20 Most Intense Movie Endings Of All Time

12. The Vanishing (1988)

This 1988 Dutch suspense classic follows a man, Rex (Gene Bervoets), who becomes increasingly obsessed with tracking down his former girlfriend, Saskia (Johanna ter Steege), who disappeared from a rest stop three years prior.

Rex is eventually contacted by the man responsible for Saskia's abduction, Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), who offers to give Rex the same experience Saskia had if he decides to drink some drugged coffee.

Reluctant but overwhelmed by his obsessive desire to know the truth, he takes the drink and wakes up in a box, having been buried alive by Raymond just as Saskia was.

The protagonists die and the villain wins but also gets off Scot-free: do movie endings get any scarier? It's one of the horror genre's all-time most shocking final reveals, but transcends mere shock value to induce sheer, hair-raising dread.