That's All Folks

September 7, 2018 1:25 PM

The 50 Best Final Shots in Movie History
posted by sapagan (77 comments total)

I must be misremembering the ending of Cool Hand Luke, because I thought it would make the list.
posted by 4ster at 1:38 PM on September 7, 2018

One of my favorite final shots is the end of "The Sword of Doom'. Of course, it's somewhat accidental since it was meant to be the first film in a series, but the sudden freeze frame of Tatsuya Nakadai's raging, contorted face always stuck with me.
posted by selfnoise at 1:43 PM on September 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Just watched the ending to Cool Hand Luke on YouTube. I am misremembering. Carry on.
posted by 4ster at 1:43 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'm going to have to disagree with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because the "heroes ride off into the sunset" shot has been dead and buried since 1974.
posted by peeedro at 1:46 PM on September 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm going to have to disagree with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because . . .

Because the last shot of Raiders is the fucking warehouse shot, and the only reason not to choose that -- in fact the only reason not to put it solidly in your Top 10 and to choose a totally unmemorable sequel instead -- is because you're a jackass or a troll. Or both.
posted by The Bellman at 2:01 PM on September 7, 2018 [47 favorites]

it's on 5 pages instead of one AND it does not include some like it hot anywhere on the list so therefore i reject it
posted by poffin boffin at 2:03 PM on September 7, 2018 [21 favorites]

Some a bit obvious, some a bit baffling (The Breakfast Club? Really?) Some that I thought should have made it:

The Man Who Would Be King

About Schmidt
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:05 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, Michael Clayton.
posted by The Bellman at 2:09 PM on September 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

The 50 Best Movie End Songs
posted by logicpunk at 2:11 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

in fact the only reason not to put it solidly in your Top 10 and to choose a totally unmemorable sequel instead -- is because you're a jackass or a troll. Or both.

Ah, yes. If I disagree with you about a subjective cultural issue, I must be either lying or a bad person.

Never change, Metafilter.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:11 PM on September 7, 2018 [18 favorites]

Not a single adult film!?
posted by ODiV at 2:13 PM on September 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Never change, Metafilter.

I resent the implication that I in any way represent MetaFilter.
posted by The Bellman at 2:15 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Breaker Morant
posted by sineater at 2:17 PM on September 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

my ad blocker hates that site. Is Electra Glide In Blue on the list? If so, I may consider disabling. Otherwise ...

God Bless America, Electra Glide in Blue

SPOILER ALERT: it tells you what happens at the end
posted by philip-random at 2:20 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Not including the last shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark seems an odd oversight; including the last shot of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as representative somehow of the hackiest cowboy movie trope, seems deliberately provocative.

And lo, it’s working!
posted by chavenet at 2:20 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah, Sword Of Doom. When I saw that for the first time I didn’t know it was supposed to be the first in a series which never happened, and when it just up and ended without resolving *any* of the plots it had taken time to set up I was like “WTF did I just watch?”
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:21 PM on September 7, 2018

The last shot in One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest was good enough for The Simpsons to parody twice.
posted by peeedro at 2:23 PM on September 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

my ad blocker hates that site. Is Electra Glide In Blue on the list?
Nope. (Also it asked me to disable ad-blocker, but let me proceed without doing so).

Thought that list wasn't too bad, actually. Could always point to omissions - I mean, no Citizen Kane? And agreed on the Indiana Jones discussion above.
posted by Pink Frost at 2:30 PM on September 7, 2018

As I scrolled down, I was not surprised to find that I agreed with the ones where I could actually remember the last scene. When I did not find Antonioni's "The Passenger" as No. 1, however, I was disappointed.
posted by acrasis at 2:33 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

It was fun to try to predict what would be on this list before opening the link. The only ones I came up with that weren't there were The Cabin in the Woods and Drag Me To Hell. They're both memorable, but maybe schlocky horror doesn't cut it if it's too recent.
posted by painquale at 2:45 PM on September 7, 2018

The original Muppet Movie isn't listed? For shame.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:48 PM on September 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

What about "Blade Runner"? It ties the movie up together. ( I mean Roy's death, and the Oragami Unicorn.
posted by Alt255 at 2:51 PM on September 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

100% agreement on Sword of Doom.

