"Where Are They Now?" Epilogues in Live-Action Films.
- 9 to 5 ends with Animal House-esque text blurbs telling us what each character went on to do with their lives. Dolly Parton's character appropriately became a country singer; Judy, who was practically drowned in paper by an overactive photocopier, fell in love and married a Xerox repairman; and Mr. Hart, the chauvinist boss wound up being karmically abducted by a tribe of Amazons.
- The 33, a fictionalized account of the 2010 Copiapó mining disaster in Chile and the successful rescue of 33 trapped miners, ends with images of the real miners involved.
- Airheads: A postscript at the end of the movie reveals that the Lone Rangers served 3 months in prison for kidnapping, theft, and assault with hot pepper sauce, and that their album Live in Prison went triple platinum.
- Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa finishes with a rundown of what happened to the main characters after the siege.
- Alpha Dog shows the legal consequences to the individual members of Truelove/Hollywood's crew as a result of the kidnapping and murder of Zach Mazursky/Nick Markowitz at the end. Truelove himself was finally apprehended after eluding the authorities for five years.
- American Animals ends with title cards explaining where the four actual perpetrators are doing at the time of filming. They're all free and living quiet, modest lives.
- American Graffiti introduced what was to become the iconic form of the "Where Are They Now?" epilogue: a brief freeze frame of each of the major characters accompanied by subtitles giving their full name and a brief summary of their future lives. One character went on to becomes a famous writer; another enlisted and went Missing in Action in Vietnam. A third character died in a car accident. A fourth character became an insurance agent.
- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy ends with one, concluding with Brick becoming a top political advisor to George W. Bush.
- Animal House:
- The end has a similar sequence with the camera pausing on multiple characters with a short text blurb describing their future, only their fates are all ironic and funny, from the original Neidermeyer getting "killed in Vietnam by his own troops" to "Senator and Mrs. John Blutarsky." The "Double Secret Probation Edition" of the Animal House DVD takes this trope further.
- Word of God states that Animal House was deliberately parodying Graffiti, especially since both films were set in roughly the same era. Ironically, Animal House itself was so influential that the ironic, funny epilogues soon became the dominant version of this trope, as can be seen from all of the homages and Shout Outs listed elsewhere on this page.
- It bled into Real Life when it was revealed that "Babs became a tour guide at Universal Studios." In the credits, there's a line that says "Ask for Babs." If you asked for Babs when buying tickets for Universal Studios tours, you'd get a discount on admission. (Unfortunately, this has been discontinued.)
- In one of the segments of Twilight Zone: The Movie, set in Vietnam, one of the soldiers mentions killing Lt. Neidermeyer.
- Apollo 13: At the end a voiceover by Tom Hanks describes the later careers of the three Apollo 13 astronauts and some of the other NASA personnel.
- Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows ended with a series of title cards announcing the eventual death of each of the French resistance members.
- Ashes of Time: The movie itself is a prequel to the novel, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, and the epilogue concludes with the main characters tying into their literary counterparts after a Time Skip.
- Asperger's Are Us: At the end of the documentary, we're shown how each of the members of the troupe fared in their respective courses after breaking up. Then it announces that they got back together, and are working on new material.
- Korean film Attack the Gas Station! does one of these.
- One of the alternate endings of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had a montage of what all the non-dead characters (and some pretty-dead ones like Mustafa) did after Dr. Evil escaped and his base blew up, like Frau Farbissina founding the militant wing of the LPGA. Presumably, it was changed to the newlywed Powers' honeymoon in order to make room for the sequel.
- Bad Education (2004) ends with a text screen describing the life of the three main characters after the film: Enrique releases his film and becomes successful, Juan ends up becoming successful as well, but eventually loses his fame on the silver screen and ends up on TV, and Sr Berenguer is killed in a hit-and-run accident that Juan caused.
- Blame It on the Bellboy: Mike (assassin) and Patricia (single woman on a blind date) married. Melvyn (real estate agent) is selling testicle protectors in the Bahamas; his ex-boss ended up dead trying to claim ownership of Mafia boss' house. Maurice (unfaithful husband on a blind date) and his wife got divorced when The Alleged House fell apart; she quickly remarried, he continues going on blind dates. Caroline (real estate agent) successfully sued the hotel for the mix-up. The bellboy got fired repeatedly.
