Movies end in one of two ways; the good guy wins or the good guy loses. And the latter are harder to find than you think. Happy endings are necessary within our culture and society ostensibly for the reason that real life is depressing enough without having to witness our favourite characters kick the bucket. We desire to see villains get their comeuppance and underdogs win the day, as it happens far too infrequently in real life. Put simply, happy endings are an antidote to life's crushing realities. With happy endings in cinema, however, comes lack of tension and unoriginal endings. It's now reached a point where, when a hero's life hangs in the balance at the end of a modern movie I sit there and almost hope for the main character to die. Just to witness something different for a change. Movies tread a fine line between the wonderful, dreamy finales of fantasy and the fact that they are essentially depicting a real world (for the most part); a world that an audience can invest in, with believable science and real consequences. If a hero puts their life on the line, sometimes that hero should die. This is a real-world consequence that should have its place in cinema as much as any fairytale sunset-headed ending. In this list I'll show you a bunch that came close, but bottled it at the last minute; or some where the main character could feasibly have died to improve the story of the film, even if it wasn't on the cards originally.
Cinephile since 1993, aged 4, when he saw his very first film in the cinema - Jurassic Park - which is also evidence of damn fine parenting. World champion at Six Degrees of Separation. Lender of DVDs to cheap mates. Connoisseur of Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe.
