10 Movie Plot Twists That Will TRAUMATIZE You

Atonement might have plenty of flaws but it is worth seeing for this heartbreaking ending alone.

Briony (Saoirse Ronan) commits an unforgivable act as a young girl: jealous of her sister Cecilia's (Keira Knightley) blossoming romance with Briony's crush Robbie (James McAvoy), she falsely implicates Robbie in a sexual assault that happens to one of her cousins (Juno Temple). Robbie is imprisoned and then sent off to fight in the Second World War. 

Tragically, Robbie and Cecilia never reunite. He dies during the evacuation of Dunkirk, while she dies in the Balham Tube Station Disaster during the London Blitz. This ending is already upsetting enough, but what makes it so completely crushing is that the film tricks audiences in a rather ingenious manner. 

Viewers see several scenes that depict Robbie and Cecilia living together after the war, but these scenes are revealed to be a fabrication by a now-elderly Briony (Vanessa Redgrave), who has since become a successful novelist. We learn that she is now living with Dementia and is writing her last book about this case. She gives Robbie and Cecilia a happy ending in her book as an act of kindness - a symbolic atonement for an act that destroyed two lives.

So, Robbie and Cecilia die, while the man who actually committed the assault Robbie was accused of gets away with everything. This is one of the most depressing endings of the century, and the fact that viewers are initially fooled into thinking Robbie and Cecilia survived makes it even tougher.