20 Greatest Final Shots In Movies Ever

4. The 400 Blows (1959)

François Truffaut's iconic coming-of-age drama follows the travails of French juvenile delinquent Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), and the film ends with Antoine escaping from the youth detention centre in which he resides, running towards the beach.

As Antoine finds fleeting comfort in nature's serene beauty, he turns towards the camera with an ambiguous final look, which Truffaut freezes on, reinforcing the French New Wave's tendency to play with cinematic convention and have characters break the fourth wall.

What the image and Antoine's final expression are saying has been widely debated for over 50 years, but it certainly feels like Truffaut - on whom Antoine is partly based - directly asking the audience what should be done with youths such as Antoine.

Rarely has the human face ever been used so potently to reflect the viewer's own thoughts, feelings, prejudices and politics right back at them.