Among the great movies of the 1990s, there are some standout тιтles that are most memorable for their dark endings. Following the relatively safe era of the 1980s, the movies of the 1990s saw the rise of more challenging and unsettling stories, pushed forward by a generation of indie filmmakers.

With these new bold films, from the likes of Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher, the story could be a lot darker and filled with violence. While there was still the expectation among some audiences that there would be a crowd-pleasing ending, there were a number of movies that seemed to gleefully push back against such expectations.

From the horror movie genre to wild crime stories to hard-hitting dramas, some ’90s films were unafraid to leave things on a rather dark note. Though the audience might have to sit with some uncomfortable feelings as the credits roll, these endings have added to the movies’ legacies.

10

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Directed By Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez

The movie that helped define horror films in the 1990s and popularized the found footage horror genre, The Blair Witch Project builds an eerie tone throughout. The audience is left so unsettled by the slow-burn that there is no way they are expecting a happy ending. However, The Blair Witch Project‘s ending still leaves an impression.

The image of Mike facing the wall is a haunting sH๏τ to end on.

After the three documentarians get lost in the mysterious woods and lose one member of their team, the others come to a house in the woods at the center of the legends. Heather films as she explores the house, only to find her friend Mike standing alone in a room facing the corner, as Heather is attacked and the camera drops.

The ending leaves a lot of unanswered questions about what happened, but it is still a sickening feeling as the audience knows the character encountered some evil force in the woods. The image of Mike facing the wall is a haunting sH๏τ to end on.

9

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Directed By Robert Rodriguez

From Dusk Till Dawn is a vampire movie that hides its genre until the second act. The film starts as a crime story, following two killers on the run who abduct a family of three, using them to sneak across the border to Mexico. However, the first bar they visit ends up being the feeding grounds for vampires.

Once the vampire element is introduced, From Dusk Till Dawn turns into a chaotic bloodbath. In the end, only two characters are left standing, with criminal Seth Gecko having seen his brother killed and teenager Kate losing her father and brother.

Their survival is not a victory for them. Seth is heading to a supposed sanctuary for fugitives, but he is concerned enough about the danger that he refuses to bring Kate along, leaving her to start her new life alone.

8

Leaving Las Vegas (1996)

Directed By Mike Figgis

The film that won Nicholas Cage an Oscar, Leaving Las Vegas is a harrowing movie about addiction and a tragic relationship at the center of its story. It follows Ben, an alcoholic screenwriter whose addiction has lost him his family and his job. With nothing left to live for, he moves to Las Vegas to drink himself to death.

Nicholas Cage filmed himself drunk in preparation for the movie to develop authentic speech patterns.

During his brutal bender, Ben strikes up a relationship with a Sєx worker, Senna, each of them finding a semblance of happiness with each other. However, their respective destructive behavior pulls them apart, leaving Senna to be ᴀssaulted while working and being kicked out of her apartment.

With all the suffering Senna comes through in the third act of the movie, it would have been nice to see her get some sort of closure or win. Instead, she is able to reunite briefly with Ben just before he dies. While Ben’s journey is a devastating one, the film ends with the audience heartbroken for Senna.

7

Arlington Road (1999)

Directed By Mark Pellington

Arlington Road is an underrated thriller that builds to one of the most shocking movie twists of the 1990s. Jeff Bridges stars as Michael, a widower who gradually begins to suspect that his neighbors, Oliver and Cheryl, are actually domestic terrorists planning their next bombing.

The aftermath is even darker as the bombing was made to look like Michael was the sole perpetrator, leaving Oliver and Sheryl to plan their next attack.

Michael’s fears are right, and he believes they have planted a bomb in the FBI headquarters in his city. Michael drives to the building and through security in an effort to find and defuse the bomb. However, he learns too late that Oliver and Sheryl planted the bomb in his car, which was inadvertently driven right to their intended target.

In a rare instance of the bad guys winning in a movie, the bomb explodes, killing Michael and countless people in the building. The aftermath is even darker as the bombing was made to look like Michael was the sole perpetrator, leaving Oliver and Sheryl to plan their next attack.

6

Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

Directed By Adrian Lyne

Following a disappointing theatrical run, Jacob’s Ladder has become a lasting cult classic, thanks largely to its ending. The movie stars Tim Robbins as Jacob, a Vietnam veteran who has returned home from combat only to be plagued by hallucinations and questions about possibly being drugged by his own government.

