Good finales offer catharsis.
The best deny us closure altogether.
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Not every great movie has a great ending.
Maybe that was a reflection of the times we were living.
(Dark, uncertain, marked by a significant amount of human flailing.)
Our goal from the jump was never to determine a set formula for the Great Movie Ending.
Still, we did set ourselves some rules.
We prioritized a diversity of tone, origin, authorship, subject matter, and genre.
Still, there was no escaping our own unbound tastes and biases.
Youll see some classic endings on this list.
Youll also wonder (probably angrily) where some of the more iconic ones are.
And youll hopefully see a few youve never heard of.
(Jump to No.
1 on our list here.)
Somehow, this wild shtetl soap opera ends … happily?
Its triumphant, a bit kooky, extremely high-key.
(Conntentious, too.)
Rachel Handler
StreamYentlonPluto TVor rent it onYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
And I myself am partial tothe Dada-esque charms ofStroszeks dancing chicken.
Nate Jones
StreamGrizzly ManonYouTube,Amazon Prime VideoandTubior rent it oniTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
Cay isnt convinced: How will it work?
Where will she live?
Cay relents; shes madly in love.
The two womenbound happilyonto the train, grinning at one another, the very picture of queer possibility.
R.H.
StreamDesert HeartsonHBO Max,Showtimeand with a premium subscription onHulu,Sling TV,fuboTVandAmazon Prime Video.
Bilge Ebiri
StreamUsonHBO Maxand with a premium subscription onHuluandAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,VuduandGoogle Play.
RentThe Grand IllusiononYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
Instead, Bart and Jim operate with the deft comic mastery of Bugs Bunny.
They are trickster gods.
Rebecca Alter
StreamBlazing Saddleswith premium subscriptions onHuluandSling TVor rent onYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
And then theres the ending ofMikey and Nicky,so emotionally potent for its tragic inevitability.
as if he could reason his way out.
Butdeath doesnt listenand so he is shot, on his oldest friends doorstep, begging for refuge.
The brotherly betrayal is Old Testament stuff, and Mikeys already told Nicky hes forgotten his Kaddish.
R.A.
StreamMikey and NickyonHBO Max,TubiandAmazon Prime Videoor rent onYouTubeandGoogle Play.
94.What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
It works, and then it quickly doesnt.
Theyre cheerier at school, but soon launch into deeper binges, messing up their personal and professional lives.
Jackson McHenry
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Eventually Universal relented, and the film was released with its original ending intact.
N.J.
RentBrazilonYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
Lillie, for her part, has been warned away from reconnecting with Ally by the girls grandmother.
And besides, Lillie knows she cant handle the responsibility of raising a child.
She watches her daughter, sitting in a rest-stop restaurant, by herself, waiting for her mom.
It plays like gangbusters, of course.
I dont think all movies need to be so shamelessly crowd-pleasing, but Im very glad this one is.
N.J.
StreamLagaanonNetflixand with a premium subscription onSling TV.
Its not so much prurient as it is a portrait of two souls who have found an inextricable bond.
And, yes, its also a welcome acknowledgment that horniness and the sublime are often connected.
StreamThe Painter and the ThiefonHuluor rent onYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
The case of the missing schoolgirls, we learn, was never solved.
How much agency did they have, in their magnetic compulsion to the rock?
What did we really understand about their cloistered innocence?
As the audience watches the Botticelli Miranda wave good-bye, she turns away from Russell Boyds soft-core-glowy camera.
It is a testament to the generosity of Weirs filmmaking that he leaves the story open.
Or maybe they simply fell down a hole.
You get to choose, and therein lies the beauty of the un-ending.
R.A.
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One is to believe that nothing is a miracle.
The other is to know that everything is a miracle.
I strongly suggest the latter.
Its an ending throw in plentiful in the history of cinema: the revelation followed by resignation.
ButLetterputs a trenchant spin on it, finding not sorrow but pure yearning in the grooves of this decision.
StreamLetter from an Unknown WomanonFlixFling.
