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* In ''[[Chinatown]]'', the protagonist spends most of the movie investigating the murder of the head of the water department, uncovering a rather complicated conspiracy in the process. He eventually discovers the villain, who's revealed to be so evil that he even raped his daughter and fathered a child by her but In the end he gets away with everything, taking custody of his incestuous grand-daughter at the same time, and the police shoot the protagonist's love interest dead as she attempts to flee with the girl. As the famous quote goes: ''"Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."''
** Supposedly, the original script had a happy ending with the the [[Big Bad]] being shot, and Jake getting the girl, but [[Roman Polanski]] insisted on this sort of ending. Which becomes ''incredibly'' creepy when you consider Polanski raped at least one teenaged girl in real life.
** ''[[The Ghost Writer (film)|The Ghost Writer]]'', another of Polanski's films, ends with {{spoiler|the title ghostwriter getting run over by CIA agents after not quite exposing that the CIA controlled post-9/11 British policy via [[The Man Behind the Man|the Prime Minister's wife]]. Then again we're only told his "accident" was "really nasty" and the PM did manage to get his memoirs published before he was killed and if anyone else notices that each chapter's opening sentence sound a bit weird before they're recalled and burned...}}.
* "The only thing that's changed[...] is that a few ineffectual people have died." Yep, that just about sums up Robert Redford's ''[[Jeremiah Johnson]]''...
* ''Sha Po Lang'' (''Killzone'' in the US) is a Hong Kong police movie that pretty much ends with {{spoiler|all of the cops dying. Including the [[Badass]] and [[The Captain]]}}. Fortunately, the [[Big Bad]] doesn't get away unscathed either. He kills the [[Badass]] cop by throwing him out the window of his skyscraper....and right on top of the car the [[Big Bad]]'s wife and baby were waiting in. ''Ouch.''
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* One word: ''[[Bulworth]]''. Five words: Rapping politician, {{spoiler|meet sniper bullet. Yes, in a ''comedy''. And he ordered the hit on himself!}}
** Actually, {{spoiler|Bulworth was shot by an insurance lobbyist over one of his campaign points. Halle Berry was the hitman hired to kill him and she called it off herself.}}
* The remake of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)|Dawn of the Dead]]''. At the end of the movie, it appears that the few remaining protagonists' struggles have paid off, and they're finally able to sail into the sunset to find an island they can start a new life on. Guess what? {{spoiler|Island zombies, is what. How do you like them coconuts?}} Although {{spoiler|the characters aren't actually ''shown'' dying..}}
** This ending was tacked on after test-audiences griped about the original, far more ambiguous, version.
* The last half hour or so of ''[[The Descent (film)|The Descent]]'' is an extended version of this trope, as it's implied that if you can't stay together as a cooperating pack [they can't] the only way to be [[Badass]] enough to get out of the cave is to go crazy and become as vicious as the crawlers. {{spoiler|Also, in the UK ending, everyone dies. At least Sarah regains her humanity at the last minute... by choosing to stay with the hallucination of her dead daughter and apparently accept death.}} Hooray!
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* This trope is deliberately invoked by the film ''[[Gallipoli]]'' in order to deliver an anti-war [[Aesop]]. In it, two young Australian men go to great lengths to join the army during World War 1, go through some training that doesn't seem to be taking the war seriously (for example, their drill sergeant gives them a lecture on contraception), and, in the final three minutes of the film, the characters actually go to war and are promptly killed. Roll credits.
** In the original script, the main character was meant to be shot and killed within a minute of him stepping onto Gallipoli beach. The worst part is that the film is closer to what actually happened than most war films.
* ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' is similar. It follows [[How to Survive a War Movie|war movie conventions]] rigorously right up to the third act, where the main characters are picked off one by one in trench warfare, until {{spoiler|[[Kill'Em All|they are all dead]]}}. The [[Audience Surrogate]] survives long enough {{spoiler|to stand up while sketching}} a butterfly in the trenches on [[Hope Spot|the day of the Armistice]], {{spoiler|promptly getting shot and becoming the last casualty of [[World War OneI]].}} The closing title card? "[[Title Drop|All Quiet On The Western Front]]." All this is, of course, true to the spirit of the book.
* ''[[Legends of the Fall]]''. Several ineffectual people end up dying, including most of the Ludlow family, and the tragic heroine. The protagonist himself, in exile and old age, gets eaten by a bear at the end.
