this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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What movie puts the protagonist through the absolute ringer for it to all pay off in the end?

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

i was just talking with somebody about that fact yesterday

edit: specifically it's Red's transformation for me that means a lot

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

For when you’ve been crawling a river of shit, and need to come out clean

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my opinion, V for Vendetta. What Evie Hammond was put through was inexcusable, but I feel like it was worth it in the end.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not sure if worth it, but it was definitely a cathartic movie.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

That's the beauty of it I think. We're left with this ambiguous feeling about whether the end actually justified the means.

Maybe they did, but surely there was a better way, right? Or was there really not? We can't know.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In a way, I think: Little Miss Sunshine.

A movie wherein everything, everything goes horribly wrong, and yet in the end you're left feeling absurdly good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

One of my favorites

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dredd (2012) would be somewhere at the top of my list. I don't think there are too many movies nowadays that have such a classic "mission accomplished"-style ending.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This is one of my favourite movies. It did everything perfectly. It was exactly what I wanted.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Big Lebowski.. The dude just wanted his rug back.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Really tied the room together

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's just like, your opinion, man.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Vanilla Sky! It’s a mind bending movie about a lucky man’s life that many of us could only dream of. That life quickly turns into a waking nightmare when the man’s jealous lover takes her own life with him inside the moving car. His nightmare of a life then melds into an actual dream. That dream then slowly transforms into a nightmare. All the while the main character doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t.

This all leads to an absolutely spectacular cathartic release for the main character when he finally understands what’s happened to him in the last 10 minutes of the film.

Did I mention it was mind bending? One of my favorite movies by far.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow - I've never heard this take on Vanilla Sky. My only recollection of it was how bored we all were when we first tried to watch it. Didn't it get panned by the critics?

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[–] sarcasticsunrise 3 points 1 year ago

I've watched that movie atleast 4 times and even knowing how it ends I've bawled like a baby all 4 times

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Shawshank Redemption.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Did you say two Utes?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fight Club

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Frodo in LOTR

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Terry Gilliam's Brazil always does it for me. Depends heavily on which version you watch though, they're polarizing enough that you can play emotional Russian roulette with both versions.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice to see someone else knows that one! I was coming here to suggest that

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Bladerunner 2049

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tilda Swinton is just insanely good in that.. i mean she makes my hairs stand on end.. that character is a nightmare..

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In big budget movies, protagonists facing unambiguous conflict and getting a clear, concise victory peaked in the 80s and early 90s. A lot of the other movies mentioned in this topic (V for Vendetta, Dredd 2012) have serious throwback vibes. Smaller movies usually have murkier conflict.

For a given value of, β€œthrough the ringer,” Karate Kid is my answer. It’s extremely easy to empathize with both Daniel and Mr Miyagi. I appreciate some movies that absolutely destroy the protagonist, but their larger than life troubles are more difficult to empathize with earnestly. Aliens fits well, too, the oppression of a faceless corporation may be heavier now than it was even on release. The Top Gun movies fit pretty well as long as you watched the original a long time ago.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Kung Fu Panda 2. A funny panda movie about dealing with buried trauma.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Grave of the Fireflies...but make sure to watch My Neighbor Totoro right after as intended

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Training Day, a movie about a rookie cop who gets paired with a corrupt senior on his first day who manipulates him from the beginning. ''I should have been a fireman"

Gattaca. I am not sure if you can call it an absolute ringer, but it does feel all the hard work pays off in the end.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed on Training Day.

I totally forgot about Gattaca, I watched that in school in like 6th grade. Fantastic movie

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

''You know what i learned today? I'm not like you."

You can have an Ethan Hawke catharsis marathon.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I always found The Life Aquatic to be very cathartic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seven or Man on Fire. Not what you'd call happy endings, but the movies would be ruined any other way.

Except for in Seven, if it ended in a blast of colored smoke for a gender reveal gift box. That could have been very touching. /s

[–] Talose 5 points 1 year ago

Wristcutters

The main characters go to a hell/purgatory specifically for people who've committed suicide, where no one can smile. It's not a very action-y movie, but it's one of my favorites. Also, it has Shannyn Sossamon from A Knight's Tale, so that's a plus

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No joke. β€œSing” It’s this silly kids cover song movie, but it ends up having a wonderful consistent optimism and a brilliant payoff. It’s not an improbable massive β€œpulled it off” win, it’s surviving through failure and loving the act of making art so much that you keep doing it anyway. It’s joyful and a masterclass in writing a classic story arc without torturing your characters and your audience to get there.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Except that movie had no catharsis only tension.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Turn it off after they come back from being stuck on the bottom.

[–] call_me_xale 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Das Boot is the movie you show an engineer if you want them to be anti-war.

The submarine itself is as much a character as the rest of the crew, and it fights alongside them through every struggle...

...only to die a pointless death at the end. A beautiful machine wasted on the cause of warfare.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I only saw it once a long time ago so I may remember it wrong, but "It's a Wonderful Life"? I recall being surprised because as a non American I'd heard so much about it as a Christmas movie and expected that genre but when I watched it, it was incredibly depressing and I never watched it again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The original Robocop movie is an all-time favourite of mine, as far as violent revenge movies go.

It's a great blend with gratuitous violence - not to mention the story that puts the protagonist through the absolute ringer for it to all pay off in the end.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

A Clockwork Orange

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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