Esoteric Happy Endings in Live-Action Films.
- 2012 ends with the arks receiving news that the global floodwaters are receding and they're heading to start a new colony on the African continent. Only then you remember that the world had just experienced a huge mess of geological disasters- continent-cracking earthquakes, volcanic eruptions (including Yellowstone), gargantuan tsunamis that drown most of the world, the Earth's crust shifting by 23 degrees, the magnetic fields reversing, etc. In all likelihood, the majority of the Earth's ecosystems have been destroyed and nearly all species wiped out, either from the disasters themselves or the resulting pollution from natural and man-made sources. The Earth is also due for a volcanic winter of hellish proportions with the ash and sulfur dioxide from all the eruptions. To make matters worse, most of the people on the arks are the wealthy elite and are probably not equipped with the skills needed to rebuild all of civilization. The actions by those onboard showcase that most of them are arrogant and will likely be squabbling over who gets to be in charge.
- Accepted: Even generously assuming that S.H.I.T. ends up regionally accredited,note can provide decent education, and is not a for-profit school (employers look down heavily on said institutions, for good reason), the attendees are still basically doomed. The school has no connections or reputation that would lead its alumni towards jobs. Every single 'student' would have been far better off going to community college.
- The Adjustment Bureau: The film ends with David and Elise skipping off into the sunset while Harry theorises that their experience was Just as Planned by the Chairman. Not only is the Bureau still manipulating everything, the implications that the Chairman would force a choice as grave as “Go back to being controlled every second of your life or get lobotomised for interfering with the plan” paint him in a very bad light.
- The Adventures of Robin Hood: Prince John is banished in the end, but he will become King of England upon Richard's death and his reign will be the beginning of the end of the Angevin Empire.
- The African Queen: Charlie and Rose succeed in bombing the German ship and escape execution, swimming happily to shore while singing. But they're now stranded in Africa with nothing but the rags on their backs, in German-occupied territory inhabited by a crew of German sailors who want to execute them. They're in for rough times ahead at best.
- Agent for H.A.R.M.: Adam manages to stop the villain's plan to dust American crops with the poisonous spores, but that's about all that goes right. Adam fails to find an antidote to the spore, he fails to protect Jan Stefanik, and he fails to notice that Eva is The Molenote until after she'd already killed two people. He did manage to save potentially millions of lives, but it's hard to think about that when you've just watched the pretty girl get arrested and the likeable old scientist get melted into slime.
- Antebellum: There's a very good reason the movie's ending cuts off at the exact time it does. Veronica and the other freed kidnap victims are going to have a very hard time reintegrating into society and dealing with their trauma, especially when the legal ramifications are going to force it into their faces for likely years to come. Plus, she can probably give up any hope of being known for anything beyond being a victim of the plantation, with her activist work being at most a distant footnote to her reputation. And that brand isn't going away any time soon.
- In The Apple, the music-MegaCorp BIM takes over the world, with only a small hippie commune being the last refuge of truth and individuality. At very end God/Mr. Topps comes and raptures all the good guys, but the bad guys and the rest of humanity are just left alone. So essentially God took away the last chance for the freedom of Earth. And since it's implied BIM's CEO is the Devil himself, it means God let Satan win.
- The ending of Avatar sees all but a few humans expelled from Pandora. The reason they were sent there was to both help expand humanity into space to escape the dying Earth and to get enough Unobtanium to put an end to the ongoing energy crisis. Without either of those, Jake and friends have guaranteed humanity is doomed to a slow, painful extinction if they don't find another habitable planet. Which they probably can't without said Unobtanium. Even worse, the threat of human extinction means there's incentive for humanity to return with even more forces who are far better equipped and have zero interest in diplomacy this time to seize Pandora, and the Na'vi barely won against Quaritch's small security force. But hey, Jake is permanently part of his Avatar now, so it's all good.
- Avengers: Endgame, ends on a bittersweet note. But thinking about it, it can seem merely bitter.
- The heroes undo the snap and wipe out Thanos' army, but they stop at only undoing the snap, and the way it works essentially results in all those wiped out just suddenly appearing, five years after disappearing, having not aged. Ignoring the long-term psychological effects for people who lost five years, the damage their time missing would have on their loved ones, and the dissonance that will arise from trying to fit back into their old lives, this indicates that anyone who died indirectly from the Snap, either beforehand as a result of Thanos' conquest (e.g. Loki, the Asgardians, the original Gamora, Vision), or after as a result of those people disappearing (e.g. passengers on planes whose pilots were snapped away, people in medical crisis after doctors are snapped away, people who couldn't handle the loss and committed suicide, etc), wouldn't be returned. Also, any person who remarried or found new love after their old one ended is going to be in a very traumatic position. Later entries would actually touch on these issues, such as how Spider-Man: Far From Home confirms un-Snapped people lost their homes and jobs and that those at school or on courses had to repeat the years they missed while their peers aged away from them, WandaVision showing that many people are still depressed and unhappy, and those in government organisations like S.W.O.R.D. have become ruthless and paranoid as a result of trying to protect people in a deeply compromised world, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showing that the world is still dogged by chaos and confusion, and some people even believe the world was better off before the Snap was undone because everyone united without borders or nations, only for the Avengers to bring everyone back, which caused this progress to be reversed and many of those who lived through the Blip to be left behind by the governments of the world. It's hard to say how much of this was always the plan or was implemented as a direct response to people's criticisms of the film.
- The conclusion to Steve's arc, in the minds of some. After years of trying to build a new life for himself, getting Bucky back and forming new friendships with Sam and the other Avengers, he decides to go back in time and live out his life with Peggy. While the directors eventually confirmed that Steve did in fact go to an alternate timeline instead of simply living in the background of the "main" one, thus side-stepping a multitude of issues like him not trying to save Bucky before the events of The Winter Soldier, this still comes with some baggage, like Steve knowing Sharon since she was a baby, knowing his past self would go on and be romantically involved with her, having another Steve frozen in the Arctic while he stays with Peggy, and the fact that he comes back to Peggy with a metric ton of emotional baggage and trauma. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier also shows that while Steve was ready to hang up the mantle, in the post-Blip world people feel like they need Captain America more than ever, and Steve's attempt at Passing the Torch falls flat because Sam feels unworthy of carrying the shield in his stead, though he eventually takes up the mantle after John Walker's disastrous turn as the hero.
- There's also the other damage unintentionally done to the alternate timelines as well. While all the Infinity Stones are indeed returned to their rightful, respective timelines and locations, other things go wrong as a result. These things include, but are not limited to: Loki escaping with the Tesseract, Crossbones and Sitwell targeting Cap when the other one made them believe he was HYDRA and got the staff from them, the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility going into a panic with the Tesseract disappearing there too, Cap having questions about Bucky as well as how or if Loki knocked him out while disguised as him, Mjolnir going missing at a time Thor may have needed it, whatever crazy (but probably very comedic) thing might have happened when Jane had the ether pulled out of her by Rocket, and so on. Just one of these things alone is sure to bring about even more problems as well. Sure, Steve from the first timeline could provide information about HYDRA and Bucky to Alternate Timeline Steve, but that doesn't fix the first and last problems. The Loki series mitigates this by revealing that the 2012 timeline was reset, but that still leaves the problems with the other timelines.
