Favourite Movie Endings

[Captain Eo]

The Lion King is a tear jerker for me, but an otherwise brilliant ending that would have gotten any live action film an academy award.

[Bigal]

Great thread Be. Nice one (Y)

For me, best endings include:

+ Zatoichi's dance finale.

Also far too many others.

[supergrass]

28 Weeks Later has the perfect ending for a film that is leading into another. When you see the infected go sprinting into Paris you want to see the next installment (28 Months Later?) instantly.

Clerks 2 had a pretty nice ending in terms of wrapping everything up and completing the full circle in the journey of Dante and Randal.

[Brimstone13]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - I agree with what was said earlier. This movie was absolutely perfect for me and the ending with the music and the tension. Amazing.

Lucky Number Slevin - Just having everything come together after what I feel was an amazing movie.

Yankee Doodle Dandy - I used to watch this movie with my grandmother every 4th of July and I love the ending. It's an older movie, but I just loved the end. It makes you want to just smile.

Gone With the Wind - I've seen this movie once, and the end is just humorous to me. This bitch Scarlett, who leads around everyone by their nose gets owned by Rhett Butler. Owned.

There are several more that I could mention that others haven't, like The Sixth Sense.

[VerbalPuke]

Yeah, Taxi Driver's ending is much like American Psycho's ending, open for interpretation. I went with a very basic description because I was pressed for time. I fleshed out my explanation a little bit better, hopefully it makes some sense.

Spoiler: Click here to view

It is a good point you make (Kaney), but I think his wounds would have allowed him to make a full recovery if he received his medical attention swiftly (and I'm lead to believe he did due to the quick response from the police). His hair also could have grown back in the time of his coma and release from the hospital (also a timetable isn't specifically mentioned for how long his coma and hospital release ended). I thought the opposite of the ending based on the letter from Iris's parents and the news paper clipping personally.

It's definitely obviously that he was a character looking for acceptance as you pointed out, and I think the movie itself may ended leaving him at least something of a local hero. I guess I look at those things as a culmination for the outcast being accepted by a greater audience then he would have anticipated.

Though at the same time, your points are valid. It seems strange that he would just so happen to have Betsy as a passenger (what are the odds basically) and she would mention reading about him in the paper. Still, it is plausible that he'd be driving the cab she hailed, and it seemed if they wanted to go the "figment of his imagination" route, they may have went with Betsy requesting to accompany him out for a night again. I liked how Travis didn't say a word when she asked how much and just drove off leaving her ride free of charge, with sort of a smug smile left on his face.

[FireDoughnut]

I always thought The Prestige was trying to be too clever.

[Kaney]

I didn't really, but I absolutely love the film. The Prestige is easily one of my favourite films of recent times, and Christian Bale is love so I might be a bit biased >_>

Yeah, Taxi Driver's ending is much like American Psycho's ending, open for interpretation. I went with a very basic description because I was pressed for time. I fleshed out my explanation a little bit better, hopefully it makes some sense.

Spoiler: Click here to view

It is a good point you make (Kaney), but I think his wounds would have allowed him to make a full recovery if he received his medical attention swiftly (and I'm lead to believe he did due to the quick response from the police). His hair also could have grown back in the time of his coma and release from the hospital (also a timetable isn't specifically mentioned for how long his coma and hospital release ended). I thought the opposite of the ending based on the letter from Iris's parents and the news paper clipping personally.

It's definitely obviously that he was a character looking for acceptance as you pointed out, and I think the movie itself may ended leaving him at least something of a local hero. I guess I look at those things as a culmination for the outcast being accepted by a greater audience then he would have anticipated.

Though at the same time, your points are valid. It seems strange that he would just so happen to have Betsy as a passenger (what are the odds basically) and she would mention reading about him in the paper. Still, it is plausible that he'd be driving the cab she hailed, and it seemed if they wanted to go the "figment of his imagination" route, they may have went with Betsy requesting to accompany him out for a night again. I liked how Travis didn't say a word when she asked how much and just drove off leaving her ride free of charge, with sort of a smug smile left on his face.

Spoiler: Click here to view

Of course, I agree. I just like to think of it that Travis can finally get what he wants the only way he ever will, by imagining it. The film seemed way too I dunno, real to bother with the silly cliches, like the lowest of the low transforming into a hero and getting the girl in the end, except in his mind since thats the way he wishes the world was. I'm probably reading into it too much as Taxi Driver is also one of my all-time favourite films, but I agree that the smug smile ending was fantastic, best way to end the story in my opinion.

[apsham]

I didn't really, but I absolutely love the film. The Prestige is easily one of my favourite films of recent times, and Christian Bale is love so I might be a bit biased >_>

Yeah, Taxi Driver's ending is much like American Psycho's ending, open for interpretation. I went with a very basic description because I was pressed for time. I fleshed out my explanation a little bit better, hopefully it makes some sense.

Spoiler: Click here to view

It is a good point you make (Kaney), but I think his wounds would have allowed him to make a full recovery if he received his medical attention swiftly (and I'm lead to believe he did due to the quick response from the police). His hair also could have grown back in the time of his coma and release from the hospital (also a timetable isn't specifically mentioned for how long his coma and hospital release ended). I thought the opposite of the ending based on the letter from Iris's parents and the news paper clipping personally.

It's definitely obviously that he was a character looking for acceptance as you pointed out, and I think the movie itself may ended leaving him at least something of a local hero. I guess I look at those things as a culmination for the outcast being accepted by a greater audience then he would have anticipated.

