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Not-happy endings in fiction that you thought were great
- Thread starter TissueBox
- Start date
I'd say this is one that goes not-happy, to bittersweet, to kinda not-happy again as the implications of it all set in.
I remember watching the last couple episodes of this and at one point having to pause the DVD because I was crying. Show is brutal at points.
This was such a good way to wrap that story up. God, Midnight Mass is special. Easily the best thing Flanagan's done.
I have this strange attachment to Very Bad Things.
As a black comedy, it's rather blunt in its absurdity and just runs with it all the way to the hilariously soul-crushing ending.
I'll never listen to Fried Neck Bones and Some Home Fries the same way again
As a black comedy, it's rather blunt in its absurdity and just runs with it all the way to the hilariously soul-crushing ending.
I'll never listen to Fried Neck Bones and Some Home Fries the same way again
This is my favorite part of The Return. I love how Lynch and Frost made an even more haunting ending than the original S2 finale.
Gunslinger Girls (manga) ends pretty much how you'd expect an Italian tragedy to end.
From what I remember, I drove off with Chloe while the town was getting decimated.
Isn't that only the save the bay ending?
From what I remember, I drove off with Chloe while the town was getting decimated.
End of Evangelion. I think it's a masterpiece.
And while it does strongly posit that there is the potential for happiness and connection, the last scene also really hammers home how complicated and confusing relationships with others are even if they are invaluable.
Watching it in theaters when it ends and the lights go up and you're have get up and leave on that note felt bad.
And while it does strongly posit that there is the potential for happiness and connection, the last scene also really hammers home how complicated and confusing relationships with others are even if they are invaluable.
Watching it in theaters when it ends and the lights go up and you're have get up and leave on that note felt bad.
Attack on Titan
First just considering the fact that 80% of humanity was dead due to Eren's actions. But what makes it worst is that all it did was delay time. Eventually Paradis is bombed while a boy finds the tree where the origins of the Titans are, potentially repeating the cycle. And it just goes to remind that human nature is cyclical. Conflict will always eventually arise again.
The Sound and the Fury. One can say that the ending is actually hopeful, but considering all the big pictures I'd say it's still not-happy.
Ling Ma is a genius at this. From Bliss Montage, G, Returning, and Peking Duck particularly stand out as favorites among favorites. God what a book still.
In poetry, Solmaz Sharif is also a genius at this. Customs is full of this, though right now I'll say On Beauty in particular.
All of Silent Hill 2's endings are great and are in conversation with each other, but I'd particularly point to In Water.
Fatal Frame 2. Same thoughts as Silent Hill 2. Crimson Butterfly, Frozen Butterfly, Hellish Abyss, and Shadow Festival endings all fit here.
Less not-happy and more wistful, because I do think they got what they needed from each other's company, but Lost in Translation.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
House of Hummingbird.
Aftersun.
Fleabag.
Twin Peaks: The Return.
Ling Ma is a genius at this. From Bliss Montage, G, Returning, and Peking Duck particularly stand out as favorites among favorites. God what a book still.
In poetry, Solmaz Sharif is also a genius at this. Customs is full of this, though right now I'll say On Beauty in particular.
All of Silent Hill 2's endings are great and are in conversation with each other, but I'd particularly point to In Water.
Fatal Frame 2. Same thoughts as Silent Hill 2. Crimson Butterfly, Frozen Butterfly, Hellish Abyss, and Shadow Festival endings all fit here.
Less not-happy and more wistful, because I do think they got what they needed from each other's company, but Lost in Translation.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
House of Hummingbird.
Aftersun.
Fleabag.
Twin Peaks: The Return.
For recent favorites, Red Dead 1 & Red Dead 2. The endings for John and Arthur's stories are just ... gutting, but also beautiful, appropriate. The Epilogues in RDR2 obviously change the tone and have some very heartwarming moments.
For movies, The Godfather Part 1 & Part 2, especially Part 2.
For movies, The Godfather Part 1 & Part 2, especially Part 2.
