time travel” as understanding the past. The woman sitting next to the disease-spreader can’t stop him - apart from anything else, he released the contagion at the checkpoint - but she can get information, maybe even an uncontaminated sample. [/quote] > [@vibrotronica](#): > > To elaborate, the Future People’s goal in 12 Monkeys was not to stop the plague from happening, but instead to retake the surface by developing a vaccine to the deadly virus. A pure sample was needed to do this. Thus, the time-travelling. Ah, i see! I didn’t pick up on that when i first watched it, thought it was a ‘stop the bad thing from ever having happened’ scenario. Cheers ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/56 "2006-08-01T19:46:29Z")
Another vote for Sixth Sense. And two others: Ghost. Sam walks off into the light after the touching goodbye scene with Molly and Oda Mae. Starman. As he is beamed up, the camera is focused down on the incredibly beautiful Karen Allen and the look of love and sorrow on her face just yanks at your heartstrings. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/57 "2006-08-01T20:42:31Z")
**Gallipoli** by far The personal story and Mel Gibson just missing, the bigger story of the British and the Australians, :: weep :: \*\*Cinema Paradiso \*\* with all the kisses ---
**Author:** ![Wilson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@Wilson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wilson)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/58 "2006-08-01T22:56:12Z")
**On the Waterfront** would be one I’d consider adding, but that’s my favorite movie, start, middle and end, so I’m biased. **Fight Club** is way too high. Deserves to be on the list, but #2? Ahead of **Casablanca** and **Chinatown**? I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of **Wait Until Dark** and **Real Genius**. Two more dissimilar movies you’ll have a hard time finding, but both with excellent endings. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/59 "2006-08-01T23:30:12Z")
[QUOTE=Pushkin] From what I have gleaned… [spoiler]A plague kills of most humans and leaves the planet uninhabitable. Scientists in the future send prisoners to collect samples of the plague from the infected future or send them back throughout time to see if they can track down those responsible. The prisoners are treated to time off their sentence if they comply. Willis goes back in time to track down the army of the 12 monkeys, suspected of spreading the disease. When they are found to be pranksters, Willis is put onto the trail of the real nutcase scientist behind it all. Helped by other time travellers and a dead letter box voicemail to the future, he tracks him to an airport. Willis is killed trying to kill the scientist as he boards a plane. As he falls, a child watches and we see Willis fall and die through his eyes. The scene that unfolds, a man falling after being shot is a recurring dream for Willis’ character and we realise that the dream is really a flashback from his childhood, he recalls seeing his future self being shot dead. Meanwhile, the scientist has seated himself on board the plane. Just as we think he’s getting away, we see someone from the future has seated themselves beside them. They remark that they are in insurance and shake hands with him. The idea perhaps is that she either kills him before he can do any damage or shakes hands with him to obtain a sample of the virus and bring it back to the future.[/spoiler] [/QUOTE] Thank you! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602/60 "2006-08-01T23:40:37Z")
[QUOTE=hawthorne] [continuation of _Twelve Monkeys_ hijack]The past **cannot** be changed. That’s the whole point of the film: “time travel” as understanding the past. The woman sitting next to the disease-spreader can’t stop him - apart from anything else, he released the contagion at the checkpoint - but she can get information, maybe even an uncontaminated sample. [/QUOTE] But if the past cannot be changed, are the future people just hoping to disinfect the planet from their time onwards (i.e. most of the world’s population is still going to die?). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-50-movie-endings-of-all-time-spoilers-natch/366602.md?page=4)