- In the main timeline, the Time Stone was destroyed by Thanos and the borrowed version returned to its original timeline. Those who saw Doctor Strange (2016) will recall that the Time Stone was the only thing stopping Dormammu from consuming our dimension and now it's gone. The heroes will have to hope he's forgotten about them.
- Back to the Future: Marty returns to the future to find that, as a result of his actions in 1955, his parents and siblings are all more successful than before. This is presented as a happy ending but this means that Marty doesn't remember the events of this timeline and his parents and siblings are basically strangers to him. Furthermore, the Marty that actually grew up in this timeline has seemingly been erased.
- Battlefield Earth: Jonnie explains at the end that if surviving Psychlos found out about them, they would wipe them out with their gas drones, so he's keeping Terl as leverage, reasoning if they found out his greed led to the destruction of their world, they would go after him instead...even though they are still the culprits and Psychlos can easily just kill him and them at the same time.
- Done deliberately by Jean Cocteau in Beauty and the Beast (1946), who deliberately made the Beast's transformation into a handsome prince feel oddly unsatisfying with Belle reacting to the transformation with not unbridled joy but a pensive "I'll have to get used to it." In Cocteau's own words:"My aim would be to make the Beast so human, so sympathetic, so superior to men, that his transformation into Prince Charming would come as a terrible blow to Beauty, condemning her to a humdrum marriage and a future that I summed up in that last sentence of all fairy tales: 'And they had many children.'"
- Ben X: So Ben totally loses his grip on reality. Yeah... "At least he's happy." Right.
- It isn't so much "losing your mind" as it is "developing a coping mechanism/ability to vocalize" through an Imaginary Friend.
- Big: Josh, in his brief time as an adult, has achieved a lot of things and affected a lot of people's lives, and now that he's back as a kid, his adult persona "Josh Baskin" is by all means a missing person who left all those new friends and business partners hanging. And if they do try to investigate his disappearance and notice the connections between kid Josh and adult Josh, it may lead to some complicated trouble. Not to mention that Josh will also have to give a believable explanation to his mother about where he has been for weeks, and once again if someone tries to investigate adult Josh believing him to be his own self's kidnapper, it goes back to the high probability that a big mess is ahead. Worse of all, if Josh gives up and tells everyone the truth and is unable to prove that magic exists, he may end up institutionalized, or a combination of that and some shady individuals looking to weaponize Zoltar's wish-granting abilities.
- Bio-Dome ends with the eponymous Bio-Dome facility being destroyed and the scientists praising the main heroes Bud and Doyle for their actions, thinking it was a giant success. Thing is, however, Bud and Doyle actually ruined everything that the crew of the Bio-Dome tried to accomplish, and the lead scientist, Dr. Noah Faulkner, who was the only one against Bud and Doyle's actions, slowly went insane over the course of the film. There's also the fact that the two slackers got away scot-free with everything they've done to disrupt the project, including attempting to rape two female scientists.
- The Book of Henry: The film ends with Christina being adopted by the Carpenters and supposedly living happily ever after except just being adopted into a happy family isn't gonna get rid of the emotional scars she received from abuse or the trauma from finding out her stepfather had died. And if she ever finds out how much the Carpenters were involved in his death...
- The Book of Masters makes the mistakes of a) floating somewhere in-between a classical fairytale, a parody of a fairytale, and a Grey-and-Gray Morality fantasy, and b) miscasting The Hero. The ending has all of the official couples getting a formal happy ending and the Wicked Witch making a Heel–Face Turn (or rather getting a face-heel-brainwashing curse lifted). However, the main heroine (a somewhat naive but clever and responsible girl) marries an infantile idiot, while the Anti-Villain who would have been much more suitable for her is not only rejected, but gets turned to stone to save her life – and no one even remembers him in the end. On top of it all, the fates of many Ensemble Dark Horse minor characters aren't specified at all. To make it worse, if you stick with the realistic fantasy interpretation, the main heroine is now doomed to serfdom, as marrying a serf in the feudalism era made you one as well, even if you were a princess.
- According to Terry Gilliam, the idea for Brazil came from him wondering whether or not an ending where the main character goes insane could be happy. On one hand, the lead character is tortured into insanity, on the other, well, he's no longer aware of it.
- But I'm a Cheerleader: What becomes of Hilary, Joel, and Sinead after Megan and Dolph run away with Graham and Clayton? Do they keep pretending to be straight for the rest of their lives?
- C Me Dance: The world is converted to Christianity by force. And by all appearances, it's not a particularly forgiving sect of Christianity. Even if you aren't upset by that, Sheri ends up dying anyway (though the ending heavily implies she's in Heaven).
- City of Angels: Considering there's no real conclusion to the film other than a Gainax Ending, no indication is ever given if Seth will ever get over Maggie's death or fall in love again. He's now destined to age and die (possibly alone given his true love is dead) without even the comfort of the love of his life or a family and even the good he could possibly due for people who need his help is now extremely limited given he's been stripped of his angelic powers. While the ending is usually interpreted at him now being joyful at being human, since there's no dialogue Seth can also be seen as either thinking of committing suicide or raging against God because his life is worthless without Maggie in it and/or being unable to return to his former life as an angel.
- Cocaine Bear: While it's ultimately not the bear's fault that cocaine ended up in the forest, the movie plays up her survival as a happy ending, even though it's very likely anyone who goes into the forest will run across the still pissed-off bear on coke. Not to mention that now her cubs are also addicted, meaning there are now three murderous bears in the forest.
- Cyberbu//y (2011): The whole Big Brother Is Watching aspect to the problem's solution, which, aside from being extremely expensive and time-consuming, would also infringe on various privacy laws.
- Dark City: The Strangers are thwarted and Dark City is brought into the sun again in the hands of a benevolent ruler. But they're still trapped on a city-sized planet with no knowledge of how to return to Earth. And just imagine the shock and upheaval when the population discovers that their whole lives and their entire world are just lies. How is John going to create a society from that foundation? Will he be corrupted by his absolute power over reality? What happens if and when he dies?
- The Dark Crystal: Yes, the Crystal is healed and so is Thra, and Jen and Kira and the Podlings are free to live out their lives in peace. But the Mystics and Skeksis as the individuals they became effectively perish, the Gelfling race is down to two, the Ur Skeks are travelling onwards with half of their own dead and gone, the fundamental issues with their race that set all of this in motion in the first place are still there, and Thra's history is forever bloodier for their arrival. (We only have the Skeks's word there's only two Gelflings left — if there was a prophecy leading to attempted genocide, you can bet many Gelflings would have gone into hiding.)
