20 Movie Endings We Love

1. THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN (2005)

After a 40-year drought, Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) finally gets his happy ending, and audiences of Judd Apatow's blissfully crude sex farce get one, too: a sublimely goofy music video featuring Carell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Catherine Keener, and the rest of the cast frolicking to the soundtrack of that classic Broadway nudical, Hair — all of them singing the 5th Dimension's ''Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.'' —Jay Woodruff

2. RESERVOIR DOGS (1992)

Tarantino indulges his love for old Westerns by staging one of the great Mexican standoffs of all time. Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn) and Joe (Lawrence Tierney) are shot dead, and Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) takes out Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) when he confesses that he's a cop after all. The movie ends as the cops blast White to hell, thus tying up all loose ends — except one: Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), who fled a scene earlier. More than a few people went and saw the movie a second time before they noticed the faint, almost incidental sound of Pink getting stopped by the police outside the warehouse. —Mike Bruno

3. LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)

''Let me out,'' says Bob (Bill Murray) to the driver of the car hustling him out of Tokyo and away from Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), the young woman with whom he's explored the city and fallen in love. When he finally catches up to her on a bustling street to say a proper goodbye, director Sofia Coppola gets close as they embrace...but shows brilliant restraint by not revealing exactly what he murmurs in her ear. Good thing — the moment is so private, so special that eavesdropping on it would have been lewd. —Dawnie Walton

4. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

Writer/director Billy Wilder was the king of movie-ending zingers — think of Sunset Blvd. (''All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up'') or The Apartment (''Shut up and deal''). But nothing beats Some Like It Hot, as cross-dressing Jack Lemmon keeps trying in vain to break it off gently with besotted suitor Joe E. Brown. Finally, Lemmon tries the truth, pulls off his wig, and admits he's a man, to which an unfazed Brown replies, ''Nobody's perfect.'' Zing! —Gary Susman

5. VALLEY GIRL (1983)

One surprise question, three simple words: ''Valley Sheraton, sir?'' the limo driver asks Hollywood outsider Randy (Nicolas Cage), who's just rescued popular val gal Julie (Deborah Foreman) from the prom and her jerk ex-boyfriend Tommy. The '80s classic ''I'll Melt With You'' by Modern English swells in the background as they cruise down the freeway, past the galleria, and toward that Sheraton — to spend a totally awesome night on Tommy's dime. BITCHIN'! —Katy Caldwell

6. THE THIRD MAN (1949)

Sure, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is the villain of this postwar thriller, but he's also the liveliest thing in it. No wonder his girl, Anna (Alida Valli), promises the movie's putative hero, Harry's friend Holly (Joseph Cotten), that if he's responsible for Harry's demise, she'll never speak to him again. Sure enough, Holly is responsible, and at Harry's funeral, Anna keeps her promise and walks right past Holly, into the camera, cutting him dead without so much as a glance. My favorite movie ending ever, since it so bracingly illustrates the notion that no good deed goes unpunished. —GS

7. BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997)

Our hero, Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), comes crawling back to Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) after failed attempts to become a rock star, drug dealer, and male hustler. Being the good-hearted porn mogul that he is, Jack welcomes the kid back to their dysfunctional coke orgy of a family. For the happy-ever-after last scene, we don't see Dirk's face but are finally treated with a glimpse of his giant member, as he stares at it in the mirror and utters the movie's final line: ''I am a big bright shining star. Yeah, that's right.'' —Mike Bruno

8. MANHATTAN (1979)

The smart and successful adults in Woody Allen's black-and-white valentine to New York City have their all-too-human flaws: They're neurotic and self-absorbed, they lie and complain and have extramarital affairs. But there is a gentle understanding to the film, which ends on a near-perfect note of wistful optimism when innocent 18-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) tenderly imparts some wise-beyond-her-years wisdom to a lovestruck Allen: ''Not everybody gets corrupted.... You have to have a little faith in people.'' —Wook Kim

9. A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992)

One of my biggest movie pet peeves: when an ending is so obvious you can practically map it out within the first five minutes (ahem...A Walk To Remember and Just My Luck). A League of Their Own, however, threw quite a surprising curveball. I was rooting for Dottie Henson (Geena Davis) and her team, the Rockford Peaches, throughout the entire film, so when it came time for the championship game pitting the Peaches against — shocker! — Dottie's sister Kit (Lori Petty) and the Racine Belles, I was sure the Peaches were going to win. Why? Because, well, this was seemingly a story about winning. So imagine my surprise when catcher Dottie, faced with a chance to strike out Kit, purposefully dropped the ball and let her little sister take home the title (and, for once, the glory). It's a home run in my book. —Lindsay Soll

10. WHITE HEAT (1949)

James Cagney: Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

BOOM!