Some of my faves:

Medium Cool. The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching.

The Last Temptation of Christ. The medium of film is inadequate to express the moment of Christ's sacrifice, and the film itself begins to distort until the image is completely destroyed.

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer. One of the most haunting shots I've ever seen, and another great performance by Sword of Doom's Tatsuya Nakadai.

Army of Shadows. Our French Resistance heroes, who are in a somber mood after suffering some setbacks and have had little to show for their efforts, happen to drive up to the Arc de Triomphe. Through the windshield, we see a Nazi occupation soldier directing traffic in front of the monument, who gestures them to turn right. They turn, and the Arc is no longer visible in frame.
posted by hyperbolic at 2:58 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

This isn’t exactly the last shot of Trainspotting, but Ewan McGregor walking toward the camera while narrating the monologue and Born Slippy playing in the background is my favorite ending shot of any movie.

Also, RoboCop. “Nice shooting, son. What’s your name?” “Murphy.”

Both of those shots just leave a huge smile on my face.
posted by gucci mane at 3:02 PM on September 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

Through the windshield, we see a Nazi occupation soldier directing traffic in front of the monument, who gestures them to turn right. They turn, and the Arc is no longer visible in frame.

Don't forget the text crawl telling you about how within the next year or so everyone would be dead!

Putting Third Man at only #23 is nigh-unforgivable. it's not inconclusive! ANNA REJECTS HOLLY AND ALL HIS WORKS.
posted by praemunire at 3:03 PM on September 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Oh, and if we're doing schlock:

Blood Debts. I have never laughed so hard at a man blowing up.

Robot Jox. The best fist bump of all time.
posted by hyperbolic at 3:05 PM on September 7, 2018

Can someone who clicked through all 5 pages tell me if Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels made the list? Because damn if that last shot isn't masterful.
posted by Automocar at 3:05 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, exclusion of the final tracking shot in Citizen Kane seems inexplicable, unless I'm misremembering that it is the last one.
posted by praemunire at 3:05 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's a more eclectic list than I anticipated, but some of those shots aren't the final shots as I remember them.

Also, L'Avventura is the greatest closing shot in history and isn't even on the list, so...

The second greatest closing shot is The Third Man, which is on the list, but not at number two, so...

Also, it says this of the final shot of The Third Man:

"it is an appropriately inconclusive final flourish".

WTF? How much more conclusive can you get?! I am utterly baffled that anyone could say such a thing.

3rd greatest is The Passenger and 4th is The Graduate. Fifth is Cache, 6th is Chinatown. 7th is -- okay, I'll shut up now.

(In actuality, many of these choice seem to be: "Films with satisfying endings" rather than "greatest closing shots.")
posted by dobbs at 3:05 PM on September 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Monsters, Inc.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:05 PM on September 7, 2018

Don't forget the text crawl telling you about how within the next year or so everyone would be dead!

I didn't wanna spoil the story! But yeah, the movie belongs on a very spoilery list of best movies where everybody dies.
posted by hyperbolic at 3:07 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Solaris, yes. That should be #1. Or Brazil. Or Big Night. Or Planet of the Apes. Or Psycho.

I also approve of Quiet Earth, Fight Club, The Third Man, Thelma and Louise, Inception, The Godfather, Amadeus, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on this list.

But no Long Good Friday, seriously?
posted by doctornemo at 3:15 PM on September 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ugh. There's only a handful of black & white films and only a dozen before 1970.
posted by octothorpe at 3:20 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

> The 50 Best Movie End Songs

To save anyone clicking through (unless this is what they want) and possibly wasting time (like I did): this is not The 50 Best Movie End Songs, this is the final scenes of fifty movies with "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits played over them. I don't understand people who would take the time and effort to actually provide fifty such scenes instead of just tweeting "you can play walk of life over the end of any movie and it works," but these are the times we live in.
posted by languagehat at 3:24 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

A good companion shot to A Serious Man is the final shot of Take Shelter, similarly storm-themed, but with entirely different implications.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:26 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

As The Man Who Fell to Earth ended, for a few moments I found had to think about the horror in Thomas Jerome Newton's future as I watched it. It's so uncomfortably played out even though the shot itself isn't held for 30 seconds. An uneven movie, yes, but that ending!