- Dave Made a Maze: Despite the Minotaur being revealed to be running free, the end is treated as a happy one. However, it seems likely that Annie and Dave will be on the hook for the various disappearances that occurred in their apartment. Dave will also go through the rest of his life with a cardboard hand, which will likely fall apart the first time it rains.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) ends with Klaatu agreeing to spare the Earth and humanity, but only after he generates an EMP so powerful that it stops all technology on Earth. Assuming that it really is an EMP, and that the technology that is currently in existence is affected, then millions will die initially and then we will swiftly reconstruct the technology we had already designed. We will likely achieve world peace, which was his aim in the original, but we will only be at peace with each other in order to better prepare to wreak vengeance on the aliens that caused this cataclysm. We may become more concerned with the environment, or simply not care about it anymore, in our rush to achieve sustainable civilisation outside of Earth's atmosphere. If it was something more than an EMP and that isn't possible, billions will die and human civilization will collapse into a bloody age of barbarism. But at least Jacob finally called Helen "Mom", right?
- At the end of Descendants 3, Mal permanently lifts the barrier on the Isle of the Lost, allowing people to come and go as they please. While it's treated as a good thing, since this gives Villain Kids the opportunity to live in Auradon and allows villains who've since turned over a new leaf to make amends with both their children and their enemies, this also means that the villains who haven't made such a change, let alone retired, have every opportunity to try to regain their power and take revenge on their foes, which is glossed over.
- The Live Action adaptation of Devilman makes an attempt at a "Ray of Hope" Ending, with the world ending as it did in the Manga. Except this time Miko and Susumu somehow manage to survive it all and the two of them decide to continue living for Miki's sake. However, the world has been ravaged and all other life forms have been wiped out. The two of them likely wouldn't last a month before dying of starvation.
- The Dictator: Alladeen wins and ends up Happily Married but he remains a tyrant and Wadiya remains a repressive dictatorship and a threat to democracy.
- Django Unchained ends with Django and Broomhilda blowing the Candyland plantation and escaping for freedom in the North...assuming they can even make it to the border. See, while the villains of the movie absolutely deserved it, a slave revolting and killing a wealthy man like Calvin Candie - much less this scale of mass murder-would've lead to a colossal manhunt and absolutely brutal crackdowns against all other slaves in the South. Following Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, over 120 Blacks were killed by mobs and militias and laws were passed in states like Virginia that made it illegal for slaves to learn to read. Long story short, not only would Django be such wanted man that he and his wife may not even be safe in the North if they make it there, but he's undoubtedly made life for all other slaves in the South much worse.
- Don't Breathe 2: We're supposed to be happy that Phoenix is in the comforting arms of... an orphanage in the slums of Detroit. An extremely depressing movie could start with the exact same premise.
- Don't Worry Darling: Alice wakes up in the real world, where we have to assume she is still cuffed to her bed and now her dead husband is lying there beside her. There is virtually no way for her to get out of her restraints and if the place where she's being held is soundproof, screaming for help won't do a single thing and she'll die slowly from hunger and thirst. Not a whole lot better than her situation inside Victory, really...
- Dune (1984): Just barely averted. The Theatrical Cut's ending has generated a lot of chagrin from the fans of the book, who accuse Paul of committing a giant Nice Job Breaking It, Hero by making it rain on Arrakis, due to water being lethal to the Sandworms meaning that the Spice will be no longer made which would throw the whole universe into chaos (making the space-folding travel impossible, for starters) but to the film's defense, the Sandworms' mortality to water is Adapted Out, not to mention that even if that's the case, Paul is very likely aware that the Sandworms are essential for the production of Spice and will only use his powers to create a few big hospitable oases on Arrakis rather than planning to make the whole planet 70% water and screw things up.
- Elizabeth: Elizabeth's choice to rule alone pretty much doomed the House of Tudor, a house with no cadet branches, to extinction.
- Elysium already ends on a bittersweet note with the protagonist dying to provide free access to Elysium's medical technology to the earth. Unfortunately fridge logic dictates that the problems that led the world to become so poor and destitute are going to become a lot worse. It's explicitly stated everything is so bad because of poor population but at the end everyone now has technology that can stave off death for hundreds of years if not forever. Overpopulation is now going to happen a lot faster and the Earth is simply going to run out of resources. On top of that, the crippling poverty isn't really solved, so even in a best case scenario, all the surviving characters can only look forward to are long and miserable lives.
- Escape from L.A. ends with Snake Plissken shutting down the whole world's electricity, instead of turning control of the world over to the President or Cuervo/the Shining Path, which all but surely caused the deaths of billions and turned the world into one big third-world country. Despite the sheer scale of havoc which will ensure, the movie treats it like a good thing as it at least gives humanity another chance to start over.
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ends with the good guys murdering a child, because they fear his destructive capabilities, despite the whole movie up to this point showing us why this attitude is wrong; the fantastic beasts also have terrible destructive capabilities, but Newt demonstrates that they only need a little bit of understanding and then they can be managed safely. Amazingly, Newt and co. actually try to do this first (and so does the villain!) before the Magical Congress arrives and promptly obliterate him. RIP mistreated child. Plus the city forgetting an evening – just think of all the other romances broken, jobs lost, crimes unseen, etc. And in the end, Newt leaves and the Magical Congress makes no changes to how they operate, despite their procedures repeatedly causing disaster. Hooray? It's no surprise that the sequel undoes several of these issues.
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Cameron is last seen resolving to have it out with his domineering and emotionally distant father for the first time in his life after accidentally destroying the latter's priceless Ferrari. This moment marks the final step in his Character Development, but it doesn't change the fact that the Ferrari is beyond saving, and the elder Frye, who prioritizes his material wealth (especially the Ferrari) over everyone and everything else, will be home shortly. And if Cameron was as deathly afraid of his father as he said he was before, one can safely say that his father has given him damn good reason to be. So, despite his newfound strength and confidence, the ensuing confrontation probably didn't go over very well.
- Fight Club is supposed to have a Bittersweet Ending: The unnamed protagonist has eliminated Tyler Durden and has earned Marla's respect and love, but Tyler's Project Mayhem succeeds in destroying the headquarters of several large credit-card companies and banks. For some anti-establishment viewers, however, they see it as a complete happy ending, as they actually like what Project Mayhem intended to do and are glad that it accomplished a global financial crash. or did it? It's still worlds better than the book's ending, where not only does the protagonist end up strapped to a bed in an insane asylum while Project Mayhem goes on unhindered, but the buildings that were destroyed were history museums.
- The Flash (2023): Due to development problems that changed the ending, what should have been a happy resolution instead runs into this for some viewers.
- The Flash reverses his initial change to the timeline and restores everything (mostly) to normal. In doing so, however, he erases both Michael Keaton's Batman and Sasha Calle's Supergirl from existence. Although the ending is supposed to show that Barry has accepted that there are "just some problems he can't solve", in practice, it plays out more that he abandons Batman and Supergirl to die after spending the whole movie getting to know them. Keaton's Batman and Calle's Supergirl were originally supposed to carry over onto the "main" DCEU, but as it is, it makes the ending feel a lot more cynical than was probably intended.
- If the ending is interpreted as Barry ending up in yet another timeline that just happens to be close to his original one, rather than returning to his original universe (but altered), that means his father in the original universe still probably didn't get off trial and now Barry is missing from that universe as well, meaning the original Henry Allen will never hear from his son again.