AoT
"Humanity will never stop fighting itself until it shrinks to a size of one or fewer" - Erwin Smith
"Humanity will never stop fighting itself until it shrinks to a size of one or fewer" - Erwin Smith
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It's iconic and classic and utterly haunting.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM
This is a sitcom.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM
This is a sitcom.
Random things that spring to mind:
letterboxd.com
The Conformist. The final scene takes place years after Marcello has perpetuated his betrayal (the assassination of his former college professor and his wife). Life is going well, and we follow him down city streets as he talks with his blind friend Italo in the immediate aftermath of Mussolini's resignation... When he suddenly spots a spectre from his past.
Enraged, he denounces the man as a Facist, a homosexual and the murderer of his former professor, which causes a mob to descend on him. Still frenzied, he sets them on Italo too, who is carried away. The events of the entire film have basically played out all over again in this one scene.
Marcello goes and sits by a nearby fire. Turns and stares into the camera:
Cut to black.
letterboxd.com
White Hunter, Black Heart. His elephant hunting obsession having resulted in the pointless death of a man he respected and whose culture he claimed to have treasured, Eastwood's director character comes to set, tells his screenwriter he was right, that their film does need a happy ending after all, and finally resigns himself to calling "Action":
Cut to black.
letterboxd.com
The Purple Rose of Cairo. Given the choice between two versions of the same man - the idealised, perfect one or the passionate, surprising flesh and blood one - a depressed Depression-era waitress picks the actor over the character he portrays (who'd escaped the confines of the screen, out into the real world).
Betrayed, the character returns to his film. The waitress returns to the actor...
To find he's returned to Hollywood and she's been betrayed too. Cause it was just another performance from a guy who's given a lot of good ones.
She goes back to the theatre. Tries to drown herself in more escapism. It works:
Cut to black.
The Conformist (1970)
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
letterboxd.com
The Conformist. The final scene takes place years after Marcello has perpetuated his betrayal (the assassination of his former college professor and his wife). Life is going well, and we follow him down city streets as he talks with his blind friend Italo in the immediate aftermath of Mussolini's resignation... When he suddenly spots a spectre from his past.
Enraged, he denounces the man as a Facist, a homosexual and the murderer of his former professor, which causes a mob to descend on him. Still frenzied, he sets them on Italo too, who is carried away. The events of the entire film have basically played out all over again in this one scene.
Marcello goes and sits by a nearby fire. Turns and stares into the camera:
Cut to black.
White Hunter, Black Heart (1990)
Renowned filmmaker John Wilson travels to Africa to direct a new movie, but constantly leaves to hunt elephants and other game, to the dismay of his cast and crew. He eventually becomes obsessed with hunting down and killing one specific elephant.
letterboxd.com
White Hunter, Black Heart. His elephant hunting obsession having resulted in the pointless death of a man he respected and whose culture he claimed to have treasured, Eastwood's director character comes to set, tells his screenwriter he was right, that their film does need a happy ending after all, and finally resigns himself to calling "Action":
Cut to black.
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' in hopes of raising her spirits, where she watches dashing archaeologist Tom...
letterboxd.com
The Purple Rose of Cairo. Given the choice between two versions of the same man - the idealised, perfect one or the passionate, surprising flesh and blood one - a depressed Depression-era waitress picks the actor over the character he portrays (who'd escaped the confines of the screen, out into the real world).
Betrayed, the character returns to his film. The waitress returns to the actor...
To find he's returned to Hollywood and she's been betrayed too. Cause it was just another performance from a guy who's given a lot of good ones.
She goes back to the theatre. Tries to drown herself in more escapism. It works:
Cut to black.
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A lot of Shirley Jackson's work.
Most strikingly for me is Hangsaman, which ends the novel on a moment full of positive language and momentum, but is such a mix of emotions.
"...she looked fondly up at them and smiled. As she had never been before, she was now alone, and grown-up, and powerful, and not at all afraid."
That seems uniformly positive, Natalie has changed in some unspecified but readily apparent way, and that change has pushed her foward(no longer a child, powerless, or afraid). But at the same time we see where she he is headed(back to her college) and where this newfound positivity is pointing her(to the horrible people there and the stifling world of late 1940s America), and we see that the girl she was, the one we've been reading about this whole time, has to be lost for this new version of Natalie to continue.
