10 Movie Endings That Left You Speechless
8. Whiplash
Not every entry on this list is totally shocking or depressing, though - not entirely, anyway.
Damien Chazelle's stunning drama Whiplash follows Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), an ambitious young jazz drummer who is pushed to breaking point by his abusive instructor, Terence Fletcher (an Oscar-winning J.K. Simmons).
At film's end, Fletcher invites Andrew to play with him at a jazz festival, which actually turns out to be a trap.
Fletcher knows that Andrew testified against him and got him fired from his job prior, and so at the festival Fletcher starts conducting a song that Andrew doesn't know in an attempt to publicly embarrass him.
A humiliated Andrew eventually leaves the stage but returns moments later, taking control of the situation and instructing the band to play the jazz track "Caravan."
Fletcher conducts along, but at the song's crescendo Andrew launches into a riotous extended drumming solo, which Fletcher approves of, before the song concludes and we cut abruptly to black.
Talk about an ending that makes you want to have a cigarette, whether you smoke or not.
The sheer intensity of this finale, turning a jazz performance into a battle of wits between drummer and instructor, is no less epic than an MCU superhero showdown, terrifically acted by Teller and Simmons while shot and edited with expert precision by Chazelle.