- Freeway: Wolverton is dead and Vanessa has been vindicated of her actions. But, she still escaped from custody, assaulted a guard, is an accessory to the murder of another guard, auto theft (and supposedly the owner's murder), kidnapped a man, robbed him, stole his car, locked him in the trunk and left him more-or-less for dead. One way or the other, she's going back to Juvie. Oh, and her grandmother and boyfriend are both dead.
- The Girl in Lovers' Lane: Carrie's murder casts quite a pall over what's supposed to be a Happy Ending.
- Goldfinger: Bond successfully stops Goldfinger's plan to nuke Fort Knox, sends Goldfinger flying out a plane and gets Pussy Galore. The problem is he's also brought it to the attention of his friend Felix Leiter, who woks for the CIA, that China was behind an attempt at nuclear terrorism on American soil. Given the political climate of the era, it's not hard to imagine what the outcome of that would be.
- The Good Son: There is a good chance that Mark could be sent to a juvenile detention center after the events of the movie as everyone, except Susan, has written him off as a nutcase due to Henry's manipulations. Furthermore, Susan could get into serious problems with her marriage the minute she tries to explain to her husband what happened to Henry. Also, even if Mark's name gets cleared and Susan's marriage escapes unscathed, she could end up gradually resenting him later on because by choosing the life of her husband's nephew over that of her remaining son, Susan destroyed any hope of rehabilitating her own flesh and blood.
- Gravity: While Stone more than earns her happy endings, surviving all those near-fatal encounters and making it back to Earth alive, the planet's orbit is now undergoing the Kessler syndrome. All that debris is going to be zooming around and making it highly impractical to send anything into orbit for decades, possibly even centuries. Nobody is leaving the planet anytime soon.
- Hancock: The eponymous hero has found out that he and Mary are the two last survivors of a group of near-immortal beings of enormous power and older than Genghis Khan himself who cannot be together without losing their powers and becoming mortal. The film ends with them having to give up on their romance to prevent each other's deaths and to keep the world safe. Problem is (other than Hancock having his heart broken), this means Mary is fated to see her husband Ray, their son and all the people she'll ever call "loved ones" grow old and die, so her dreams of living a normal life are all but fated to go down the drain. Same goes for Hancock, and if a certain deleted scene is to be believed, he can't even have sex without causing serious damages or death to those he has sex with, so procreation might be out of the question for him. Or, maybe he can reproduce and could potentially bring more demigods to the world who may end sharing his same burden...or becoming supervillains. Also, since Hancock is so drawn to help others that he can't end his life the same way the other immortals did, this means he's fated to keep helping those in need for perhaps all of eternity, even if they end up treating him like crap later on. Finally, if Mary's story is to be believed, she and Hancock have gone through the same on-and-off relationship for a long time and will probably end up doing the same thing again.
- House on Haunted Hill (1999): The movie ends with the final two survivors escaping the evil ghosts of the house by climbing the tower and leaving through a window. Cue the sunshine and "we're alive!" hugs. They're still both stranded on top of a haunted house which is itself alive and will devour them the moment they go back inside, with no way down except a 200 foot drop off a cliff and no one coming to their rescue. How are they getting out of there again?
- Ice Angel: is about a male hockey player (Matt) who dies and is brought back to life in the body of a female figure skater (Sarah) so he can win an Olympic gold medal on the ice. He is surprised and unhappy at his unasked for Gender Bender but adjusts to his new life and learns to let go of his old girlfriend and friends who have moved on. As he (now she) is in the middle of winning the gold medal, the two angels who have been watching over Matt mention that as soon as the performance is over 'Sarah' will forget all about being Matt. This is presented as a happy ending but comes across more like Matt — who already has his Aesop and seems content to continue life as Sarah — gets his identity erased for no good reason. This holds true to the source of the story Here Comes Mr. Jordan (which the film Heaven Can Wait is also based off of) where the soul and habits of the deceased do live on in the new body but they will forget everything else about their adventures and time in Heaven and the Afterlife Bureaucracy. It is meant to help the soul and person go back to living a normal life.
- Idiocracy: Could Joe and Rita's influence as well as them producing smart children really help the population in the long run or will they most likely be once again drowned out by the unintelligent masses?
- In the Aftermath: Angels Never Sleep: Earth's atmosphere is purified! Frank and Sarah can live on the surface! But it's still a post-apocalyptic wasteland...though it's hinted that the Angel's sacrifice will help speed along its recovery, at least.
- The Incredible Shrinking Man: While Scott may have come to terms with the fact of what's happening to him as he shrinks to nothing (he states in the voiceover that "To God there is no zero"), this is at best bittersweet. He faces almost certain death; plus, his wife and his brother are convinced that he died a horrible death: being torn apart and eaten by the Careys' own cat. Matheson created a sequel
where Scott's wife realizes she's shrinking too, reasons that he's not dead and that the antitoxin has a delayed effect, seeks him out and brings him back, but this was never produced. - Independence Day: Resurgence: At the end of the film, the heroes manage once again to defeat the invaders yet they still lost all space stations, all satellites and many countries were wiped out not to mention that other aliens might return.
- To say nothing of the stinger at the end saying that the next step is to go after the Harvesters. Because nothing says "happy ending" quite like the promise of further violence on a galactic scale.
- The Internship ends with the main characters winning the competition, in which their rewards are nothing more than jobs at Google. This article discusses why some people who watched the film at the time of its release might not consider it a very uplifting story.Was a movie like this ever made during any previous bad economy? The Great Depression equivalent might be the story of a pair of unemployed guys competing against hundreds to go work on Henry Ford's assembly line. But no, such a movie was never made — and could not exist — because in no previous America would turning yourself into a cog in somebody else's machine be considered an achievement worthy of celebration.And in no previous America would it be considered a victory if 95 percent of your fellows were still left on the street. Rather, the Great Depression cinema made heroes of gangsters, con men and fast talking individualists, guys who chose survival by not fitting in.
- Jennifer's Body: Needy ends the movie getting some very well-deserved revenge...but she's still a fugitive and a pariah with no income or support network.
- Jingle All the Way:
- A minor one for Myron. Okay, he can give his kid the Turbo-Man doll. Hurrah. The downside is that he might face prison time and will still be considered an absentee father. Oops.
- So... is Liz still living next door to Ted come the end credits? The man who tried to sexually assault her? Did she tell Howard?
- Juno: A good number of viewers have expressed skepticism that Juno's son would be better off with the nervous, flighty, and recently divorced Vanessa than with Juno herself, who despite being only 16 is very smart and rational for her age and by all appearances has a better support network than Vanessa does. An earlier draft of the script was even worse as it showed Juno as absolutely miserable over giving up her baby.
- The Jurassic Park franchise has several examples.
