The entirety of the journey a film takes you on might be the most important experience of the film, the twist and turns, the characters, the gradual development of the plot, but the ending can make or break a film. Those films with great endings make an enormous and long lasting impression on the audience, and those that fail to succeed mar the entire experience. An ending doesn’t have to just offer an interesting twist that shocks you to your very core leaving the entire film seen in a new light, they should move you, challenge you, and they should almost never tie up all the loose ends completely. Here I will examine my top five favourite film endings, if you’ve not seen the films yet, don’t read what I say, just check the title and then watch the film for yourself.
5. Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard; 1965)
The ending is simple, but there is something so satisfying about a man painting his face blue, wrapping dynamite around his head, lighting the fuse and then saying, “What an idiot I’m being” as he attempts to put it out, and then it explodes! It’s probably the craziest endings I have seen, but it works. It’s made a little bit sweeter as the camera pans to a view of the sea, lines from a poem by Rimbaud is spoken, “It’s found again”, “What?”, “Eternity”, “It’s the sea gone”, “With the sun.”
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick; 1968)
2001 suddenly whisks you up into the most surreal finale I have seen in cinema, it is both stunning to look at, and absolutely terrifying. It also raises a lot of questions and remains with you for a long time after it was watch, if you can shake the ending at all! The camera work is remarkable and makes the ending great in itself, the way it switches views, the distorted lens, everything strange looks beautiful.
3. L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni; 1962)
One of the more experimental endings I have seen, L’Eclisse left me awestruck at its abandonment of conventions. When the relationship is over, the place where the couple were supposed to meet is left empty. Instead of showing the couple come to their end, they just disappear from the film and the film keeps on going. The people, the street, the work site, it’s barren and eerie. Antonioni shoots the emptiness, it feels uncomfortable, but it also feels truthful.
2. Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini; 1957)
The final scene of Nights of Cabiria captures a glimmer of hope at its sweetest and most painful. After Cabiria has lost everything, devastated and crushed, she walks out into a street to be surrounded by a party of teenagers celebrating. They sing and dance around her and one offers a simple ‘Good Evening’. A smile comes over Cabiria’s face and she finally has hope again, she looks around at everyone with the most sincere emotions and thanks them, and for a brief moment, she looks directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and thanks you with a smile and a nod. It’s an emotionally charged moment which lasts just a few seconds and is so simple. It overwhelms me every time, just like the next, and final, ending…
1. City Lights (Charles Chaplin; 1931)
There is something about the ending of City Lights, every time I watch it I swear to myself I’m not going to choke a little with tears… but every time I do. The ending is simply perfect, the whole film was leading up to this magnificent moment where just a few words and a few looks are filled with pure emotional cinematic pleasure. As the blind flower girl realises that the millionaire who gave her money for an operation to fix her sight is just a mere tramp, he says “You can see now?” And she responds softly, “Yes, I can see now.” Cue sudden blubbering from everyone! It’s difficult to explain why this scene works so well, the simplicity, the acting, the music, the writing, everything just seems to come together perfectly and I think such an ending would be difficult to match, let alone surpass.
