Wham! Episode/Film

Sucker Punch:
- Their third mission results in Rocket getting killed. Technically, a pyrrhic victory, in that despite Rocket dying, Sweet Pea being imprisoned, and Blue definitely cottoning on, they still managed to steal the knife.
- Blue finds out about the escape plot and kills Amber and Blondie.
- Baby Doll was hallucinating, but Sweet Pea did escape.
Being a Prequel, the wham is kind of dulled since we all knew it was coming, but Revenge of the Sith. Anakin turning to The Dark Side, The Republic giving way to The Empire, the Jedi Order all but wiped out and the few survivors forced into hiding, Padme dead... and basically, an all-around Downer Ending.
- George Lucas is known for making his movies very family friendly, and both Episode I and II have serious moments but are relatively light. Episode III features Anakin slaughtering Jedi "younglings" heartlessly, which is so vicious that it probably caught everyone off guard.
- The Empire Strikes Back is most famous for Luke, I Am Your Father, but even still in this movie the only victory the heroes have was escaping by the skin of their teeth.
The Reveal at the end of The Sixth Sense.
The 2009 Star Trek movie. The Vulcan homeworld is utterly annihilated, along with all but about 10,000 inhabitants. I mean, damn.
Tron: Legacy: Kevin Flynn reveals to his son that Quorra is the last surviving ISO.
Each of the Saw movies ends with one, but Number 3 definitely gets the prize for the death of Jigsaw.
Trilogies love doing this, usually at the end of the middle chapter. To the extent that there's an entire trope for it.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ends with the death of Jack Sparrow, and the reappearance of Barbossa, who turns out to be Not Quite Dead.
- The Matrix Reloaded ends with Neo's meeting with The Architect, sealing mankind's fate by choosing to save Trinity, and somehow demonstrating his powers in the real world. Oh and Smith is in the real world too. The entire second half of Revolutions contains much more wham however.
- Back to The Future Part II ends with Doc Brown and the DeLorean being struck by lightning and being warped to who-knows-when. This leaves Marty stuck in the past, and the past Doc Brown is his only hope of finding the other Doc and getting back to the future.
2001: A Space Odyssey. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
The Dark Knight: Rachel is killed.
The finale of the 1970s supernatural thriller Don't Look Now involves a psychotic dwarf, a razor blade and The Hero's grisly demise. The death scene is quite shocking (and borderline Bathos) compared to the subtle, unnerving style of horror that was prevalent throughout the rest of the film. Then you realise that all along the director had been foreshadowing this from the very first scene of the movie.
Psycho. Before they see it, everyone thinks they know how it goes. Even when they see it, they still believe it... right up until that scene.
How can you tell a Firefly fan hasn't seen Serenity? They smile at Wash's "I am a leaf on the wind" line from the trailer, not knowing what comes after his final, victorious statement.
- The whole film goes from wham moment to wham moment... it even opens with a wham moment: Simon is the one who did the physical infiltration and rescue of the academy to get his sister out? Suddenly, everything we know about him from the series has been turned on its head (but it does give us a new insight into the episode "Ariel"). Then we learn the government made the Reavers. Then Book dies and the Operative kills anyone who's ever sheltered the crew just in case Mal decides to go into hiding with any of them. Then Mal turns Serenity to a Reaver ship, even putting several bodies of friends they'd once known onto the ship to add to the vision. Then the above mentioned wham moment kicks in.
The last line of Kill Bill Volume 1: Does she know her daughter's still alive?
Unknown, which builds up to its twist ending with several smaller twists along the way, up to the Tomato in the Mirror conclusion.
You think you understand the poignancy and poetic beauty behind Dear Zachary until The Reveal that Shirley Turner and Zachary died in a murder-suicide in 2003.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Not only does Sentinel Prime betray the Autobots by striking a deal with the Decepticons, and Dylan Gould, Carly's boss, is revealed to be working with them, but also Cybertron is presumably annihilated by the end, making Earth their only remaining home.
- May also count as a Grand Finale, as there are rumors of a film reboot without the involvement of Michael Bay.
In the 2011 film The Muppets the end of the movie comes with a major wham moment when The Muppets end up not getting even close to the required money to save their studio, and end up losing both their studio and the Muppet name. Kind of averted in the credits when it returns to status quo because Status Quo Is God.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, shows that John Conner failed to prevent Judgment Day from happening, and that the Terminator sent to save him was the one who's going to kill him in the future.
The Avengers is this for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Coulson dies.
- Actually, this was Jossed by Joss Whedon himself, who said that Fury actually lied to the Avengers to give them a kick. Coulson is already signed to be in Iron Man 3. False alarm.
- However, we now have alien worlds having full knowledge of Earth not being as defenseless as they assumed, as well as Thanos now wanting to "court Death" by challenging Earth's mightiest heroes somewhere down the line.