The list I have here are all endings that work, and work well, for a variety of reason from a variety of types of movie. Obviously, ***SPOILERS***. So if you see a movie title you might not want to see discussion about the ending, skip it. Now onto the list!
Honorable mention: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) directed by Philip Kaufman
Donald Sutherland's inhuman noise and screwed up face signaling the ending of humanity as the pod people have taken over. Pretty powerful, frightening, and iconic stuff.
12. Sleepaway Camp (1983) directed by Robert Hiltzik
It's an awful movie, but the ending is insane and creepy, and I would say reason enough to see the movie. We find out that our main character, Angela, is actually a boy named Peter, who was raised as a girl after his sister Angela died in an accident. Peter/Angela has been the one murdering people at the camp as we see him, naked, jump up, dropping the severed head of his boyfriend, and make a truly unsettling and animalistic hissing sound as the remaining characters look on in horror. Credits. It's an amazingly effective ending, similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers' actually, to a movie whose scares had been little-to-none previously.
11. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
Halloween III is the black sheep of the Halloween franchise, but it's what the franchise should've been. It thankfully has nothing to do with Michael Myers, and instead was the first entry the way that series creator John Carpenter intended, as a Halloween themed anthology horror series. Damn I wish it had succeeded. Now unfortunately, like Sleepaway Camp, it's not a good movie. But the ending is phenomenal. Our hero, Dr. Daniel Challis, discovers the bad guys plan to commit mass murder through the use of Halloween masks made by his company, all of which contain a microchip that will bring death upon its wearer and anyone around them when it hears the signals produced by a commercial for the masks. Challis, after escaping from the bad guy, is able to use a payphone to call the TV stations and get the intended commercial taken off two of the three channels (ahh, pre-cable TV, remember the days?) but the movie ends as Challis is on the line with the third station, hysterically screaming into the receiver "Turn it off! Stop it! Stop it!" as the commercial begins to play. Credits role. It's a memorable ending because the bad guys don't usually win in horror movies. Although the bad guy is dead here, his plan at least partially succeeds and likely thousands of people (most hauntingly, the children wearing the masks) are going to be dead. Again, not a good movie, but a great ending.
10. Unbreakable (2000) directed by M. Night Shyamalan
David Dunn (Bruce Willis) survives a train crash that killed every other occupant, but he doesn't have a scratch on him. He is approach by Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who is David's opposite, a man whose body is so fragile he says they called him "Mr. Glass" as a child.
Many feel like this ending, revealing that supposed mentor Elijah is the one who set up the train derailment in his search for an Unbreakable, was another Shyamalan twist, just like The Sixth Sense had famously had (and his later The Village would later ridiculously have), but it really isn't, even if Shyamalan foreshadows it with Elijah's mother buying him a comic book as a boy and excitedly saying "they say this one has a twist at the end". Elijah being revealed as a villain has been obvious the entire time. We are just conditioned by others movies to have seen the type of relationship between Elijah and David as mentor/student, with Elijah helping David realize his potential as a hero. But Shyamalan sets up every step of the way that Elijah is the villain, we just weren't paying attention. We never wonder "what are Elijah's motives?" because other movies spoon feed us everything, but Unbreakable doesn't spell out with big letters that Elijah is the villain until the final scene, but it's not really a twist because the movie hadn't been hiding anything the way other twist movies do. It's all out there and it's not cheated or hidden, we simply assume one thing when another is the truth. And that's what makes this "twist" ending actually work in ways that don't unravel what came before it.
9. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) directed by Frank Darabont
The Shawshank Redemption is a tremendous movie with one of the great touching endings of all time. After Andy (Tim Robbins) has triumphantly escaped from prison, he leaves clues for Red (Morgan Freeman) to come find him if he ever gets out too. Red eventually does, after giving one of cinema's great speeches during his parole hearing. He works the same grocery store job and stays in the same depressing halfway house that we've seen old man Brooks (James Whitmore) in earlier in the movie. Rather than take the same depressingly suicidal actions that Brooks took, Red instead decides he needs to "get busy livin', or get busy dyin" and travels to pick up Andy's clues,
which turn out to be money enough to get Red to the small Mexican town Andy wanted to run away to. The movie ends as Red breaks his parole by leaving the city, traveling to Mexico. Over narration we hear Red say:
“I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”
This is so powerful because we've seen, earlier in the movie, Andy talk about how hope is a great thing, maybe the best of things. It's the one emotion that will get us through anything. Hope for the future. Hope that things will get better. Red said Andy was foolish for having hope while inside prison, but Andy shows Red the power of hope. The movie ends as we see Red embracing hope, seeing its results as the credits roll as we see Red walking along the beach towards Andy.
