Posted on 07/30/2006 1:02:24 PM PDT by MotleyGirl70
I've seen Chinatown a dozen times, and while it's a great movie, two specific things about it stick in my mind: Jack Nicholson's bandaged nose and the final line of dialogue. Acting, directing, a great script… these are essential to any film. But a classic ending, now that can really make a movie.
We spent literally months brainstorming and corralling the 50 films with the absolute best endings we've ever seen. We're not talking about the last half hour. We mean the last minute of movie. You know, the ending.
Needless to say you can consider this entire article one monster SPOILER ALERT. Most of the films here are classics that you've probably seen several times over. But if not, skip past the ones you haven't seen and put 'em in your rental queue, otherwise you're going to ruin a whole lot of good films. Check out the flicks and we promise you won't be disappointed when the credits roll. As always, apologies in advance for the ones we stupidly forgot (and we know you'll be writing to let us know -- yes, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Seven, Carrie, we're sorry!).
- Christopher Null, Editor-in-Chief
Very true.I hate Speliberg and his politics but I've gotta admit that he's done some fine work in films.
LOL. That is scene is my main remembrance from the movie also.
The Usual Suspects--the perfect movie ending.
"Where is it? Oh God!"
We asked him why. The Mormons are notorious record keepers. The first thing they do when someone new moves into their congregation is to approach them, asked them where they came from and contact their former congregation to get the membership records. The jig would have been up in about the 2-3 weeks it takes to get the records. The perp had been living among them for far longer.
Put the Mormons in charge of the voter registration rolls and it would take them about 2-3 weeks to figure out who are legitimate citizens eligible to vote and who aren't.
Another asked me to submit four generations (back to my great-grandparents) and, boom, found one family line's pedigree back 2000 years. Good thing they are on our side, mostly. I'd hate to see the gubmint being able to follow records back like the Mormons.
The dancing scene in "Cry, Cry Again" was a classic.
....yup...both Saving Prvt Ryan and Forrest Gump both had great endings.....far better then many listed here in my opinion......
It's one of those where you can't make popcorn in the middle of it or you'll miss something.
Give it a try sometime and let me know what you think.
I enjoyed Memento, and I liked the ending. But it's one of those movies I found clever but not especially memorable, if you get my meaning--I admire it, but don't feel the need to see it again. Usual Suspects, for example, I can enjoy as a movie even knowing the ending. But I did enjoy Memento, and even the follow-up Nolan flick which no one else seems to like, the remake of Insomnia.
Full Metal Jacket ending
Private Joker (Matthew Modine) and other fellow soldiers kill the VC sniper (who is female). The last scene is them walking around at night and singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song.
One of my favorites
One of those movies where the second viewing is just as enjoyable (or even more so) than the first, because you know the ending while you watch and say to yourself "Why couldn't I figure out the ending the first time I watched it".
Nothing tops the ending of the original "Planet of the Apes", although "United 93" comes close [despite knowing what was going to happen.
My side doesn't follow deceptions made in the 1830s that say Jesus is the spirit-brother of Lucifer, that God is only the god of this universe but that there are others, that the men will become gods with their own planets and wives after death, etc.
I don't think lying is harmless. Trying to infiltrate our society first by singing, now by geneology, yet bringing a different Jesus and different Gospel, while using His name as a cover. No different than terrorists, masterminded by Satan, trying to get anyone they can away from the ONLY way of salvation: the real Jesus' death as our sacrificial lamb, given in mercy and grace, not earned by works or merit.
They record-keep so meticulously because they wrongly hold that they can pray for the dead and get them into heaven. Scripture instead says "it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment." You either repent and turn to the real God here and now, or you are picking your consequences of eternal separation from Him, which can't be prayed out. But they add to and take from the Scriptures what doesn't fit their worldview.
Not harmless at all.
My daughter talked for a long time about "Miracle on 34th Street" with Maureen O'Hara
Fight Club definitely deserves the #2 slot.
Hitchcock's "Vertigo" with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak...1958.
A man is obsessively in love with a beautiful woman who appears to fall to her death in a tragic accidental fall from the top of a mission bell tower. Stewart cannot forget her and sees her face or her figure in every crowd, or thinks he does.
Finally he finds a woman who looks just like her except for a detail or two. He persuades that woman to change into the exact look of his "dead beloved".
Then it comes out, as he suspected, that she is the same woman he thought had died, and that the death fall was "staged" (for the reason, rent and watch the movie). As they seem to be getting back together at the end, they return to the same mission bell tower she supposedly fell from. And this time she has a real accidental fall and dies for real, just as a horrified Stewart looks down on her dead figure below, and the movie ends there.
I was in total shock for a long time after first watching that on TV.
Silence of the Lambs.
"I'm having an old friend for dinner."
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