Random Movies With 'Happy Endings' That Were Actually Unspeakably Tragic (18 items)

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  (#13) Whiplash

  • J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Miles Teller, Paul Reiser, Chris Mulkey, Jayson Blair, Damon Gupton, Michael Cohen, Austin Stowell, Kofi Siriboe, Tarik Lowe, Suanne Spoke, Marcus Henderson, Kavita Patil, Adrian Burks, Dakota Lupo, C.J. Vana, Tian Wang, Keenan Henson

  Whiplash is staggeringly tense. Neurotic music student Andrew Neiman finds himself overly stressed by his breathtakingly cruel instructor Terence Fletcher. The end of the film is built around Fletcher tricking Neiman into playing the wrong music in front of a giant crowd of people, and Neiman retaliating by playing drums like a jazz demon. Fueled by their spite, the two men put on an amazing show.

  What does that fictional audience think, though? There's no way this performance didn't receive a scathing review in the New York Times, or that Fletcher didn't lose his job by giving Neiman the wrong music, right? 
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  (#9) The Little Mermaid

  • Jodi Benson, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Pat Carroll, Samuel E. Wright, Jason Marin, Kenneth Mars, Buddy Hackett, René Auberjonois

  In the end, Ariel gets exactly what she pinted for early in the film, becoming part of our world on the surface and bagging a handsome prince in the process. Vanquishing the villainous Ursula and mending her relationship with her father, the titular mermaid seems to have it more or less made.

  Except that she has to forsake her friends, family, and heritage in the process. She even has to effectively change her species, all so she can marry a man to whom she's never really spoken. Not to mention the patriarchical implications of a woman relying on her father's whims to magically save the day and marry her off to a man.
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  (#6) Ferris Bueller's Day Off

  • Charlie Sheen, Matthew Broderick, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey, Kristy Swanson, Ben Stein, Lara Flynn Boyle, John Hughes, Mia Sara, Louie Anderson, Cindy Pickett, Edie McClurg, Harry Caray, Scott Coffey, Alan Ruck, Steve Stone, Richard Edson, Max Perlich, Del Close, Virginia Capers, Lyman Ward, Robert Minkoff, Larry "Flash" Jenkins, John Richard Petersen, Dee Dee Rescher, Katie Barberi, Joey D. Vieira, Jonathan Schmock, Annie Ryan, Tom Spratley, Stephanie Blake, Dick Sollenberger, Polly Noonan, Kevin Bassett, Eric Saiet, Robert Kim, Tim Boxell, Brendan Baber, Joey Garfield, Jason Alderman, Bridgett Baron, Robert McKibbon, Eric Edidin, Edward Le Beau, Lisa Bellard, Dave Silvestri, Paul Manzanero, Bob Parkinson, Miranda Whittle, Kristin Graziano, Tiffany Chance, Richard Rohrbough, Debra Montague, Joseph P. McDonnell

  "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ferris utters this immortal line at the closing of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, after he narrowly made it back to his "sick" bed. 

  Viewers are supposed to leave the film feeling like they've spent a riotous day with Ferris, the boy who can do no wrong, but there's an inherent nihilism in his approach to the world. He absolutely ruins his principal's life, makes his sister lose her mind, convinces his best friend to destroy his father's property, and essentially promises to break up with his cool girlfriend. You're charmed by his sweater vest and lack of planning, but the guy really doesn't think through the consequences of his actions.
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  (#3) The Thing

  • Kurt Russell, Keith David, John Carpenter, Adrienne Barbeau, Wilford Brimley, Richard Masur, Norbert Weisser, Donald Moffat, Charles Hallahan, Joel Polis, David Clennon, Richard A. Dysart, T. K. Carter, Peter Maloney, Thomas G. Waites, Larry J. Franco, Nate Irwin, Jed, William Zeman

  For horror movies, the hero simply surviving qualifies as a happy ending. Generally. John Carpenter upends that notion with the conclusion of The Thing, though, as the two survivors are still stranded in Antarctica with food, shelter, supplies, or hope of rescue.

  That's already not ideal, but considering that one of them is almost certainly host to a malevolent shape-shifting alien, it's downright grim.
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  (#12) Free Willy

  • Danielle Harris, Michael Madsen, Michael Ironside, Mykelti Williamson, Richard Riehle, Lori Petty, August Schellenberg, Jayne Atkinson, Michael Bacall, Jason James Richter, Moultrie Patten, Keiko, Tom Lasswell, Isaiah Malone, Betsy Toll, Rob Sample, Mickey Gaines, Merrilyn Jones, Jim Michaels, Willis Van Dusen, Ed Murphy, Nick Gardner, Robert M. Duque, Alec Nichols, Sam Samson, Justin R. Hall

  It's great that an orca is saved from captivity in Free Willy. But once Willy jumps the seawall and rejoins his family in the waters off Seattle, what's to stop more whalers from capturing him again? 

  And what happens to poor Jesse? He just stole a whale from an amusement park! He may be a hero to the Animal Liberation Front, but he's public enemy number one to the children of the Pacific Northwest. The best that Jesse and Willy can hope for is to live out the rest of their lives in seclusion, away from angry mobs who may realize the gravity of what they've actually done here. 
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  (#10) Gravity

  • Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Phaldut Sharma, Amy Warren, Orto Ignatiussen, Basher Savage

  Gravity follows astronaut Ryan Stone's heart-pounding descent to Earth from a space station that's been wrecked by debris. By the time she makes it back, the audience is too overwhelmed to comprehend what's really happening. 

  The final moments of the film show Stone landing in a lake in the middle of nowhere. She has no supplies, no food, and no way of communicating with NASA. Even assuming people live nearby, the chances of Stone finding a phone are slim. 

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