What makes a good film ending?

**jacobtlong** · April 7th, 2009

Today I was talking with my dad about some of the greatest film endings we've seen. He told me that he thought that Blood Work had a pretty good ending. It was something that he really didn't expect. I didn't really expect it either. Then I told him that I thought the endings to The Departed and The Godfather Part II were just phenomenal. From there we talked about just what makes a good film ending. Is it closure? Or some jaw-dropping truth that is revealed at the last instant? Or does the ending really matter at all? Maybe it's the fact that a great movie is about to end that makes the ending seem better than it really is. I mean, if you walked in on the end of a movie you have already seen, would it still have the same effect?

Anyway, I guess I decided to ask you guys which film endings left you just spellbound and rendered speechless and possibly why they left you feeling that way.

**JohnDalglish** · April 8th, 2009

Hi,

The Mist did.

But my favourite film ending is Gone With the Wind's 'Tomorrow is another day'.

Long days and pleasant nights

**Neil W** · April 8th, 2009

A satisfying resolution, not necessarily a happy ending.

**Tombrun** · April 8th, 2009

The last scene(s) of "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" is the best film ending I've ever seen. It leaves me speechless every time I watch it and I get a feeling that I never get elsewhere. Don't know what it is about it though. I don't even know if it's a happy ending or a bad ending to the story...

**PatInTheHat** · April 8th, 2009

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beeeuutiful friendship", spoken by Bogey's Rick Blaine to Claude Raines's Capt. Louis Renault, as they walk down the foggy airport tarmac, while the love of Rick's life, fly's overhead escaping the Nazis with her underground resistance leader husband, in one of old Hollywoods finest moments in flicks, Casablanca

.
It was a perfect ending of this fantastically classic movie.

The whole movie is full of classic movie moments.
From the always miss quoted "Play it again Sam" to the ending scenes irony play on the movies regularly humorous though dark antagonism of "Round up the usual suspects", as the corrupt horny little Capt. takes sides with Rick, when it becomes apparent that Rick has chosen patriotism over being an expatriot...and let us not forget, "Of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, she had to walk into mine" and "We'll always have Paris", and the whole goodbye scene twist..."Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world".

....Oh, and Capt. Renault's closing down Rick's Cafe' American, by announcing "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling going on in here" just as the he's handed his regular nighty "winnings"....Oh yeah Bogey fans, I could go on...& on............

.

**seanryan** · April 8th, 2009

Thought question.

And ending that doesn't cheek or leaves you empty.

Lot of movies of late end too quickly, without ending the story completly.

The story should be resolved and leave you thinking and effected.

But in all not an easy thing to achieve.

**LadyHitchhiker** · April 8th, 2009

The ending does matter. It needs to wrap up enough questions to satisfy the movie-watcher but then leave enough questions so that there is conversation and perhaps an opening for another story. If we truly care about the characters we should want to know more. Any story should leave us wanting more, but at the same time, not leave endless open threads.

I agree with seanryan that lots of movie lately end too quickly without ending the story enough. Example:

**BlackThorn** · April 8th, 2009

Power. Raw seething power.

Take the end of 'A Scanner Darkly'. There's a long conversation, between two people who we just found out are basically double agents, in the war against the 'Substance D' that's so evil. When you take this drug, after time, it splits your mind and makes you schizophrenic, effectively making you have two personalities, even though you're only in one body.

The conversation consists of us, as the dying fodder, the victims of Substance D and the ones that allowed others to take the drug, and then used as weapons in this horrible war, trying to justify how it's okay they did what they did.

The guy says some very powerful lines in this last conversation these two main characters share. He talks about how this is the only ammo God has given us. And how one day, there might be a brief mention of this chapter in the war, in a distant history book, with no mention of the fallen.

As an extra final bitchslap, Phillip K. Dick had some words in a text scrawl, before the credits roll. About what happened to the 20 or 30 of the friends he had had, and how they had died, or suffered permanent brain damage, took their own lives, etc... He ends the list by implying there is no end to the list.

By the end of the movie, the hero and the main character, is a shamble of a human being, he's completely brain burned, and he'll never come back from it. And when it really sinks in that the government is what set him up for the fall, and he doesn't even have a name to them, he's only a statistic.

Either way, I like a good powerful ending, that really puts your head in the same place a triple shot of 'Victory Gin' from Orwell's 1984 might make you feel. Like you just got hit by a car, but you're still there and standing, and when you look around there is no car.

Although, this is just the first (and most powerful) that came to mind. Anything that opens like a good story and closes the same way, does it for me. If it was a good story at least. =0]

**OhmyGod!** · April 8th, 2009

I think the ending should just fit the story...so no good ending for the sake of it or because time/money is up. The ending that is right to the story.

I specially like it when an ending makes the story a full circle. Like in alien: when ripley goes to sleep again in that scary openspace. Love loved it!

Thelma and louise made me scream from excitement!! I thought it was so daring and original. That ending made the whole movie even better.

A GREAT director with brilliant endings is: Todd Solondz. In 'welcome to the dollhouse' the ending is just brilliant. Nothing changed even tough the characters went to change, grow and so on...the circumstances were still the same. And you can feel it, it radiates from the screen.

The mist is just brilliant. It gave the movie something epic. Like a handgranade exploding in your head. I still remember the whole theatre being in total silence when the subtitles went down.

I also LOVE LOVE when the ending explaines everything...because they (the story, director or whoever)ve put you on a wrong road real good. Good example: ExistenZ, Arlington Road (that ending gave me goosebumps!). It's great when a movie starts and grows like a tickingbomb....like [REC] did. The last fifteen minutes are exploding and so great!! (the descent too, ending is great!).

Bad examples in my eyes: I am legend (with will smith, just like signs bleh), stephen spielbergs: war of the worlds (the beginning was sooooo great!! they should have changed the story, give it a 'bad' ending! or at least let the kid be dead), IT (the spider makes the movie and characters in the end a bit silly...) and a lot more (but I dont remember right now..).