- In The Blind Side, it showed what happened to Michael and the Tuohys. Michael becomes the first round pick of the NFL. Collins also goes to Ole Miss and becomes a cheerleader like her mom. And Leigh Ann and Sean still live in Memphis today.
- In Blood Debts, after Mark blows up and kills the Big Bad, we are treated to this brief text in all lowercase letters:"mark collins, age 45, gave himself up to the authorities after the incident. he is now serving a life sentence."
- Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed: The film states that Steve Ross and Dana Jester are still teaching people how to paint.
- Boggy Creek 2: And the Legend Continues didn't have one but Mike and the Bots were knid enough to give us their idea of one. In their ending, Doc's research department goes under, Leslie and Tanya bring Doc up on charges, and Tim just wanders off one day for no real reason and is never seen again.
- The Brittany Murphy Story reveals that Brittany Murphy's husband, Simon Monjack, died five months later under similar circumstances as she did, as there are still suspicions about her death to this day.
- Burke & Hare ends with epilogues for everyone, including people who weren't properly introduced like one doctor's assistant named Charles Darwin and ends with the real-life Burke's skeleton on display in Edinburgh's anatomy museum.
- Canadian Bacon, including some of the following:
- Sheriff Bud Boomer realized his dream and became a regular on COPS
- Honey is named National Rifle Association's Humanitarian of the Year
- General dink Panzer took his own life upon learning Hogan's Heroes was entirely fictional
- Prime Minister Clark McDonald, still ruling with an iron fist.
- Can't Hardly Wait played with this. It was mostly set at a Wild Teen Party. The following morning, there are scenes of various characters meeting up and saying their goodbyes, apologies, or thanks as appropriate, and during each one, the scene freezes and a caption says what happened to the featured teen in the future. In one case, the scene froze, the caption said that the couple on screen would break up 10 minutes later, the screen unfroze for 30 seconds as the couple continued to interact, and then the screen froze again with a new caption saying that they got together again soon after the breakup.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a montage near the end, showing what happened to most of the characters who survived the climax:
- Natasha is Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee for leaking all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets in order to expose HYDRA's infiltration. She is acquitted of all charges and looks for a new identity.
- Agent 13 aka Sharon joins the CIA.
- Maria Hill is interviewing for a job at Stark Industries.
- Rumlow survived getting a helicarrier dropped on his head, but he’s badly burned.
- HYDRA mole Senator Stern is arrested.
- Fury, still Faking the Dead burns all of his S.H.I.E.L.D stuff, including his eyepatch, and decides to head to Europe to hunt down the rest of HYDRA.
- At the end of The Cat's Meow, Elinor Glyn narrates what became the principal characters after the events of the movie.
- Changeling: Title cards explain what happens to the main characters.
- Chaplin: Between the last scene and the closing credits, title cards link the actors to the real life personages they played (Anthony Hopkins's character, a fictional editor who figures into the framing device, is also included and explained), and describe briefly the later lives/careers of said personages. Eighteen characters total are covered!
- The Commitments explains where the band members ended up after their breakup. Deco got his recording contract but his bad attitude makes him impossible to work with; Derek and Outspan spend their time busking on Grafton Street; Imedla got married to "dopey Greg" who won't let her sing any more; Bernie sings in a country band; Mickah sings in a punk band; Steven became a doctor; Billy got kicked in the head by a horse; Dean is a jazz musician who "got quite good in the end"; Joey the Lips went on tour with Joe Tex (who was ten years dead by that point); Natalie "became very successful" as a singer; and Jimmy is still unemployed.
- Conspiracy (2001) ends with a summary of the fates of the real historical figures involved, noting the limited punishments some of them received.
- Crackerjack ends with Jack giving a voiceover explaining what happened to the various characters after the events of the film.
- The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course: A short sequence of clips after the main film tells us what happened afterwards:
- The US army got the beacon back, and Steve was none the wiser about what it was.
- The crocodile ended up taking to his new territory and finding some female crocodiles.
- The rancher, Brozzie, started doing volunteer work for the Fish and Fauna Department.
