Some stories don’t pick a side. They deny us the comfort of resolution, the feeling of knowing your hero won, or that they got what they were trying to achieve.
This may sound bleak, but more often than not, many of these films have an inherent ability to offer something much more powerful than cinematic closure: honest emotional truth. No sugarcoating, no concessions and compromises for the sake of the audience. These films don’t resolve; they reveal. They don’t offer us an escape. They offer us a moral reckoning.
Let’s jump right in and explore these movies.
What Does It Mean When “Nobody Wins”?
Before we get into the list of films, let’s first understand what we mean by films in which “nobody wins”. Well, in simple terms, these aren’t merely films in which the antagonist gets the better of the protagonist. Even though that can be the case, it is not a prerequisite.
In films that have no clear winner, we end on a note in which the “right doesn’t fully defeat the wrong”. There is no comforting victory for not just your protagonist, but for anybody. The idea of a character coming out on top ceases to exist in these stories. These are movie endings that make us understand consequences in a very objective manner. In movies, we’re often used to characters doing certain things and getting away with them. Well, in these films, they aren’t likely to do that.
Movies in which nobody wins usually have an honesty about them. They don’t bother to set up a story only to tie everything up comfortably at the end. They try to hold up a mirror to society and create an atmosphere in which things don’t magically work out as they do in other movies.
5 Incredible Films In Which Nobody Wins
Now, let’s look at five incredible films in which absolutely no one wins.
1. Se7en (1995)
In this David Fincher classic, David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) hunt a serial killer who kills people based on the seven deadly sins.
As the body count rises, Mills and Somerset frequently clash, but over time, develop a dysfunctional yet codependent working relationship. When the killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), surrenders himself, he leads the detectives to a desolate field where he plans to reveal his “final two works”. Upon reaching there, we learn that David’s wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), has already been murdered. Her severed head arrives in a box, provoking Mills to kill Doe, with ‘wrath’, and complete the seven deadly sins.
Doe, who technically “wins” by completing the seven deadly sins, also loses his life at Mills’ hands. The detectives technically “win” by finding the killer and solving the crime, but at a cost that is unimaginable and inhuman.
2. Requiem For A Dream (2000)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky, this harrowing psychological thriller features Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb, Jared Leto as her son Harry, and Jennifer Connelly as his girlfriend Marion. Over a disturbing summer in Coney Island, their lives intertwine. Sara is obsessed with a TV show. Harry, Marion, and their friend Tyrone deal with and consume heroin.
As the story progresses, Sara gets addicted to the dangerous pills she consumes for weight loss. Heroin begins to get the better of the youth, and all four characters head on a path of self-destruction. Harry’s arm gets brutally infected, Marion debases herself sexually for money, Tyrone gets jailed, and Sara is lost in the catastrophic effects of her pills, forcing her to undergo shock therapy.
The dreams and ambitions of every character are battered. Their addictions get the better of them. None of them wins, but the audience witnesses an uncompromising cinematic experience about the ill effects of drugs and their destructive impact on people of all generations.
3. Oldboy (2003)
Perhaps Park Chan-wook’s most popular work, at least at the time, this revenge saga stars Choi Min-sik as Dae-su, Yoo Ji-tae as Lee Woo-jin, and Kang Hye-jeong as Mi-do.
In 1988, a drunken worker, Oh Dae-su, is abducted and imprisoned for 15 long years. He is accused of his wife’s murder, and his daughter is missing. He rampages through underground fights, vowing to find his captor and, along the way, forms a tender bond with Mi-do.
When the revelation hits, it’s disastrous to an inexplicably horrifying degree. Woo-jin, scarred by Dae-su’s betrayal in high school, is the man behind Dae-su’s abduction and the reason Dae-su was forced into sleeping with his own daughter.
At the end of the film, there is no victor. Love turns into painful psychological torture for Dae-su. His memory lingers so strongly, his revenge resolves nothing. Both Dae-su and Woo-jin lose most brutally and disturbingly.
4. The Departed (2006)
In the movie that finally won Martin Scorsese his Oscar, Leonardo DiCaprio is a tormented undercover cop, Billy Costigan; Matt Damon is a cunning mole in the police department as Colin Sullivan, and Jack Nicholson plays ruthless mobster Frank Costello; and Mark Wahlberg plays Sergeant Sean Dignam.
Paranoia escalates from the get-go in this film as leaks on both sides, the police as well as the mob, put multiple people in the line of fire. Towards the end, when Costello is gunned down by Sullivan, he is quickly accepted as the departmental hero. Costigan and Sullivan cross each other’s paths, but other moles are revealed. Sullivan comes out on top, but his victory will be short-lived. Dignam, as a guardian of the force’s code, takes the law into his own hands and shoots Sullivan from point-blank range at his own apartment.
Multiple bodies drop on both sides. Neither Captain Queenan nor Costello survives. Costigan and Sullivan are both dead. Personal ambition and the desire to survive by covering one’s tracks get the better of most of the principal cast. There is absolutely no winner.
5. Gone Girl (2014)
Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne and Rosamund Pike plays his wife, Amy, in this fabulous David Fincher thriller. On their fifth anniversary, Nick returns home to find his wife, Amy, a children’s book icon, missing. Clues from Amy’s diary present a marriage on the decline and quickly frame Nick as a suspect.
Midway through the film, it is clear to us that Amy is alive and that she had staged her disappearance to frame Nick. When she struggles to carry on, she murders her ex, Desi (Neil Patrick Harris), and returns home to Nick. Nick, who exposes her privately, is ensnared by her and unable to escape her web. He publicly plays the devoted husband while being against their reunion on a personal level. Nick is not a suspect anymore. Amy is back together with her husband. But neither of their victories is absolute.
Public perception takes center stage. The illusion of victory forms a halo around the couple while in reality, neither of them can be considered to have won.
Final Thoughts
These stories make happy endings feel like a myth. They take away the idea of easy comfort and leave us with a cold, lingering feeling that may not be satisfactory, but definitely feels more emotionally real.
What are your favorite films in which nobody wins? Tell us in the comments.