10 Awesome Movies With Terrible Endings

Trying to deliver a sequel as beloved and instantly iconic as The Dark Knight was always going to be a pretty tall order - even for the masterful Christopher Nolan.

But in The Dark Knight Rises, the director did manage to craft something that mostly felt like a fitting conclusion to his tremendous Batman Trilogy.

However, while most were quick to celebrate Tom Hardy's menacing Bane and the rest of the new faces joining the series, were fans of the tale of a Bat having to pick himself back up after being broken by the titan, and were gripped by the eventual War for Gotham, that cop-out ending wasn't quite as adored.

Christian Bale's Batman/Bruce Wayne seemingly pays the ultimate price after flying the atomic bomb that was about to blow up his city far away. It explodes. He dies a hero's death. And Gotham is saved by its Dark Knight.

But instead of ending things on that bold, bittersweet note, Nolan instead opted to reveal that Bruce had not only somehow survived a situation that looked impossible to escape, he was now in Italy chilling out with Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle and smiling at Michael Caine's Alfred from across the restaurant.

Sure, it was nice to see Brucie finally get his happily ever after. But it didn't half undermine that hugely dramatic sacrifice a few minutes earlier.