In my opinion, V for Vendetta. What Evie Hammond was put through was inexcusable, but I feel like it was worth it in the end.
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Not sure if worth it, but it was definitely a cathartic movie.
That's the beauty of it I think. We're left with this ambiguous feeling about whether the end actually justified the means.
Maybe they did, but surely there was a better way, right? Or was there really not? We can't know.
Shawshank Redemption
i was just talking with somebody about that fact yesterday
edit: specifically it's Red's transformation for me that means a lot
For when youβve been crawling a river of shit, and need to come out clean
In a way, I think: Little Miss Sunshine.
A movie wherein everything, everything goes horribly wrong, and yet in the end you're left feeling absurdly good.
One of my favorites
Dredd (2012) would be somewhere at the top of my list. I don't think there are too many movies nowadays that have such a classic "mission accomplished"-style ending.
This is one of my favourite movies. It did everything perfectly. It was exactly what I wanted.
The Big Lebowski.. The dude just wanted his rug back.
Vanilla Sky! Itβs a mind bending movie about a lucky manβs life that many of us could only dream of. That life quickly turns into a waking nightmare when the manβs jealous lover takes her own life with him inside the moving car. His nightmare of a life then melds into an actual dream. That dream then slowly transforms into a nightmare. All the while the main character doesnβt know what is real and what isnβt.
This all leads to an absolutely spectacular cathartic release for the main character when he finally understands whatβs happened to him in the last 10 minutes of the film.
Did I mention it was mind bending? One of my favorite movies by far.
Wow - I've never heard this take on Vanilla Sky. My only recollection of it was how bored we all were when we first tried to watch it. Didn't it get panned by the critics?
I've watched that movie atleast 4 times and even knowing how it ends I've bawled like a baby all 4 times
Shawshank Redemption.
My Cousin Vinny
Did you say two Utes?
Fight Club
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Frodo in LOTR
Terry Gilliam's Brazil always does it for me. Depends heavily on which version you watch though, they're polarizing enough that you can play emotional Russian roulette with both versions.
Bladerunner 2049
Michael Clayton
Tilda Swinton is just insanely good in that.. i mean she makes my hairs stand on end.. that character is a nightmare..
In big budget movies, protagonists facing unambiguous conflict and getting a clear, concise victory peaked in the 80s and early 90s. A lot of the other movies mentioned in this topic (V for Vendetta, Dredd 2012) have serious throwback vibes. Smaller movies usually have murkier conflict.
For a given value of, βthrough the ringer,β Karate Kid is my answer. Itβs extremely easy to empathize with both Daniel and Mr Miyagi. I appreciate some movies that absolutely destroy the protagonist, but their larger than life troubles are more difficult to empathize with earnestly. Aliens fits well, too, the oppression of a faceless corporation may be heavier now than it was even on release. The Top Gun movies fit pretty well as long as you watched the original a long time ago.
Waking Life
Nice to see someone else knows that one! I was coming here to suggest that
Cast Away
Training Day, a movie about a rookie cop who gets paired with a corrupt senior on his first day who manipulates him from the beginning. ''I should have been a fireman"
Gattaca. I am not sure if you can call it an absolute ringer, but it does feel all the hard work pays off in the end.
Agreed on Training Day.
I totally forgot about Gattaca, I watched that in school in like 6th grade. Fantastic movie
''You know what i learned today? I'm not like you."
You can have an Ethan Hawke catharsis marathon.
Kung Fu Panda 2. A funny panda movie about dealing with buried trauma.
Seven or Man on Fire. Not what you'd call happy endings, but the movies would be ruined any other way.
Except for in Seven, if it ended in a blast of colored smoke for a gender reveal gift box. That could have been very touching. /s
Grave of the Fireflies...but make sure to watch My Neighbor Totoro right after as intended
Wristcutters
The main characters go to a hell/purgatory specifically for people who've committed suicide, where no one can smile. It's not a very action-y movie, but it's one of my favorites. Also, it has Shannyn Sossamon from A Knight's Tale, so that's a plus
Definitely not Das Boot
Turn it off after they come back from being stuck on the bottom.
Das Boot is the movie you show an engineer if you want them to be anti-war.
The submarine itself is as much a character as the rest of the crew, and it fights alongside them through every struggle...
...only to die a pointless death at the end. A beautiful machine wasted on the cause of warfare.
No joke. βSingβ Itβs this silly kids cover song movie, but it ends up having a wonderful consistent optimism and a brilliant payoff. Itβs not an improbable massive βpulled it offβ win, itβs surviving through failure and loving the act of making art so much that you keep doing it anyway. Itβs joyful and a masterclass in writing a classic story arc without torturing your characters and your audience to get there.
Green Room
I only saw it once a long time ago so I may remember it wrong, but "It's a Wonderful Life"? I recall being surprised because as a non American I'd heard so much about it as a Christmas movie and expected that genre but when I watched it, it was incredibly depressing and I never watched it again.
The original Robocop movie is an all-time favourite of mine, as far as violent revenge movies go.
It's a great blend with gratuitous violence - not to mention the story that puts the protagonist through the absolute ringer for it to all pay off in the end.
A Clockwork Orange
Nimona