- Jurassic Park III ends with the escaped Pteranodons flying off into the distance, while the survivors of the main cast, aboard their escape plane, simply watch with mild curiosity and make a few amused comments. This, in complete ignorance that these Pteranodons are shown to be hyper-aggresive aerial predators explicitly shown to have a taste for human flesh, who are now on the loose with many potential casualties in the waiting. Ultimately subverted in Jurassic World tie-in material where it's revealed they were eventually gunned down by that film's main human antagonist Vic Hoskins.
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom treats Maisie freeing the dinosaurs from the auction center filling up with toxic gas to be a happy ending: even though they've condemned the nation to be overrun by dinosaurs, many of which have a taste for people, especially the pterosaurs which are now nesting in places as far as Las Vegas. The short Battle at Big Rock really plays off how much the constant threat of predatory dinosaurs has affected daily life for the humans who now have to pay for Maisie's decision to release them.
- Jurassic World Dominion ends with the plague of locusts put to a stop thanks to mad scientist Dr. Wu's Heel–Face Turn, Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler rekindling their relationship, and Owen, Claire and Maisie becoming a new family. However, dinosaurs and man are now inextricably entwined, to detriment of both sides: humans now have to live in fear of large predators roaming free in the wild, dinosaurs continue to be exploited as bioweapons and fighting animals for Beastly Bloodsports, and there's the potential impact the dinosaurs have to native wild animals, with Blue and Beta shown hunting wolves, which are clearly unprepared to deal with dinosaurs. This film also reveals that Maisie releasing the dinosaurs in the last film pales in comparison to an even bigger problem: dinosaurs are already being illegally kept in captivity all across the mainland, multiple other companies can breed/ genetically engineer their own dinosaurs, and that the Atrociraptors are a demonstration of a successful military use of trained dinosaurs: something ominously hinted at in the first Jurassic World.
- Kingsman: The Secret Service ends with Gary stopping a device that can turn everyone in the planet into mass-murdering psychos Just in Time and saving the day. Except, "Just in Time" here means "just five minutes after the device was activated", meaning that for five full minutes, every person on the planet without a special microchip turned into a bloodthirsty beast for enough time to murder any person nearby (including loved ones, the elderly, and kids). That could easily mean millions, or even billions have died and/or caused countless destruction all over the world; imagine the physical, psychological or economic damage resulting from that. At the same time, many corrupt leaders and businessmen explode into a gory mess, and while this is certainly what they deserved, that also means that dozens of important leaders have died, leaving their badly damaged countries with a sudden power vacuum.
- Knowing. Almost everybody is killed as the planet is incinerated, but some 30-odd kids survived and went to a wonderful Garden of Eden-esque place! And they're gonna repopulate the human race! Plus, since the aliens only saved a handful of prepubescent children and refused to rescue even one of the most highly-educated adults on the planet, their concern is clearly preserving human DNA, not human culture or civilization. Why? Are they breeding slaves? Cattle? And let's not imagine the mental health of these kids as they grow up.
- Krull: So, Colwyn and Lyssa's son is prophesied to rule the galaxy... but how is this to be achieved, exactly? Will he simply show up on planet after planet and have the natives instantly proclaim him as their ruler just because, or, rather more likely, will it be achieved through a galaxy-spanning campaign of bloody conquest?
- Law Abiding Citizen goes to great lengths to show us how the justice system is not actually interested in justice, how the legal process actively prevents justice from taking place, and how those involved in the system all share responsibility for this. The violent prologue really hammers home how Clyde Shelton is quite justified in his revenge against his family's killers, and his subsequent crusade against the justice system itself. Everyone he murders is depicted as sympathetic but also responsible for (at least a little) injustice being carried out against others. In the end, the system defeats Clyde. The only one other person who has any idea why this is all happening, Nick Rice, escapes completely unscathed and the only lesson he seems to learn is to spend more quality time with his family. The movie ends without any discussion of how Rice decided to murder Clyde, does not refute any of the points Clyde brings up about the flaws of the justice system, and makes no changes to the status quo.
- The Ledge: The director states that the ending was meant to be a Bittersweet Ending as even though Gavin dies at the end, Hollis at least has reconciled with his family, Shana has outgrown the silly superstitions of religion and the dangerous maniac Joe is now in jail where he belongs. But Shana herself is now emotionally broken and all alone in the world, with her marriage destroyed, her husband in jail and her lover Gavin dead. It will be a damn miracle if she doesn't end up going back to her previous life of prostitution and drug abuse.
- Let Me In: The movie ends with Owen leaving his old, miserable life in Los Alamos behind to start a new one with Abby. Sounds like a happy ending, right? Except even if you go with the most optimistic interpretation of the story, that Abby genuinely loves Owen and she'll make him a vampire so they'll be together forever, which is canon in the novel version, there's still the fact that mentally they're both pubescent children and they're going to have to live a nomadic life committing murder for the rest of their lives.
- Let the Right One In: This may or may not be the point of the story. There are two possible outcomes of the ending: one is that Oskar takes on the role of The Renfield for Eli and procures blood for her for the rest of his life, the other (endorsed by Word of God) is that she turns him into a vampire, allowing the two to live together forever but also forcing him to kill for survival as well.
- Licorice Pizza: Gary kissing Alana and her saying she loves him, while seemingly played as a grand romantic resolution, can alternatively be seen as both of them seeking to escape the need to grow up, with some viewers arguing that the age gap in their relationship would create an unhealthily unbalanced power dynamic at best, or that their relationship should be viewed as pedophilia.
- Live Wire: The film ends with Danny O'Neil defeating the villains and getting his ex-wife back. Great! Unfortunately, his actual mission was to protect three Senators who had been targeted for assassination by said villains, and all of them die, two killed by the baddies, and the last being accidentally impaled on a spike AFTER being rescued... but he was Danny's wife's new boyfriend and also a jerk, so his life obviously doesn't matter.
- Logan's Run: The old man possibly teaching the survivors how to live without technology or meeting up with other outsider humans gives Logan's Run a "Ray of Hope" Ending in light of the citizens being now forced to fend for themselves after the city, the free food and the societal order went down with the central computer's destruction.
- The Lonely Lady: Jerillee's shocking speech will likely result in her career in Hollywood being sunk and her life being worse. But the film implies that reclaiming her own life and publicly confronting her abusers is well-worth the cost of her career.
- Lost Continent: The main characters are able to escape the island before it blows up. This is all well and good, except that they're stranded on a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean, with no apparent way to call for help.
- M3GAN:
- Even if you overlook the alarming Sequel Hook, the film's ending is far from optimistic when you think about it. Gemma and Cady may have destroyed M3GAN for the time being and grown closer as a result of all that's happened. But Cady will surely have more trauma to deal with after all this and M3G/AN still left plenty of carnage in her wake, which will no doubt tarnish the toy company's name (if not put them out of business altogether). It's also bound to spell an end to Gemma's robotics career and destroy her reputation, as she'll surely be forever branded as "the roboticist who created a toy that went crazy and killed a bunch of people", leaving her without an income to support herself and Cady.
