10 So-Called Happy Endings That Absolutely Aren't

Good filmmaking is the art of manipulating and tricking the audience. That's one of the keys to great Hollywood cinema - its ability to hijack viewers' mood and pull them right into a story's world. 

A great example of this comes from 1996's Independence Day. There's a particular scene where a tunnel is being destroyed, and even though thousands of people have just died, audiences are likely to forget that because the focus is on the hero's dog. The dog makes it, everyone cheers! It should be a sad moment, but such is the power of Hollywood manipulation. 

It's often like this with movie endings as well. If a picture uses cinematic techniques to successfully create a happy atmosphere, then viewers are likely to walk away thinking that they've just witnessed a happy ending. It might only be later, when they reflect further, that they realize it actually wasn't. 

Just ask Whiplash. It took people a little while to realize that Whiplash's ending was miles away from the inspirational story that many, including the Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus, described it as. People have come around to Whiplash, but there are plenty more stealth unhappy endings floating around out there, starting with...

By the standards of post-Endgame MCU, Thunderbolts* wasn't bad at all. It ended up being a pretty fun time with a refreshing undercurrent of darkness layered in, most notably through its touching (if unsubtle) explorations of mental health and also a more cynical ending than normal for the MCU. 

Throughout the movie, the titular team has been trying to survive the various efforts of Valentina de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to kill them, and they've also come into conflict with Bob (Lewis Pullman), a young man who was experimented on by de Fontaine. She was trying to turn him into a new superhero, but only damaged him further, and he nearly destroyed New York by mistake. 

Once the Thunderbolts help Bob regain control of his powers, they chase after de Fontaine, only to suddenly emerge onto a stage where she's holding an impromptu press conference. She introduces them as the New Avengers and takes credit for building the team and stopping Bob. 

Though the film plays this ending in a somewhat optimistic light, with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) telling de Fontaine, "We own you now," it's actually a bit of a downer ending in all honesty. It's great that most of the characters made it through, but despite Belova's words, de Fontaine is the one who's in charge of them, not the other way around, and she's also got away with all of her appalling crimes.