Author
Amuthan M
Amuthan shows great interest towards post-modern story narration and loves analysing and writing about them. He is persistently trying to understand the minds of creators of arts and how they construct the society.
Ten Films with the Greatest Endings
Quite often, we come across movies whose whole context lies at the ending. The reason for this might be that there could be a lot of pay-offs that should be given to the characters, and also a ton of justice which ought to be balanced. In most of the cases, the theme of the entire flick depends solely on the climax. This signifies that good endings are the pillars of great writing. Let us now go through a list of films that had really great endings.
1. Memories of Murder (2003) — “Who is the killer?”
Image from 'Memories of Murder'
The story is based on a true incident of a serial murder that took place in South Korea. The case was still open and the convict was yet to be found at the time of its release. In the final scenes, a Policeman describes the murderer as a “nothing specific, normal guy” after which he looks directly into the camera. At the same time, the protagonist also looks through the camera trying to locate the murderer implying that the killer must be watching the film himself!
2. Inglourious Basterds (2009) — “I think this just might be my masterpiece”
Image from 'Inglourious Basterds'
The story’s justification was perfectly balanced only in the ending, by killing Hitler through an unconventional staging. If we try answering the question “Who really killed Hitler?”, the answer will justify my previous statement about balancing. Another beauty of its ending is, the director believed in himself that this film would go on to become a masterpiece (it really is), so he places a dialogue with perfect rhythm in the perfect place, “I think this just might be my masterpiece”. What a filmmaker Tarantino is!
3. Sicario (2015) -”You’re not a wolf — and this is the land of wolves now.”
Image from 'Sicario'
Sicario explains the relativity of good and evil. The story begins with incomplete background of characters and never really delves into the background of the later characters either. The Movie’s main character “Alenjandro”, which was played by Benicio Del Toro’, was completely insane. This is because his character was largely under developed and only around 5 or 6 lines of dialogue in the ending will entirely describe his character. By the time Sicario ends, the viewer is left to wonder what statements he/she came across in the film are actually true.
4. Hell or High Water (2016) — “I been poor my whole life…”
Image from 'Hell or High water'
Hell or High Water is also a typical Sheridan movie. The movie gives social commentary about economic status of most people, and the war they wage against the poverty cycle. Without any second thought, this movie is one of the best modern westerns of recent times. The scripting and making of the movie are simple yet powerful. The ending scene of the movie describes the entire theme and answers questions we had while watching such as “Why did they do that?” and “Who they really are?”.
5. The Revenant (2015) — “As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You keep breathing.”
Image from 'The Revenant'
As I said earlier, a film’s ending should balance the justice and moral among characters. Revenant does this in the best possible way. There arises a situation where Glass (protagonist) needs to kill the antagonist. Even though he is bad, for this single moment, the moral stands behind the antagonist. Therefore, in order to balance the moral, the writer justified his death by not letting the protagonist kill him, instead he is killed by someone he hated his entire life for no reason! Revenant lays great emphasis on Survival which happens to be the theme of the film!
6. The Social Network (2010) — “You can’t make million friends without making few enemies”
Image from 'The Social Network'
David Fincher is a master in revealing the darkness lying inside even the most optimistic characters. This film is a fictional biography of Mark Zuckerberg and how he actually created Facebook. There is so much that is good about the film however the final scene, in particular, is brilliant, where the protagonist sends a friend request to his ex-lover, and waits for her to accept it. He refreshes the web page every now and then to check if she had accepted his request and the film ends right here without revealing the status of his friend request. This conveys a very deep message about relationships and online friendships.
7. Inception (2010) — “the top will spin forever in dreams”
Image from 'Inception'
Inception has featured in many of our previous lists. If you have watched it, you will agree with me when I say we can’t ignore it from this list. Inception has the most ambiguous endings among all films ever made. I like films which leave the context of the film at the hands of the audience. Inception is one such film and is an emotional roller coaster. If you haven’t watched the movie yet, do watch it and it will remain in your mind forever!
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) — “Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?”
Image from 'The Silence of the Lambs'
This film shows us the strength which women possess. The plot revolves around Clarice, a female cop who is trying to solve a serial murder case. The serial killer, who is a psychopath, is actually in prison and even helps Clarice in solving the case. A lot of questions will arise in our minds while watching this flick with the most important one being, “Why in the world is he helping Clarice?”. The ending signifies the simple relationship they share and has the best pay-off to the characters.
9. The Truman show (1998) — “Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya: Good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”
Image from 'The Truman Show'
The Truman show explains the cruelty of capitalism and shows us the worst part of the media. The role of the protagonist was played by Jim Carry, and this film is one of the best dark-reality comedy films ever made. The ending of the film is where the protagonist reaches enlightenment where he realizes his whole life was a reality show. This film is sure to raise questions in our minds such as “What exactly is reality? And what if the world we live in is fake?”.
10. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) — “This part of my life… this little part… is called ‘happiness’“
Image from 'The Pursuit of Happyness'
This film arguably has the best emotional and satisfying ending of all time. It motivates many people who have a lot of passion to succeed but struggle in their life to get a breakthrough. The movie will leave optimistic thoughts in your mind which is exactly what everyone needs these days to survive. The ending will make you shed tears, in the end, who really cares about moral balancing and script twists when we have got huge emotions to get carried away!
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