- And that's the optimistic outcome. Given that Gemma signed a contract that spelled out how she was the most important person in charge of M3GAN's production, it's entirely possible that the company would use that to throw her under the bus in regards to the inevitable court case that comes about due to the deaths caused by M3GAN. It wouldn't be entirely out of line either, as Gemma made bad decisions in the development of the AI and took a hands-off approach to M3GAN once she was up and running. And if she treats a robotic child like that, then what's stopping the courts from assuming she'd be similarly cold and distant towards her human charge (which she very much was in the beginning)? Cady could very well wind up down in Jacksonville after all, her life being upheaved once again while Gemma winds up with either massive lawsuits or jail time.
- Malignant: Madison succeeds in locking Gabriel back in her mind, thus saving her sister and birth mother. However, this does not change the fact that Gabriel murdered nearly all the officers in the police department and the female inmates. Anyone who was unaware that Gabriel was the actual murderer and not Madison would still think Madison was responsible, though it’s possible security footage and hospital records could exonerate her.
- Marathon Man: The ending is at best bittersweet, but it's even worse when you consider that, with Doc, Janeway, and Szell all dead, that shady government agency they all answered to will likely be doing an investigation, and Babe still knows far too much.
- Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders: There really wasn't a good way to put a happy ending on that first bit, so they just had Ernest Borgnine insist to his grandson that it was a happy ending when the Jerkass with an infertile wife became her baby.
- Midsommar, like Brazil, features a deliberate Mind Screw example. The film ends with the much-beleaguered heroine Dani grinning from ear to ear, as she's finally free of all the toxic influences in her life and has found a group of people who accept her... who happen to be a dangerous cult who got rid of the aforementioned toxic people by ritually murdering them. Plus Dani is grinning ear to ear not in relief, but in madness, as the cult has been brainwashing her all along, breaking her for good by manipulating her into choosing to sacrifice Christian.
- Mission to Mars: It's bad enough that the tragic, "benevolent" Martian precursors have killed a team of innocent astronauts by building a horrifying security system and the protagonists (including a surviving member of the murdered team) seem to gloss over that detail. But in the end, Jim decides to leave on an ancient spacecraft that will take him to the new home of the Martians, who left Mars after an asteroid made it inhospitable and seeded a young Earth with life before leaving. Eons have passed since that happened... what assures us that there's even a culture left at the place this spaceship is taking Jim to?!
- Moon ends with Sam's newer clone successfully unjamming the direct communications with Earth and triumphantly escaping from the Sarang moonbase to expose the inhuman treatment of the corporation's clones... but no one seems to acknowledge the sad fact that even if they gain freedom, Sam and all the other clones kept in stasis will still have only three years of life before the painful Clone Degeneration gets them.
- Moonlight (2016): Chiron reconciles with his mother and with Kevin, starting a relationship with the latter. Sounds great? Except Chiron is still a drug dealer with a criminal record, and even if he tries to go straight, it's going to be one uphill battle.
- The Next Three Days: They do escape to Venezuela, which is certainly preferable to the alternative... but now what? They'll have to find a way to make a living in a country where they don't have working rights and they probably don't speak the language (the movie never says they don't speak Spanish, but there's also no indication that either of them does). For good measure, back in Pittsburgh we see the last piece of evidence that might have cleared Lara is washed down the drain, so there's no chance at all they'll ever be able to go home.
- The Night of the Hunter: Sure, Harry is going to be hanged, but John and Pearl still lost both of their parents, and there's quite a bit of indication that John, if not both the kids, have either quietly gone insane or at the very least now have a form of PTSD. The ending where John gives Rachel an apple for Christmas makes him seem more dead inside then the heartwarming moment it's meant to come off as. This does follow the fairy tale theme true, as the endings of those stories didn't always end happily ever after.
- No Escape (1994): The Insider society looks grimmer than the ending tries to imply, as they just had to blow up all of the buildings it took them years to build. Their doctor and inventor are dead. Their new leader Hawkins is a good man, but the Father earlier expressed reservations about his ability to lead the group. Even if Robbins and the other escapees do manage to create a public outcry and get Absalom shut down, the facility Hawkins and the others will be sent back to is still a Hellhole Prison.
- Nope: While the film ends on an upbeat note with OJ, Em, and Angel surviving their encounter with Jean Jacket, killing the alien beast, and getting ironclad proof of its existence, there remains the possibility that history will repeat, and the trio will exploit the horrible tragedy for fame and fortune just like Ricky did with Gordy's rampage.
- The Brazilian movie O Auto da Compadecida ends with hero being resurrected and getting a second chance in life and his best friend getting together with his love interest at last. The problem is that the girl ran off from home and was disowned by her father and the trio are now living by themselves in the harsh Brazilian Northeast deserts. It doesn't help that most of the cast also got killed off over the course of the movie too.
- Old: Trent and Maddox may have survived and put a stop to the scientists using the beach to test experimental medicine. But they are in their 50s, and they might soon get depressed over their inability to live normal lives, possibility even cutting their lives short to reunite with their parents.
- Word of God describes Oldboy (2003) as having a happy ending that's sad or a sad ending that's happy. Either way, the implication is that the protagonist continues to carry on an incestuous relationship with his own unwitting daughter, and that he may or may not know himself.
- One Magic Christmas: Yay, everyone's all right! Um, except the father is still unemployed, they're moving, and the mother just blew the last of her savings on the father's very risky start-up. Also, you might have very reasonable doubts about showing this movie to impressionable young children, since it might make them think that faith in Santa Claus can bring their loved ones back from the dead.
- Orphan: Kate kills Esther but given her overall incompetence and the fact John is now dead, there's no way she will be allowed to keep her kids after the events of the movie.
- Out of Darkness: The ending tries to feel bittersweet, but mostly just comes off as bleak, miserable, and uncomfortable, with both tribes dead and Beyah and Heron as the only survivors trying to somehow make it alone. Made even worse by the apparent invocation of an Adam and Eve Plot even though Heron is a literal child and Beyah is a grown woman.
- PG: Psycho Goreman: Intentionally and Played for Laughs. Mimi teaches PG about The Power of Love and he chooses to spare her family... and then leaves to destroy the galaxy. But at least Mimi is okay!
- The Lassie film, The Painted Hills: Shep (Lassie) managed to avenge the death of her owner by driving his killer, Taylor, off a cliff. And rather than simply give up and die, she decides to live on with Tommy, the son of Jonathan's late partner. But Taylor had killed Jonathan in order to steal their gold claim for himself. The site of Jonathan's claim died with the two of them, and Taylor had hidden the gold dust he and Jonathan had already gathered: a fortune lost to Tommy and his mother.
- Pan's Labyrinth: There are other fascists out there, after Vidal's death, and several more decades of dictatorship - it's 1944 and Franco will only die in 1975. Plus given the rebels murdered a high-ranking Franocist officer it's likely they'll be hunted down and killed before they can manage an escape, including Ofelia's baby half-brother who she died to protect, basically making her sacrifice pointless. Again, this would fit in the fandom theory that it's all in Ofelia's imagination, serving as a depiction of the total destruction of innocence and hope Spain experienced under Franco's regime to the point that even a child's inner mind is corrupted and ultimately snuffed out by it.
