A number of films are distinguished by their astounding, captivating endings that stand the test of time and remain unforgettable. Here are some of these endings:
(The Four Hundred Blows - 1959)
François Truffaut
In the ending scene, the audience witnesses the action through the scope of a completely static camera. The boy escapes from the reformatory where he was confined by a cruel, apathetic society. He runs in anguish and isolation until he finally reaches the sea—where he can go no farther. The camera remains fixed. Its angle does not change. As the boy moves steadily away from us, we are drawn into the scene behind him. The impact of the final moment—when he turns and faces the audience, locking eyes with the camera, capturing the gaze of every spectator—was huge; It stands as one of the most extraordinary and striking moments in contemporary cinema.
(A Space Odyssey - 1968)
Stanley Kubrick
The film's ending is magnificent and visually stunning: time and space are in continuous motion, a color shifting atmosphere, like a kaleidoscope, enveloping the astronaut—the sole survivor—who will be reborn as a stellar fetus, a super-being, hurtling towards Earth in an almost transparent placenta... and that - As Kubrick says – “to return to Earth prepared for the next leap of transcendence in man’s evolutionary destiny.”
The ending suggests that human beings will survive the inevitable collapse of western civilization, and that they can reinvent themselves, be born again... and connect with the highest form of life.
(Through the Olive Trees - 1994)
Abbas Kiarostami
In the end, through one shot that lasts four minutes without a single cut, we see from a distance, a positive response from Tahira, one that makes Hussein appear overjoyed.
Kiarostami speaks about this ending, he says:
“I love this shot because it is imperfect and because it is open-ended. The fate of these two characters, placed within the vast, wide open, natural setting, is delivered to the audience watching them from a distance. Until that moment, social differences had separated them, but they were one as human beings. The class system had kept them apart, but in nature, within the wide shot, I felt they could come closer to their true selves, without giving any value to social standards."
(Eclipse - 1962)
Antonioni
One of the most sublime endings in the history of cinema, where we see successive shots depicting empty, uninhabited places—locations that had appeared earlier in the film. Suddenly, one realizes that this film is not about Monica Vitti and Alain Delon, "the protagonists”, but about the space they inhabited, the space in which they floated.