10 Biggest Downer Endings In Major Movies

Given just how many of the films on our list deal in some way with the end of the world as we know it, who would've thought the cruellest twist of fate would be for the world to not have ended after all? This is the real sucker punch that comes at the climax of Frank Darabont's 2007 Stephen King adaptation, The Mist.

As per King's 1980 novella, The Mist centres on a small town in Maine (it's King, after all) which is suddenly enveloped in an otherworldly mist which turns out to contain terrifying monsters bent on wiping out all human life.

Thomas Jane's David Drayton is one among a portion of the local population trapped in a supermarket when the mist falls; and as horrendous as the threat outside may be, it quickly turns out the people within are just as bad, rapidly turning against one another whilst religious fanatic Mrs Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) declares that Judgement Day has arrived.

Ultimately, David escapes in a car with a small number of survivors, his young son among them. Eventually they run out of gas - but David still has a partially loaded gun. Seeing no other option, David shoots them all, his son included, but runs out of bullets before he can take his own life too.

Then, mere moments later, the mist begins to clear and the army sweeps in to save the day, meaning none of them needed to die at all. Ouch.