And Shirley Jackson's interest in queerness and yet adamant refusal to accept that interest gives the whole thing a depressing air, Natalie confronts her queer shadow-self and rejects it for the conformity of the times she lives in.
Most strikingly for me is Hangsaman, which ends the novel on a moment full of positive language and momentum, but is such a mix of emotions.
"...she looked fondly up at them and smiled. As she had never been before, she was now alone, and grown-up, and powerful, and not at all afraid."
That seems uniformly positive, Natalie has changed in some unspecified but readily apparent way, and that change has pushed her foward(no longer a child, powerless, or afraid). But at the same time we see where she he is headed(back to her college) and where this newfound positivity is pointing her(to the horrible people there and the stifling world of late 1940s America), and we see that the girl she was, the one we've been reading about this whole time, has to be lost for this new version of Natalie to continue.
And Shirley Jackson's interest in queerness and yet adamant refusal to accept that interest gives the whole thing a depressing air, Natalie confronts her queer shadow-self and rejects it for the conformity of the times she lives in.
Great choice. Technically the good guys win but its done in such a horrific manner and after so much unthinkable damage has been done. Everyone is just left adrift once the actual conflict has been dealt with and its a very sad and melancholy vibe.
Twin Peaks has already been mentioned a few times and god it's perhaps the most haunting ending I've seen.
Another one is a show my partner made me watch called Wayward Pines. It got cancelled after the second season making the final 2 episodes such a brutal gut punch that it elevated what was for me a pretty uneven show with a stellar concept into something truly memorable.
Another one is a show my partner made me watch called Wayward Pines. It got cancelled after the second season making the final 2 episodes such a brutal gut punch that it elevated what was for me a pretty uneven show with a stellar concept into something truly memorable.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service - still the only time James Bond ever cried when he's left holding his dead wife who was shot in the head just after they were married.
No Time To Die - James Bond actually dying is something I never thought I'd see (especially to a lame villain). As downbeat as it was, it made sense to end Daniel Craig's run like that.
Eden Lake - the two main characters getting killed off, and Kelly Reilly being murdered by a household full of adults after asking for help since their kids have been terrorizing her. The fact that you don't see what happens to her, but hear her screams was absolutely haunting.
Oculus - the children both lose in their quest to destroy the cursed mirror that killed their family. The brother was tricked into killing his sister at the end and he goes off to jail for the rest of his life after just getting out of a mental institution at the beginning of the film.
Spoorloos/The Vanishing - Man loses his girlfriend when she goes into a gas station. When the man catches up with the person who kidnapped her, he's given a choice to either forget the entire thing, or to discover what actually happened to her by drinking a cup of coffee offered to him. He chose the coffee, finds out it's drugged, and it's implied that he was buried alive just like his girlfriend. We close on a scene of the kidnapper sitting on top of the place where they buried the man, and all you see is that a tree has grown over site meaning the man has been dead for quite a while.
Cowboy Bebop didn't hit me until that final song starts up over the end credits, and it was then that I decided that's the song I want played at my funeral.
No Time To Die - James Bond actually dying is something I never thought I'd see (especially to a lame villain). As downbeat as it was, it made sense to end Daniel Craig's run like that.
Eden Lake - the two main characters getting killed off, and Kelly Reilly being murdered by a household full of adults after asking for help since their kids have been terrorizing her. The fact that you don't see what happens to her, but hear her screams was absolutely haunting.
Oculus - the children both lose in their quest to destroy the cursed mirror that killed their family. The brother was tricked into killing his sister at the end and he goes off to jail for the rest of his life after just getting out of a mental institution at the beginning of the film.
Spoorloos/The Vanishing - Man loses his girlfriend when she goes into a gas station. When the man catches up with the person who kidnapped her, he's given a choice to either forget the entire thing, or to discover what actually happened to her by drinking a cup of coffee offered to him. He chose the coffee, finds out it's drugged, and it's implied that he was buried alive just like his girlfriend. We close on a scene of the kidnapper sitting on top of the place where they buried the man, and all you see is that a tree has grown over site meaning the man has been dead for quite a while.