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) directed by Steven Spielberg
I love the ending of Close Encounters because it doesn't answer any questions. We've seen Richard Dreyfuss's character be psychically compelled to come to Devil's Tower and make further contact with the aliens. During the transcendent mothership sequence, there are people returned who'd previously been abducted by the aliens. Soldiers from WWII, and random others who don't look a day older than when they were abducted decades before. We even see the little son of Melinda Dillon's character come back. The aliens present themselves, never communicating in words what their intentions are or why these people were abducted or anything else. They make physical contact, they make aural contact. One repeats the hand motion, sign language-esque sequence of movements shown by Francois Truffaut's character. But no communication of intentions or reasoning is made. Dreyfuss approaches and is taken aboard the ship. Doors close, ship takes to the skies. We're never told where they're going, why they're here, why they picked the people they did. No motives are revealed, and I love that! No reasoning would make any difference to the movie. No motivation would explain or deepen the experience in any way. The finale of the movie is an overwhelming culmination of the unexplainable experiences our characters have been having. Spielberg uses every tool at a filmmaker's disposal except language. It works on all of our senses and because of the storytelling it feels like a conclusion. But it's a conclusion that doesn't objectively answer anything.
7. Some Like it Hot (1959) directed by Billy Wilder
Some Like it Hot's ending is the beacon of simplicity. Posing as women to outrun the mob, Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) end up in a situation where Joe falls in love with Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), and Jerry is fallen in love with by old man Osgood (Joe E. Brown), eventually even getting engaged (one of Lemmon's finest scenes as an actor, but we're here to talk endings). In the final scene, as the foursome is slipping away in Osgood's boat, Jerry tries to get out of his engagement with Osgood without having to come clean about not actually being a woman. They have this perfection of an exchange:
Jerry: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all.
Osgood: Why not?
Jerry: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde.
Osgood: Doesn't matter.
Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!
Osgood: I don't care.
Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.
Osgood: I forgive you.
Jerry: I can never have children!
Osgood: We can adopt some.
Jerry: But you don't understand, Osgood! Ohh...
[Jerry finally gives up and pulls off his wig]
Jerry: I'm a man!
Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
Despite knowing this was the ending, the first time I saw the movie, I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. It's just a simple, perfect line. It's so casually, acceptingly, and effectively delivered by Joe E. Brown. There simply isn't a funnier line to end a movie, ever.
6. Before Sunset (2004) directed by Richard Linklater
Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) met and fell in love in 1995's Before Sunrise. Circumstances kept them apart and Jesse wrote a book about their experiences that night as they walked through Vienna and fell in love. 9 years later, they have just been through an emotional rollercoaster brought on by both of them finally being vulnerable with the other. Celine had tried to move on from the experience, despite having fallen for Jesse. Reading his book brought up all those feelings in her again and she blames him for her distress. Jesse confesses to Celine that he's unhappy in his marriage and his transmission to her is that he wrote the book as a way to keep alive the only real love he's ever felt. Jesse takes her to her apartment in Paris, just to drop her off before he has to fly back to New York. But he asks her to play a song on her guitar (which turns out to be a song about him), and she gets up to make them some tea while Jesse puts on some music. While being silly and imitating Nina Simone, Celine looks at Jesse.
Celine: Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.
Jesse, smiling: I know.
And the look on Hawke's face tells us that he's going to change his whole life for this woman. He's not going to let her get away. It's an incredibly romantic movie, and that ending is just perfection. After the open ended beauty of Before Sunrise, when I heard they were making a sequel, I was angry, as the ambiguity of the ending to the first movie would be ruined by catching up to the characters again. I wasn't complaining at all after watching Before Sunset.
5. The Birds (1963) directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Celine: Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.
Jesse, smiling: I know.
And the look on Hawke's face tells us that he's going to change his whole life for this woman. He's not going to let her get away. It's an incredibly romantic movie, and that ending is just perfection. After the open ended beauty of Before Sunrise, when I heard they were making a sequel, I was angry, as the ambiguity of the ending to the first movie would be ruined by catching up to the characters again. I wasn't complaining at all after watching Before Sunset.
