2. Dustin Hoffman & Katharine Ross Stop Acting - Give Birth To One Of Cinema's Best Endings
The Graduate is often considered to be one of the defining movies of its era, and that's partly thanks to its iconic ending, which sees young Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross) aboard a bus headed for nowhere, their whole lives ahead of them, finally free of the constraints of their relatives. But after the excitement of what just happened leaves the couple (Benjamin crashed her wedding and fought off her family with a crucifix - no biggie), the situation dawns upon them and they fall into silence. It's certainly one of cinema's best and melancholic final scenes. And yet it came out of nowhere and was the result of a happy accident. After they had filmed the scene, Hoffman and Robinson reportedly stopped acting, though director Mike Nichols kept the camera rolling and managed to capture their uncertain glances to another as they pondered what it was they were supposed to be doing. Whilst it remains a great and beautiful ending in every sense, it also proves that writing words down in a script is utterly pointless - you'd just as well let your actors stare awkwardly at one another and hope for the best.