- The Player is a deliberate example that deconstructs the Focus Group Ending: the obligatory happy ending simply doesn't work when the hero not only gets away with murder, but steals everything his victim had.
- Radio Flyer: The fact Bobby flies off and never comes back, even after the King is put away for good (the reason Bobby is escaping to begin with), flies around the world in that little wagon for years (he only had money to send postcards and is literally Just a Kid) and only contacts Mike, and in his older age Mike reminisces all of this in a semi-whimsical fashion. There is a reason why audiences have asked Donner, Evans and the writers whether or not Bobby is dead or a hallucination.
- Reminiscence ends with Nick being trapped in his happy memories for the rest of his natural life versus life imprisonment. This is considered by many fans to be a Fate Worse than Death because he can never move on or do anything but enjoy his (ultimately fake) relationship with Mae. There is also the fact that despite Nick helping uncover a conspiracy that brings about political change, it doesn’t change the fact that the earth is still gradually flooding which will likely drive humanity to extinction.
- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter ends with the heroes defeating Umbrella and developing a cure for the T-Virus. It seems like the day is saved-except for the fact that the human race has dwindled down to slightly over 4,000 people, way too few to sustain any kind of civilization above Iron Age-level. Combine that with the devastation of Earth's biosphere caused by the infection of fauna, and humanity's future is looking very bleak.
- Rock: It's Your Decision: Jeff has renounced rock music and purified his soul, yet he's become an alienated religious fanatic with paranoid delusions about an artistic medium he once enjoyed and an even rockier relationship with his mother than he had previously.
- Rocky V. Rocky kicks Tommy's ass in a street fight, but he's still broke, and Tommy is still the champion. No wonder Sylvester Stallone declared it Canon Discontinuity, though Rocky Balboa still opens with Rocky back in his old neighborhood, though thankfully no longer broke as he now runs his own restaurant.
- Run Sweetheart Run: Cherie does manage to vanquish Sacks and we have a triumphant girlbossy ending with Cherie returning home to her daughter. However said daughter’s father is now dead, as is Cherie’s best friend and said best friends family. When Cherie comes down from whatever adrenaline rush she’s on she’s going to realize that and have to tell her daughter that her father is no longer with them.
- The Running Man: Ben Richards has to endure much but eventually emerges with a personal victory. Killian's ruse has been undone, his name cleared on national TV and he got the girl. However it will take far more than that to solve the economic and social problems still plaguing America.
- Santa Claus (1959): Sure, Lupita got her doll, but her dad still hasn't found work and her family is still dirt poor.
- Scrooged: For Elliot Loudermilk. Frank rehiring him as a high level executive is certainly a good step forward, but he's still got his fair share of problems that we never see get resolved. He lost his wife and child in the wake of his firing, and there's no indication of reconciliation. And while his bender was hopefully a one time thing, there's a very real chance he could continue to have issues with alcoholism. And then there's the potential legal trouble he'd face for his use of a firearm. Frank will most certainly not press charges, but the other people he held at gun point more than likely will.
- Seven Pounds which tries to make Tim's obsessive self-flagellation and ultimate suicide a morally uplifting Heroic Sacrifice. Also, his preferred method of suicide is box jellyfish. Which kills via a neurotoxin that will render the organs he wants to donate useless.
- Shallow Hal: Hal abandons his routine, work and friends to stay with Rosemary at the Peace Corps. In turn, Rosemary forgives Hal and the two date again, and will probably marry. The problem is: Rosemary doesn't know about Hal's hypnosis yet, so she'll probably never know that their relationship initially started with a lie. Hal, in turn, may have difficulty adjusting to his new life away from home, and he saw the real Rosemary for just one day. And that doesn't mean that he is now physically attracted to fat people. How long will it be before Hal and Rosemary's marriage becomes strained to issues of low sexual chemistry?
- The Shape of Things to Come: Sure, Omus is defeated. However, Delta-3, the only source of the live-saving drug everyone needs to live, is blown up. While the good guys have some of the drug left, it will probably run out meaning that humanity is doomed to extinction due to radiation poisoning.
- Shivers (1975): Inverted. Considering everyone in Montreal are already dead-eyed zombies, some think the ending is a happy one.
- Showgirls: The film ends with Nomi Malone leaving Vegas scot-free, having learned valuable lessons about the price of fame on her own identity (and after beating the man who raped her best friend, to boot). However, Molly is still in a coma, neither Nomi nor Cristal (the latter of which was pushed down a flight of stairs by the former) are available to helm the Stardust's signature show just days before its opening, and Andrew Carver is presumably still a predator at-large (once his face heals up, anyway). That's not even touching on how Nomi doesn't seem to have really learned anything from her experience.
- The indie drama Sleepwalking tries to make its ending seem like a happy and uplifting one: The mother finally returns realizing that she does love her daughter and her brother has realized how he is not enjoying life and decides to take charge, ending with the optimistic line "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Well OK except for the fact that the mother is still unemployed, now homeless along with her daughter, and is probably going to get charged with abandonment and not be allowed to keep custody of her daughter who'll be forced back to her hated foster care and probably won't end up well. Meanwhile her brother will have to spend the rest of his life as a fugitive for the murder of his father. Not all that uplifting after all.
- Snowpiercer ends with the train being derailed, and the two survivors - quite possibly the last human beings on Earth - encountering a polar bear in the frozen wasteland as a sign that of hope that life is not as doomed as they had been led to believe. Which is all well and good, except now they've caught the attention of an apex predator in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that's very likely starving and eager to make a meal out of the survivors... So it's a happy ending, but not necessarily one for humanity.
- Soultaker: Natalie and Zach get a second chance at life! But its not clear what will happen to them when they eventually die for real - the Angel of Death implies their souls are lost forever, which could well suggest they can't even access the afterlife because they technically cheated (and possibly screwed Brad over too by convincing him to abandon his post and give Natalie and Zach the means to put their souls back.)
- Source Code: Colter finally creates an Alternate Universe where the train disaster is averted and he gets to live Happily Ever After with his new girlfriend... in the body of her old boyfriend Sean, who is now essentially dead since his consciousness has been overwritten. Colter will now have to adjust to living a life that is not his, with a family and career which are utterly unknown to him. He also has to try and very carefully pick the right time to tell his new girlfriend that he met her that day and has almost no idea who she is. Oh, and this reality also has a version of his brain in a box, so it's not like his suffering has actually ended at all. And apparently there's one alternate reality where Sean's friend remembers his last actions as irrationally attacking a random guy because he looks Middle Eastern, before falling onto a railroad track.
- Spanglish: Cristina is able to affirm to herself (and the Princeton advising committee) that she is her mother's daughter. All well and good, but... what about the Claskys' marriage? What about Cristina's immediate academic future and her relationship with her mother? Does Bernie ever come to terms, one way or another, with her weight? Will Evelyn stay on the wagon? What about Cristina and Flor's undocumented status?And, will Georgie stop having nightmares?
- The shooting script removes the affirmation and reveals that John did indeed sleep with Flor (he did not in the theatrical version), making the story aim towards more of a Downer Ending.