- The two agents who unsuccessfully chased the Irwins got pressed into work at the zoo.
- The Damned United features an end roll that shows the future of its central characters, Peter Taylor and Brian Clough. With some things at the very end left out.
- Dasepo Sonyo ends with drawings of the major characters and brief descriptions of their fates - Poor Girl works at a bank, Anthony lives on a farm in Switzerland, Double Eyes got a sex change, and Cyclops got rich selling toys modelled after him. Big Razor Sis' fate is left ambiguous - there is a before-and-after image suggesting that she got a sex change, but there's no accompanying text.
- Deepwater Horizon: After the disaster on the rig, Mike and Andrea eventually left Transocean, while Jimmy is still with them.
- Defiance: Being based on true events, the movie ends with a black-white photo montage depicting the real Bielski brothers (portrayed in the film by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell) and their fates after the war: Asael Bielski, the youngest, joins the Soviets in the war against the Germans, and was sadly killed in action before the birth of his daughter, while Tuvia and Zus soon starts a trucking firm in New York City. Despite liberating hundreds and hundreds of Jews from the Germans in the war, the brothers never sought recognition for their deeds, and in the ensuing decades after the war the descendants of the Jewish survivors saved by the brothers totaled up to millions.
- Des hommes et des dieux: Some text informs the viewer that seven of the monks were killed, one died 12 years later, and one was still alive as of the movie's making.
- Both Deuce Bigalow films end with these;
- Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo reveals that Deuce married Kate, Deuce's father became a male prostitute, the overweight Fluisa underwent extensive liposuction and now worked as a model in Victoria's Secret known as Naomi, Ruth opened an all girls school for Tourette's, Carol managed to fulfill her dream trip to France, T.J. starts his own reality show dedicated to his experiences as a male prostitute, and an incarcerated Antoine marries Tina.
- In Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (with the opening revealing that Kate was killed in a shark attack shortly after the marriage), the epilogue reveals that T.J. moves on from gay man-whoring to become a rapper, Deuce marries Eva and she is shown being pregnant, Gaspar is gang raped in prison, and Kate's prosthetic leg is turned into a bong by a woman without a leg.
- Dinner for Schmucks ends with each of the character's fates being told through one of Barry's taxidermied mice dioramas.
- Dog Day Afternoon. At the end of the movie, subtitles that say that Sonny (one of the bank robbers) was sentenced to 20 years in prison, that Angie (Sonny's wife) and their children were living on Welfare, and that Sonny's boyfriend Leon had his sex-change surgery and became a woman and was living in New York City.
- The mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous has text blurbs for several main characters— except for Amber, who also gets a couple quick scenes showing how she becomes a news anchor, just like her idol, Diane Sawyer.
- Dumb Money: The last scene shows clips of the main characters now having a greater net worth than before (except for Jenny, who is still holding onto her shares), along with some text regarding the fate of the hedge fund managers (Gabe Plotkin was put out of business altogether) and Robinhood cofounders (their IPO bombed and they're no longer ranked as billionaires), as well as Keith Gill, who has since retreated from public life after the film's events.
- At the end of Emperor (2012), the fates of the major players of the story are revealed:
- Hideki Tojo was hanged for all his war crimes on December 23, 1948.
- After being suspected of war crimes, Fumimaro Konoe, Tojo's predecessor as prime minister, committed suicide by poison on December 16, 1945.
- Charged as a Class A war criminal, Koichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in 1977. note
- Teizaburō Sekiya, member of the Privy Council, was never charged with any crime and lived peacefully into old age.
- Bonner Fellers, the film's actual protagonist, was awarded the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure for his contribution to Japanese-American friendship. He was demoted to Colonel by Eisenhower and became active in politics after leaving the army.
- While Douglas MacArthur successfully oversaw the rebuilding of Japan, he was less successful in his bid to become US president. He was relieved by Truman in 1951 and retired from the army.
- Hirohito, the titular Emperor, reigned on until his death in 1989.
- In Enchanted, it shows that Edward and Nancy got married in Andalesia. Giselle opens up a new fashion/boutique business, staying with Robert. After staying in New York, Nathaniel becomes a successful author, as well as Pip in Andalesia.
