10 More Movies Where Evil Won

It goes without saying that the vast majority of movies end with good triumphing over evil - because it's what the vast majority of popcorn-gobbling moviegoers want to see when they pay their hard-earned dosh for a cinema ticket.

Downer endings are something of a commercial risk, then, but when they're executed with sufficient skill, they can make a film so much more memorable and impactful than it otherwise would be.

And so, as a sequel to our previous article on the very subject, here are 10 more movies where despite our expectation for the hero to triumph in the end, it just didn't happen.

These movies all saw the villainous force unambiguously succeed in their plan, whether getting away with a nefarious plot for their own twisted enrichment, or simply killing the good guy and waltzing off into the sunset, free to keep doing what they're doing.

Again, endings like this are super-risky and run the risk of turning the audience off entirely, but when they're shrewdly written, acted, and directed as they are in these 10 movies, it's tough to resist their allure - grim though they all undeniably are...

If you go into Primal Fear without any prior knowledge of where it's going, the ending is one hell of a trip alright. 

Gregory Hoblit's taut legal thriller follows defense attorney Martin Vail (Richard Gere) as he defends a teenage altar boy, Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton), accused of murdering an Archbishop.

We eventually learn that Aaron did kill the Archbish, but only in revenge for being sexually abused by him, and it's subsequently revealed that Aaron suffers from dissociative identity disorder, with the killing having been committed by a violent second persona, Roy.

At film's end Aaron is found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a psychiatric hospital, but in the stunning final scene, Vail meets with him once more where Aaron drops a flabbergasting revelation.

It turns out that Aaron faked his mental illness in order to kill the Archbishop while receiving the minimum punishment possible, and when a shocked Vail declares that "There never was a Roy," Aaron retorts with the chilling truth, "There never was an Aaron."

The shy, timid Aaron was a fabrication the entire time - the terrifying Roy was his true self, and with the verdict having already been rendered, all Vail can do is leave the scene, Aaron/Roy's scheme having worked perfectly.