10 So-Called Sad Movie Endings That Are Happier Than You Think

Martin Scorsese's masterpiece of a crime drama features a particularly clever stealth tragic ending. Goodfellas tells the story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a gangster who rises and falls, ultimately having to go into witness protection and betray his fellow gangsters to stop them from assassinating him. 

Even though he gets to live, he laments this outcome at the end and confesses that he'll miss the gangster lifestyle. "I'm an average nobody... get to live the rest of my life as a schnook" he narrates. The final shot of him closing his door is accompanied by the sound effect of a prison door closing, hammering this home. 

One of the many things that makes Goodfellas such a fascinating film is that it's narrated by a guy who sees himself as the hero when he's actually the villain. He's been a violent gangster the whole way through and he hardly deserves any sort of happy ending. Really, the only thing that's downbeat about this ending is the fact that he doesn't end up in prison, which is arguably where he belonged. 

In the end, as Hill's final voiceover showed, he didn't learn anything at all, and this conclusion is precisely what he deserved. His thuggery, his greed and his constant double-crossing of all his friends (who were also vile, but still) led him to living the life of a nobody. It was his fault and his alone - as they say, you make your bed, you lie in it.