10 Movies You Never Expected To Have A Happy Ending
3. 28 Days Later
One of the many brilliant things about Danny Boyle's masterful 28 Days Later is that, despite how grim and violent it is, there's also a strong undercurrent of hope. The group of survivors forms a touching surrogate family relationship of sorts, and while they initially assume the whole world is overrun, protagonist Jim (Cillian Murphy) sees a plane in the sky and realizes that the outside world isn't gone after all.
Better still, three out of the four main characters survive the movie's brutal events. Jim rescues both Selena (Naomie Harris) and Hannah (Megan Burns) from the clutches of a deranged group of British soldiers who were trying to turn them both into sexual slaves, and they are shown being rescued from the British Isles at the film's end. Jim is actually shot during the climax by Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston), the movie's key human antagonist, but miraculously, he does make it.
There were several alternate endings planned, which all ended with Jim dying. There has been some debate about how the movie should've ended, yet it's arguable that they made the right call in allowing Jim to survive. This was another group of characters who'd been through hell and back - they deserved to live.
Jim will be back in the upcoming 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple; here's hoping they don't ruin his ending.