Hugh Langley is the author of Reel, another blog about movies, and you can also find him on twitter.
It has recently come to my attention that I perhaps put too much emphasis on a film’s ending, the very end, and I know it’s something I really shouldn’t do. I acknowledge that the ending isn’t necessarily the tipping point of a film, but it’s those last few moments I always take away with me. That’s not to say that everything that preceded it is forgotten of course. On the contrary, a film is, after all, the sum of its parts. But the tail end of a movie can often speak the loudest. Does it wrap the package up and deliver a happy reconciled conclusion, or leave it open for a bit of viewer discretion and guess-work? Does it even have an “ending” in the conventional sense at all? Or, more importantly, does it give the audience what they want?
It’s pretty difficult to please everyone, so here’s five of my favourite all time movie endings that I think come the closest. Needless to say: contains spoilers.
