Here are five more movie endings that refuse to give audiences the expected closure or satisfaction of the typical Hollywood feature. By some coincidence and not design, three are from 1968 – something was definitely “in the air” then or maybe it was the water.

1. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Evil triumphs in the end and the heroine and anyone else deemed good are powerless to stop it. Before 1968 most horror films worked on a cathartic level where audiences could exorcise their fears by watching a sympathetic protagonist struggle against the powers of darkness and finally overcome them. But the comfort level disappeared with the release of films such as ROSEMARY’S BABY and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (also 1968, see below). Whether this disturbing and pessimistic new approach was merely a reflection of the era in which it was made – Viet Nam, the civil rights movement, campus unrest, the emerging drug culture – is hard to say but the brilliance of Roman Polanski’s film is its presentation of evil in a realistic setting. And the devil worshippers don’t look or act like crazed cult members but are instead a mixture of grandparents, middle-aged spinsters, career professionals or someone equally innocuous in appearance. The climax, in particular, really threw audiences for a loop, with Polanski refusing to show the demonic child. Even more disturbing was Rosemary’s final gesture. After the initial horror and outrage over what was done to her, she surrenders to the inevitable and follows her maternal instincts to comfort the baby as it begins to cry. The final shot of her cradling the son of Satan as Krzysztof Komeda’s haunting lullaby plays over the end credits was NOT the resolution most moviegoers wanted to see, regardless of how the novel ended. At least Polanski didn’t show us any close-ups of Rosemary nursing the baby. The dark ending of the movie was just a foreshadowing of worst things to come in the culture and Polanski’s own life – his wife Sharon Tate and three friends were slaughtered in their Los Angeles home by members of Charles Manson’s cult commune only a year later in August of 1969.

2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Stupidity triumphs in the end of George Romero’s groundbreaking masterpiece. The flesh-eating dead are truly nightmarish images from the id run wild but the most disturbing aspect of the movie was the fact that the besieged survivors were completely incapable of working together as a group and, in most cases, the situation exposed their worst human traits – selfishness, panic, carelessness, and aggressive behavior toward each other. We don’t usually expect all of the good characters to die in a horror movie but after Ben (Duane Jones), the sole survivor of an all-night zombie assault, is mistaken for one of the living dead and shot in the head, the joke is on us. The beauty of NOTLD is that it can be read on so many levels but regardless of whether you accept the ending as black comedy or a grim commentary on the human condition, the movie’s influence on future horror films and directors is unquestionable. You also have to wonder what is worse – a world inhabited by the living dead or vigilante rednecks who shoot first and ask questions later.

3. Play Dirty (1968)

This terrific Andre De Toth World War II adventure – which was recently released on DVD – may seem like a “Dirty Dozen” ripoff on the surface but it’s actually much more subversive, with touches of wicked black humor and tautly directed action sequences that avoid the sadistic excesses of Robert Aldrich’s 1967 blockbuster.  It’s topped off by a twist ending which is as effective as a surprise slap in the face. De Toth’s cynical, unromantized approach to what could have been a standard genre film is unexpectedly refreshing. There are no heroes here…or survivors. After all, war is hell….or didn’t you know that by now?

4. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

Robert Altman’s revisionist Western is still his finest film in my opinion and one that plays by its own rules. The film’s final moments, in which McCabe (Warren Beatty) is stalked in the snow by three hired gunslingers while the town’s residents rush to put out a fire, is one of the great ironic endings in American cinema. McCabe, who is more of a con-artist and bumbler than a gunfighter, somehow manages to kill his foes but is mortally wounded in the process. As he lies dying in the snow while the townspeople succeed in putting out the fire in the church they rarely attended, Altman cuts to the final scene of Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie), McCabe’s lover and business partner, lost in an opium haze in the Chinese workers’ quarters where she, assuming the worst, has retreated to avoid the showdown between McCabe and his hired killers. It’s a melancholy, defeatist conclusion to a rough and messy portrait of frontier life and the misfits who really won the west.

5. Sword of Doom (1966)

Unlike most other samurai films of the period, this costume drama from director Kihachi Okamoto features a protagonist who is little more than a sociopathic killer, slaying people without provocation or good reason. As played by Tatsuya Nakadai, Ryunosuke is at war with the world, a rabid dog who is driven by an inner rage. The film doesn’t so much end as spontaneously combust. Surrounded by countless swordsmen, Ryunosuke slices and dices his way through them in a frenzy though he is clearly outnumbered. During a peak moment of ferocity, the movie ends on a freeze-frame, immortalizing Ryunosuke’s true nature. For a portrait of unrelenting evil, it is a stunning and idiosyncratic entry in the samurai genre.