The End

Endings are the beginning... 




I have trouble with endings. I’m watching movies now only to see how they end. 

Because I have trouble ‘wrapping’ things up, I know when I’m dissatisfied with an ending. 

When the lead character ends up with the other person, the wrong person, or alone, and emotionally, I'm not satisfied. 

Frankly, if I knew I would end up like I did, well, I would tackled this problem sooner….so I am collecting anything I can about endings, and here’s a good one….

James Hull is an animator by trade, avid storyteller by night. He also teaches classes on Story at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). You can find more articles like this on his site dedicated to all things story at... StoryFanatic.com

How to End a Movie
July 2009

There are basically four different ways you can end a movie

    Happy, Sad, Bittersweet Happy, Bittersweet Sad.

 Afraid that might be a little reductive?  Not when you realize that there are a zillion different ways of presenting these endings.  So how do you determine exactly what ending a story might have?

It’s really quite simple.

To determine the type of ending you have to figure out the answer to two questions.  Do the good guys win?

 Does the Main Character go home happy?  That’s it.

We’ll start out with Happy Endings, which we can also call Triumphs.

Happy Movies

These are the kinds of movies that everyone thinks most stereotypical studio executives love.  While I don’t have any deep scientific research to prove why, I’m pretty sure it’s because Happy Ending films have the biggest box office draws.  The majority of people want to see a movie with a happy ending (Personally, I prefer something a little more complex, but we’ll get to that in a different post).


The good guys win and the Main Character goes home happy.  Plain and simple…


We start out with the super cheesy celebration of all things male, Top Gun.  What does the end of the film reveal?  Well, if you look closely, you’ll notice that the good guys are jumping up and down while they thrust their fingers in the air, proclaiming their victory over the Evil Empire.  In the following scenes, Maverick (Tom Cruise) has finally resolved his personal issues concerning Goose and living under the shadow of his father.  Tossing his buddy’s dog tags into the ocean, he’s now “free” to kick ass on his own terms.


The good guys have won and the Main Character heads back to Miramar happy—Top Gun is the very definition of the Happy Movie.


What about something a little more sophisticated?


As wonderfully complex as Amelie is, it still ends the same way as the missiles and chicks flick.  This time though, the good guys are less a force to be reckoned with than a group of people who successfully overcome their own problems with the help of the title character.  Of course, even Amelie herself can’t avoid a happy ending as she scooters her way through the streets of Paris, hugging her new-found love.
I love the way in which Jean-Pierre Jeunet visually reveals this kind of ending with the kinetic camera work, i.e. using the medium to describe the emotion.  Awesome.


Lastly, we have the bawdy South Park movie.  Satan is sent back to Hell, thus reverting the quaint Colorado town back to its idyllic roots.  Stan, the main Main Character (the film actually has several main characters, as described elsewhere on StoryFanatic.com) also has resolved his personal issues with Wendy…albeit, a bit messier than she probably would have liked!


Good guys win.  Main Character goes home happy.


Three completely different films.  All with the same structural ending.

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