10 Movies Where The Last Scene Is The Best
3. Requiem For A Dream
The final 20 minutes of Darren Aronofsky's unremittingly bleak addiction drama are an absolute horror-show, setting all the central characters up to fall prey to their various addictions.
But it's the devastating final three minutes which so brilliantly sew everything up into an unforgettable feel-bad bow.
Heroin addict Harry (Jared Leto) wakes up in hospital to find that he's lost his arm due to gangrene from injecting heroin, his pal Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) is left to go through withdrawal in prison, Harry's mother Sara (Ellen Burstyn) is near-vegetative after receiving electro-shock therapy to treat her amphetamine-induced psychosis, and Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) pimps herself out to feed her heroin addiction.
As the characters all curl up into the fetal position wherever they are, Sara imagines herself winning her favourite game show, while celebrating with her successful son Harry. The End.
Set to Clint Mansell's stunning "Lux Aeterna," it's one of the most gut-wrenching sequences you're ever likely to see, but also not merely depressing for its own sake.
In a film entirely concerned with the destructive power of addiction in all its forms, anything less than a completely levelling outcome would've simply felt dishonest.