Warning: As a Spoilered Rotten Ending Trope, EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE on this list is a spoiler by default. You Have Been Warned.
Sudden Downer Endings in Live-Action Films.
- American Graffiti, a Coming of Age nostalgia drama about four young men graduating from high school in 1962, was headed for Bittersweet Ending territory — one of the four friends is going off to college, another will probably soon be getting married, things won't be the same. But the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue veers into full Downer Ending territory, revealing that one of the four friends was killed in a drunk driving accident in 1965 and another was killed in Vietnam.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp is a lighthearted caper flick, a great mix of action and comedy and among the lighter of the MCU films. In The Stinger, Scott is in the Quantum Realm on a routine mission to collect some more quantum particles to continue healing their now-ally Ghost and calls to be let out... and the rooftop is suddenly nothing but ash as Hank, Janet and Hope have all been turned to dust by Thanos' finger-snap, leaving Scott trapped with no idea what's happening and Ghost's fate (snapped or left to die without the particles) unknown.
- The original planned ending for Army of Darkness (which eventually became the ending for the film's UK release) had Ash return to his own time by ingesting a sleeping potion. He loses track of how many drops he was supposed to take and ends up oversleeping, awakening alone in a desolate, post-apocalyptic London. While the fanbase is divided on whether this or the studio-demanded happier ending is the better of the two, it's hard to argue that the darker original ending doesn't clash just a bit with the rest of the movie's humorous action/adventure tone.
- At the end of BoyTown, the band dies in a plane crash, leaving behind wives, children, and an unrealized relationship for the recently outed Carl. It's extremely incongruous for a film that was quite light and farcical up to that point. It's uncomfortably played for laughs and drama.
- Notoriously, the original ending to Clerks would have ended with this. A lighthearted comedy about two lazy store clerks wasting a day shift? The original version ended with a robber entering the store and shooting the main character, killing him instantly.
- College: Most of the movie is a comedy in which Ronald the nerd attempts to become a jock in order to win Mary's love. He succeeds at both. We see a shot of Ronald carrying Mary into a church for the ceremony. Then there's a cut to them leaving. Then there's a cut to an older Ronald and Mary with a bunch of kids. Then there's a cut to an obviously unhappy, elderly Ronald and Mary, with him yelling at her. Then there's a cut to side-by-side graves, then the movie ends. The whole sequence lasts ten seconds.
- A Day in the Country: Most of the film plays like a comic romp as a mother and daughter go on a day trip to the countryside and have sex with two randy farmhands. Then the last five minutes of the movie jump forward an undetermined number of years, to find Henriette (the daughter), trapped in a seemingly unhappy marriage, having come back to the inn and met her randy farmhand, Henri. She weeps as she tells him that she thinks about their passionate fling every night.
- The title of Drag Me to Hell turns out to be descriptive of Christine's fate. She grabbed the wrong envelope to shove into the mouth of Ganush's corpse, and only finds out when Clay pulls out the button that she'd left in the car. Cue her getting Dragged Off to Hell not a minute later, complete with her face melting off as the ground opens up and demonic hands pull her down into a pit of fire.
- Electra Glide in Blue ends with Wintergreen pulling over a hippie he harassed earlier to apologize and tell him to get a bumper. After the hippie drives away, Wintergreen realizes he forgot his driver's license and drives after him. The hippie's companion shoots him dead.
- Epic Movie surprisingly falls under this trope. The film ends with the main character Peter having finally gotten over his chicken like attitude, and also having finally gotten with the girl of his dreams, Mystique, albeit, in a rather bizarre form, thought he requested it and seemed happy about it. He and his brother and sisters finally become a family, as well becoming the queens and kings of Gnarnia, seemingly having a happy ending...until they find the wardrobe and leave Gnarnia, and get crushed by a giant wheel. Lampshaded by the Borat parody.
- The silent film Exit Smiling is a zany comedy about a terrible actress in a traveling theater troupe trying to save the man she loves from going to jail. She succeeds. But he never finds out she was the one who saved him, and he's so happy about being able to stay in town with some other girl he likes that she simply doesn't tell him. The movie ends with her crying quietly as he steps off the train.
- A Fairly Odd Summer the third in the live action The Fairly Oddparents films, is pretty jovial and filled with the usual shenanigans of the series until the climax where Timmy falls into lava trying to stop Foop from taking the Abracadanium. He only survives due to the artifact turning him into a fairy (of his ten-year-old form for some reason) and, due to this, he ultimately has to let go of Cosmo, Wanda and Poof as his godparents. The only good that comes from it is 1) His godparents become ones to two siblings they befriended and live close by and 2) This is possibly an Alternate Universe, so it might not be canon.
- The Last American Virgin: A teen sex comedy, mind you. Minutes after a tender kiss that looked like a sealing one, it turns out that not only does the protagonist not get the girl— she also willingly chose her abuser over him. This ending being much more true-to-life than an expected happy one actually makes it even more impressive.
- Magic Mike starts out (and was marketed as) a comedy with male stripper Mike taking 19-year-old Adam under his wing at the strip club. It ends with Adam getting involved with drugs and owing $10,000 to drug dealers, and Mike having to bail him out.
- Marley & Me: The film actually ends with the eponymous dog being put to sleep because of old age... after a long and mostly happy life, so there's that.