5. The Birds (1963) directed by Alfred Hitchcock
The Birds is not one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, but it's ending is a doozy. After we've slowly begun to see chaos and destruction follow our heroine Melanie (Tippi Hedren) as her arrival into a sea side town in Northern California coincides with all the areas birds attacking people. The birds attack and attack and attack, relentlessly maiming and killing people in the town. After holed up in a barricaded cottage for the night, Melanie and Mitch (Rod Taylor), carefully try to leave the house in the morning to get Melanie to a hospital for injuries she sustained in the night. Creepily, as they leave the house, there are birds perched on seemingly every surface, perfectly still. They allow the people to leave, no longer needing to attack as it's become obvious that they control the town now.
Man vs nature is a fascinating and endless well for storytellers to draw on. Usually the story is mans attempt to tame nature, or natures harshness swallowing up mans attempts to control it. In The Birds, however, its nature actively attacking humanity and taking control back from us. It's a frightening concept, and although I find the movie to be too long, and the SFX to be dated and no longer scary today, its central concept is a solid one. And Hitchcock's execution of the finale is masterful. The uneasy feeling as Melanie and Mitch go to the car is palpable. And ending the movie knowing that we lost our fight against nature just makes the finish that much more impactful.
4. The Godfather (1972) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The Godfather has one of the most famous endings in all of cinema, and it's a great one. Visually, of course, The Godfather is one of the most beautiful movies ever made and the framing of shots in this scene is extraordinary. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has taken over "the family business" as head of the mafia in New York. He's flexed his power by having the heads of the other families all murdered, as well as some people who were in opposition to him or wronged him in some way. Among those killed were his brother-in-law Carlo. Michael's wife Kay (Diane Keaton) challenges Michael, asking him if he killed Carlo. Michael reminds Kay to never ask him about his business (which should be a dead give away to Kay, that Carlo was part of "his business"), but relents and then lies to her that he didn't have Carlo killed. Kay sighs and smiles in relief and goes to make them a drink. We follow as Kay leaves the room and framed behind her a group of men come in and kiss Michael's hand, paying tribute to him as "Godfather". The shots reverse and we see Kay looking into the room as the door is shut by someone, leaving her in the hallway as Michael does his business.
It's a powerful ending because Michael and Kay fell in love when Michael was a decorated WWII hero. His father Vito (Marlon Brando) had said he never wanted "this life" for Michael. Maybe "Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone" but not to take over as head of the family. And Michael has his father's skills and power as head of the family, but has a ruthlessness that Vito didn't have. Michael lies to Kay, and Kay wants to believe the lie. But as the door shuts on Kay, separating her physically from her husband, it also shuts her out of his heart, and shuts the door on the man Michael used to be. He assured Kay in the beginning of the movie "That's my family, Kay. That's not me." But it has become him. He has fallen. He is corrupted. The door has shut on his soul.
3. Big Night (1996) directed by Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott
Big Night is my favorite movie, and what first began to seal it as such was its ending. The big night of the title, when jazz star Louis Prima was supposedly going to eat at the restaurant owned by our two lead characters, has come and gone. There were fights between Secondo (Stanley Tucci) and his big brother Primo (Tony Shalhoub), as well as between Secondo and his girlfriend Phyllis (Minnie Driver), his mistress Gabriella (Isabella Rosselini), and his business rival Pascal (Ian Holm). The restaurant has lost too much money and is destined to close after the failure of Prima to show up and give the business the publicity it needed. The final scene of the movie is done in one shot, a 5+ minute mostly static shot of the restaurant kitchen as restaurant helper Cristiano (Marc Anthony) is sleeping and Secondo comes in to make some breakfast. The only words spoken are Secondo asking Cristiano if he's hungry. Seco makes some eggs and Cristiano grabs some bread and they silently eat. Primo comes in and rather than continue their quarrelling, Seco grabs a plate and dishes up the last of the eggs for his brother. They sit beside each other, eating, and without saying a word they embrace each other and the movie fades to the credits.
It's a powerful ending because of all the implications of the actions. We don't need any words. We know the restaurant will fold, and that the brothers' options are unknown. They love having their restaurant together. They're a team, they're family, they're best friends. Primo wants to go back to Italy to a job their uncle has set up for them. Secondo has said he will never go back to Italy. They both thought they were teaching the other how to succeed, Primo through showing his baby brother the art of food, Seco through teaching Primo that there's a business to run and they must sell the food to survive. Pascal, who set up the big night, promising that Louis Prima would come despite knowing that was a lie, wants their restaurant to fail so that he can bring the brothers to his restaurant to work and elevate his business. Out of desperation, Seco might go to Pascal, but Primo would not. He's disgusted by Pascal. There's so much unknown in the futures of these two men, and nothing gets resolved by the ending. But when they embrace each other, over food, we know that their relationship will be okay and we get a sense that everything else will work out however it will work out but it'll all be okay because they won't ever abandon their brotherly love. It's a beautiful, touching, and very emotional ending to my favorite movie.