* Averted before release in ''[[Rambo|First Blood]]'' (the first ''[[Rambo]]'' film). The ending, as originally taken from the novel (yes, [[Adaptation Displacement|there was a novel]]), scripted and filmed, had John Rambo dying in the closing scenes by indirect suicide. He pulls a gun out of Trautman's jacket, places it in Trautman's hand, and moves the hand to point the gun at him, and presses Trautman's finger against the trigger. Test audiences hated it, so the ending was reshot with Trautman convincing Rambo to turn himself in (paving the way for the sequels).
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* ''[[Titus Andronicus (theatre)|Titus]]'' - with Anthony Hopkins, based on the play by [[William Shakespeare]] ... Let's just say that it inspired the {{spoiler|Scott Tenorman episode of ''[[South Park]]''}} and leave it at that.
* ''[[Se7en]]'' Detectives Mills and Summerset {{spoiler|achieve exactly nothing, and indeed are an essential part of the serial killer's master plan. John Doe kills Mills's wife, prompting Mills to kill him, leading to Mills being arrested.}}
* ''[[Dancer in Thethe Dark]]'' - subverted. It might appear as the most depressing movie ever, anywhere, and ultimately pointless. And ends with the {{spoiler|execution of the innocent, blind main character.}} As is typical of Lars von Trier, it's really about a gigantic [[Heroic Sacrifice]] on part of a female heroine. She does {{spoiler|accomplish her goal of preventing her son from going blind by getting him the operation he needs, which is all she wanted anyway}}. Plus she wasn't exactly innocent, {{spoiler|she did in fact kill her neighbor.}}
* In another Lars von Trier movie called ''[[Dogville]]'', the protagonist is running away from {{spoiler|[[The Mafia]], which is also}} {{spoiler|[[Mafia Princess|her home,]]}} and seeks shelter in a tiny American village during the Great Depression. She ends up discovering that {{spoiler|poor people can be just as evil. They do [[Nightmare Fuel|some pretty terrible things]] to her, for their own benefit, throughout the entire movie}}. After nearly two and a half hours of this, {{spoiler|[[The Mafia]] shows up and Grace participates with them in killing everyone in the village}}. YMMV on how to take that, but it's made clear that {{spoiler|[[Humans Are the Real Monsters]], and she has earned nothing for the pain she went through}}. It's also argued that {{spoiler|they all deserved it, including her, making this a trope subversion}}.
* Another one of Lars' movies -- ''[[Melancholia]]'', Part one: a woman is completely undone by depression and is abandoned by everyone, save for her sister (who really hates her sometimes) and nephew. Part two: she kind of starts to get better and then [[Earthshattering Kaboom|a giant planet destroys the Earth]] which was [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|"evil anyway"]], so no biggie. Naturally, it's considered to be one of his most uplifting films.
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* What else would you expect from ''[[The Grey Zone]]'', a Holocaust movie whose main characters are Sonderkomandos (the Jews in Nazi death camps whose chores included leading other Jews into the gas chambers and then burning their bodies afterward), a Jewish doctor who works for Josef Mengele ... and Mengele himself?
* This trope is displayed in the movie ''[[Knowing]]'' starring Nicholas Cage, {{spoiler|most notably in the complete and utter futility of John's (Cage) obsession with the numerical code, and later, his attempts to save his son and Abby. Further, Diane, Abby's mother, dies while attempting to rescue the children from the Strangers who are actually able to save them, and who were planning on doing so without the interference of either parent. Oh, and the Earth [[Apocalypse Wow|literally gets burned to a crisp.]]}}
* The fan-made ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' feature film ''[[Damnatus]]'' - our heroes find themselves hopelessly outclassed, but still fight on. {{spoiler|They defeat the 'enemy' leader, but he was actually a rogue inquisitor, and in doing so, they screw up his plan to bind a daemon, with the result that it is instead [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|summoned without any restrictions]]. They are all killed attempting to escape, and then [[Earthshattering Kaboom|the planet is wiped out from orbit in an Exterminatus order by Inquisitor Lessus.]]}}
** This is pretty much par for the course in anything having to do with the Warhammer 40,000 universe though.
* ''[[The Omen]]''. {{spoiler|Everybody dies, except Damien the Antichrist.}}
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