10 More Movie Heroes You Didn't Realise Probably Died Horrible Deaths

9. Dirk Diggler - Boogie Nights

Just as Dirk Diggler is about to flush his life down the pan thanks to his fondness for cocaine and some seriously questionable business decisions (like trying to rip off a drug lord) he has an epiphany thanks to staring Death in the face, and turns his life around.

Or at least back to d*cking for money, which as happy endings go, isn't all that bad. Everyone else - who doesn't die - is shown to be getting on with their dreams, and the world is all good again.

But Wait...

Paul Thomas Anderson loves messing with the audience's expectations and the classifications of what makes something good as well as what constitutes moral goodness and happiness, and in that last respect the end of Boogie Nights is the archetypal downer ending that nobody really sees coming.

The film is based (at least loosely) on the life of John Holmes, professional swordsman and poster boy for the Golden Age of Porn in the '70s. And just as the film ends, the rise of the HIV epidemic is just about to spread through the industry devastatingly, killing a significant number of the stars. Including Holmes.