Movies are so associated with the concept of happy endings that the term “Hollywood Ending” is shorthand for the kind of saccharine and tidy resolutions typified by sentimental studio output. To be sure, there are plenty oficonic movies that do end happily, but there are also many that steadfastly refuse to offer any measure of joy in their final scenes. More often than not, thesebleak endings come in horror movies, which is unsurprising given that genre’s penchant for wading into dark waters, but there are also many movies outside the realm of horror that can be just as downbeat.
From doomed romances to real-life tragedies, movies that deliver a gut punch in their final moments cross all genre lines and sometimes find darkness in even the brightest of settings. There’s no two ways about it; this list is not going to be a joyful one, and each entry is likely to be sadder than the last,with endings that ought to come with a box of tissues and a trauma hotline to call. These are ten non-horror movies with endings that are completely gut-wrenching.
10’Brokeback Mountain' (2005)
Directed by Ang Lee
Love stories are more often considered heartwarming than gutwrenching, even when it’s likely that mostrom-com couples are destined to break upafter the credits roll. However, there are still those heartbreaking romantic tragedies that can leave audiences with a deep pit in their stomach by the end. From the classicRomeo and JuliettoTitanic, there areplenty of romantic dramasthat can have viewers thinking whether it is truly better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, and at the top of that list isAng Lee’sBrokeback Mountain.
StarringJake GyllenhaalandHeath Ledgeras two cowboys who find love while out on the trail herding sheep, the movie is a heartfelt portrait of a love forbidden in the time in which it takes place. Gay love stories haven’t had the greatest track record on screen in terms of representation, and often they end in tragedy, as in Lee’s film, which sees both men unable to be their true selves and the death of Gyllenhaal’s character. While there is a larger discussion surrounding the troubling tropes often depicted in mainstream queer cinema, there isnothing untruthful inBrokeback Mountain’sromance, and no image is more heartbreaking thanLedger crying into the shirt left behind by his greatest love.
Brokeback Mountain
9’The Iron Claw' (2023)
Directed by Sean Durkin
Real-life tragedy always hits harder than anything some screenwriter can concoct, and it’s hard to think of another family that has suffered as much real tragedy as theVon Erichs, a generational family of wrestlers whose sons all died untimely deaths, leaving only one brother behind. As played byZac Efronin thedark sports dramaThe Iron Claw,Kevin Von Erichstruggles to live up to the standards set by his demanding father, and the price of fame proves too costly for him and his brothers as each is struck down far too young.
Sean Durkin’s deeply felt movie doesn’t cover the full extent of the tragedy that befell the Von Erich family, asthe film doesn’t include all the brothers. Still, it manages todeliver a tremendous punch in the gutworthy of the wrestling family as Efron sits watching his sons play, lamenting the loss of the bond he once shared with his brothers.It’s the emotional equivalent of a suplexthat absolutely leaves the audience on the mat, stained with sweat and more than a few tears.
The Iron Claw
8’Fruitvale Station' (2013)
Directed by Ryan Coogler
Racial injustice is a theme that remains depressingly relevant in American culture and can inspire a spectrum of reactions when depicted on film, from indignant rage to sad reflection. That is all felt indirectorRyan Coogler’sdebut film,Fruitvale Station, which depicts the final day in the life ofOscar Grant, before being fatally shot by police. Long before he becamea box office king,Michael B. Jordanplays Grant with subtlety, giving shades to a complicated man without ever succumbing to deification or movie star charisma, making the march toward Grant’s inevitable fate all the more unbearable.
The effectiveness of the film’s ending comes from the cumulative effect of everything that comes before it, as the majority of the running time is spent simply getting to know Grant without any artificial weight given to his life. It’s a life that likely feels familiar to many viewers, and when it is cut short, it comes as a shock, not because it was unexpected, but because itgives depth to the man whose death feels frustratingly commonplacein America.
Fruitvale Station
7’Oldboy' (2003)
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Shock doesn’t quite cover the true feeling one gets when first experiencing thebonkers ending ofOldboy, which involves a dark revelation of incest and a violent act of self-mutilation. Even with the unsettling epilogue where it remains ambiguous whether protagonist Oh Dae-su has successfully had his memory wiped of the events of the climax, there is no doubt that viewers will never be able to forget what they have watched.
The best mystery thrillersare the ones where the reveal elevates and enhances the story that has led up to it, andOldboy’s wild twist (which is vastly more shocking than the ending from the manga on which it was based) not onlyhorrifically recontextualizes everythingthat has already occurred, but turns the film into one of the most unforgettable viewing experiences. Much of the cinema that has come from South Korean filmmakers in the 21st century has defied expectations and easy classification, and Park is one of the country’s foremost auteurs, who gave American audiences a hammer to the skull when he droppedOldboy’s ending on them.
6’Chinatown' (1974)
Directed by Roman Polanski
BetweenOldboy, where the protagonist discovers he has unwittingly engaged in incest, andthe crime masterpieceChinatown, where the incestuous villain wins the day, anyone who watches these movies back to back is likely to need a psychological evaluation. The reveal that the villainous Noah Cross, played by Hollywood legendJohn Huston, had sexually assaulted his daughter, resulting in a daughter, comes midway through the film. However, that shocking revelation is a mere preview of what the gut-wrenching ending will deliver.
