10 Movie Endings That Left You Speechless
4. Buried
2010's Buried is a brilliantly claustrophobic low-budget thriller in which an American truck driver working in Iraq, Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), is kidnapped and buried alive in a wooden coffin.
Unfolding more-or-less in real time, Buried is the Ryan Reynolds show through and through, as Conroy desperately tries to use the few objects on his person - namely a phone - to affect his escape before his time (and oxygen) runs out.
For 99% of the movie, it seems like a given that Paul will eventually be rescued, because what is Ryan Reynolds if not in the business of delivering crowd-pleasing entertainment, right?
Well, not this time.
In the finale, sand begins filling Paul's coffin all while Dan Brenner (Robert Paterson), a hostage negotiator, assures him that a rescue team has arrived to dig him out.
But unfortunately Brenner's intel was incorrect and the team have in fact dug up Mark White, a man who Brenner told Paul earlier in the film had been rescued from a similar situation.
And with that, Paul realises that he's going to die, helpless to do anything but accept the weight of the sand pouring in as Brenner apologises to him over the phone.
To make matters worse, the end credits are then accompanied by an ironically upbeat country song, as if director Rodrigo Cortés wanted to mock the audience for expecting Paul to survive. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.