21 Movie Endings That Ruled Even Though the Villain Won

A good movie ending always includes certain elements. It wraps up every loose end. Any love interests live happily ever after. It would be ideal if the closing credits played over a blooper reel of the stars fumbling their lines, swearing and doing silly dances, but that’s fallen somewhat out of fashion. Above all, the good guy has to win.

Or do they? Can an ending be satisfying if justice fails to be served and they’re not just setting up an Endgame-style sequel? We would argue yes, and so would Redditor OptcPsi. Granted, they cite “FOX when they cancelled Firefly” as one such ending, and we suspect they, along with every other nerd we know, don’t consider that a good ending at all, at least not according to the frowny emoticon they tacked on.

They then asked r/AskReddit, “What is the best ‘the bad guy won’ ending?” and all kinds of winning evil followed.