And...scene! —GS

11. THE KARATE KID (1984)

After 122 minutes of longing to kick Cobra Kai butt, audiences finally get their chance when Daniel (Ralph Macchio) raises his injured left leg and prepares to go all ''Crane technique'' on Johnny's ass. [Cymbal crash!] Unlike Rocky, director John G. Avildsen's other iconic underdog, Daniel doesn't just go the distance in his first cinematic outing — he wins. Mr. Miyagi (Oscar-nominated Pat Morita), however, scores the freeze frame with his proud, teary-eyed mug. As well he should. —Mandi Bierly

12. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

Naughty, naughty, Mr. Hitchcock! You pack your adventure with sexual innuendo (Cary Grant's loaded conversation with Eva Marie Saint on the train; Martin Landau's jealous gay henchman) but cunningly decline to oversell the point. That is, until the very last shot, when Grant and Saint finally get to consummate their flirtation — as the train they're on zooms into a tunnel. Ahem: THE TRAIN GOES INTO THE TUNNEL! Gotta love it. —Joshua Rich

13. PRIDE & PREJUDICE (2005)

It could have ended in a typical romance-movie fashion, with a beautiful wedding and our heroine Lizzie (Keira Knightley) rushing off into her future with her handsome Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen). Instead, we get something much more adult: a glimpse into their life post-wedding, with the couple bathed in the firelight from torches outside their gorgeous estate. The moment is intimate and sincere, as Lizzie lays out what her husband should call her when she is blissfully, ''incandescently happy'': Mrs. Darcy. —Connie Yu

14. THE KILLING (1956)

Stanley Kubrick's first major film is a classic exercise in film noir, set in motion by a thieving mastermind (Sterling Hayden), a bumbling cuckold (Elisha Cook Jr.), and a racetrack heist gone awry due to the cuckold's double-crossing dame (a fiendishly fabulous Marie Windsor). It all comes together — or rather, falls apart — when Hayden's money-filled suitcase bursts open en route to the getaway jet, papering the tarmac (and shocked onlookers) with bills. The chaotic final scene, money whipping across the screen like a blizzard, exists in perfect counterpoint to the precisely planned robbery, showing that even the best-laid plans can be foiled by a ill-fated toss of the dice. —Adrienne Day

15. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007)

It's still very new, so we promise not to spoil it. Scout's honor. But for those who've already seen the third installment of Matt Damon's superspy series, you know what we're talking about. And for those who soon will, well, you're in for a treat. Because in hitting an end note that ties everything off so perfectly, and at the same time leaves it all up in the air, winking director Paul Greengrass has managed to toy with viewers' inevitable pleading — Will they make another movie or not? — with unprecedented grace and wit. —JR

16. SAW (2004)

The final sequence in Saw isn't just painful to watch — it's downright horrific. And I'm not talking about Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) sawing off his own foot. I'm talking about Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), the mastermind behind the ''game,'' getting up from the middle of the room. (He was supposedly some random guy who shot his brains out.) It was a genuine ''Holy crap!'' moment, and any film that gets an audible audience response like that is an instant classic for me. —Marc Vera

17. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005)

Having murdered the thugs who threatened his family (and exposed him as a former gangland killer from Philly), Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) returns to his quiet Midwestern home, hoping to regain the trust of his wife and children. He enters the kitchen and sits for dinner. Nobody speaks. The tension's intense. Finally, his young daughter sets him a place at the table, his son passes him a platter of warm food, and Tom's wife Edie (Maria Bello) gazes at her husband. The family eats in silence. —JW

18. THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974)

Who can forget the indelible final-scene imagery of the door closing on — and shutting out — Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) in the first Godfather movie? The brilliant sequel continues these themes of power and isolation: By film's end, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has realized his ambitions, but at a staggering cost. The closing shot finds him sitting in his Lake Tahoe retreat on a winter evening — his family and associates dead or estranged — the lonely king contemplating a life of almost-Shakespearean ruin. —WK

19. THE OTHERS (2001)

By now, fans have come to expect a ''shocking twist'' at the end of most horror-suspense films. But the pulse-pounding, hearbreaking conclusion of The Others, in which Nicole Kidman's Grace realizes that not only are she and her two pale children the ghosts of their old country manor — but that all three died at her own hand — is truly haunting, in every sense of the word. —Michael Slezak

20. A TASTE OF CHERRY (1997)

In Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's masterpiece, Homayoun Ershadi is a man who spends the film driving around Tehran trying to persuade someone, anyone, to help him with his suicide plot — this in an Islamic culture where seriously contemplating suicide, much less depicting it on screen, is strictly forbidden. How can a filmmaker end such a movie without violating the taboo and still stay true to the character and the issues he raises? Kiarostami comes up with a simple but brilliant solution that's purely cinematic, and which gives Ershadi's character both closure and redemption. —GS