The 101 Greatest Endings in Movies History

Created by Igor_Brynner.

Favorited 1 time, disliked 0 times, added to 2 watchlists.

Not every great movie has a great ending. The reverse is also true: We’ve all had that experience of watching a ho-hum flick that became instantly unforgettable thanks to an awesome conclusion (famously, or more recently). It is, arguably, the most important part of any film — how a filmmaker wants you to feel when the lights go up is often the key to what that picture was really about.
In compiling a list of the greatest endings in movie history, we had many arguments over many months about this very dynamic, and found ourselves drawn to certain types we deemed successful more than others: Ambiguous, dark endings; endings that purported to explain something but secretly did not; endings that denied us (and the characters) closure; endings that featured people dancing, but not always in joyous, triumphant fashion. Maybe that was a reflection of the times we were living. (Dark, uncertain, marked by a significant amount of human flailing.) Sometimes, we did go for the cathartic, bring-happy-tears-to-your-face finale, but we frequently found ourselves opining the sorts of stories that lack that release. The unendings.
Our goal from the jump was never to determine a set formula for the Great Movie Ending. We began with an absolute morass of nominations, hundreds of finales that stuck in at least one Vulture staff member’s maw. The idiosyncrasies piled up; if the key to a good ending was a feeling, we’d surrender to impulse. Still, we did set ourselves some rules. Most significantly, we only considered one movie (feature length) per director, in part so Billy Wilder and Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock titles didn’t swallow up the whole list. We prioritized a diversity of tone, origin, authorship, subject matter, and genre. And we were a bit flexible on what constituted an actual “ending”: a final shot, a final passage; it just had to come at the end of the film. (You’d be amazed at how many scenes are remembered as being great endings that came well before the movie in question went to credits.) Still, there was no escaping our own unbound tastes and biases. You’ll see some classic endings on this list. You’ll also wonder (probably angrily) where some of the more iconic ones are. And you’ll hopefully see a few you’ve never heard of. (This is as good a time as any to remind you that this list contains many, many spoilers.) The thread that pulls all of these choices together is that after rewatching them, we felt that tough-to-articulate sensation when the lights went up (metaphorically, because of course we’re holed up at home just like you): The key to the story was more often a notion, not an answer.