2. Dante - Clerks
Kevin Smith's audacious debut, Clerks, is a hilarious document of the travails of being a convenience store worker - the idiotic customers, the irritating working conditions, and if Smith had kept to his original vision, the hazard of potentially being murdered on the job. You see, the original filmed ending featured Randall leaving the store for the day, just as in the final cut, except there's an extra beat where a thief enters the store, points a gun at a stunned Dante and shoots him once through the chest. Smith then lingers on Dante's corpse for a few moments as the thief cleans house and leaves, before we cut to black. It's easy to see why Smith ditched the ending - it's downbeat and not as commercial for a first-time director - but it goes beyond mere shock value and actually serves a narrative point. How fascinating is it that Dante spends most of his day debating these relatively insignificant aspects of his life, and then it's all just cut down in one fell swoop? Part of me wishes Smith had stuck with this ending, but then we'd never have got the brilliant Clerks 2 as well (nor Clerks 3, which is currently in the works).