Movies where the bad guy(s) win(s) at the end

[Sersonius]

Terminator 3.  They were trying to destroy Skynet's central core, but they found out that it was just software existing in cyberspace.  And it launched the nukes.  Okay, not really a bad "guy", but that's all I could think of 

I kinda disagree completly - John Connor survived and the "bad guy" (the female terminator thing) was destroyed. In consequence the ultimate bad guy (= Skynet) failed and is doomed to lose the war in the future.

Also: How Skynet is not a bad guy ? He/It wants to destroy humankind - simply because it/he thinks of us as a threat. For an action/sf movie it is more than enough to be the bad guy. A typical kind of bad guy for the genre too - found in several SF books and movies.


Twelve Monkeys - sort of.

Impostor - if we assume that the aliens who sent the title character were the bad guys - we know nothing about them or about the war (or who started it) though.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Here are a half dozen plus one. Historical and foreign films predominate.

" Cry of the Banshee"
Everybody dies, except the werewolf.

"The Great Race"
"You cheated. Cheated. I hate you. I refuse to accept. I wwon't win any way but my way. You've ruined my reputation, do you hear? , , , You I hate. . . . I refuse to accept. I challenge you to another race . . . Fire the cannon, Max."

"Lady Jane"
She dies. He dies. And their enemies sit on the throne of England.

"Lair of the White Worm"
The villainess is dead, but her form of vamprisim is spreading and the saved village virgin is in more danger than ever.

"The Mission"

The missions are destroyed, and those who seek to enslave the natives are ascendant.

"Nicholas and Alexandria"
E verybody dies, and the Communists win.

and
"1984"

[Sersonius]

"Lady Jane"
She dies. He dies. And their enemies sit on the throne of England.

One of the best historical movies of all times. I have only a small collection of films on dvds and Lady Jane is among them. There is a problem of definition of 'bad guys' again. It is hard to label Jane's enemies as bad guys - they are just political rivals on the same level in terms of morality imo.

[Skull]

wow I hate to spoil this...


Faceless (1988)

[Judge Death]

Silence of the Lambs, as Hannibal Lecter goes free.

The Happening, where the things that caused most humans to kill themselves are not destroyed.

The day mars invaded the earth. (Really old one.)

[ChocolateChipCharlie]

Scanners.  Though the "protagonist" wasn't that great a person either.

I don't think we have the same interpretation of that movie, and I've seen it a LOT of times...

Vale (the supposed good guy) sacrifices his body but he takes over Revok - Revok's eyes and voice change over to Vale's and there's a point in the sequence when Vale's face is melting off where you see him gain control.  His solution is to overtake Revok.  That's how I see it, anyway.  I hadn't thought of it as an open ending but I suppose it could be viewed that way.

Re: THE THING, I'm sorta surprised there hasn't been a recent attempt to remake that movie.  Hell, they're remaking every other movie from the 80s that was even remotely successful.  I think the reason they haven't is because Carpenter's creature effects were so good that any CGI garbage they'd throw together nowadays would look like Sci-Fi Channel schlock.  And it doesn't seem like there are any good effects people left in the business that actually make live action effects.  It's cheaper and easier to do CGI so that's what everybody uses even though it looks pretty bad most of the time.

Re: THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, I don't see the Devil as actually winning at the end of that one.  He just gets another shot at an antichrist grandson.  Keanu could deny him again like the first time, we don't know.

Back to the topic, a few more off the top of my head:

DRACULA 2: THE ASCENSION (hey, it's been on a lot lately...)
KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS (but they don't kill Shatner, goddammit!!!)
BASIC INSTINCT (open to interpretation I guess, but it seems pretty clear to me)
ROSEMARY'S BABY (evil baby!)
KOMODO VS COBRA (the melty-face guy comes back to life all lizardy at the end of the credits)
DR STRANGELOVE (the bomb, or maybe Slim Pickens being the bad guy)

I almost always root for the bad guys.  It's more fun that way.  :)