3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
How best to disarm your audience once their time is up? How about shattering the illusion completely and reminding them that yes, they have just spent the last two hours inside a cinema? Having characters break the fourth wall acts like an alarm clock, a not-so-subtle way of shaking the audience from their seats and sending them on their way. It's a technique used in everything from Wayne's World to, erm, Spice World. And it seems only right that a protagonist who has carried us around like a video camera would get to end his film on his own terms. Perhaps in a nod to The Muppet Movie, in which Animal wastes no time in telling his audience to''Go home! Go home!' even as the credits have barely left the screen, we have Ferris (Matthew Broderick) stagger out of his bedroom and into the landing with a look of pure befuddlement on his face. He stares into the camera and asks, ''You're still here? It's over...go home,'' before shooing us out of his house and retreating to his room once and for all.