Some of the endings in this list felt clichéd to me (The Breakfast Club, Indiana Jones, anything where anyone went off in the sunset or into the shadowy mists), and I also realized that a lot of the endings to films on the list I had seen didn't stick with me, even if they weren't clichéd. I'm not sure why.
posted by droplet at 3:35 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Since this thread is inevitably just going to be a list of everybody's favorites, here's mine: Alice in the Cities.
I imagine somebody told Wim Wenders that he only had the budget for one helicopter shot in this film - make it count. Boy did he. The wind in their hair when they open the window. It's exhilarating, every time I see it.
posted by spudsilo at 3:39 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, exclusion of the final tracking shot in Citizen Kane seems inexplicable, unless I'm misremembering that it is the last one.

Here's the final scene of Citizen Kane, the last shot ties the story up but isn't anything special.
posted by peeedro at 3:42 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

I submit the downer ending of teen sex romp The Last American Virgin which even now 35 years later feels improbably fresh and brave.
The movie itself is better and more thoughtful than many other teen films of its time, even if its a bit of an odd mix of Porky's-esque sex romp tropes and sober sensitive honesty.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:06 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

The fact that this is on a site called "Film School Rejects" is so appropriate, given that this list looks like the product of an incomplete and inadequate film school education. The only suggestion I would give the author is, "see more movies."
posted by wabbittwax at 4:12 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

It better be fuckin' The Searchers

....:reads article:...

Heal Yeah.
posted by sideshow at 4:21 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm going to buck the mood of the thread and say that I do agree with including last shot of Call Me By Your Name, for two reasons:

1. The book it's based on actually goes on to show what happens to the characters AFTER that Summer O' Love, and it implies that Elio is hung up on Oliver for years afterward and it's a little messed up. The movie leaves that out - all you get is Elio crying for a solid four minutes; but over the course of that four minutes, his family is setting the table for a dinner behind him, and gradually he starts to stop crying, and at the very very end, his mother calls him to the table, and he's recovered enough to blink a bit, wipe his eyes and turn around. Ending it there sent the message that "yes, his heart got broken, but he has people around him who love him still, and he's gonna end up okay after all." At least that's the take I had, which is muuuuuuch more of a hopeful note than I understand the book takes.

2. Timothee Chalamet flippin' nails that shot. Seriously, you try crying for a solid four minutes while there's a movie camera three feet from your face.

....Two that I'd have loved to have seen added:

Gallipoli.

The Rapture.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:24 PM on September 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Grave of the Fireflies; that last pan up to the modern city.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:52 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Here's the final scene of Citizen Kane , the last shot ties the story up but isn't anything special.

OK, it dissolves rather than tracks out (interesting how the brain chooses to splice things), but I'd say that even the technical last shot is quite powerful.

I'd also put in a vote for Martha Dunstock doing donuts in her chair around Veronica Sawyer as she stalks down the school hallway in her soot-covered clothing, red scrunchie of power clearly visible.
posted by praemunire at 4:59 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Some a bit obvious, some a bit baffling (The Breakfast Club? Really?)

The Bender Fist Pump (tm) is reenacted on a weekly basis in my household
It is appropriate for celebrating having won a minor point of trivia, when a suitably cheesy 80s ballad comes on the radio or when your kid yells "See ya later, Dad!" across the parking lot after drop-off.
posted by madajb at 5:06 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

I must have run through the list too quickly, because I missed where they included Dr. Strangelove on the list. I also favorited peedro’s comment before even looking at the link because I knew exactly what it was. Jaws had a pretty good ending shot as well.
posted by TedW at 5:44 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Remember, it's the last shot that they're going for, not the ending. (If we can be flexible, I'd put Star Trek IV in there: "Tell my mother... that I feel fine.")
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:51 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Being There.
posted by davelog at 6:39 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Came for Butch Cassidy and Last Crusade (if only because Connery living forever is somewhat of a requirement for all being well with the world), wasn't disappointed. Knew 7 Samurai would be on there so wasn't concerned about that one being missed.

