10 Movies Saved By Their Final Shot

Danny Boyle's Sunshine is a pretty damn terrific sci-fi thriller for its first hour-or-so, until it descends into slasher movie silliness in the final act as protagonist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) faces off against an insane, disfigured stowaway, Pinbacker (Mark Strong).

Apparently racing to reignite our dying sun didn't offer up enough drama for a single movie, and so a goofy murderous villain had to be thrown in for good measure.

Once Pinbacker is dealt with, however, the final scene returns to Earth, where Capa's sister and her children are playing at the snow-topped Sydney Harbour.

The gorgeously chilly final landscape shot of the area is suddenly bathed in sunlight, confirming that the mission was a success, moments before Boyle cuts to black and the movie ends.

A lesser film would've given us a wildly overbaked Earth-set epilogue full of melodrama and exposition, but all this needed was a single shot of the sun shining upon humanity once again. Perfection.