[MotleyGirl70]

50. The Blair Witch Project (1999) - The movie isn't particularly scary... at least until the last two minutes, which take the tension level from 10 to 100 at an exponential pace. The final seconds -- wherein a member of the cast is spotted, back turned and facing a corner, as an unseen spirit does away with the remaining member of the crew, who's been filming all of this in a panic-stricken run through an abandoned house -- rank as some of the most terrifying moments ever put to film. It gives me chills just to write about it. -CN

[SNIP]

25. Real Genius (1985) - The entire film builds and builds to this exquisite ending, where Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) and his brainiac pals finally revel in their revenge plot against the evil Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton). How they pulled off the stunt to make an entire house look like it was filled with popcorn I still can't figure out. The effect is, ahem, genius. Growing up, my little sister called this film "the popcorn movie." -CN

[SNIP]

1. Dr. Strangelove (1964) - You may remember otherwise, but the climactic scene where Slim Pickens rides the bomb down is not actually the ending of Strangelove (though even if it were, it would still be #1 on our list). Rather, there is a strange scene afterwards in which the leaders of the free world wait for the end of the world while having a demented argument about how to survive the impending nuclear winter ("We must not have a mine shaft gap!"). Then, signaling apocalypse, Peter Sellers' titular mad scientist, wheelchair-bound for the entire movie, stands up and begins to walk, before the War Room (and the rest of the world) explodes to the tune of "We'll Meet Again." It's all weird but absurdly logical, like everything about Kubrick's

Click here for the rest of the list.

[MotleyGirl70]

Ping

[Dante3]

The ending in "Brigham City" has stayed in my mind. If you plan to watch the film, do not read about the ending.

[dfwgator]

Growing up, my little sister called this film "the popcorn movie." -CN

Funny, that's what I called the movie "Diner." :)

[MikefromOhio]

I don't agree with most of them actually. But it isn't my list.

Although I do think they missed Field of Dreams. That last scene with the father and the son throwing the ball together with the line of cars coming down the driveway is something else to me.

[Mr. Mojo]

Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs comes to mind.

[Gay State Conservative]

Where's Schindler's List? One of the all time classics with an incredibly powerful ending.

[angkor]

In no particular order, some good ones:

Usual Suspects

Field Of Dreams

Goodfellas

Pay It Forward

[MotleyGirl70]

I've never seen Dr. Strangelove; is this movie worthy of being in the number one spot. Just wondering.

[dfwgator]

I liked the ending of Bronson's "10 to Midnight."

[Darkwolf377]

With the exception of Dr. Strangelove and Blair Witch, I don't like a single movie in this thread so far.

Great endings:

Citizen Kane--when we the audience but not the characters learn the meaning of Rosebud--pure film, as no one who's actually IN the movie learns the answer.

The Wild Bunch--the Bunch go out in an astonishing blaze of glory, and the surviving member and the man who's been pursuing them carry on.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly--after the greatest Mexican standoff in movies, the Man rides off into eternity.

Shadowlands--C.S. Lewis and his late wife's son walking through a beautiful landscape, the music surges and, if you look closely, both characters come together, finally.

North by Northwest--all of the plot threads are wrapped up--satisfyingly--in a matter of seconds.

Session 9--the ending of this incredibly creepy (to me) movie always reminds me of The Shining, even though it has nothing to do with that movie. The tone, the sense of bewilderment at what's happened in this haunted place...

Alien--been done to death since, but the final confrontation just works perfectly.

Brazil--devastating.Seven--you see the ending coming a mile away--I believe the moviemakers intend that--but think there will be an "out". There isn't.

Heat--pursuer and pursued at the end of the line.

Return of the King--I've never read the books, so my reaction to these movies is untainted by prior knowledge. I found Gandalf's goodbye, with Howard Shore's exquisite score behind it, quite moving.

King Kong (1933)--"It was Beauty killed the Beast."

Bonnie and Clyde

It's a Wonderful Life--I'm not a fan of the movie, but the ending is astonishing; after showering George with misery for two hours, the audience sees how overjoyed he is just to be alive.

Enoughy for now...

[Darkwolf377]

P.S. I waited til after I wrote my list to check out the real list. It's a pretty good one, and reminded me of the one I always tell people is the perfect ending yet I managed to forget it here! (Doh!)

The Usual Suspects--the perfect movie ending.

[Darkwolf377]

Wait Until Dark--a blind Audrey Hepburn dispatches the villains and heads for the window to shout for help, and Alan Arkin springs at her like an evil Jack-in-the-Box. Henry Mancini's pounding score accompanies the final moments as Arkin pulls himself along the floor by the knife that stabbed him, as Hepburn tries to find and unplug the only light source in the room: the refridgerator.

"Where is it? Oh God!"

[bmwcyle]

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

[So Cal Rocket]

The Sixth Sense

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".

[PzLdr]

Nothing tops the ending of the original "Planet of the Apes", although "United 93" comes close [despite knowing what was going to happen.

[chae]

Fight Club definitely deserves the #2 slot.

[txrangerette]

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.

[gate2wire]

Silence of the Lambs.

"I'm having an old friend for dinner."

[stylecouncilor]

The original Ocean's 11....(the good one).

[Richard Kimball]

Thanks for the post. It's a good list for critics, and a few of the movies are choices I'd make, but here are the ones that I think beat most of the ones on the list:

The Sixth Sense. M. Night Shyamalan has spent the rest of his career trying to recreate that perfect ending. Nobody saw it coming, and it took a great horror movie to an entirely different level.

Deliverance. Everybody talks about the scene where Ned Beatty gets raped, but the ending, with the hand coming out of the lake, and Jon Voight waking up screaming was unbelievably eerie. Brain DePalma made an entire career out of ripping off that ending (think Carrie and Dressed to Kill).

Apollo 13. Being true helps, but the joy of everyone at the successful recovery of the astronauts, when Ed Harris hears the radio transmission indicating a safe return and slumps in his chair, totally exhausted, is one of the best "feel good" moments in movie history.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Jimmy Stewart, as an aging politician, blathering in his studied politician voice, and the conductor tells him, "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance." Stewart sits, and thinks of Tom Donophan, who gave up everything he loved, his girl, his dignity, and his reputation, and Stewart had scooped it all up.

Mister Roberts. The scene of Roberts leaving the ship, as the crew who had turned their backs on him said their apologies by being polite, followed by the news he had been killed in combat, sitting in a ward room drinking coffee, and the formerly cowardly Ensign Pulver taking his place.

Stalag 17. If you haven't seen it, see it. "When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah..."

Halloween. Yeah, the ending's pretty lame now, since it's been done in something like five Halloween movies and fifteen Friday the 13th movies, and to top it off, they do the ending every fifteen minutes in every film, but the original Halloween, with actual actors and actresses (Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance) kept that balance that you just thought "man, this guy's crazy AND tough." The final scene, where Pleasance shoots him multiple times and he falls out the window, then he looks down and he's gone is the first hint that there's something supernatural about the guy.

Devil's Advocate: Al Pacino's great line, "Vanity is my favorite sin."

These are just off the top of my head.