And I hate paginated web listicles.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:00 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Seconding Gallipoli. Crushing when I first saw it, and reminiscent of Robert Capa's The Falling Soldier photo from the Spanish Civil War.

Add The Godfather, Part II. Completes Michael Corleone's journey to an innocent outsider to someone who's destroyed his blood family in the name of saving his crime family.
And making a hypothetical 3rd movie thematically unnecessary.

Add Back to the Future

Gladiator is a boring last shot. Cabaret is more about the ending than the last shot. I love Heat but the ending shot isn't that great. I haven't seen Ikiru but dang that's a great last shot.

400 Blows looks like a Smiths album cover. North by Northwest: the train is going back into the tunnel, if you know what I mean.

Loved these choices: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Once Upon a Time in America, Big Night, The Third Man, Thelma and Louise, Casablanca, Planet of the Apes, Psycho, The Graduate, and The Searchers.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:10 PM on September 7, 2018

I think it's literally the last SHOT of the movie, not the last scene. Of course talking about the last shot includes talking about the last scene, but I think it's the last image on camera and not the last 2-4 minutes of the film.

Using that rubric the final shot of Indy III works pretty well in this list because it's one of the most beautifully filmed riding-into-the-sunset moments ever filmed.

I really thought the list was just about the beauty of the image with context included about why its there. It wasn't about "this was the best movie ending" or something. Perhaps I misunderstood the point of the article. I enjoyed looking at the images.

Oh, and as someone who was exactly the target audience for The Breakfast Club when it was originally in theaters, that movie was one of the most utterly cathartic experiences and that fist pump at the end was thrilling on a visceral level. Was glad to see it on the list.
posted by hippybear at 7:19 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Single-page version (incomplete images) via clusterfake.net's deslide function.

And Fight Club but not Bicycle Thieves? De gustibus non disputandum est, but c'mon, man.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:22 PM on September 7, 2018

The compiler of the list apparently dropped out of film school before seeing The Seventh Seal.
posted by scratch at 7:26 PM on September 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

I thought the Fight Club shot was overrated, like the movie.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:27 PM on September 7, 2018

The Bicycle Thief. Also, Wings of Desire.
posted by kinnakeet at 8:38 PM on September 7, 2018

MetaFilter: [movie list FPP] Ugh. There's only a handful of black & white films and only a dozen before 1970.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:42 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh! What a Lovely War belongs on the list.
posted by litlnemo at 9:05 PM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Timothee Chalamet flippin' nails that shot. Seriously, you try crying for a solid four minutes while there's a movie camera three feet from your face.

Speaking of which: the final scene of Dangerous Liasons, as a devastated Glenn Close silently wipes off her makeup, and the screen fades to black.
posted by jokeefe at 9:58 PM on September 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Oh! What a Lovely War yt belongs on the list.

saw this movie almost fifty years ago, age ten. Afternoon matinee in small town British Columbia where my dad's on a business trip and I'm along for the ride. He parks me in the movie theater for a couple of hours so he can go to a meeting or wherever, and the movie that happens to be playing is Oh! What a Lovely War. Completely random.

My first satire. My first experience of cinema as art. My first serious introduction to the corrupt and tragic history of the so-called Great War.

Haven't seen it since. Have seldom even thought of it since, but on seeing that mention of the ending, I immediately flashed on the nightmarish (for a ten year old) transition from battleground to green field and blue skies ... and all those crosses. And infinity of crosses.

Thank you.
posted by philip-random at 10:43 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Barton Fink, if just for that gull. Also La Haine.
posted by furtive at 11:04 PM on September 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Casino Royale. Such a good movie, and then it closes out on that note... I was giddy leaving the theater.
posted by azpenguin at 7:16 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Forgot about The Rapture. Great movie.

(And Will Patton is my favorite audiobook narrator.)