2. Whiplash (2014) directed by Damien Chazelle
Man vs nature is a fascinating and endless well for storytellers to draw on. Usually the story is mans attempt to tame nature, or natures harshness swallowing up mans attempts to control it. In The Birds, however, its nature actively attacking humanity and taking control back from us. It's a frightening concept, and although I find the movie to be too long, and the SFX to be dated and no longer scary today, its central concept is a solid one. And Hitchcock's execution of the finale is masterful. The uneasy feeling as Melanie and Mitch go to the car is palpable. And ending the movie knowing that we lost our fight against nature just makes the finish that much more impactful.
The Godfather has one of the most famous endings in all of cinema, and it's a great one. Visually, of course, The Godfather is one of the most beautiful movies ever made and the framing of shots in this scene is extraordinary. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has taken over "the family business" as head of the mafia in New York. He's flexed his power by having the heads of the other families all murdered, as well as some people who were in opposition to him or wronged him in some way. Among those killed were his brother-in-law Carlo. Michael's wife Kay (Diane Keaton) challenges Michael, asking him if he killed Carlo. Michael reminds Kay to never ask him about his business (which should be a dead give away to Kay, that Carlo was part of "his business"), but relents and then lies to her that he didn't have Carlo killed. Kay sighs and smiles in relief and goes to make them a drink. We follow as Kay leaves the room and framed behind her a group of men come in and kiss Michael's hand, paying tribute to him as "Godfather". The shots reverse and we see Kay looking into the room as the door is shut by someone, leaving her in the hallway as Michael does his business.
It's a powerful ending because Michael and Kay fell in love when Michael was a decorated WWII hero. His father Vito (Marlon Brando) had said he never wanted "this life" for Michael. Maybe "Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone" but not to take over as head of the family. And Michael has his father's skills and power as head of the family, but has a ruthlessness that Vito didn't have. Michael lies to Kay, and Kay wants to believe the lie. But as the door shuts on Kay, separating her physically from her husband, it also shuts her out of his heart, and shuts the door on the man Michael used to be. He assured Kay in the beginning of the movie "That's my family, Kay. That's not me." But it has become him. He has fallen. He is corrupted. The door has shut on his soul.
3. Big Night (1996) directed by Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott
Big Night is my favorite movie, and what first began to seal it as such was its ending. The big night of the title, when jazz star Louis Prima was supposedly going to eat at the restaurant owned by our two lead characters, has come and gone. There were fights between Secondo (Stanley Tucci) and his big brother Primo (Tony Shalhoub), as well as between Secondo and his girlfriend Phyllis (Minnie Driver), his mistress Gabriella (Isabella Rosselini), and his business rival Pascal (Ian Holm). The restaurant has lost too much money and is destined to close after the failure of Prima to show up and give the business the publicity it needed. The final scene of the movie is done in one shot, a 5+ minute mostly static shot of the restaurant kitchen as restaurant helper Cristiano (Marc Anthony) is sleeping and Secondo comes in to make some breakfast. The only words spoken are Secondo asking Cristiano if he's hungry. Seco makes some eggs and Cristiano grabs some bread and they silently eat. Primo comes in and rather than continue their quarrelling, Seco grabs a plate and dishes up the last of the eggs for his brother. They sit beside each other, eating, and without saying a word they embrace each other and the movie fades to the credits.
It's a powerful ending because of all the implications of the actions. We don't need any words. We know the restaurant will fold, and that the brothers' options are unknown. They love having their restaurant together. They're a team, they're family, they're best friends. Primo wants to go back to Italy to a job their uncle has set up for them. Secondo has said he will never go back to Italy. They both thought they were teaching the other how to succeed, Primo through showing his baby brother the art of food, Seco through teaching Primo that there's a business to run and they must sell the food to survive. Pascal, who set up the big night, promising that Louis Prima would come despite knowing that was a lie, wants their restaurant to fail so that he can bring the brothers to his restaurant to work and elevate his business. Out of desperation, Seco might go to Pascal, but Primo would not. He's disgusted by Pascal. There's so much unknown in the futures of these two men, and nothing gets resolved by the ending. But when they embrace each other, over food, we know that their relationship will be okay and we get a sense that everything else will work out however it will work out but it'll all be okay because they won't ever abandon their brotherly love. It's a beautiful, touching, and very emotional ending to my favorite movie.
