10 Final Movie Scenes That Changed Everything

The final five minutes of Joe Wright's Atonement are a make-or-break litmus test for audiences, damn-near guaranteed to either leave them marvelling at its unexpected genius or infuriated at having the rug pulled out from under them.

The bulk of the story takes place in 1930s England as Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) embarks on a love affair with her wealthy family's housekeeper Robbie (James McAvoy).

A series of misunderstandings brought about by Cecilia's younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) cause Robbie to be falsely accused of raping one of the sisters' cousins, leading to his imprisonment.

Four years later, Robbie is sent to fight in World War II while Cecilia remains estranged from Briony due to her causing Robbie's imprisonment. But the story seems to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion when Briony visits her sister and finds her living with Robbie, the pair now reunited.

However, the movie's final sequence shifts forward decades, where a now-elderly Briony (Vanessa Redgrave) reveals that the meeting with Cecilia and Robbie never actually happened.

Rather, it's a chapter she wrote for her new book, Atonement, because in reality Robbie died of an infection while at war, and Cecilia was killed in the Balham tube station bombing.

They were never reunited in reality, and so Briony wrote the book as a way to process her guilt and give them a happier ending in death, all while she herself is dying from vascular dementia.

It's certainly a bold and provocative ending, albeit one that unavoidably pissed its fair share of viewers off, and perhaps even ruined the entire movie for them.

That didn't stop it receiving a Best Picture Oscar nomination, though, so the closing twist was evidently the dramatic cherry on top for many.