Endings

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What is the best ending of a film ?
what is the best ending of a book ?

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

May I request that people don't actually reveal the ending?

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They get shot by these rednecks in a passing truck.

― duane, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

okay or indicate spoilers

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

rosebud = [spoiler indicator]

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Wow, what a strange dream I just had!"

― dave q, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

― Billy Dods, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Jean Grey could have become a God. But it was more important to her that she die...a human"

― jel, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bruce Willis is dead.

― Pete, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien

The Black Prince - Iris Murdoch

Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse

The end section of Whit Stillman's Metropolitan is just horribly depressing in a way that few films have managed.

― Nick, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm outta here Araki's Nowhere

― Geoff, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Blairwitch Project: the bunnies did it.

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Oh, and Charlie, don't forget what happened to the boy who got everything he ever wished for - he lived happily ever after" - Willy Wonka

I agree about the ending to Billy Liar. The ending to Billy Liar On The Moon is good as well, but in a heartbreakingly tragic way.

― jamesmichaelward, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually, the ending of the Blair Witch Project is quite strange, it looks like the guy is taking a piss in the corner of the witch's living room...thinking this really lessened the impact of the film for me...

― jel, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I liked the ending to Dead Calm. Though I wish it was Sam Neill and not Billy Zane who would have had to catch that flare with his teeth :-p

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Some great movie endings, in no particular order (I tend to like the ambiguous or the abrupt): Once Upon a Time in America, My Life to Live, Obsession, The Deer Hunter, Mean Streets, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, In the Company of Men, Circle of Iron, Ran, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Brotherhood of Satan, Dr. Strangelove, Paths of Glory, Brazil, The Bicycle Thief, Easy Rider

― Joe, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Uncle Vanya. oh, it has to be a film or book. Okay, "Vanya on 42nd St."

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh Jel, he just realized the last time he masturbated. Realizing the end was near, he thought he'd go out with a bang... I mean, wank.

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh I quite like the alternative ending for Desperately Seeking Susan. It makes much more sense.

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nathalie: What was the alternative ending to desperately seeking susan? I'm curious now.

The ending to the original Planet of the Apes. The ending to the Tim Burton version was just meh.

― Nicole, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lee & Herring once did a series on 'what really happened after film endings'. For Planet of the Apes, it turned out that Charlton Heston didn't really get it when he saw the Statue of Liberty. He get up from the ground, scratches his head, moves on and sees various other decaying landmarks but is still none the wiser. Eventually, he comes across a bunch of apes with synths and guitars singing "THIS IS PLANET EARTH, D-D-DO-DO D-D-D-D0-DO"

― Nick, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Umbrellas of Cherbourg or Sunset Bvld.

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah I always loved that "Planet of the Apes" ending - the original one, I've not seen the "meh" one - but it doesn't make Charlton H. look like the swiftest astronaut on the block, does it? Who the fuck wouldn't've recognised post-nuclear New York by a couple of other giveaway signs after the 1st couple days of being chased around it by English-speaking gorillaz?

― duane, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Like what, Duane: that the yellowcab drivers, unlike Dr Zaus, don't speak English? Isn't the idea that the rest of it's all been silted over or bombed to nothing? And this is the only bit left?

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeah maybe it's only in the sequels where you see all those other bits of ued-to-be-NYC. I forget.

― duane, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

but it did seem pretty obvious where you were meant to be (i mean earth, not pecif. NY I mean0 1st time you see it , I remember that.
( BTW having read the bk - in the bk it is NOT Earth.)

― duane, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(0 = close parentheses)

― duane, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

( & 'pecif.' = 'specif')

― , Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

a) "Islanders" (GPO c.1937)

― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

I WANT MORE

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 March 2003 02:41 (twenty-three years ago)

the ending to "the third man" by which i mean just the final scene with the long walk... also, i just finished, after a long long hiatus, beautiful/damned and though the very very end is kinda lame, the last 50 pages are otherwise really excellent.

― dave k, Monday, 10 March 2003 02:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Ending to Werner Herzog's Stroszek = double classic

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 10 March 2003 02:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Every Sealab 2021 episode ever

― Millar (Millar), Monday, 10 March 2003 03:07 (twenty-three years ago)

The ending to Tarkovsky's Stalker gives me chills. Also: The Killing.

― ryan, Monday, 10 March 2003 03:08 (twenty-three years ago)

_The Talented Mr. Ripley_
and
_A Boy And His Dog_

have unstoppable powerhouse endings. In fact, they're so powerful
and aggressive they make all the other endings on the
playground fear and quake and run away screaming and crying.

Most Terry Gilliam movies have great endings, with exceptions:
_Holy Grail_ was kinda limp and I felt cheated by _Brazil_
(though I usually have a perverse like of dark, negative
endings).

I agree about _The Third Man_, classic, especially how it clarified
the movie's title. Welles had to fight hard for that ending.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 10 March 2003 05:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Welles didn't direct "The Third Man," Carol Reed did.

Best film endings:
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (Walter Huston doing his mentalist laugh), "My Fair Lady" and "Some Like It Hot" (the perfect anti-climactic endings, with one line deflating everything that's come before), "The Apartment" (for some reason this always makes me cry, even though it's hardly a mushy ending), "GoodFellas" (need I say more?), "The Graduate" (so long, idealistic youth! hello, boring married life!), "Apocalypse Now" (I've never understood why everyone mocks Brando's performance in this film - okay, I do understand why, but I still think it works), "Heathers" (maybe it's not as great as the original apocalyptic ending would have been, but I think it works fine), and maybe above all, "City Lights" (I KNEW what was going to happen, and it still somehow surprised me).

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 10 March 2003 08:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Apropos John Huston - the Chinatown ending is just plain evil.

― Wintermute (Wintermute), Monday, 10 March 2003 15:36 (twenty-three years ago)

if a book or film were any good it would not need to end

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 10 March 2003 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Jim Thompson's The Getaway has a devastating, perfect ending.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 10 March 2003 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

seconded!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 10 March 2003 18:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Blood Simple

― oops (Oops), Monday, 10 March 2003 19:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Did I ever tell you about my "false advertising" suit against the guys who made The Neverending Story?

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 10 March 2003 19:03 (twenty-three years ago)

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