- Mister Roberts is set far from the front lines of World War II with the zany antics of a manic ensign, a doctor who's Seen It All, and the Only Sane Man Lieutenant Roberts trying to keep a frustrated, bored crew from going crazy under the tyrannical captain of a cargo ship. The climax of the film is Roberts hurling a palm tree over the side. He finally gets the transfer to a destroyer that he's been pining for the whole film, the hapless Pulver is promoted, and Roberts sends an epilogue letter. Then Pulver opens a second letter, crumples it in shock, and announces: "Mr. Roberts is dead." (The end is ultimately bittersweet when Pulver hurls the replacement tree overboard, slams into the captain's cabin, and announces that he's going to be just as much a thorn in his side as Roberts was — cue the captain's Face Palm.)
- The end of The Mole People: Adad and Bentley managed to escape the destruction of the Sumerian kingdom and had reached the surface… only for Adad to suddenly and inexplicably turn back towards the cave entrance and be crushed by a falling pillar. Her death was mandated by the studio, who considered American Bentley and Sumerian Adad a "mixed-race couple" and feared having them live happily ever after would be seen as endorsing miscegenation. This
◊ is Adad, by the way. - On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Bond's defeated Blofeld's evil scheme and got the girl — in fact, for the first time in the 007 series, he's married her. It doesn't last. In the final scene, Bond is driving away from the wedding with his bride Tracy when Blofeld drives by and shoots her dead.
- In One Day, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess play friends who meet once a year for twenty years and finally fall in love and get married. Then she gets hit by a truck.
- The film Remember Me infamously ends with Tyler being killed on 9/11, and the characters having to move on without him.
- Roller Boogie, a light-hearted roller-disco film, inexplicably ends on a downbeat note, with the main characters tearfully separating to pursue their futures in different cities.
- The film Rue Des Plaisirs is the story of a handyman in love with a prostitute called Marion whose own boyfriend is in danger from mobsters. They've successfully managed to evade them and are living idyllically in the countryside. And then the gangsters arrive out of nowhere and kill her boyfriend, and then her, leaving the handyman alone to mourn. Cut to the two prostitutes who've spent the movie listening to a third one tell the story of how Marion managed to make something of herself, and cut to the credits. (Even the director later regretted sticking on the unhappy ending.)
- Spider-Man: Far From Home ends with the villain defeated and Peter Parker moving on with his life...until The Stinger shows that Mysterio managed to posthumously release a doctored video framing Spider-Man for his drone attack on London and his murder. J. Jonah Jameson makes a surprise appearance slandering Spider-Man and hailing Mysterio as a hero, and the footage ends with Mysterio outing Spider-Man as Peter Parker, turning the ending from hopeful into a Darkest Hour.
- Spring Dreams: A Screwball Comedy (from Japan) that seems to have a more or less upbeat, silly ending. Miss Yasugi has gotten paired off with the doctor. Chizuko has gotten paired off with Mr. Ema after all. Tamiko will avoid social humiliation. Miss Yae is left chasing after Mr. Okudaira, having confessed her love. And while Grandma couldn't bring herself to tell Mr. Atsumi who she is — they were lovers 50 years ago — at least she got to see him again after all those decades and get closure. Then at the end, Tamiko looks into Grandma's room and sees what is the very last shot of the movie: Grandma collapsed in death on the floor of her bedroom, her copy of Romeo and Juliet lying on the carpet next to her.
- Suburbia: The TR kids successfully fight off an invasion by Jim and Bob and are seen celebrating. Cue the duo coming back around for round two, followed by Ethan getting run over and killed and Jack's father arriving too late to stop any of the aforementioned events from happening. Roll credits.
- Sweden: Heaven and Hell: After a mostly frivolous, if rather preachy, journey through life in Sweden (barring a few nasty moments), the film concludes with a somber vignette involving students being trained to live in an underground bunker in the event of the Cold War turning hot.
- This Island Earth: Sure, the earth is saved, but the entire Metalunan race is wiped out by the Zagons. The Metalunans weren't really bad, just desperate. And the movie ends with Exeter's ship crashing into the ocean in flames.
- In Train Of Life, the Jewish villagers manage to smuggle their train across half of Europe, tricking the Germans along every step of the way, and eventually reach the safety of the Russian border. Everyone is celebrating, and Schlomo starts telling us what happened to the characters as the camera slowly zooms out from his face... revealing him standing behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp. The entire story was wishful thinking on his part.
- Troll 2 ends with the family seemingly defeating the goblins until it turns out the goblins somehow survived, end up turning the mom into plant food, and eat her right in front of the screaming son as the movie ends. Yes, this is the same film whose twist was that nilbog backward spells goblin.
- Unashamed - a 1938 "naturist"note melodrama has protagonist Rae lose the affections of her boss to a socialite newcomer. She deals with this by dramatically climbing to the top of the highest mountain available ...and throwing herself off. Cue the Sun.
- Voyage Of The Damned, while a movie about a ship full of Jewish passengers escaping the horrors of Nazi Germany just before WWII, actually ends on an upbeat note as you find out the people onboard were given passage to safe ports across Europe. That is, until a series of titles reveals the fate of individual passengers whom we've come to know over the course of the film. The final one flatly states that about 2/3 of the people onboard the ship still ended up dead in the Holocaust despite getting away from Germany. Of course, an argument could be made that it's all there in the title.
- Mexican Z-movie Zindy, the Swamp-Boy set up a happy ending where Zindy kills the ever-present cougar and is taken back to civilization by the parents of the girl he rescued. Possibly even able to claim inheritance of his grandfather's estate. Then the film suddenly pulls the rug out from under the audience: Zindy gets mauled by the dying cougar and dies himself, leaving the girl lost in the rainforest to fend for herself, with no word on whether or not her parents find her.
