I love how the ending was realistic and brought tears to your eyes, but it still ended happily (to me anyways).
Does anyone know of other movies with this sort of ending?
The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner is one.
Just re-read the thread and I thought of "Brief encounter".
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I never make mistakes. Once I thought I did, but I was wrong.
Das Leberen der Anderen (The Life of Others)
Antiparanoia is the eerie feeling that nothing is connected to anything else
"Before Sunrise"
This encounter between two people who then part ways at the end, but the time they experienced from sundown-to-sunup is rather interesting.
"Once"
A chance encounter by a Guy and a Girl (their names are never given) leads them on an amazing week-long escapade of the Girl helping the Guy to follow the dream he sidelined-recording his own songs.
It has the same kind of happy ending where there's something positive that each person has taken away from the experience...even if the audience wants these people to get together.
"Edward Scissorhands"
It's tragic yet happy.
"Thanks, guys." "So long, partner."
- Toy Story 3 (9/10)
"Shampoo"...Love that ending.
shareBefore I got on the boards, I was trying to decide which ending moved me more, Roman Holiday or The Lives of Others. Both are wonderful.
shareSPOILER ALERT (although I guess the title of the thread should tip anyone off to that)
Casablanca came to my mind immediately, but that has been mentioned by countless others.
I'm afraid I don't quite see the connection with The Lives of Others. The type of ending that Roman Holiday and Casablanca have in common is that two lovers who could be together must part in order to carry out their duty. I have only seen The Lives of Other's once, but I don't recall that being the way it ended. I thought the actress somehow betrays the actor (because Stasi blackmailed her), then she gets killed in a car accident (perhaps even on purpose because she feels so awful for what she did). Maybe I am getting a bit confused.
Another film that fits the Roman Holiday and Casablanca ending scheme is The Bridges of Madison County.
I want to mention one more film - Out of Africa (and it is not because I am such a big fan of Meryl Streep). I just saw Roman Holiday again last night, and one scene at the end caused me to see this connection. Just after their first kiss and before Joe drives Anya back to her residence, there is a scene back in his apartment, where they briefly play-act that they can be together. She suggests she cook something, but he does not have a kitchen. So he says, I'll have to change flats to one with a kitchen, so that you can cook something for me. He says this when it is patently obvious to both of them that they will never see each other again.
What is the connection to Out of Africa. Well it is slightly different, because the Baroness and her African manservant - although not her lover, he is the person that has been the most constant friend and companion in her life. When she prepares to leave, he assumes he will accompany her, and she says that it will be like when they travelled to the front in WWI, when he would go ahead and prepare a fire for her to guide her way to camp. She will go ahead to Europe and prepare a fire for him. He says that it must be a very big fire so that he will be sure to find it at such a distance. It is quite clear to both of them that they will never see each other again, but it is their way of talking around that painful reality and expressing the forbidden thought, that they both love each other very deeply (and I don't mean romantic love).
The movie "Witness" had a similar ending. (starring Harrison Ford).
"First Daughter" with Katie Holmes and Marc Blucas, which basically followed the blueprints of "Roman Holiday."
sharethere are also some quite similar - some have an ending that way for one couple - but not the other:
Dark Angel (a great cast - Merle Oberon - Frederic March - Herbert Marshall)
Four Feathers (see the spectacular original from 1938 or 1939 - not the anti-imperialist remake by an Indian director)
Smiling Through
Evergreen
The great A Man and a Woman almost ends this way - you're all prepared for it - and then they go another way
And some end beautifully but inevitably and tragically:
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Sophie's Choice
Waterloo Bridge
I try to avoid movies with disappointing endings like this, but, there are a couple I love like Roman Holiday and The Bodyguard I keep watching and watching anyway. ................ The Heiress and it's remake Washington Square. ................ Gone with the Wind of course. .............. There's Becoming Jane with Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy ................ I absolutely adore First Daughter, but, the end line of that "James will be there, but, that's a whole other story" gives me hope that they would be together .............. Of course, there's Summertime with Katherine Hepburn also set in Venice where they can't stay together ............. One film I love is A Patch of Blue with Sydney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman. They clearly adore each other, but, circumstances means they can't be together ......!.... Someone mentioned An Affair to Remember, but, that had a completely different happy ending
share-There's also "The Prince of Heidelberg"(1927), directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, who is a master at combining comedy, drama, and heart in his movies. It pretty much is an early (indirect[?]) precursor to "Roman Holiday" with the roles reversed and less lighthearted fairytale feel that "Roman Holiday" has up until the ending.
-"Exit Smiling" (1926) The main protagonist is a cook/maid and occasionally back-up actor for a traveling theatrical troupe. One day, a young man joins the troupe after fleeing his hometown for a crime he didn't commit. She falls in love with him, not knowing there's a girl he loves back home, waiting for him.
There is no romance between the main character and the young man, but it is still a great movie with the incomparable comedienne, Beatrice Lillie, in one of her few screen roles.
HollyEm, I don't have an answer for you but I loved your question and I think what you are driving at is a movie where two people bring each other something very special and maybe life-changing (something like what Anne said, that they would remember and treasure for the rest of their lives), where love is given and it doesn't HAVE to be forever because sometimes it just can't be. Let's give that as much as we can to everybody.
shareI think that nails it, and as has been suggested elsewhere in the thread, Once has precisely the same structure, and fits that description to a T.
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.share
"The Age of Innocence" had an ending that reminded me of this one.
shareI think '500 days of summer' counts, although they do set you up with how it's going to end at the start.
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