10) Chinatown
Featuring the granddaddy of all bleak endings, Chinatown captures the despair of living in a messed up world more succinctly and beautifully than any movie I’ve seen. It gets better in your head the more you think about it, and it’s because it’s a story that could have had a relatively happy resolution, and indeed apparently did have one at one point, but decided instead for the most miserable and realistic conclusions in movie history. When Jack Nicholson’s character finally discovers the gruesome details at the heart of the film’s mystery, the villain lives and the female lead gets killed, and our protagonist is left in shock. The famous line is uttered: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Essentially: whatever, man. That’s life.
It’s of course crucial to keep in mind that director Roman Polanski’s wife was brutally murdered by the cult of Charles Manson just years before he made Chinatown. Clearly, he was expressing a dark viewpoint of a world in which something so awful could happen. Presumably, there’s something therapeutic or comforting in that, or else just a need to get those feelings out.
Similarly, with any of the aforementioned movies, seeing someone express pessimistic views of the world, whether it’s handled with good-natured levity or not, can be therapeutic for a viewer previously feeling crummy. For me, this is often far more pleasant an expiration than trying to force cheeriness by throwing on some overly happy movie. Sometimes instead of being a mirror to reflect your mood or a hammer to shape it, a movie can just act as a friend who sees the world the same way you do for a moment, and that’s soothing enough.
