There are few other art forms that can touch us as much as films. Evoking entire worlds of sound and image, they tell stories that often seem more real than real life – at least in the emotions they evoke. The seamless versatility of the art form is such that from one film to the next they can revive our hopes and dreams or leave us inconsolably heartbroken.
There are a handful of films that are so heartbreaking in their impact that audiences never really recover from them. Sometimes with a shockingly tragic twist in the ending, other times with a gripping saga that only gets worse as it progresses, these films mark their end by leaving a clear stain on the collective consciousness as beautiful, haunting works of art. Here are 12 of the most tragic movie endings of all time.
12 Tomb of the Fireflies
Produced by Studio Ghibli, Tomb of the Fireflies is known for its heartbreaking quality and is regarded as one of the most traumatizing war films of all time. It seems like every subsequent detail about this movie just makes it more heartbreaking – the real-life photo that inspired the story, the terrifying historical setting, or the fact that the fireflies on the movie’s poster are actually aerial bombs.
Tomb of the Fireflies tells the devastating bombing of Kobe during World War II from the perspective of two young siblings. The film begins with the ghosts of these two siblings reuniting on a train to the afterlife. Despite knowing the penultimate ending of the film, watching it doesn’t hurt any less after following their innocent struggles throughout the film.
11 My girlfriend
The children’s movie My girlfriend is notoriously cruel and deceptive in the way it presents its themes. The film stars Anna Chlumsky as 11-year-old Vada, a scheming young girl who navigates the vagaries of life through the lens of her childhood with her best friend Thomas, played by Macaulay Culkin. The brilliance of this film’s tragic ending is in the way it neatly ties together all the threads that have been set up from the beginning of the film – both emotional and narrative.
My girlfriend begins as a glimpse into the life of a quirky young girl who deals with the trauma of losing her mother in childbirth in strange and endearing ways. However, all of these expressions take on a much more sombre tone within a single scene at the end. To make matters worse, the film subtly adds a glimmer of hope to Vada’s confused state of mind just before the tragic event takes place.
10 bridge to Terabithia
bridge to Terabithia is a fairly straightforward film about two children who learn to deal with their daily lives by using their imagination. Starring Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb, the film sets up an average childhood life around them, one made somewhat stressful by their families’ financial woes.
To deal with the darkness around them, the two friends make up a fictional country called Terabithia and spend time pretending. The film has a hopeful and life-affirming tone throughout much of its running time. However, it earns its place in this list with its abruptly tragic ending that seemingly comes out of nowhere.
9 Shutter Island
The mind blowing plot twist at the end of Shutter Island is an emotional experience that changes you – there are no two ways to do it. This Leonardo DiCaprio starrer will gnaw at your nerves with an investigative story filled with suspense, mistrust, and a looming threat of nothing less than your grip on reality.
Set in an isolated mental institution, DiCaprio appears in the film as a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of a dangerous prisoner in the mental hospital. However, the viewer can never get rid of the feeling that something is not right with the whole screenplay. The ultimate reveal is one that shatters your perception of reality and then leaves you in a gloomy state of mind with its ambiguous ending.
8 Blue valentine
Directed by Derek Cianfrance Blue valentine cuts a deep wound and takes its time. Unlike the other films on this list, this bleak portrait of a doomed romance lays its tragic foundations very early on – perhaps from the very beginning. But given the appalling effectiveness of this approach, one wonders if a sudden tragic ending would be better.
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star in this film about a failed marriage. It begins in a tender, hopeful way as the two characters show passion and genuine faith in the idea of love. The film then jumps forward five years and shows their shared life in shambles as a result of the hasty, impassioned decisions they made earlier. Seizing on some intense and revealing conflict between the pair, the movie ends with the inevitable divorce, but portrays this ending and every moment leading up to it with truly extraordinary pathos.