The movie does eventually reveal that Jacob and his platoon were drugged, which caused them to turn on each other in paranoid frenzy. However, the ending also reveals that Jacob never actually made it out of Vietnam, and scenes of his life post-war were just final hallucinations as he lay dying on a battlefield.

It is a tragic finale for the character, as he dies not understanding what is happening to him. However, it is also haunting that these hallucinations of after the war were filled with fear and pain, suggesting Jacob’s mind in his final moment was quite tortured.

5

Dark City (1998)

Directed By Alex Proyas

Dark City is an underrated ’90s movie that might seem like it ends on an optimistic note, only for the darker implications of the reveal to become clear. The film follows an amnesiac man named John trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious city he finds himself in, as well as the mysterious “Strangers” controlling everything.

John is forced to live an isolated life as the only one who knows the truth of their reality.

It is eventually revealed that the Strangers are aliens and the city is an artificial construct in space that is used to observe abducted humans during their experiments. John is able to gain the abilities of the Strangers and use to to defeat them as well as transform the city into a brighter and happier world for the citizens.

Certainly, the people of this city are better off than they were at the beginning of the movie. However, they are still doomed to spend their lives in a false reality, unable to return to their lives on Earth. Meanwhile, John is forced to live an isolated life as the only one who knows the truth of their reality.

4

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Directed By Oliver Stone

Like From Dusk Till Dawn, Natural Born Killers is another movie that is written but not directed by Quentin Tarantino. Oliver Stone is at the helm of the crime story that tells the story of Mickey and Mallory, two sadistic lovers whose killing spree across America gripped the nation, turning them into a media sensation.

The movie cuts back and forth between the killings and an interview taking place in prison between Mickey and sleazy reporter Wayne Gale. The interview only serves as a way for Mickey and Mallory to stage a prison break, murdering Gale on live television and heading out to presumably continue their reign of terror.

Quentin Tarantino disowned the movie since Oliver Stone rewrote aspects of his script.

It is not a bleak ending that comes out of nowhere, but one that completes the ugly viciousness of the movie. It is a satire of the media’s obsession with and sensationalizing of violence, and it is almost as if the movie is punishing the audience for enjoying the mayhem by allowing these murderers to win.

3

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Directed By Ridley Scott

Thelma & Louise has one of the most iconic movie endings of all time, but discussions of it rarely cover how surprisingly dark it is in the end. The movie is a thrilling, funny, and moving story of friendship, following the тιтular characters who are forced to go on the run after killing a man who tried to ᴀssault them.

The ending is seen as a moment of defiance and female empowerment, but there is a clear injustice to it all.

The movie builds to the famous moment when Thelma and Louise are surrounded by police and decide that, rather than be arrested for their crimes, they are going to go out together on their own terms. They take each other by the hand and proceed to drive their car off a cliff.

The ending is seen as a moment of defiance and female empowerment, but there is a clear injustice to it all. The crimes they are pushed to and the desperation they face are unfair and not something they ever deserved. They get to defy others by going their way, but they never should have had to make that decision.

2

Funny Games (1997)

Directed By Michael Haneke

Funny Games is another hard-to-watch film that deals with sadistic characters and has one of the most haunting horror movie endings of all time. The movie finds a family at their peaceful vacation home who are visited by some seemingly polite neighbors who turn out to be ruthless killers.

A big part of what makes Funny Games so disturbing is that there is seemingly no reason for these two men to be torturing this innocent family. It is a random act that they are doing for the fun of it. While there is little violence on screen, each of the family members is killed in cold blood.

It is hard for the audience to accept the fates of these innocent characters, but the final scene adds to the darkness. It finds the young men visiting another vacation home and introducing themselves to the family inside, ready to start their games over again.

1

Se7en (1995)

Directed By David Fincher

Of all the dark endings of the 1990s, the ending of Se7en has the biggest legacy. The movie follows detectives Mills and Somerset as they follow the trail of a killer who is murdering his victims based on the Seven ᴅᴇᴀᴅly Sins. Eventually, the killer, John Doe, turns himself in, promising to lead them to his final two victims.

Doe leads the detectives to the middle of nowhere, where a box is delivered. Doe explains that he is guilty of the sin of Envy, and the box contains the head of Mills’ wife. This causes the grief-stricken Mills to execute Doe on the spot, becoming the embodiment of Wrath, and completing Doe’s work.

The ending of Se7en is so grim that the studio fought hard to convince director David Fincher to change it to something more appealing. Luckily, Fincher pushed back on those desires, delivering an ending that has gone down in movie history as one of the darkest and most effective.