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Just a thought.

It always starts that way.........like a magic potion of thoughts intertwined in my head,  ready to drink.

Bottoms up.


What films, if any, can you think of where the BAD GUY actually wins in the end?

Arlington Rd. is the only one that has sprung up like a bad leak into my mind.

The slow-mo shot of Jeff Bridges opening the trunk of his car (with bomb planted) whilst in the parking garage of that U.S. government office was extremely INTENSE!
 
I didn't see that one coming!

Not by any means.
 
No Sir!

Totally blew (no pun intended) my mind.

Do anyone of you know of any other movies where the hero is actually vanquished and the bad guy prevails?

Well, in both "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack Of The Clones" the bad guy(s) really won  Considering that most of the motives behind what was happening was to increase the political and military power of Sentator/Chancellor Palpetine. In the end, he got exactly what he wanted, both times..

I can see your point but......

I'm looking for BLATANT examples in films where the good guy gets his or her ROYAL ASS kicked or killed!

PROCEED TO NEXT POST!!!

Many sci-fi and horror movies have surprise endings where you realize that the bad guys really won, or at least that the good guys did not win.

It's become almost cliched, so much so that often when I'm watching a movie and it shows the hero(s) walking off in triumph, I expect the camera to pan or switch to something showing that the bag guy is a) still alive and/or b) got his objectives, anyway

The Usual Suspects is a clear cut case of the bad guy winning.



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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Luke Skywalker gets his hand cut off and narrowly escapes with his life. The whole rebellion pretty much has to go into hiding.

Michael Heneke's Funny Games. One of my favourites.

>Do anyone of you know of any other movies where the hero is actually
>vanquished and the bad guy prevails?

Fallen - The fallen angel takes over Denzel Washington's body.

>Many sci-fi and horror movies have surprise endings where you realize that the >bad guys really won, or at least that the good guys did not win.
>
>It's become almost cliched,

 Actually, it's become cliched to death! I'm surprised when it DOESN'T happen. I also hate that with a passion! In my opinion, those stupid twist endings which often make absolutely no sense, taint the entire movie that came before.

Not a movie, but Twin Peaks ended on a pretty down note; Agent Cooper got posessed by Bob, Pete and Audrey got blown up, Ben Horne got his head bashed in, etc. Apparently the show's makers didn't know the show was going to be cancelled, so it wasn't intended as an ending (one story goes that it was a last-ditch effort to get ABC to pick it up again), but as it stands, it's one of the bleakest series finales of all time.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

I thought of mentioning that one, but I figured I'd played up the Star Wars angle enough. Thanks for finishing it.


In my opinion, those stupid twist endings which often make absolutely no sense, taint the entire movie that came before.

My favorite (or at least most remembered) example of that if from "Unknown Origin" where the 'surpise ending' is that both 'good guy' survivors have been infected with aliens.  Which means the last third or so of the movie of the fight between the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' was stupid because at that point *everyone* was infected and should've known it.

THE DEVIL"S ADVOCATE.
I hate these endings! It began as a response to the old Hayes office cliche of the good guy always wins, and became a new cliche insted. Even read an article in Famous Monsters of Filmland to that effect, and it had a list of "Bad guys wins" films.
Enough. Too many bad guys seem to win in real life, what, i wanna see it in my movies?The "Run over the last evil bat" in "Bats" was cool, cause it rolled over that new cliche.
Stars Wars 1&2 are "How to " films. How to creat an evil empire...but, there by,...we know that the bad guys DO lose in the end....just not in time to save Alderran. And a bunch of other planets.

I actually like the cliché of the villain winning, but I usually want there to be SOME hope for the hero at the end.

A good example of what I'm talking about is Alien 3, actually. The alien won, because the species finally killed Ripley, BUT The Company, the second villain, lost because they don't have the organism.

FILMS WHERE THE BAD GUY WINS:
Phantasm 1-3, because #4 has a weird f**ked-up ending that REQUIRES #5.

Series 7: The Contenders. It shows that the TV station and the producers of the show are willing to do anything to make sure they have ratings, and not f**k everything up. I really like this movie...

Freed Said:

"My favorite (or at least most remembered) example of that if from "Unknown Origin" where the 'surpise ending' is that both 'good guy' survivors have been infected with aliens. Which means the last third or so of the movie of the fight between the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' was stupid because at that point *everyone* was infected and should've known it."

Ah, "Unknown Origin."  That movies is such a talentless rip-off of "The Thing" that it even uses a few scenes shot from the same perspective and a couple of lines of dialog.  Review for this is due around the end of January.  I do not like this movie; it is only saved by Roddy and it is a very small save.