Breaking the Waves.
posted by dobbs at 7:19 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Speaking of which: the final scene of Dangerous Liasons, as a devastated Glenn Close silently wipes off her makeup , and the screen fades to black.

OH MY GOD HELL YES TOTALLY FORGOT SECONDING THIS SUPER-HARD
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:44 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Clearly I am a sentimentalist and didn't go to film school but need to mention Rocky
posted by raider at 7:49 AM on September 8, 2018

Harold and Maude? I'll never cease to feel a kind of melancholy joy thinking of the final shot.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover? (When I watched the film as an adult on the big screen a few years ago, I couldn't stop laughing at the final shot/line -- it was so shocking and so liberating and so freaking funny and so well-delivered).

Also, agree on The Rapture. That ending shot -- the way it suddenly seems as if it's happening on a stage, yet has all the power of the insanely monstrous theological worldview of its main characters laid bare -- has haunted me ever since I first saw the film when it came out. Whoa, what a crazy wild and harrowing ride of a film!
posted by treepour at 8:41 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Night of the Living Dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBc-gNIjGuc
posted by binturong at 10:42 AM on September 8, 2018

Meg Shields is hardly my idea of a gifted judge of cinematography, editing, or directing. This list is okay, but she’s an unsophisticated critic.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:51 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

ricochet biscuit: MetaFilter: [movie list FPP] Ugh. There's only a handful of black & white films and only a dozen before 1970.

You know, I usually smile ruefully while nodding at the "Metafilter:" bits when they're good, but this one seems more of an honest indictment of most film websites on the internet, rather than any kind of indictment of the populace of the Blue.
posted by tzikeh at 3:43 PM on September 8, 2018

Metafilter: You know, I usually smile ruefully while nodding at the "Metafilter:" bits...
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:47 PM on September 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

Breaking the Waves.

This.

Others that spring to mind:
Magnolia
Being John Malkovich
The Thin Red Line
Koyaanisqatsi
A Separation
posted by the duck by the oboe at 3:17 AM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Barton Fink (sploosh!)

and

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Gesundheit!)
posted by Guy Smiley at 10:01 AM on September 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

The last shot of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:59 PM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Death Proof

so earned
posted by Sauce Trough at 3:39 PM on September 9, 2018

Complete horse-crap. The long ending shot from The Silence of the Lambs did not make the list. This is the opinion of a person who is interested is showing off their knowledge of obscure cinema, rather then making insightful judgments about film.
posted by Metacircular at 4:07 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think it's literally the last SHOT of the movie, not the last scene. Of course talking about the last shot includes talking about the last scene, but I think it's the last image on camera and not the last 2-4 minutes of the film.

The inclusion of Call Me By Your Name would argue against this. A single still image from that would not be terribly notable; it's the entire final scene that apparently qualifies it for this list, and the commentary says as much ("And we sit with him, longer than we’re used to sitting with broken-hearted characters.")
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:22 PM on September 10, 2018

My pick for unjustly left off: The Blair Witch Project
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:24 PM on September 10, 2018

I think there may be some confusion of terms here; the single last image would be a "frame" as opposed to a shot. (At least thus says the cinema studies for dummies book I've been reading.)

I may have muddied the waters with my link to the Gallipoli and Rapture clips - the full video linked to was the final scene, but in both cases I linked them so people could indeed see the final shot- with Gallipoli, the runner sprinting across the battlefield before being stopped by a bullet, and for The Rapture, Mimi Rogers standing all alone in a barren nowhere, resignedly saying that she will be staying there "Forever." It is my fault that I didn't link to a specific time stamp, so you had to sit through all the stuff with Mimi and a sheriff dude fleeing on a motorcycle trying to outrace Death on a pale horse and stuff; but that slow pull back from Mimi Rogers' face to show her in a desolate nowhere is the bit I was thinking of.

The last SCENE of Call Me By Your Name is Elio walking into the room, playing with gelt,taking his Walkman off and going over to stare into the fire, PLUS that long shot of him crying to the tune of Sufjan Stevens, until he turns around at the very end. The last shot is just the Sufjan crying part. If you look only at him turning around, that's the final frame.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:57 PM on September 10, 2018 [2 favorites]