20 Greatest Movie Moments Of The 2010s
9. La La Land: What Could've Been
La La Land has faced a fair bit of backlash since release and it remains to be seen how well it'll hold up in the future, but it's nigh-on impossible to deny that the film's ending is completely flawless.
At the end of the film, Mia and Sebastian have long-since broken up but both have achieved their dreams. Mia is a successful actress (married to another man) and Sebastian has opened a jazz club. Mia and her husband end up in Sebastian's club and, upon seeing her in the crowd, Sebastian plays their love theme and Mia, through a beautifully-directed and meta-theatrical montage, imagines what could've been had they been able to both fulfil their dreams and stay together.
It's a pretty much perfect piece of bittersweet storytelling that's both joyous and likely to leave audiences all over the world in floods of tears. It's truly beautiful cinema and while it's fair to say most wanted the pair to end up together, this ending is so fantastic that it's hard to wish for a different conclusion.