D'oh! Beat me to Phantasm. I would say most zombie movies, but the zombies really aren't bad guys, are they?
Evil Dead would count, but then Evil Dead 2 picks up where it left off and Ash wins. And it IS a sequel, dammit!

And I love Series 7, too.

Does Seven count????  The guy dies, but, you know....he pretty much gets what he wants in the end

Ahhh I was going to say Se7en (my favorite movie).

What about the Parallax View?  UIts Arlington Road in the 70's (or to me it is).  Poor Warren Beaty gets shot for being stupid and is blamed for the assassinations.

There's also Resident Evil with a sort of bad guy winning ending.

And of course The Ugly.  I couldn't believe that that was the end of the movie even after watching it five times.  It's awesome

Without giving anything away, Memento has either the good guy or the bad guy winning, depending on your perspective. There's also Chinatown.

"Blair Witch Project"
..
"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon":  Zhou Yun Fat dies of a poison dart  and the other heroine commits suicide.

Big Budget-  "Planet of the Apes" remake.  The statue...  I don't care how the book ended or what you were trying to do, when you end like that at least make it understandable!

Little Budget-  "Carnosaur"  The virus gets loose, and the government spooks shoot the remaining characters and accidentaly destroy any hope of an antidote.  Yet we still manage sequals with even with the end-of-the-world ending!

TV show-  "The Lone Gunmen"  NEVER cancel a series on a cliffhanger.  At least run the episode that wraps it up!

-----ooo-'U'-ooo----Kilroy was here.

Goon wrote:
<>

Okay, were you paying attention? Earlier her love interest told a story about a guy who jumped from the mountain and had his wish come true, and that's what she's doing.

Good one!

The Ususual Suspects was great!

I had forgotten about that one!

Got a good one: "The thing". They manage to get the whole thing under control with the blood test, but then everything goes to hell, and the main characters fail miserably their two goals:

1) Keep themselves alive.

2) Make sure the alien doesn't infect more people. As I see it, there's a strong chance the thing has infected at least one of the survivors, and we know that it can survive frozen.

Another one: "In the mouth of madness": Sam Neill ends up insane, and mankind defeated by the primordial entities he helped without knowing.

I use to like this kind of endings, unless it is a cheap last-minute twist.

Sorta thinking about thinhs like "Alien" and similar movies.  If one alien/monster/whatever kills a whole bunch of people before dieing, I would say the bad guy one, even if one good guy survives.

Is 'surviving' really 'winning'?

Good point. Having her friends killed and her ship destroyed, and being set adrift in an escape craft does not seem like Ripley won by much.

Just the same, if getting out with your life is the goal, I'd say achieving it is a victory.

I'd have to say that the twist endings in which the villain is not dead should not really count. While the hero's victory is not complete, he did win the round.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Colossus: The Forbin Project. That ending caught me off guard the first time I saw it.

I was also thinking of Payback, simply because there really were no good guys. We were expected to root for Mel because he was less of a scumbag than everyone else. I don't suppose anti-heroes really count though.

The Godfather is similar in a way. We root for the Corleones, because they are the characters we know better, even though they are obviously just as vile as any of their enemies. The "good" bad guys win in the end.

There are also the movies that play with our expectations, in which the hero character turns out to be a bigger villain than the villain. In Pitch Black, for instance, the guy presented to us as the villain escapes in the end. Of course, that was a story of redemption, so that doesn't really count either. His heroic side came out.

Return of the Living Dead comes to mind. The main characters are vapourized by a bomb that ironically swells the ranks of the undead.

A really interesting one might be the comedy Murder by Death, a parody of classic detective stories. In an ending that beautifully attacks all the clichees of the genre, the worlds greatest detectives are not only proven to be wrong, but after they leave in defeat, we discover that they had all been fooled by a false explanation.

"Wes Craven Presents"  They - the Night Terrors win.

John Carpenter's The Thing
Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Fallen (felt like I was kicked in the head)
The Blair Witch Project
Barracuda
Se7en
Race With the Devil
Halloween
Shivers
The Brood
Videodrome
Pet Sematary
The Crazies
Zombie
The Beyond
The Gates of Hell
A Nightmare on Elm Street (implied)
The Ring

although I do not agree, two that could count - The Omen and Damien-Omen 2

Burial Ground (although it was said earlier that Zombies aren't bad (i think) these Zombies were too smart to not be evil.)