Michael shoots himself, fearing that God could not forgive what man has done to the world.
Then, suddenly, Mary appears, the music swells, and they kiss.
Isnt it very odd that all of a sudden shes there?
And the room is bright?
[…] Could this not be an ecstatic experience?
The ending, according to him, is calibrated to split the audience 50/50.
Heres my favorite explanation, he added.
You have this man in the garden with the cup.
No one is going to take that cup away from him.
So he drinks it.
And then he falls on all fours, and starts disgorging his stomach.
And then God walks in the room.
God, who had never talked to him over the course of the film.
And God says, Reverend Toller, would you like to see what heaven looks like?
Im going to show you right now.
Heaven looks like one long kiss.
And thats the last thing he sees.
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Shes reeling, expertly broadcast in the subtle shifts of Woodards eyebrows and the loosening of her jaw.
StreamClemencyonHuluor rent onYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
So the two sisters stand together, hands clasped, looking out onto murky waters and a sunset.
For the film adaptation, screenwriter Ted Tally knew something more cinematic was required.
It is an image that perfectly matches Lecters personality: purposeful, sophisticated, terrifying.
It confirms that the murderous may actually be walking among us.
80.Possession(Andrzej Zuawski, 1983)
Possessionis the kind of movie that evades easy description.
Andrzej Zuawskis cult horror classic is full to the brim with images beguiling and repulsive in equal measure.
(Dont laugh, but it would make a fascinating double feature withMank.)
Welles promises in the opening scenes to tell us the truth for the next hour.
As Welles puts it, right before he bids us good night: Reality?
Its the toothbrush waiting at home for you in its glass.
StreamF for FakeonHBO Maxor rent oniTunesandAmazon Prime Video.
Those who didnt understand will never understand, he adds.
Disco was much more, and much better, than all that.
Disco was too great, and too much fun, to be gone forever.
Its one of those overblown youthful statements thats also kinda true.
They dance awkwardly, and the film fades to black.
But then it returns, now with the whole train car and everyone on the platform dancing too.
Suddenly, they really are part of something much bigger than them.
After all, Victors been philandering for years, and that summer hes blatantly cultivated a paramour.
But Victor sabotages her romance because he needs Saras cool rationality to counterbalance his tranced wanderings.
Melvin Backman
StreamLosing Groundonthe Criterion Channel.
Unbeknownst (or is it?)
How do you know my secret handshake?
You taught it to me, says Maggie, her eyes brimming with tears.
Lorettas grandfather, confused, bursts into tears.
R.H.
RentMoonstruckonYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
We know from the first scene that teenage Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi) is dead.
Alison Willmore
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The film crawls in sequences like this toward a climax that could have been bombastic.
Katherine Brooks
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And if they havent just met, could they be the ones making the tapes?
And if they are behind the tapes, why did they do it?
N.J.
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70.American Graffiti(George Lucas, 1973)
John was killed by a drunk driver.
Terry went MIA in Vietnam.
Steve became an insurance agent.
(Thanks, in part, to the success ofAmerican Graffiti.)
N.J.
StreamAmerican GraffitionHBO Maxand with premium subscriptions onHuluandAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
Also helping out: the policeman himself, who has tracked Makhmalbaf down after 20 years.
RentA Moment of InnocenceonVimeo.
(The American version leaves the possibility of her escape more open-ended.)
Its hopeless and incredibly grim, but ultimately a cathartic exploration of the impossibility of truly escaping deep grief.
R.H.
StreamThe DescentonAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
(That last framing rig was the brainchild of editor and co-director Charlotte Zwerin.)
(Jagger was unhappy with his depiction in the film, for what its worth.)
StreamGimme ShelteronHBO Max, or rent onYouTube,Amazon Prime VideoandGoogle Play.
On its face, the action-packed climax is artificial and unearned, but that is of course the point.
What started as a Charlie movie has now become a Donnie movie.
(The script is credited to both of them, though only one of them exists.)
N.J.
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StreamThe Parallax ViewonAmazon Prime VideoandPluto TV, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
And then she kicks free, a choice she marvels at in the voiceover: What a death.