- The Express tells of the futures of Ernie Davis (He's Dead, Jim), Jim Brown, Floyd Little and Syracuse coach Ben Schwarzwalder.
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High ends with one of these. Brad is made manager of the convenience store after foiling the robbery seen at the end of the movie, Damone is busted for scalping Ozzy Osbourne tickets and now works at 7-11, Mr. Vargas switches back to coffee, Linda attends college in Riverside before moving in with her Abnormal Psych professor, Mark and Stacy are now a couple, but still haven't had sex, Mr. Hand is still convinced that everyone is on drugs, and Spicoli saves Brooke Shields from drowning, only to blow the reward money hiring Van Halen for his birthday party.
- A Fish Called Wanda. This being a comedy, the protagonists go on to have 17 children and found a leper colony, another main character becomes Master of Ceremonies at London Sea World, and the villain goes on to become Minister for Justice in apartheid-era South Africa
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- The Flight of the Phoenix (2004) has a photo montage at the end that shows that Kelly now works on a rig out on the ocean, Frank & AJ have a new plane, and Elliott now works for NASA!!
- Gettysburg ends with photos of each actor turning into photos of the real people the characters were based on and words below describing their fate after the battle, which is also a reverse of the opening credits, where historic photos transition into photos of the actors.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): In the Creative Closing Credits, at least for the surviving Kaiju characters. After the movie itself closes with the Titans who once served Ghidorah bowing to a triumphant Godzilla in the apocalyptic ruins of Boston, news articles and clippings during the credits reveal that Godzilla's new monster subordinates have begun regenerating the world's ecosystems in the aftermath of the destruction (just as Emma Russell expected them to), and Monarch is opening its files to the public after decades of secrecy. The fates of a few individual Titans from the movie are revealed: Godzilla has revived endangered marine reef ecosystems, is continuing to keep the other Titans away from population centers, and has become something of a wild animal celebrity to the public's eyes; Rodan has taken up a new volcanic roost north of Fiji and has calmed down enough that tourists can get close and see him, Behemoth and Scylla are regenerating the rainforests and the ice caps respectively, and an egg heavily implied to be Mothra's has been discovered.
- The Grey Zone ends with screencaps noting the success of the uprising, Oberscharführer Mussfeld being convicted and hanged for war crimes, and Dr. Nyiszli surviving the war, but not practicing medicine ever again.
- The Hairy Bird (also known as Strike! and All I Wanna Do) end with blurbs describing the somewhat ironic fates of the main characters.
- According to He's My Girl:Sally became a world-famous mud wrestler.
Simon had a vision and abandoned singing to become a T.V. preacher for the Church of the Rock and Soul.
Lisa gave up sculpting, took voice lessons and got a job with a telephone sex service.
Mason left the music business and started a chain of nudist colonies.
Reggie stayed in Hollywood and opened a beauty salon called "The Champagne Douche".
Tasha works at "The Champagne Douche" and sells bibles door to door on the weekends.
Bryan became a major rock star, sold millions of records, and returned to Missouri for sex re-education classes. - Heavenly Creatures ends with Mario Lanza singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", over text screens explaining how the girls were tried, convicted and sentenced, and later released. The last screen is an awful Tear Jerker, especially as it's timed to coincide with the line "you'll never walk alone": It was a condition of their release that they never meet again.
- Ironically, (and probably because of lawsuits) they never mention that after her release, Juliet changed her name and became a very well-known mystery novelist, with two historical mystery series that are still going strong today.
- Henry & June ends with text screens saying that Henry and Anais remained friends to the end of their lives; both wrote many books about June. June became a social worker in Queens, New York. Hugo became a filmmaker, and it was by his request that Anais' unexpurgated story remain unpublished until after his death. He died in 1985.
- The 1996 movie House Arrest ends with a montage of the major characters, with Grover providing a voiceover explaining their fates.
- In the Name of the Father: One is given at the end of the film, relating what happened with the main characters in the story.
- The final scenes of Into the Wild show what happened to the various people Chris encountered on his journey. The hippie couple continue Walking the Earth, Wayne, who had been arrested for drug dealing, was eventually released, the two Danish explorers Chris met while kayaking win big in Vegas...and his mother and father struggle to move on with their lives while dealing with the knowledge that their semi-abusive parenting led indirectly to their son's death, and its implied that his sister follows her brother's example and becomes an explorer.
