12 More Movie Endings That Trolled Audiences

Directed by Detachment helmer Tony Kaye, 1998’s American History X is the brutal, brilliant story of a man’s slow seduction into violent neo-Nazism, with Fight Club star Edward Norton exceling as the alternately repugnant and charming protagonist. A terrifying force of nature, his character gradually unravels upon being sent to prison for a vicious hate crime and eventually disavows his bigoted beliefs, starting the slow and painful road to recovery and undoing the damage he caused to his community by advocating for racially motivated violence.

Then his kid brother is shot to bits in school, a moment which leaves a shell shocked and utterly broken Norton cradling him in tears—and, in the director’s cut, returning to neo-nazism with a vengeance.

Compelling stuff there, definitely not just nihilistic and grim, for sure.