- Splash: Even though it’s sweet that Allen gets to be with his beloved Madison, in the long run, his love for her may not be enough to survive in her underwater world. He can’t ever leave her side, otherwise he’ll drown (Madison explains to Allen that he felt safe under the water as a young boy because she was present). Also, Allen will probably have to give up his human speech and instead learn to speak in high-pitched dolphin squeaks. To make matters worse, he can’t ever go back to his life on land or visit his brother Freddie above, so Allen will be forced to cope with the downsides of undersea life, like his loss of humanity and chronic sexual frustration. The 1988 made-for-TV sequel Splash Too actually goes out of its way to address these issues — the couple lived on a (presumably nearby) island for a few years before returning to New York City to help Freddie with a crisis, and eventually decide to stay there for good.
- Teen Beach 2: Lela takes Mack's advice to change the movie and make it what she wants it to be for when she and Tanner get back. As a result, the fear that Brady and Mack each have of having never met comes true. Wet Side Story becomes Lela, Queen of the Beach and it becomes Mack's all time favorite movie, not Brady's. Mack's personality is very likely changed as a result of the movie's transformation too. Brady and Mack still meet and fall for each other, but it's under similar but different circumstances at the Save the Beach event. Fate had to intervene to eradicate them of their problems rather than let them figure it out for themselves and because of it, they've lost all the time that they had together before. It's nice that they're meant to be together no matter what, but it makes it that what happened in the first movie and this one no longer exist as well as form a paradox where Wet Side Story should have never changed at all if Brady and Mack were never there. Plus, Mack doesn't remember her friendship with Lela, only knowing her as a character in a movie.
- Thelma & Louise: More than one reviewer pointed out that the ending tries to play launching your car into an inevitable, agonizing death as some sort of display of "girl power".
- Time After Time: If we figure that the rest of the life that Amy Robbins lives out with Herbert George Wells mirrors that of what actually happened in the real world.
- Downplayed in Time Bandits. The boy's house is a smoking ruin and his parents get vaporized... but his parents were neglectful bastards to start with, and Agamemnon is now a firefighter, implying that he won't be completely alone, plus he could always use the Time Portal Map through the photo of it he took in order to return in Mycenaean Greece. According to director Terry Gilliam (on the Criterion DVD Commentary), parents in the test audiences were upset with this ending, but their children liked it!
- Total Recall (2012): In the original movie, the Big Bad dictator hanging everyone's lives in the Mars colony by a thread with his control over the air supply is killed and Mars gets terraformed with free air for everyone... in this remake, they kill the bad guy but also destroy the elevator that goes across the Earth, and since the remake is set in a toxic After the End hellscape where the only two habitable places left on Earth are connected by said elevator, it means everyone is stuck on each side and there likely aren't enough resources to rebuild it... Yeeey??
- Training Day: Jake survives the day's events on his first day as a narcotics officer, with Alonzo now dead. However, he has to give a report on how his supervisor was killed, and provide evidence of his criminal actions...to the Three Wise Men, the very same corrupt high-ranking police officials who gave Alonzo carte blanche to do as he pleased.
- Urban Cowboy: Bud physically and emotionally abuses Sissy throughout the movie. Yet it’s seen as a happy ending that they get back together in the end.
- The Korean film Veteran ends with the main protagonist Do-Chul successfully arresting a Big Bad Corrupt Corporate Executive Tae-oh. Sounds happy considering that Tae-oh is about to face justice, right (even the Korean lawyer said that if he is indeed found guilty, he'll likely spend 20 to 35 years in jail minimum with fines of $10,000,000). Until you realize that Tae-oh can afford a really big attorney considering that he still has wealth left and will walk back home scot-free, rendering Do-Chul's effort to stop him for naught. However, considering the overwhelming amount of evidence against him with overwhelming amount of crimes charged (aggravated battery both to innocents and to a police officer, illegal drug smuggling, attempted murder, sexual assault, property damage, and the list goes on), it will be highly unlikely. Thankfully, even if he does get out of prison, he will be nothing more than a beggar, living the wretched life for good.
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: Our happy ending is that the Pearls have survived the destruction of their home planet and moved to a ship that recreates their lost paradise, but it's little better than a Lotus-Eater Machine. It's not a sustainable lifestyle, its space is limited, and they will still need to learn how to maintain the ship and keep it running for as long as their supplies last. They're really just clinging to the illusion of their lost paradise and delaying the inevitable.
- The Village (2004): Ivy returns with medicine for Lucius who will probably make a full recovery, but she has just learned that she's been lied to her whole life. The Elders are going to cover up Noah's death to continue their lie which is presented as happy or bittersweet, rather than horrifying. Ivy doesn't know that Noah is dead, let alone that she killed him and may still believe she was accosted by an actual monster.
- Virus: Day of Resurrection ends on an uplifting note as the hero Yoshizumi walks from D.C. to Tierra del Fuego, collapsing into the arms of the woman he loves, intoning that "life is wonderful." This is after the aforementioned virus has wiped out the human race, and a nuclear assault has destroyed most of the ecosystem. The survivors are the only people left alive, and most them are already resigned to starving to death.
- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: Jane no longer believes she's evil, and becomes as bright and happy as a child, but may be taken away to a mental institution, and there's no indication whether Blanche is alive or dead at the end. Regardless, Jane now knows the truth and is fine with it.
- Who Killed Captain Alex?: A bunch of people get killed, including a number of innocents that had nothing to do with the conflict, but it's okay, because Ugandans enjoy martial law!
- In Why Him?, Stephanie doesn't marry Laird, choosing instead to go back to college. However, she continues dating him, he remains an unapologetic foulmouthed pervert, and he has successfully integrated into the Fleming family mostly by dazzling them with expensive gifts. This is presented as a good thing, because his shortcomings don't matter if he's a "nice guy" (as the film keeps telling us he is).
- The VVitch: Thomasin renounces her faith and the oppressive structures of Puritan society and joins the witches' coven, and judging by the final shot of her face, she thinks of this as liberating or at least relieving after so much misery. However, considering all of the suffering she endures in this movie is a direct result of Black Phillip and his witch servants purposefully destroying her family and breaking her down physically, mentally, and emotionally until she has no other choice but to either join them or die alone in the wilderness, the true meaning of this ending is that she has basically given in to grooming. Of course, it is still ambiguous whether her expression is meant to reflect that she has just found happiness or rather that the events have finally driven her to insanity.
- In World's Greatest Dad, Lance Clayton loses his job as a teacher and is despised by his former co-workers, his community (and, due to his fame, people around the country) for using the false claim that his poetry was actually written by his deceased son as a ruse to gain publicity. On the other hand, in the final scene, Lance is able to do what he wanted all along: spend time with authentic people who appreciated him for who he really is.
- Zakliata jaskyňa (The Enchanted Cave, 2022) ends with two princes marrying their respective sweethearts, laying their Princeling Rivalry aside, and getting crowned together as equals. However, one can't help but feel that it means just asking for an even more vicious Princeling Rivalry in the next generation, should both couples have children.