7 When the last sword is drawn
Released in 2002, When the last sword is drawn is a tragic samurai film that lay hidden in the shadow of its colleague, The Twilight Samurai, released the same year. Like many powerful samurai films, the film explores the end of the samurai era through unforgettable characters, this time a skilled and principled samurai who secretly grieves over his inability to provide for his family.
The film is set in a turbulent political period in which entire clans of samurai, bound by their codes of honor, are left without a master and source of income. In such a situation, we find the protagonist, played by Kiichi Nakai, trying to keep his honor while taking care of his starving family back home. When the last sword is drawnThe lengthy ending of ‘s features a tear-jerking monologue from Nakai as he goes to great lengths to provide some semblance of hope and material comfort for his family.
6 The boy in the striped pajamas
The boy in the striped pajamas is a devastating film about the Holocaust, one that most people only get to see once. By presenting its story from the perspective of innocent children, the film seemingly alludes to an innate goodness in humans; at least for our natural desire to connect with others. The film also follows events in the family of a Nazi SS officer, whose eight-year-old son secretly befriends a concentration camp prisoner of the same age.
Critics slammed the film for equating the victims of the Holocaust with the perpetrators, but the ending is gruesome nonetheless, highlighting the extreme inhumanity of the event by showing how incomprehensible the atrocities are to the young protagonist’s mind.
5 Requiem for a dream
The brainchild of Darren Aronofsky, Requiem for a dream is a psychological drama that follows the downward spiral of four drug addicts. Aronofsky has gained worldwide fame for his visceral portrayal of psychological themes, and this film is simply the worst of these signatures.
Requiem for a dream soundly beats conventional notions of storytelling with increasing action, climax and resolution. Instead, the audience is subjected to the infernal landscape that is drug addiction, following the characters to their swift and inevitable fall to rock bottom. The ending of the film leaves you quite shocked in this way; as the credits roll in, one is left in a state of disbelief at the sudden and unceremonial ending followed by the main characters in the absolute worst of states.
4 The Green Mile
Warner Bros. Pictures
The Green Mile features one of the most impressive performances in modern movie history from Michael Clarke Duncan. An adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, the film had a huge runtime and told a story of miracles taking place in a death row prison, against the harshness of the world.
The film takes the tone of Clarke’s character, a mysterious person who is in a perpetual childlike state. With a lens of wonder mixed with realism, The Green Mile slowly brews its heart-wrenching ending over the course of three hours, until the viewer is drawn to tears by the already-determined ending.
3 Schindler’s List
Schindler’s List is a well-known film about the Holocaust, with Liam Neeson in the film as Oscar Schindler, a charismatic, well-connected Nazi businessman, who uses his political clout to save the lives of Jewish prisoners by getting them recognized as essential workers in his factory. Much of the film is a sort of moral back-and-forth between Schindler and the SS officer Amon Goth, played by Ralph Fiennes.
In the final scene, hope finally appears for the many Jews under Schindler’s protection when the war is over. As the factory workers bid him farewell, he suddenly breaks down when he realizes how many more lives he could have saved if he had just spent more money on bribes.
2 Hachi: The Story Of A Dog
If the success of the John Wick franchise has taught us everything, it’s that people really love dogs. True stories about the undying devotion dogs have for their owners occasionally circulate the internet, and there are more than a few of them.
Hachi: The Story Of A Dog is based on one of these true stories from Japan, transposed to an American setting. As in the true story, the movie ends with the sudden death of Hachi’s owner. The film’s final scenes pick up years after his death, where a rough and aged Hachi can still be found in his old routine of waiting for his master at the train station.
1 Penance
A historical romantic film set in the early 20th century, Penance tells the story of a fateful love between two youngsters, played by James McAvoy and Keira Knightley. A misunderstanding leads McAvoy’s character to be imprisoned for several years and given the chance for freedom by participating in World War II as a soldier.
The film follows the convoluted, war-torn paths along which the two lovers eventually find their way back to each other – that is, until the final moments of the film when it is revealed that most of the subsequent events never happened, and that the two lovers actually died shortly after McAvoy’s character went to prison.