My will has chosen life.
But then we couldnt have had the haunting final touch.
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The reveal is both elegantly dreamlike and disturbing.
Regardless, he tries to reason with the villagers.
I am a Christian, and I believe in the resurrection, he tells Christopher Lees Lord Summerisle.
It is I who will live again, and not your damned apples.
R.H.
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Thrilled, he runs off to grab a camera, and the moment is, ironically, lost.
Ines pulls off the disguise and stares off into space.
R.H.
RentToni ErdmannonYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
(In the scheme of things, its a speeding ticket, his lawyer says.)
But its not the triumph he, or we, might have expected.
Even the man who created the monster isnt immune to its simulacrum of human connection.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a lonely nerd online-stalking his ex, forever.
N.J.
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Its what happens when a great film does in fact land on a great ending.
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Despairing … and also philosophically thorny.
And so, as George walks, he sees (and so do we) images of Angela.
The spell has still not been broken.
We are as condemned as he is.
StreamA Place in the SunonPluto TVandAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,Google Play,VuduandiTunes.
Then the movie goes to the basement.
We do not get any gory imagery, but we know exactly whats happened.
J.C.
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54.Death Becomes Her(Robert Zemeckis, 1992)
Vanity is not for the weak of spirit.
The price of their beauty is living forever, just long enough to turn up at his funeral.
Old habits and all that, Madeline pauses before she reaches to help her.
Why not let the old girl fall?
Helen has the same instinct, and they both go down together.
Theyre spray-paint soul mates, after all.
Time and space do not exist.
Only a flimsy framework of reality.
The imagination spins, weaving new patterns.
R.H.
StreamFanny and AlexanderonHBO Max, or rent oniTunesandAmazon Prime Video.
The kidnapper has been sentenced to death.
Suddenly the partition is closed.
Mifune is left to face his own reflection, and what brief link they might have found has dissolved.
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A late-night reunion with childhood love Kevin (Andre Holland) crackles with the emotion of old-school melodrama.
As the two men embrace, we cut to a shot of 7-year-old Chiron on the beach.
Its a mark of confidence for Chiron the man has let the boy out again and also for Jenkins.
N.J.
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The man eventually moves on to a new relationship, but cant let the past go.
In the original, though, it leads to a conclusion so sublimely dark its enough to haunt dreams.
In a nightmarish way, everyone gets what they want.
StreamThe Vanishingwith a premium subscription onAmazon Prime Video, or rent oniTunes.
Then the film cuts to black.
N.J.
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Ive never heard of such a thing!
They slap one another on the backs another ghoul felled!
Its bleak, and the bleakness boils down to more than just innocent confusion over Bens humanity.
A simple misunderstanding would make this ending a tragedy.
Instead, its an indictment.
R.A.
RentNight of the Living DeadonYouTubeorGoogle Play.
46.Boogie Nights(Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
Dirk Digglers penis is theJawsshark ofBoogie Nights.
Its Dirks calling card in that world and what makes him famous.
for the first time.)
Im a star, he repeats.
I am a big, bright, shining star.
His face is no longer in the frame.
Dirk is only visible from the neck down.
and makes us feel cheap for ever wanting it.
J.C.
StreamBoogie NightsonHulu, or rent onYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
Nicolas Roegs 1980 movie is the story of a toxic relationship thats folded up like a mystery.
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The actual president of the United States believes him to be a keen political mind.
A wealthy, soon-to-be widow (Shirley MacLaine) falls desperately in love with him.
R.H.
StreamBeing ThereonHBO Max, or rent onYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
In many ways,The Heiressis a film about power.
But when he returns to her home, the doors are bolted and the windows draped.
Here is what it looks like for a woman to live, unabashedly, on her own terms.
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And his most famous boast needs no explanation: The Mafia?
N.J.
StreamThe Long Good Fridayonthe Criterion Channel.
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(When youre chewing on lifes gristle / Dont grumble, give a whistle.)
