Question of the Day: What are some of your favorite film endings?

I Haven't done one of these in awhile so I thought it would be a good way to head into the weekend. Oddly enough I was thinking about this question the other night when I popped in Superbad due to there being nothing on TV. I forgot how much I really liked this movie, but I don't think it's as good as I remember it being. In fact, Jonah Hill kind of gets on my nerves, and Michael Cera's act gets old pretty quick. However, it's still better than 90% of the comedies released today, and it has one of the most genuinely touching "rite of passage" endings I've seen in a film about teenagers. This got me thinking...what endings do I absolutely love (Superbad being one of them as that shot of them being pulled apart by the camera going down the escalator is truly moving)? A small list, with comments for a select few, follows the jump:


This leans more towards the modern because I did it off the top of my head. Sorry.


Superbad -- See above

City Lights


No Country For Old Men -- There will be a lot of Coen Brothers movies on here. I just love the balls they had to end their film with such ambiguity. The final relaying of a dream by Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is the perfect coda to a perfect film.


8 ½ -- Fellini’s wonderfully entertaining take on the absurdity of life with his “what the hell…let’s enjoy it” philosophy providing the perfect ending: a total flip of Bergman’s dance of death. Fellini gathers figures from Guido’s (Marcello Mastroianni) past and present, circus performers, film critics, and an assortment of other types for a final scene of pure elation. Fellini’s dance of life, followed by a young Guido alone in a spotlight, is one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever seen in a film.


Magnolia -- I love the final image of Melora Waters smiling into the camera as John C. Reilly tells her he’s not going to give up on her, all while Aimee Mann’s perfect music plays in the background… a perfect ending to a perfect movie. It warms me to no end whenever I see that ending.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

The Godfather

Raging Bull


Chinatown -- Has such a nihilistic ending ever been so quoted or remembered? The perfect (and most necessary) ending to Roman Polanski’s stylish neo-noir.


Raising Arizona -- Listening H.I. (Nicolas Cage) talk about how everything – despite the troubles of married life (and stealing a kid) – will be alright between he and his wife Ed (Holly Hunter). The glimpse into the future, accompanied by the great musical score, always gets me chocked up. And then in typical Coen fashion they end the touching scene with a joke (“or maybe it was Utah.”).


The Sweet Hereafter -- The ending of this shattering film is chilling in how it puts the final, haunting stamp on already unnerving film experience. Sarah Polley’s narration, relaying the story of the Pied Piper is a perfect metaphor for what happens to her, and others, in the film. This is director Atom Egoyan’s masterpiece, and then ending provides the perfect closing to the film.

You Can Count on Me

Fargo


The Beyond -- Lucio Fulci’s ethereal horror opus is far from the subtitles of some the other films mentioned on this list…but it has a kick ass ending, that’s for sure. When the main characters frantically make their way to a door (avoiding zombies along the way) thinking it will lead them to safety, and then realize they’ve entered hell…well it’s one of the best moments in Italian horror that elicits genuine uneasiness. Fabio Frizzi’s score certainly adds a little something special to that eerie ending.

Brokeback Mountain

A Nightmare on Elm Street


The Third Man -- Of course this has to be on the list. Carol Reed’s ending to the seminal film noir is the perfect final moment as we think (read: audiences were conditioned to believe) the happy ending is on the horizon for Holly Martin (Joseph Cotton). However, his actions, as ethical as they may be, don’t land him the girl (there’s no way in hell this ending gets made in America) and as she walks by in that famous shot with that famous zither score in the background, all Holly can do is smile and smoke – all alone like the pulp cowboy characters he pens for a living. I would say that this specific shot – a static camera, a singular image walking towards the screen surrounded by trees on both sides, Holly off to the left waiting causally – is one of the five best shots in film history. It’s a perfect example of a director mastering mise-en-scene. Martin Scorsese would homage this scene in The Departed to a lesser effect.

Sideways

The Blair Witch Project


A History of Violence -- After the dirty secret of his past has come out, small town everyman Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is revealed to be somebody different than the person his wife (Maria Bello) married and is raising a family with. At the end of the film Tom and his wife stare at each other at the dinner table…an understood silence that tells us they both know, despite its difficulties, they must continue to live the lie. Cronenberg’s film is a masterpiece, and it’s one of the best endings he’s ever pulled off.

The Searchers

Planet of the Apes


The Shawshank Redemption -- One of my favorite endings as we have Red’s (Morgan Freeman) wonderful narration guiding us through the final moments of the film (with the classic line “I hope…”) and a reunion on the Mexican coast that tugs at the heart strings. It’s funny to think that Darabont didn’t want the ending in the film (King didn’t have the ending in his short story), but the producers told him he was crazy, that people just sat through two-and-half hours of dark prison drama, and you cannot deprive them of that ending. Darabont acquiesced, and really, either decision would have been good. I’m glad he caved, though, because despite its schmaltz, it’s a perfect ending.

Tenebre

Carrie


Michael Clayton -- The speech Michael (George Clooney) gives at the end is pretty awesome, but what I love about the end to Tony Gillroy’s call back to adult thrillers (and no I don’t mean the Animal Instincts kind of adult thriller) is that he just ends his film (credits and all) with a shot of Michael in a cab. It’s perfectly fitting that a film entitled Michael Clayton, a contemplative and quiet thriller, end with a subtle musical score and the camera just sitting on the character's face as he thinks about what he’s done and what his future holds…and the audience thinks with him. It’s a great, subdued ending that you usually don’t get in modern thrillers.

Don’t Look Now

Fail Safe

Citizen Kane


Traffic -- Benicio Del Toro’s cop works, unknowingly, for a drug kingpin who he thinks is a good person wanting to bring down the cartels in Mexico – the truth is his new boss just wants to eliminate the competition. Del Toro’s cop decides to cut a deal with the American’s to bring down his boss as long as he gets baseball lights for the kids in Mexico so they can play baseball at night. It’s a great moment where Del Toro’s cop realizes that the war on drugs is unwinnable, but he’ll play along as long as it makes his city a better place to live. The final moments of the film, a static shot of Del Toro watching kids play baseball, is one of the best in modern years. Like the end of Michael Clayton, the ending of Traffic just allows us to watch this character (a stoic cop) enjoy the fruits of what he’s negotiated as a sense of freedom from the whole ordeal is clearly evident in his face; there’s even a brief moment where you swear a smile creeps across his face. Again, as is the case with most of these endings, the subtle music (a component of film that is far too overlooked) that accompanies the scene is perfect.

Soooo...what are some of your favorite all-time endings? Oh, and try not to use the word perfect as much as I do, hehe.

Labels: Film, Question of the Day