Films where

[wheresthecarrot]

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

[Perk]

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

[J.R.]

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

[stumblefist]

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

[Goon]

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.

[J.R.]

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.

[Ash]

Good one!

The Ususual Suspects was great!

I had forgotten about that one!

[Neville]

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.

[Fearless Freep]

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'?

[AndyC]

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.

[Chadzilla]

"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

[Perk]

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

[wheresthecarrot]

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.....

[ahab]

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.





Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart.

[AndyC]

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.