10 Movies Where The Last Scene Is The Best

These films managed to save the best for last.

Se7en movie
New Line Cinema

As important as it is to open a movie with a strong, impactful scene that immediately grabs the audience's attention, it's near-equally crucial to wrap things up with a satisfying or at least memorable final sequence.

After all, the last impression of a movie will colour the audience's impressions as the end credits roll, and a sour or underwhelming ending can taint an otherwise great or good film.

But sometimes filmmakers pull their ending off well enough that it's not simply a gratifying send-off but literally the best thing in the entire movie.

As inspired by this fantastic Reddit thread, these 10 films - most of them highly acclaimed and all massively successful in their own right - saved the absolute best for last, delivering an all-timer ending that viewers are still talking about many years, even decades later.

We've all seen so many movies that fumbled the ball at the finish line, because ending any story is inherently challenging, but these films had the confidence, the skill, and perhaps a sprinkle of luck, to bring it all together for an absolute corker of a closing scene...

10. Se7en

Se7en movie
New Line Cinema

David Fincher's Se7en boasts one of the most gut-wrenching climaxes to any film, well, ever.

After serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) turns himself in, he directs Detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) to the desert, where they're delivered a box.

Somerset opens the box and tells an increasingly agitated Mills to stay back, while Doe tauntingly informs him that he paid a visit to his pregnant wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), and as representing the sin of envy, decapitated her and placed her head in the box.

Somerset then desperately attempts to get an incensed Mills to step away from Doe, reminding him that killing Doe will effectively allow him to win, competing the one remaining sin: wrath.

But an enraged Mills promptly shoots Doe numerous times, ending the film on a jaw-droppingly bleak note, before Somerset signs off with the unforgettable quote:

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."

We then abruptly cut to the end credits, and that's all she wrote. It's an ending that, while totally shocking and "edgy," so perfectly ties the movie's themes up in a neat, if brutal, bow.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.