Depressing Endings

[Ti0k0]

You want to talk depressing shit? Let's talk about some depressing shit.

We need to stop spending millions upon millions of dollars in the anti-drug campaign and just show people this movie instead.

Yes it's Requiem for a dream, the void is starting to expand again, damn you
Still one of the best stringpulling movies IMO.
I actually didn't like Buried that much; I just had the feeling of: OR he's surviving this situation, OR he's not, so I wasn't really waiting for a plottwist, cause there could only be two. And I am aware that this is not a legit reason to dislike a movie, but in this case it kinda was. Nothing bad said about Reynolds acting, he did great
American Beauty always leaves a hole in my heart though...

 

[MiracleOfSound]

The Descent.

For a similar reason to 'Brazil'.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

The end of the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman

Spoiler

The whole of the last two books spent subtly setting up the relationship between Lyra and Will, then after it all ends. After going through hell and back literally, after Lyra finding out who her parents are, and then seeing them get killed she and Will get told 'sorry guys, I know like you've now only really got each other left now, but you can't be together ever again or you will die oh and you can't even talk coz you will be in different universes, sucks to be you'

 

[pedobearlongcatlazor]

Stephen King's The Mist (2007 movie). That ending didn't just leave me feeling depressed but just shocked and empty inside. Apparently the director, Frank Darabont, put that ending in the movie even though it weren't in the book. I know it's still a Stephen King story but seriously that's dark. I won't spoil it but those who know what I am talking about will understand or watch it now on Netflix.

I was going to mention The Mist, the ending is the complete opposite of the book though. Stephen King himself was blown away by that ending.
Also watch The Divide. Everything about that film is depressing.

 

[somethingorother003]

It may not quite count because of how it continues after the credits, but I have to put up Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness here simply because of how it thoroughly blindsighted me and left me a broken sobbing mess of confusion because dear lord I did not expect PMD to go down that route:

Spoiler

It ends with your partner/best friend screaming your name and sobbing on the beach where they found you, after you have been dead for a year, while one of your guildmate friends fruitlessly tries to comfort them over what is obviously still a deeply painful loss. ROLL CREDITS.

After playing Red Rescue Team a while ago I figured they couldn't possibly top it in terms of depressing. I at least figured it wouldn't get to me again.

At the end I felt so many different emotions, don't know if I should be sad about it or happy that it happened. Or in awe at how great the game was.

Shame about the new one though.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Really, no mention of Red Dead Redemption? Usually that ending is on the first page of threads like this. Ye gods that was a depressing ending. Great ending but depressing as hell...

I was gonna say that but it was more enraging than depressing and if they made it more obvious that ending wasn't really the end it would have been a lot better.

 

[AT God]

I agree with most of the comments already, however Bioshock Infinite has one of the most emotional endings I have experienced in a while despite it not being a depressing ending.

I don't know how to write a special spoiler message so click below for Bioshock Infinite spoilers, don't click if you haven't played the game though, play the game or ignore this post.

Spoiler

I personally tend to interpret any kind of emotion, even a good ending, as being depressing, just as I felt depressed instead of angry at the crap ending of Mass Effect 3. Bioshock Infinite's ending was really effectively damaging for me purely because I really didn't want anything to happen to those characters. I remember first rescuing Elizabeth and being on the beach thinking, I know it wont end this way but I really want this game to end with these two escaping Columbia, killing the bad guy, and not bothering to examine the multiverse theory. I know if that had been the ending the massive plot holes would have angered me but I really resisted continuing to play the game because I just wanted to imagine they escaped and went to Paris and were happy. The ending is actually better than that if you understand what the hell happend but the game is so subtle in how it covers so much ground in the last 15 minutes I had to use google to understand the entirety of what happened. Even knowing that the ending is actually very happy, I still felt like crap and even now I really don't want to play the game anymore, at least not until I can get both parts of the DLC. The way the game makes you love the characters in the game makes it really hard to play though the game again knowing how it all ends, which shows amazing writing skills and direction but is still extremely depressing for me. Everytime I see a picture or a video about Bioshock Infinite it feels like I am seeing a picture of a dead relative, I just feel sad because I miss those characters despite them not being gone in any way, the entire game still exists.

Also, I've been burning through Final Fantasy 7 finally and want to know in a spoiler-free manner if I should prepare for a downer ending. I can deal with them if I see them coming and I know that some characters don't make it but I want to know if the ending is generally considered a "downer."