Cowboy Bebop didn't hit me until that final song starts up over the end credits, and it was then that I decided that's the song I want played at my funeral.
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I love tragedies!
My mom loved them too and so we watched a ton together (and a lot of them were plays as well). Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie. (Both of those about struggling families trying to find glamour and success, but with their own flaws getting in the way.)
Twilight Zone has a lot of great tragedies too, "Time Enough at Last" sticks with me the most.
Succession is a recent example, but imo less heart wrenching because the characters are pretty vile and they constantly make their own bed to lie in lol
My mom loved them too and so we watched a ton together (and a lot of them were plays as well). Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie. (Both of those about struggling families trying to find glamour and success, but with their own flaws getting in the way.)
Twilight Zone has a lot of great tragedies too, "Time Enough at Last" sticks with me the most.
Succession is a recent example, but imo less heart wrenching because the characters are pretty vile and they constantly make their own bed to lie in lol
Did the manga end?? OMG I have to catch up. I've never seen a manga capture the conflicted feelings of a childhood abuse victim so well.
The Summer You Were There
You know based off the title what is going to happen, but the journey to get there just tears at your heartstrings.
Also I Sold My Life for 10,000 Yen per Year. & Half & Half. The latter of which had a slight twist to the ending I wasn't expecting to be honest.
You know based off the title what is going to happen, but the journey to get there just tears at your heartstrings.
Also I Sold My Life for 10,000 Yen per Year. & Half & Half. The latter of which had a slight twist to the ending I wasn't expecting to be honest.
Cowboy Bebop. It hurts so much, but is also just a perfect way to end it.
Yuuup. Decades later and we still are.
Yuuup. Decades later and we still are.
No Country For Old Men.
The Counsellor had an amazing ending lol!
Pretty much any Cormack McCarthy story actually.
The Counsellor had an amazing ending lol!
Pretty much any Cormack McCarthy story actually.
FF7 original was ambiguous. I thought it was great.
Bebop
Blade Runner
FFX
Star Wars Empire Strikes Back?
The Road
Shout out to Hard Luck Woman's ending. Call Me Call Me, Bebop crew splitting, the finale before the finale.
Bebop
Blade Runner
FFX
Star Wars Empire Strikes Back?
The Road
Cowboy Bebop. It hurts so much, but is also just a perfect way to end it.
Yuuup. Decades later and we still are.
Shout out to Hard Luck Woman's ending. Call Me Call Me, Bebop crew splitting, the finale before the finale.
But they got rid of the most annoying character in the movie finally!
The Wheel of Time series. Arguably not entirely bittersweet but enough so that I think it counts.
I vastly prefer endings that have elements of being bittersweet. I'm always put out when a story ends with a pretty bow on it.
Rand not being with the people he loves after everything he's done for the world hits hard. While there's some happiness in him finally being free, he's still barred from something that's typically seen as the goal for characters that save the world.
I vastly prefer endings that have elements of being bittersweet. I'm always put out when a story ends with a pretty bow on it.
Happy Times.
Apparently, the native Chinese cut is more optimistic but the international cut is six minutes longer and sad. There's hope for the girl, despite being alone in the world and blind. Despite not knowing the conman who became like a father to her is likely going to die. Die thinking he was a bad person for lying to the girl, though through a letter his friends read, they learn she knows he was lying: her job was fake, her dad didn't actually write her letters and had abandoned her and she says he made her life happy. But since he's in a coma, there's no way for his friends to tell him that.
And apparently there is some subtlety that I missed in regards to how bad the world was going to be for her.
Apparently, the native Chinese cut is more optimistic but the international cut is six minutes longer and sad. There's hope for the girl, despite being alone in the world and blind. Despite not knowing the conman who became like a father to her is likely going to die. Die thinking he was a bad person for lying to the girl, though through a letter his friends read, they learn she knows he was lying: her job was fake, her dad didn't actually write her letters and had abandoned her and she says he made her life happy. But since he's in a coma, there's no way for his friends to tell him that.
And apparently there is some subtlety that I missed in regards to how bad the world was going to be for her.