As Cross' daughter Evelyn, played byFaye Dunaway, tries to make her escape with her daughter from her monstrous father, she is gunned down by police, and her daughter is delivered into the arms of Cross. It’s bothsickening and a perfect summation of the sour worldthat writerRobert Townecrafted in his perfect screenplay. It may be the furthest thing from a happy ending, but that doesn’t stop it from beingone of the best of all time.
5’Grave of the Fireflies' (1988)
Directed by Isao Takahata
Lest anyone think that live-action films are the only ones that can leave an audience devastated, there are plenty ofbleak animated filmsthat will put viewers through their emotional paces, none more stunning or heartbreaking than theanime war filmGrave of the Fireflies. Set in Japan as the Pacific Theatre of World War 2 comes to a close, it follows two young siblings as they struggle to survive after their home is bombed, and anyone who thinks those children will live to see the ending is reading the wrong list.
The supernatural final scene (which is also foreshadowed at the beginning), which features the ghosts of the siblings reunited in the afterlife, is bothbeautiful and undeniably haunting. That these young characters are depicted through animation, with wide anime eyes, makes them feel no less human, and their strifeonly compounds the horrors of the war that surrounds them.Grave of the Firefliesis a movie that everyone should see, and one that they will likely only watch once.
Grave of the Fireflies
4’United 93' (2006)
Directed by Paul Greengrass
The events that took place on September 11th, 2001, remain permanently etched into the memories of every American who was alive that day. With any real-life tragedy, it takes a great deal of compassion and thought to depict in a film without creating something that feels crass or exploitative. Thankfully,Paul Greengrass’United93, which takes place aboard the fateful flight that was hijacked by terrorists but which crashed in Pennsylvania thanks to the efforts of the passengers who fought back, isa powerful testament to the human spiritand the heroism of those who lost their lives.
Greengrass, who has directed several thrillersbased on real-life events but is best known for his work ontheBournefranchise, brings the same queasy cinéma vérité style that he utilized in those spy thrillers to this true story. However, the acts carried out on-screen feel far removed from any kind of action movie antics, witheverything playing out in near real timein the last act of the film. The ending doesn’t attempt any Hollywood melodramatics, which makes it all the harder to watch, but all the more important to do so.
3’Requiem for a Dream' (2000)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation ofHubert Selby Jr.’s novel ofaddiction,Requiem for a Dreamdoesn’t pull any punches when it comes to depicting the downward spiral of its characters. Through a variety of visual and editing techniques, Aronofsky successfully puts viewers into the point of view of four people with addictions, which can have a disorienting effect, compounded by the unvarnished performances of the dedicated cast.
By the end of the movie, when they have all hit their respective rock bottomsand lost everything, a viewer can feel exhausted by the hell they have experienced through the characters. From the sexual abyssJennifer Connellyfinds herself dragged into, toJared Leto’samputation of his infected arm, andEllen Burstyn, a shell of her former self after crashing from diet pills and being subjected to shock therapy, there is simplyno reprieve from the hard hits the movie delivers, which willlikely have viewers curling up in the fetal position just like the characters.
Requiem for a Dream
2’Schindler’s List' (1993)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
The holocaust is a subject that has served as the backdrop for many films, both fictional and fact-based, that seek to deliver heart-wrenching drama and clarity. There are enough of these films now that have used the genocide of six million Jewish men, women and children as melodramatic fodder that it’s become a bad joke for how it will likely guarantee awards recognition. Unlike some of the more shameless holocaust films, likeThe Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,Steven Spielberg’shorrifying epicSchindler’s Listfeels both necessary and thoughtfully crafted.
Using industrialist and Nazi party memberOskar Schindleras a vessel to tell the story of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the internment of Polish Jews into work and concentration camps, the film is a stark depiction ofthe banality of evil and how easily it can take hold in the face of indifference. As Schindler laments the lives he could have saved, the film shifts to show the real-life survivors as they were then in the early ’90s. It’s a moment that is upsetting butalso hopefully inspiring enoughto shock viewers out of their apathy if they want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Schindler’s List
1’Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father' (2008)
Directed by Kurt Kuenne
There are no words that can effectively express the emotions one feels while watchingthe documentaryDear Zachary. The film began as an effort by directorKurt Kuenneto catalog the life of his friendAndrew Bagby, who had been murdered by his ex-girlfriend, who had also become pregnant. The tragedy that would unfold as Kuenne was interviewing friends and family of Bagby was both appalling and infuriating.
Bagby’s parents had to fight for custody of their grandson, even while the woman who murdered their son was arrested but released on bail.The utter failings of the judicial system to protect the infant Zachary,whose life was taken by his mother along with her own, were so incomprehensible that the film’s releaseactually led to a change in the law. It is gut-wrenching to watch the events unfold throughout the documentary, and while its impact on the real world offers a small modicum of solace, it’s all the more upsetting thatsomething so horrible had to happen in the first place to spur that change.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
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