Though at the same time, your points are valid. It seems strange that he would just so happen to have Betsy as a passenger (what are the odds basically) and she would mention reading about him in the paper. Still, it is plausible that he'd be driving the cab she hailed, and it seemed if they wanted to go the "figment of his imagination" route, they may have went with Betsy requesting to accompany him out for a night again. I liked how Travis didn't say a word when she asked how much and just drove off leaving her ride free of charge, with sort of a smug smile left on his face.

Spoiler: Click here to view

Of course, I agree. I just like to think of it that Travis can finally get what he wants the only way he ever will, by imagining it. The film seemed way too I dunno, real to bother with the silly cliches, like the lowest of the low transforming into a hero and getting the girl in the end, except in his mind since thats the way he wishes the world was. I'm probably reading into it too much as Taxi Driver is also one of my all-time favourite films, but I agree that the smug smile ending was fantastic, best way to end the story in my opinion.

Might as well add the wiki portion into this conversation, why not.

Spoiler: Click here to view

Interpretations of the ending

Some have seen the epilogue, in which Bickle is hailed as a hero, as Bickle's dying fantasy, while others see it as a real resolution of his acts. Statements by Schrader in which he said the final scenes were meant to comment on how criminals become celebrities in America's unbalanced society, seem to strongly indicate that the ending was not intended to be a fantasy. Comments by Scorsese on the ending also do not show any intent to imply that the ending is taking place only in Travis's head. Nevertheless, a large group of fans, including some film critics, still argue for this interpretation.

At the very end, as Betsy departs his cab, Bickle drives away, and a curious ring sounds as Bickle quickly adjusts his mirror, before the credits roll on the background of the bright and distorted city lights seen from the cab's perspective. Director Scorsese comments on this final moment in his Laserdisc commentary, mentioning that the "mirror glance" could be a symbol that Bickle might fall into depression and violent rage once again in the future. However, it is still open to interpretation.

Roger Ebert has written of the film's ending,

"There has been much discussion about the ending, in which we see

newspaper

clippings about Travis's 'heroism' of saving Iris, and then Betsy gets into his cab and seems to give him admiration instead of her earlier disgust. Is this a

fantasy

scene? Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? Can the sequence be accepted as literally true? ... I am not sure there can be an answer to these questions. The end sequence plays like

music

, not

drama

: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. We end not on carnage but on redemption, which is the goal of so many of Scorsese's characters."

[7]

James Berardinelli, in his review of the film, argues against the dream or fantasy interpretation, stating "Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader append the perfect conclusion to Taxi Driver. Steeped in irony, the five-minute epilogue underscores the vagaries of fate. The media builds Bickle into a hero, when, had he been a little quicker drawing his gun against Senator Palantine, he would have been reviled as an assassin. As the film closes, the misanthrope has been embraced as the model citizen -- someone who takes on pimps, drug dealers, and mobsters to save one little girl."^[8]

[Ananas]

Casablanca and It's A Wonderful Life.

[Ash J. Williams]

The Proposition.

The Usual Suspects.

Clerks II.

Crank.

Shaun of the Dead.

I'm sure there's more.

Oh yeah, Return of the Jedi.

[Ash J. Williams]

"Fuck my life."

Edited December 12, 2007 by Ash J. Williams

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Just cos I fancy quoting it...Crank's final line is mighty...

Spoiler: Click here to view

"Hey doll, looks like I let you down again. It's like all my life I've just been going, going, going. Wish I'd taken more time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. Guess it's too late for that now. You're the greatest, baby. "

[EndOfAnEra]

I hope this doesn't start a huge thing, but I loved the ending to The Mist.

[Farmer Reil]

Memento. Or does that belong in 'favourite film beginnings'?

[Skummy]

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, for being a perfect ending to a nigh-on perfect film, and for not bottling out and giving us a schlocky overtly feel-good ending, which would have been so easy. It's one of the best romance films ever created, if not the best as far as I'm concerned, as even putting the relationship against a fairly preposterous backdrop, it manages to highlight the ups and downs of any relationship far better than any other film I've seen, and the ending just rounds everything up perfectly.

Withnail & I...just utterly sublime. It's one of my favourite films as it is, but the ending is just beautiful....Marwood's ascent into potential stardom, and eagerness to escape everything his past means, while Withnail is left penniless and hopeless, desperately trying to cling on to the one thing he ever really had there for him, knowing it's no use...and then his Shakespeare soliloquy before disappearing into the night...just, so poignant, so perfect.

Empire Strikes Back. I love a film that ends on the ultimate fucking downer. Right, you've kissed your sister, you've lost your hand, he's your dad, your mate's frozen in Carbonite, and we're all essentially fucked. Roll credits.

Amelie, because I'm a hopeless romantic.

Edward Scissorhands, because it makes me cry.

Mulholland Drive, just because you're left thinking "hang on, wait, but he...and she...but they...what..." for quite some time.

Lost In Translation for, once again, not going with a schlocky love story ending, but instead acknowledging that love, by its very nature, is never perfect, and sometimes things need to be fleeting and transient.

[Future-Shock]

I will echo Empire Strikes Back again and again, I dislike the Star Wars series, but the ending to ESB makes me so happy, it needs to happen more often. The first Lord of the Rings movie was kind of like that, with Boromir dying, I think when they know its going to be a trilogy the ending to at least one of them (usually the second and if i'm lucky, the third!) should be like ESB and just plain fuck.

[BFG]

"Why don't you just give me a bottle of scotch and a handgun to blow my fucking head off!" Too bad this isn't the favorite movie quotes thread.

But I did enjoy the ending of The Departed.