Just ask the British sailors whosang itafter their ship sank in the Falklands.
N.J.
StreamMonty Pythons Life of BrianonNetflix, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime VideoorGoogle Play.
Mission accomplished, in perfect style.
Any attempt to retrieve it only places it further out of reach.
Hang on a minute, lads, Caine says.
Ive got a great idea.
Whatever that plan is, we dont see it.
The camera pans away with the bus still perilously seesawing on the ledge.
N.J.
StreamThe Italian JobonAmazon Prime VideoandCBS All Access, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,VuduorGoogle Play.
But itsLust, Cautionby which I feel fully enraptured.
The fate of all those involved hinges on a single pink diamond ring.
In doing so, she effectively ensures her own death as well as the deaths of her co-conspirators.
Thats when we find Yee on her bed, reminiscing.
The blocking and shot composition highlights the utter desolation.
The acting captures the tricky particulars of love formed on the basis of deception.
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ButMelancholiagoes all the way, burning it down, literally and figuratively.
We watch the planets collide, unleashing flames that consume the trio and the entire Earth in seconds.
Shes with them and alone at the same time, and nothing can touch her.
StreamMorvern CallaronAmazon Prime Video.
35.Local Hero(Bill Forsyth, 1983)
Studio-note serendipity.
He looks out at the Houston skyline, a million miles away from the place that changed his life.
N.J.
RentLocal HeroonYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
In the end, the truth is exposed: Four high-ranking generals are indicted for murder.
But if its a triumph for the good guys, why does the leaders widow look so sad?
Because she knows its not really the end yet.
(A second newscast then reveals the original newscaster got thrown in jail for disclosing government secrets.)
N.J.
StreamZonHBO Max, or rent oniTunesandAmazon Prime Video.
Yet it concludes with restraint and a quality that Spielberg didnt often evoke early in his career: cynicism.
Officials assure Dr. Jones that the Ark will be handled with care, but he has doubts.
The government is doing the opposite of what an archaeologist like Jones seeks to do.
It is burying a treasure.
you could see now?
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Morris had no choice but to tape-record the rest of the session and hope he got something usable.
Boy, did he.
N.J.
StreamThe Thin Blue Linewith premium subscriptions onSling TVandAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,iTunesandGoogle Play.
RentNashvilleonYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime VideoandGoogle Play.
RentAll About EveonYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
(We will not discuss the scene with the psychiatrist.)
But forThe Birds, he went smaller and quieter.
Hitchcock invests the scene with muted dread.
Well never know why the birds stopped, or when they might start again.
And isnt that convertible top looking awfully fragile?
Only one thing is clear: The beaks shall inherit the earth.
He ultimately changes his mind, but still, this is not a cuddly guy.
No wonder it inspireda whole generation of imitators.
N.J.
StreamThe SearchersonHBO Max, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
25.25th Hour(Spike Lee, 2002)
This life came so close to never happening.
But dad here isnt a devil.
And thats the key.
Rent25th HouronYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
It is not only a great capper to this film, it is a great capper to the entireGodfathersaga.
RentThe Godfather, CodaonYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
After he goes, Celia pops out briefly to the platform as an express train roars by.
(Tellingly, the pair meet when he takes a mote out of her eye.)
Helen Shaw
StreamBrief EncounteronHBO Max, or rent oniTunesandAmazon Prime Video.
Theyre married to other, mostly absent people, and their almost affair evolves out of proximity and loneliness.
Somehow, it still has the feeling of a kiss.
StreamIn the Mood for LoveonHBO Max.
Its a singular work charting the transformation of a spinster into her own woman romantically, financially, psychologically.
We have the stars.
your heart cant help but swell, recognizing the platinum elegance at play.
RentNow, VoyagerYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
20.The Last Temptation of Christ(Martin Scorsese, 1988)
Never has blasphemy been more moving.
He screams at the skies, Iwantto be the Messiah!
And, in a flash, hes back on the cross.
Now, the two are finally reconciled.
And then suddenly, we see the film go off its reel.
