Scenes From A Movie: Another 9 Great Film Endings

The only thing better than a great final scene is a list of nine great endings in movies.

Last week, I created a list of nine great film endings. Now I’m adding yet another nine such endings, listed once again in the order of the year it was released.

(Note: Wherever possible, I will try to attach a clip of the opening for your viewing pleasure. If it’s not available and you haven’t watched, I highly recommend you get a copy of the movie and check it out. Also, this goes without saying: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS, SO PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!)

Paths of Glory (1957)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Written by: Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, Jim Thompson
Based on: Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb

Stanley Kubrick is a master of endings, but one of his finest happens to be in the film that launched his career. Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) finds his soldiers at an inn, hooting and jeering at a captive German girl (Christiane Kubrick) brought out to perform for them. But the catcalling subsides as the girl launches into a German folk song (‘The Faithful Hussar’), her voice moving the men to tears. Though they don’t know the words, they hum along to the tune. In a rare moment, the music severs the divide between nations and people, bringing them to together in a moment of solidarity and humanity. It’s a brief beautiful moment, and Kubrick never lets it tip into melodrama by adding music on the soundtrack. The actress’s voice alone does the job, as do the shots of the men’s reactions. Alas, that moment is then punctured when the staff sergeant informs Dax that they have to return to the trenches. Dax accepts this, but tells the sergeant to let the men stay just a little longer before breaking the news to them. Moments of beauty can be found even amid the gloom of war, but the machinery of war still marches on.

(Christiane Kubrick was credited on the film as Susanne Christian. Shortly after filming was over, she and Stanley Kubrick got married. They remained together until Kubrick’s death in 1999).

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Directed by: Billy Wilder
Written by: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond
Story by: Robert Thoeren, Michael Logan
Based on: Fanfare of Love (1935)

By this point, the chaos resulting from two musicians disguising themselves as women to join an all-female band to escape a Chicago mob boss has reached its peak. The mob boss taken care of, Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) decide it’s time to move on. Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) chases after to be with Joe, who tries to change his ways by persuading her to be with someone better than him, but it doesn’t work. Meanwhile, Jerry tries to get out of his engagement to millionaire Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), who thinks he’s a woman named Daphne. Nothing works, finally forcing an exasperated Jerry to come clean and admit he’s not a woman. Osgood, unfazed, says, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

The funniest thing is that the last line— “nobody’s perfect”— was meant to be a placeholder until Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond came up with a better punchline. Except… they couldn’t think of one better. And it really is the best note to end a film about two men who conned their way into the lives of different people just to survive. Nobody’s perfect. Plus, Jack Lemmon’s wordless reaction and Joe E. Brown’s happy smile seals the deal.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Directed by: Peter R. Hunt
Written by: Richard Maibaum (Additional dialogue by Simon Raven)
Based on: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Ian Fleming

The last five James Bond films until this point ended with Bond in the arms of a beautiful woman while triumphant music played— often the Bond theme. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service flipped the formula upside down for the franchise’s most devastating ending, ripped more or less straight from the pages of the novel: James Bond cradling his dead wife’s body in his lap, trying to convince himself that she’s just “having a rest” and that they have “all the time in the world”. Is it at an offender of the ‘fridging’ trope (the term used to describe the tendency of female characters being maimed, assaulted, or killed as plot devices to motivate male characters)? Yes… but unlike worse offenders (half of Marvel Studios’ output, for instance), the death of Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) a.k.a. Mrs. Bond actually has an emotional impact because it’s the end of the story and is more of a tragic ending. The final image of the cracked windshield where the bullet hit Tracy, and John Barry’s mournful music as the end credits play (though the Bond theme does kick in a while later), must have jolted audiences expecting a happy ending. Even today, it hits hard.

Black Christmas (1974)

Directed by: Bob Clark
Written by: Roy Moore

Black Christmas ends on one of the most frightening realizations: the real killer is still at large— and inside the house. The final girl Jess (Olivia Hussey) is sleeping off the shock she has endured throughout the night, but Billy the killer is in the attic, and it is hinted that he has climbed down. A police officer stands guard outside but Jess is in danger. The phone rings— is it the killer? And as the camera holds on the house, the credits roll up. The lack of music amplifies the scariness, leaving you in shock over all that has transpired and is still not over! But the most daring choice of all is to leave the big question unanswered: Who is Billy?

Director Bob Clark actually had come up with a whole backstory where the killer was abused by his parents until he killed them, and then locked up his sister for years. But in the end, he chose to leave all of that out. What’s left is something more sinister: an evil without explanation or face. We’re robbed of answers in the same way that some survivors or loved ones of murdered victims may be left without knowing why or who did something so horrible.

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Written and directed by: Isao Takahata
Based on: Grave of the Fireflies by Akiyuki Nosaka

The film gives away the ending right from the start: the main character Seita dies. We see his spirit watching his body expire. And then we realize that his younger sister, Setsuko, also died because she can see his spirit. All in the first five minutes.

It ends with Seita burning Setsuko’s body, and recounting how he put his sister’s ashes into the tin. The shot match-dissolves to Seita’s ghost hearing Setsuko calling out to him, bringing us back to the film’s opening, while she clambers up next to him. The music delivers the killing blow, though, with its violins and finally the flutes as the camera rises on the siblings seated on a bench, from behind. And we see what they’re looking at: present-day Japan, the modern city sprawled out before them. Had they survived, they would have been middle-aged or a little older. But they’re not. The entire film has been about two kids trying and failing fail to survive on their own while World War 2 rages on in Japan. Two kids against the world… and the world beats them. And yet, in death, they find each other again. reunite and goddamn, it hurts just thinking about this film. The red color of the hill and the ghosts, contrasting against the blues of the city— and the fireflies rising into the frame— makes for a haunting final image. Damn, it hurts just thinking about this film.