2. Whiplash (2014) directed by Damien Chazelle
The ending of Whiplash is one of the most complex endings I've ever seen. Andrew (Miles Teller), has ratted on his former instructor Fletcher (JK Simmons), which got Fletcher fired as the teacher at the prestigious school where he'd led the jazz band for many years. Andrew thinks he told his story anonymously. Andrew has gone from having his entire life revolve around his drumming, to not even stopping to listen to a guy drumming on the street. He just walks on by, eating his slice of pizza. Fletcher begins leading another jazz band and invites Andrew to be the drummer. Without rehearsal, because Andrew knew the parts to the songs Fletcher told him they'd be playing, the band plays a public gig. Andrew is set up by Fletcher, as the other band members are playing a different song. Fletcher had done this to most publicly embarrass Andrew as revenge for getting him fired. Instead, after Andrew runs off stage, he decides to come back and takes a transcendent drum solo, mouthing "fuck you" to Fletcher as he does it. This burst of creative talent is exactly what Fletcher had always craved from a student, and we see him instead of being angry, eventually come to support and even direct a bit of Andrew's solo. The movie cuts to the credits as Andrew finishes his solo and the two men lock eyes, exchanging looks of "I finally found it" from Fletcher, and relief and a bit of pride from Andrew. But what does this mean?
Fletcher has justified his extreme drill sergeant-esque teaching by saying that the truly great talents would rise up to be better. They would get beat down and come back stronger. He's said he's looking for his Charlie Parker. So when Andrew comes back out on stage, he's fulfilling the prophecy that Fletcher wanted. However, it wasn't by embracing Fletcher's teaching, it was by defying it and even abandoning it. Andrew didn't reach his full potential until he'd stepped away and given up drumming, only relying on his innate talent when he returned. He elevated himself by embracing his own abilities, not by listening to Fletcher in any way (Fletcher's teaching of his drummers was essentially to turn them into human metronomes and didn't really have anything to do with the artistry of music at all). However, the look in Andrew's eyes, right before the cut to black, shows that he obviously loves the approval Fletcher is giving him. Writer/director Damien Chazelle has said that he views this as a dark moment. Andrew is going to go down the same path Fletcher did. I don't know that I totally agree, but the reason the ending is so brilliant is that it is both a triumph AND a dark moment.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey has an ending that is quite an achievement. Wordless, it conveys more and has caused more discussion than probably any movie ending ever. Our main character, Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) has overcome the murderous HAL 9000, and gets sucked into a wormhole around Jupiter. He goes through and we see innumerable colors and shapes and all manner of visual magnificence, before finally Dave ends up in a brightly lit room all by himself, where he appears to live out the rest of his days alone. Until on his death bed, the black monolith, the same beacon that has spurred evolution in the apes of the beginning section of he movie, appears to Dave. He reaches out to it and becomes what fans have referred to as The Star Child. A frightening, seemingly Godlike baby, as the famous Also Sprach Zarathustra plays on the soundtrack as we cut to black.Fletcher has justified his extreme drill sergeant-esque teaching by saying that the truly great talents would rise up to be better. They would get beat down and come back stronger. He's said he's looking for his Charlie Parker. So when Andrew comes back out on stage, he's fulfilling the prophecy that Fletcher wanted. However, it wasn't by embracing Fletcher's teaching, it was by defying it and even abandoning it. Andrew didn't reach his full potential until he'd stepped away and given up drumming, only relying on his innate talent when he returned. He elevated himself by embracing his own abilities, not by listening to Fletcher in any way (Fletcher's teaching of his drummers was essentially to turn them into human metronomes and didn't really have anything to do with the artistry of music at all). However, the look in Andrew's eyes, right before the cut to black, shows that he obviously loves the approval Fletcher is giving him. Writer/director Damien Chazelle has said that he views this as a dark moment. Andrew is going to go down the same path Fletcher did. I don't know that I totally agree, but the reason the ending is so brilliant is that it is both a triumph AND a dark moment.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick
To me this sequence is so powerful primarily because Kubrick refused to hold our hands and have dialog explain what was happening. The only flaw, in my mind, is the traveling over different lands to get to the room. This sequence goes on long after the point has been made. We get it, we're traveling over planets which we cannot even comprehend. It just keeps going and going, but perhaps that's what makes the ultimate cut to Dave's face so dramatic and impactful. As for the room itself, I've always thought of it as like a zoo. I think Dave is being observed by whatever alien beings control the monoliths. He lives out his days being monitored by the aliens, and then on his deathbed is deemed worthy of the next step of human evolution, ascension to the stars. I think Arthur C. Clarke's earlier book Childhood's End helps explain this idea really well, if you're looking for more explanation.