- The Italian Job (2003) shows what happens to the main characters. Handsome Rob got his Astin Martin and promptly got pulled over by a cop during its first ride. Left Ear moved to Spain and got a room for all his shoes. Lyle made it to the front cover of Wired Magazine and got a stereo (with speakers that could blow off a woman's clothes). And Charlie married Stella.
- Onscreen epilogues in Jungle reveal what Yossi and Kevin did with their lives after they escaped the jungle. It is also revealed that Marcus and Kurt were never seen again.
- Kayfabe: A Fake Real Movie About A Fake Real Sport ends with Randy explaining to the documentary team how everyone in the federation has moved on to new endeavors, most with great success.
- Killers of the Flower Moon delivers its epilogue in the form of a coda to an episode of The Lucky Strike Hour, an FBI-backed radio program that dramatized its early cases. It explains what became of Mollie, Ernest and Hale. Martin Scorsese steps onstage as the show's producer to share the story of Mollie's obituary. She remarried and died at 50. "It made no mention of the murders."
- The King's Speech revealed that Bertie and Lionel remained friends for the rest of their lives.
- Legally Blonde had an epilogue that is both this and a Distant Finale, due to the request of the test audiences. It's a full scene with interspersed text blurbs detailing what happened to the supporting characters. Elle has graduated with high honors, is the class-elected speaker at the ceremony, and has been invited into one of Boston's best law firms; Vivian is now Elle's best friend and has called off her engagement with Warner, who graduated without honors and with no job offers; Emmett has started his own practice, is now Elle's boyfriend, and will propose to her that night; and finally, Paulette has married her delivery man and is expecting a baby girl to be named after Elle.
- The Life and Death of Peter Sellers ends with a text epilogue on what happened to Sellers after the release of Being There (not much to say; he died less than a year later).
- Little Nicky has a small blurb of what happened to the main characters one year after Adrian's and Cassius's failed coup of Hell.
- Nicky and Valerie married and settled on Earth having a son. While gardening, Valerie accidentally hit Nicky with a shovel which fixed his awkward face. He's still no George Clooney.
- Their son Zachariah was suspended from nursery school for turning another kid's milk into moose piss.
- Todd staged his own one man show on Broadway but unfortunately only one man showed up to see it, Andrew the transvestite.
- After being thrown out of a strip club, Mr. Beefy reunited with his ex-girlfriend Heather the rat and they married producing five of the ugliest children you have ever seen.
- Stanley "Tithead" the Gatekeeper and Gary the Monster also have a litter of their own.
- Satan and Holly try dating again for awhile but unable to deal with a long distance relationship breakup amiably and pursue othe love interests.
- Satan has been linked to the Blair Witch and Cher.
- Holly immediately fell in love with her new aerobics instructor Chris Farley.
- John and Peter used their 25 million dollar reward and bought Led Zeppelin's old tour plane. They filled it with cake, beer, and great music but forgot to hire a pilot and crashed on takeoff. They are now shown happy for all eternity in Nicky's old room in Hell.
- Nicky and Valerie married and settled on Earth having a son. While gardening, Valerie accidentally hit Nicky with a shovel which fixed his awkward face. He's still no George Clooney.
- Lords of Dogtown has little blurbs about what each real life character did after the events of the movie during the credits.
- Mallrats had one of these, although some of what was shown was pretty weird. Kevin Smith has referred to the movie as his homage to Animal House. Jay and Silent Bob's actually foreshadows the events of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
- In The Martian, Watney now teaches students at NASA. Lewis and Vongel are with their families while Beck and Johanssen have a baby. Martinez is returning to Mars while Teddy, Kapoor, Park, etc can rest easy as humanity continues another expedition to space.
- In McFarland, USA, we're shown the adult, Real Life version of the boys on the cross country team, and told in captions what happened to them.
- The final moments of Meet the Feebles reveal what happened to all the Feebles who managed to survive the film:
- After getting surgery on his kneecaps, which Heidi shot out during her rampage, Sidney takes up horticulture with Seymour, no longer having to worry about Sandy or her paternity suit since she was one of Heidi's victims.