Leprechaun In The Hood

Final Destination

Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal .   though i admit Silence wasn't really about Hannibal and I found myself rooting for him.

Jeepers Creepers

Bordello Of Blood

Thats one of the cool things about Silence....you feel bad rooting fo him, but he's so darn compelling....

also....if animals count....Old Yeller comes to mind.....

The original Mad Max.  Max loses his best friend, his job, his wife and child, also i think his humanity. Sure he killed all the men responsible but he is a long way of from winning or even a tie. Road Warrior had a similar ending. Also the Killer had a downbeat ending that couldn't be considered a win.





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That just reminded me of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, where they spend the entire movie racing after the money, then lose it in the big rooftop fight at the end. No winners, except maybe the bystanders who caught the blowing dough.

Definitely the inspiration for Rat Race, except no feel-good ending where they're all guilted into happily giving it to charity.

I was just reminded of THE HIT, with Terence Stamp and John Hurt.  The problem there is that movie never really has any good guys in it.

Ocean's 11....the good guys are the bad guys.....so I dunno....I lot of Westerns are like that too, where the bad guy is the good guy kinda thing...like a Robin Hood sort of story.

Interesting topic, though there is one genera of film that no one has yet mentioned. That is the war film. It is perhaps amazing in how many war films the bad guys (i.e the enemy) wins. The classic example being "The Alamo."
Even in the midst of WWII, the Americans were making war films, such as "Bataan" and "Wake Island," where the enemy won.
That would continue with "A Bridge Too Far," where the Americans and Brits lose, and the Germans win. Of course, there is also the reverse. "An Eagle Has Landed," where the Germans are the good guys and the Americans and Brits are the bad giys, but, the result is the same. The good guys lose.
And not only WWII. There is "Glory" and "They Died with their Boots On." In the latter,
sometimes Custer is the bad guy and the Indians are the good guys, but, in this one,
Custer is the good guy, and he loses at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Americans are not the only ones to make these films. The French made "The Messenger" about Joan of Arc, and she lost. And the Australians made "Gallipoli," which was a big loss for the Australians during WWI.
Though, sometimes in these films, it is hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. "Waterloo." The Allies under Wellington and Blucher who won, or the French under Napoleon who lost. And "Zulu Dawn." The black natives who won, or the white colonials who lost.
There is also the historical film. Perhaps surprising how many films have been made about losers This dates back at least as far to D. W. Griffith's "Intolerance," in which in at least three of the four segments of the film, the bad guys win.  "The Bounty" In a role reversal, Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) is the good guy, and Christian (Mel Gibson) is the bad guy.Also "Lady Jane," "The Mission," and "Nicholas and Alexandria."
Of course, if one knows one's history, none of these are surprising.
Outside of these, I can think of "1984," where the forces of repression win. "Seconds." where Rock Hudson dies. And "Wicker Man." The last is something of a question mark.  Who are the bad guys? The policeman from the mainland or the pagans on the island.
As for the "Omen" trilogy, though the Devil wins in the first two in the series, he loses in the third and final part of the series. Enjoy!

while those amuse me, films where the main character dies is my favorite. my fav example is An American Werewolf in London

Bram Stokers Dracula. i love that movies, but damnit, he dies  =(   and evil wins

I forgot about Falling Down. Bill Foster doesn't realize until the end that he's not the good guy. Neither do we, really, because we sympathize with him so much, at least until he really goes off the deep end.

I suppose Prendergast would be considered the good guy, and he did come out on top.

This type of movie isn't really about good guys and bad guys anyway.

>"The Lone Gunmen" NEVER cancel a series on a cliffhanger. At least run the
>episode that wraps it up!

Except that there was no episode that wrapped it up. That was all that they filmed. I do agree that they should never end a season on a cliffhanger unless they have a guarantee that the show will be back next season.

The Collector is another one. Samantha Eggar dies and he goes out to kidnap another girl.

JohnL wrote:
>
> I do agree that they should never end a
> season on a cliffhanger unless they have a guarantee that the
> show will be back next season.

Or at least film both halves. It might not be entirely practical when bridging two seasons, but two-parters really ought to be done all at once.

Would Rocky Horror count?  I mean Riff Raff did kill the beloved Frankenfurter and Rocky.  He just about killed the a***ole and slut too.

Deena

P.S. Love your end quote Joe Bob, it's classic

Nope, in that one, Frank-n-furter is considered the bad guy, cause he was corrupting earthlings.  It was riff raff and magenta's job to eliminate him as a threat and return home....as doctor scot says about them, "You did right, society must be protected."