Also, if I don't get sick of 7, I might try and play through 9 and 10, so if either of those have downer endings that would be great to know as well.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

I'm going to go with Prince of Persia (the cell-shaded one from 2008).

Spoiler

By the end, the main character undermines everything both he and Elika were working toward, essentially bringing about the apocalypse. For no better reason than to save one character with next to no personality. Which would essentially destroy the world. So he ends up not really saving her at all. And killing everyone else in the process.

And the worst part of it all is that you're asked to do this yourself, fully knowing that it was a horrible decision. Without being given a choice in the matter. I hate it when games do that.

The Last of Us did the same thing

Spoiler

Joel single-handedly destroys everything he and Ellie were working to achieve. He makes an inexcusably selfish decision and kills a lot of innocent people in the process, which also includes his allies. And for what? So that he can live with her for a couple more months before getting torn apart by a clicker, deluding himself into thinking she is his dead daughter? Ok, I get it Joel, you've lost a lot before, it's understandable you'd be holding onto Ellie now but A> unlike most people, you still at least have SOME family to return to and B> if you could just stop senselessly murdering things for five seconds, you might realise that Ellie's death could have saved a LOT of people from ever losing their love ones the same way you did.

And again, if you want to make the character into a monster and make a stupid, senseless and selfish decision, please don't make me play it out for you. Like making me shoot the surgeon guy. Why? What was the point of that?

I don't thin it was a bad ending. The message was pretty strong and it spoke volumes of Joel as a character. It had its purpose, it did what it was supposed to and it wrapped things up beautifully. It just made me kind of depressed and uncomfortable about being forced to participate.

 

[The Squid King]

Also, I've been burning through Final Fantasy 7 finally and want to know in a spoiler-free manner if I should prepare for a downer ending. I can deal with them if I see them coming and I know that some characters don't make it but I want to know if the ending is generally considered a "downer."

Also, if I don't get sick of 7, I might try and play through 9 and 10, so if either of those have downer endings that would be great to know as well.

Spoiler

Final Fantasy 7 doesn't have a sad ending, 9 is kind of mixed and 10 definitely has a sad ending

Most of my choices have already been mentioned (especially Jurassic Bark and Requiem for a Dream) but I don't think anyone has mentioned Donnie Darko yet. That ending certainly shed tears. The endings of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Kingdom Hearts left me more depressed then they probably should've.

Quite a few of the mentioned movies such as The Mist sound interesting and I am going to try to watch some of them.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I try to stay away from depressing endings because I do not want to invest all that energy into a story to come away broken and sad, so my sad ending probably aren't all that depressing for most people, but here they are:

The bad endings (so basically all but one of them) in Black Ops II. I never got any of them, but I watched them on youtube. Ouch...

Spec Ops: The Line. Just...okay, can I have a hug now? Please?

Chrono Cross, that secret ending you get where you see everything on fire and the flag being raised.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 would have been on this list, except I knew there was going to be a third game, so they better damn well fix everything! If not, if the ending remains the same, then good God, how depressing. And that secret bonus ending you get after you view all the alternate endings? Talk about kicking you while you're down. All your work was for nothing.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Also, I've been burning through Final Fantasy 7 finally and want to know in a spoiler-free manner if I should prepare for a downer ending. I can deal with them if I see them coming and I know that some characters don't make it but I want to know if the ending is generally considered a "downer."

Also, if I don't get sick of 7, I might try and play through 9 and 10, so if either of those have downer endings that would be great to know as well.

Seven's ending is a good ending, if a bit lacking in certain areas. Nothing depressing, but you may go, "Wait, what about (insert thing here)?" Therefore, if you really want to see how things wrap up, I suggest watching the Advent Children movie.

Nine is a nice ending. It tries to be a bit melancholy, but everything turns out okay.

Ten...ten is a matter of opinion. I played it well after it came out and already knew that there was a sequel coming for the game, so the ending didn't get to me. If there hadn't been a sequel then the game has a very depressing ending. However, there is a bonus ending that hints that things aren't as bad as you're lead to believe, and then the sequel fixes everything if you play it right.

 

[Groxnax]

The Chef's Death episode of South Park was kinda depressing.

 

[Olas]

I don't actively seek out sad stuff, so don't laugh when I say that it's the saddest book I've ever read, but the Children of Hurin is the saddest book I've ever read, and the ending is especially depressing.