Running on Empty (1988)

Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Written by: Naomi Foner

The Pope family has been on the run for over a decade, moving from town to town under false identities to evade authorities trying to arrest the parents for a napalm lab they blew up years ago as young activists, accidentally injuring a janitor who wasn’t supposed to be there. The eldest son, Danny (River Phoenix) yearns for a normal life and his own dreams of being a musician, which is only complicated when he falls in love with the music teacher’s daughter. When the parents realize that it is too much to ask Danny to give up living his own life to keep the family together, they leave him behind, trusting that certain arrangements they’ve made will keep him in good care until he can be on his own. This ending is foreshadowed at the start when the Popes leave behind their dog before moving on to the next town and next identity, suggesting this is normal for them. This time, however, it’s their own son. Try not to get emotional as Arthur Pope (Judd Hirsch) cups Danny’s face and tells him: “We all love you. Now go out there and make a difference. Your mother and I tried. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.” When the film’s last shot is a profile of Danny watching his parents and brother drive away, you’re reminded of River Phoenix’s immense talent… and how he was taken from the world too soon.

P.S.: Running on Empty was a big influence on One Battle After Another, also about a former activist keeping a low-profile from the law and his child struggling to make a life of her own.

Titanic (1997)

Written and directed by: James Cameron

Is Rose dead or is she dreaming? James Cameron deliberately leaves it ambiguous— even in the script. Maybe she did die and return to her idea of the afterlife— which happens to be the Titanic of all places. Or maybe she is dreaming about the man who saved her, both from the sinking ship and the life she was trying to escape. Either way, I think the point is moot. The poignancy in the ending is that Rose is 17 again, and reunited with Jack. The camera poetically pans across all the photos of Rose having lived a full life as she promised Jack that she would, doing all the things they said they’d do; then pans off the Old Rose— who is either sleeping or dead— into the darkness of the cabin that then dissolves into an unbroken shot moving to the shipwreck, passing through, and suddenly seeing it transformed back into its magnificent self… the added touch is the choral in the music suddenly swelling. The camera moves to the door of the Grand Staircase area and it is filled with all the people that perished that night. It is the only time that everyone, irrespective of class, is congregated together. The band, the stewards, Fabrizio, Mr. Andrews, Captain Smith, and of course, Jack waiting at the top of the stairs. And as the camera pulls around, we realize that we’ve been seeing a first-person POV shot— Rose’s POV, to be exact. And as James Horner’s music rises, and the people applaud, the camera drifts up into the bright ceiling, and the frame blooms, leaving us with the last strains of Rose’s theme as the screen fades to black. If you hated the movie, you’ll be thanking the gods it’s over. But if you enjoyed it, you’ll feel a bit wrecked— to put it mildly.

Y tu mamá también (2001)

Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Written by: Alfonso Cuarón, Carlos Cuarón

The final scene is devastating all the more due to its almost clinical documentary-like way that the camera watches protagonists and former best friends Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) catch up a year after their fateful trip, after growing distant upon their return. Tenoch discloses that the third passenger on their trip, Luisa (Maribel Verdu) died a month after the trip; she’d known the entire time that her cancer would kill her soon. Although the two agree to meet again, the narrator dispassionately states that they never did. In keeping with the documentary French New Wave-influenced style, nothing about the scene is staged dramatically or overtly. There’s no music, no fancy camera flourishes, which only heightens the emotions at work. Alfonso Cuarón captures something truthful here: friendships, especially teenage friendships which are always more intense during that turbulent hormonal period of adolescence, doesn’t last forever, even among the best of friends. There are signs that the friendship may not endure into adulthood, between their different social classes— Tenoch is upper-class, Julio is working-class— and, well, after what happened on the trip. The friendship ends undramatically, slowly then all at once. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is. People grow up and drift. Even best friends like Julio and Tenoch.

La La Land (2016)

Written and directed by: Damien Chazelle

La La Land is a good movie with a great ending. It sneaks up on you because it subverts the expectation of a happy ending, according to the convention of the musical. The thing is that in the end, Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) do get their happy ending… just not with each other. From the moment Mia recognizes her hand-drawn logo of Sebastian’s jazz club on the door, Chazelle creates anxiety over how Sebastian will react to seeing Mia in the audience… with her husband. So he plays her their song, and only they know it’s for them. And then Chazelle turns the knife deeper— he shows us a re-imagining of how their story could have turned out. When it cuts to the two watching a “home video” of their life together, in which they have a kid and raise a family, it breaks your heart because who hasn’t, at least once, imagined how a story with someone could’ve ended differently?

Chazelle is a romantic, but perhaps he understands better than anyone that careers and relationships don’t necessarily always succeed together— and there’s a poignancy to this ending, coincidental or otherwise, considering that he got divorced a year before La La Land went into filming… which became one of the highlights of his career. The La La Land ending is both realistic, moving, and devastating all at the same time. Especially, as I said, you recognize that these two got what they wanted in the end. Just without each other. Because that’s how life works sometimes.

What are your favorite film endings? Please share your answers in the comments.

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Long live the movies!

D.L. Holmes