We get some surreal flashing lights, and Peter Gabriels wondrous banger of a score kicks in.
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Maybe there isnt marriage, maybe there isnt sex, but by God, theres dancing.
R.H.
StreamMy Best Friends WeddingonNetflix, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
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The sparks are still there, the conversation just as rousing, the attraction just as intense.
But this time around, Jesses trapped in an unhappy marriage.
Hell walk her to her door.
Hell just pop up to her apartment so she can play him a song.
Celine looks at him slyly.
Baby, she sings, Youre gonna miss that plane.
R.H.
StreamBefore Sunsetwith premium subscriptions onHuluandAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
Without one, there is no other.
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But it also has one of the most brazen endings ever filmed.
Is this a post-traumatic pause?
Just another moment in her day?
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Did she reciprocate, or tell him off?
Is he running in joy, or dejection?
Its an exciting, emotional moment and yet the director doesnt tell us what we should be feeling.
How we interpret the scene is up to us.
In its final image, the film reflects its audience, and each of us sees something different.
StreamThrough the Olive Treesonthe Criterion Channel.
Maybe its the truth.
StreamThe Act of KillingonAmazon Prime VideoandPluto TV, or rent fromYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
And there are many other carefully wrought ambiguous endings from other directors worth noting on this list.
But Id argue none arrives with the gut punch that isThe Things return to square one.
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11.Mulholland Drive(David Lynch, 2001)
Look, its all perfectly simple.
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Its fitting, then, that the final scene is yet another extension of that gaze.
As Marianne does the same from afar, neither acknowledge the other.
Its heartbreaking, and, as Sciamma put it, It unveils itself as cinema.
Its a reverse shot between the two characters.
And at that point, its not about the story anymore.
Its about you being in your seat, her being in her theater seat, and you watching.
As Laurel puts it herself, by this time, this revelation doesnt matter it doesnt matter at all.
StreamIn a Lonely PlaceonTubiandAmazon Prime Video, or rent onYouTube,iTunes,VuduandGoogle Play.
Or the cut to the atomic-bomb explosions inDr.
Or even that final title card in Barry Lyndon.
It is more than an invitation its a challenge.
StreamEyes Wide ShutonHuluor rent onYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
Its something warmer and sillier and appropriately absurd a circus.
What can Guido do but join them?
Its life as a messy, absurd spectacle, and its wonderful.
Stream8 12onHBO Max, or rent onYouTube,Amazon Prime Video,VuduorGoogle Play.
We study the ways these two interact, with Johnny unaware that Nelly is who Nelly says she is.
The ending sees the couple visit friends who have already grieved Nelly.
He stops playing the piano.
The same wife he betrayed.
StreamPhoenixwith a premium subscription onSling TV, or rent onYouTube,iTunesandGoogle Play.
Its hard to imagine a better ending.
Diamond came up with the famed last line as a placeholder until he could come up with something better.
StreamSome Like It HotonYouTube,Pluto TVandTubi, or rent oniTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
Shalhoub grew up in an Arabic-speaking household, and Ian Holm was born in Essex to Scottish parents.)
But thats not the end.
The camera winds its way back to Primos kitchen, where a defeated Secundo is fixing an omelet.
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ButThe Third Manstands out in this landscape.
This gives way to a wholly engrossing chase sequence.
The cameras use of space is immaculate, instilling a sense of claustrophobia and tension into the proceedings.
Silhouettes and shadows are used to maximum effect; a slinking vein of water glows against the cobblestones.
Its all amped-up by the sound design and zither score by Anton Karas, thrilling in equal measure.
RentThe Third ManonYouTube,iTunes,Amazon Prime Video,VuduandGoogle Play.
The Was it all a dream?
The Wait, what just happened?
But in the context of the film itself, the scene becomes (literally) otherworldly.
To see him so constrained and coiled was quite a thing.
Is it a flashback, a dream, a fantasy, a glimpse of his afterlife?
Is it maybe all of these things?
PurchaseBeau Travailfromthe Criterion Collection.