 

[Dalisclock]

The end of the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman

Spoiler

The whole of the last two books spent subtly setting up the relationship between Lyra and Will, then after it all ends. After going through hell and back literally, after Lyra finding out who her parents are, and then seeing them get killed she and Will get told 'sorry guys, I know like you've now only really got each other left now, but you can't be together ever again or you will die oh and you can't even talk coz you will be in different universes, sucks to be you'

Which felt particularly forced because they're already leaving one hole open in hades and that's fine, but two holes will cause the universe to die.

A lot of things in the last book annoyed the crap out of me, really. I'm much happier pretending the series ended after "The subtle knife", and it's too bad the series will never be finished.

 

[Dalisclock]

I think ending of Dreamfall left me most depressed
In The Longest Journey, at least something is achieved, but in Dreamfall...
Lets just say that it left me with sense of injustice.

What makes it worse is that so much of the plot was just left hanging in Dreamfall, so we don't know what was accomplished. To make it worse, fun.com said "Well, we'll wrap up the story in Dreamfall: Chapters, which we'll be getting around to making after we're done with The Secret World...."

For a long time, it was looking like Chapters was never going to happen, then another company somehow got the rights and is making the sequel, finally. Are you listening, Valve?

 

[Augustine]

When I think of this, for some reason the first thing that comes to my mind is the ending(one of the endings, really - the "knight's" ending) of the old SNES RPG "Live A Live".

Spoiler

There you play through many different lives, culminating with a story of a knight. And if you follow knight's story to it's end, it suddenly takes such a depressing, tragic, and nihilistic turn that I couldn't help but to weep like a babe. Never done that for any other game... Its mind numbing tragedy that just spirals into utter nihilistic rock-bottom. Heart-wrenching.

 

[Hazy]

I don't know what movie that is. Do you think some random picture will make everyone know what movie it is? How about a title or something?

A) The movie is Requiem for a Dream. I should have included that.

B) For future reference, there exists a function called Google reverse image search so people can refrain from spoonfeeding others when it comes to very simple to find media. Reading the filename would have also sufficed, as it appears when you quote me, and the name is shown as "requiem-for-a-dream."

Not trying to sound condescending, just telling you how you can find this information from now on. c:

 

[uchytjes]

I don't know what movie that is. Do you think some random picture will make everyone know what movie it is? How about a title or something?

A) The movie is Requiem for a Dream. I should have included that.
B) For future reference, there exists a function called Google reverse image search so people can refrain from spoonfeeding others.

To be fair, reverse image search on certain pictures simply doesn't work correctly. Also, I didn't know I could search for images with images until a couple months ago, and even then it was by accident. Google really needs to advertise some of its lesser known functions...

OT: I really don't like depressing endings for many reasons, the biggest one being that I just don't like being sad/crying. I usually avoid tearjerker series because of this reason alone and as a result have seen very few endings where it is depressing.

But, because I'm making a post, I must have a depressing ending, right?

Well, I'm going to go with the ending to Shiki, an anime series about a village being taken over by vampires.
[spoiler = Just the simple checklist rundown, including the 2 OVAs to the series.]
By the end of Shiki, the following has happened:
-one main character has killed himself to kill one antagonist
-another main has used his own wife for a test subject, torturing her until death
-the last main has turned his back on humanity to help a vampire, thus becoming one himself.
-Pretty much the entire town is dead
-the entire town has been burnt to the ground
-the burning occurred because, concisely put, a mother looses both her children to vampires, holding one dead for weeks on end until it rots in her hands, then goes completely insane blaming it on her father-in-law who became a vampire.
-the town embarked on a witch hunt with some of the most grizzly killing scenes I've seen.
[/spoiler]
yeah... Shiki was kind of messed up.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Besides the already-mentioned Walking Dead Season 1 game that had me in tears, Grave of the Fireflies was depressing as hell and the numbing ending of Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, what about Hachiko? I mean, yeah it's KIND of a happy ending, but:

Spoiler

FIRST, like, halfway through the movie the GUY dies and then the DOG dies while WAITING for him and the two meet back up in the afterlife.

Also the ending to the short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream":

Spoiler

The "main" character has to kill the other four characters to piss off AM and to keep him from killing HIMSELF, he turns him into a baleful jelly creature with no mouth, no arms or legs and no POSSIBLE way to let himself commit suicide, forever doomed to be a torture plaything for the machine until AM eventually dies as all machines do, ergo the title of the short story

The game of IHNM is a little happier if played right but the short story's just depressing as hell.

Also also another downer ending would be the book and/or movie "Spider". Such an underrated movie and book.


And what about "Cube"? It's kind of a downer ending too considering

Spoiler

All the characters die except for the disabled guy