10 films with wonderful final shots
Those memorable final shots that remain with you long after the film has ended
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- DirectorCarol ReedStarsOrson WellesJoseph CottenAlida ValliPulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.Possibly the one that most people remember. Alida Valli's long walk down a road near a Vienna cemetary towards Joseph Cotton. Will she stop?
- DirectorCarol ReedStarsRalph RichardsonTrevor HowardRobert MorleyA man occupies a position of trust with a merchant in an East Asian port. He's sacked after he's caught stealing, but he pretends to commit suicide, and a Captain he befriended agrees to take him to a secret trading post.Carol Reed's other masterpiece. Karema sitting head bowed outside a jungle hut in the torrential rain. Evocative of absolute hopelessness.
- DirectorTony GilroyStarsGeorge ClooneyTilda SwintonTom WilkinsonA law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multibillion-dollar class action suit.A closeup of George Clooney that says it all.
- DirectorTsai Ming-liangStarsChen Chao-jungKang-sheng LeeKuei-Mei YangThree lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment used for sexual trysts.Another closeup, this time of a woman sitting on a park bench sobbing. Incredibly the shot is held for six minutes
- DirectorTheodoros AngelopoulosStarsManos KatrakisMary HronopoulouDionysis PapagiannopoulosAn old communist returns to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union. However, things aren't the way he had hoped for.An elderly couple are alone on a small boat which drifts slowly out to sea away from the camera
- DirectorTheodoros AngelopoulosStarsMarcello MastroianniJeanne MoreauGregory Patrick KarrA reporter stuck in a border town with an overcrowding of refugees sees a man he believes to be a long lost politician.Another of Angelopoulos's marvellous final shots, this time of a string of yellow-coated telegraph workers working up high on a row of poles.
- DirectorAsghar FarhadiStarsPayman MaadiLeila HatamiSareh BayatA married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.The one film where you are unlikely to walk out before the end of the credits. There could be one of three endings. As the final shot continues as a background to the credits, we wait to see which.
- DirectorFrançois TruffautStarsJean-Pierre LéaudAlbert RémyClaire MaurierA young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.A young boy runs towards the sea. Possibly cinema's most memorable freeze frame ending.
- DirectorXavier BeauvoisStarsNathalie BayeJalil LespertRoschdy ZemA rookie policeman from provincial Le Havre volunteers for the high pressure Parisian homicide bureau and is assigned to a middle-aged woman detective.Obviously modelled on Trauffaut, Xavier Beauvois's freeze frame final shot of Nathalie Baye walking along a beach conveys an extroadinary sense of loss.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsMyrna LoyDana AndrewsFredric MarchThree World War II veterans, two of them traumatized or disabled, return home to the American midwest to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.Noone did Hollywood romance better than William Wyler. The moment when Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews finally come together as guests at a wedding is wonderfully caught in a great image by photographer Gregg Toland