- Arthur gets an award for his service towards the theater and retires to the countryside.
- Sebastian, having managed to escape being shot by Heidi, manages to procure a book deal about the massacre and is currently in deals for a movie, though he probably fabricated everything. The only consultation is that he somehow lost an eye.
- Robert and Lucille marry and have children, and Robert becomes a photographer.
- Finally, despite murdering many, many Feebles, Heidi only serves ten years in jail and, having lost a lot of her weight, takes up working at a check out line at a supermarket.
- Milk ends with one of these, including photographs of the real people portrayed in the film.
- Miracle ends with a montage of descriptions detailing how the future careers of the showcased members of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team went, including several in the NHL. The final one is for coach Herb Brooks, whose future career gets meta as he ended up as a consultant for the very film itself — until he died of a car crash six months before the film was released.
- Moving Violations ends with the police commissioner driving past one cast member after another, all of them having been pulled over for yet another traffic violation. An on-screen caption proclaims that the lead character was sentenced to traffic school so many times that the county made him the instructor in desperation.
- Music and Lyrics ends up with pop-up bubbles explaining that Cora got married and divorced in the same night, Sloan's book got made into an awful movie, POP eventually reunited but their performance cut short because Colin needed a hip replacement, and Alex and Sophie are still together, with his hip appearing to be fine.
- My Week with Marilyn ends with Marilyn singing a song while text overlay tells us what happened to her, Colin and Laurence after the film.
- Shades of this in Neighbors (2014). Mac meets Teddy outside Abercrombie & Fitch, and they discuss not only where they are in life, but also Pete and the other members of the frat. When Mac returns home, he and Kelly get a video call from their friends, tying that subplot off.
- No God, No Master: The film ends with a summary of what happened to the major characters.
- No Strings Attached (2011) ends with a closing credits montage of future events.
- Notte Prima Degli Esami (Night Before Finals), an Italian Teen comedy, does this with polaroids of the main characters and their destinies written on the white part.
- The Other Woman (2014): After Mark King is revealed to be a cheating womanizer and criminal fraudster, the film ends with the following circumstances:
- His wife, Kate, divorces him and takes over his company, which is making big profits under her honest leadership, leaving him broke and destitute. Mark intended to frame Kate for his fraudulent businesses practices, but Kate returned all the money he stole, sparing them both prison time.
- One of his mistresses, attorney Carly Whitten, marries Kate's brother, Phil, and they are expecting their first child.
- Mark's second mistress, Amber, is dating Carly's father, Frank, and in spite of their friendship, Carly absolutely refuses to call her "mom".
- Pain & Gain ends with the credits showing the main cast with a picture of the real person they were portraying. Two of the kidnappers were sentenced to death while the third served 15 years in prison. The gym owner who forged the transaction papers for them got 15 years as well and died in prison, while the survivors' names were changed.
- Text at the end of Reality (2023) tells the audience that Winner was imprisoned for four years, and that the document she leaked was later used as evidence of Russian interference in the Senate.
- In Remember the Titans, the movie opens with several characters gathering for a funeral. The epilogue shows what the players and coaches of the team did with their lives after winning the Virginia state football championship in 1971, revealing that the funeral is Gerry Bertier’s, after he was killed by a drunk driver in 1981.
- Salvation Boulevard ends with one of these, revealing that Pastor Dan did get brought up on charges, Professor Blaylock remained an adamant atheist, and that Carl and Gwen divorced with Carl remarrying to Honey and becoming an ex-ex-Deadhead.
- The Sandlot ends with the Wonder Years-esque Narrator giving brief descriptions of what the various players wound up doing as adults, which cuts into a final scene showing that Benny ends up as a professional ballplayer and Smalls becomes a sportscaster. Except one kid who "got really into the Sixties and was never seen again."
- Schindler's List uses a unique and famously powerful variation on the trope: a procession of 128 of the real-life surviving Schindlerjuden, accompanied by the actors who portrayed them in the film, walk past Oskar Schindler's grave in Israel and mark it with stones as per Jewish custom. The scene's subtitles also inform the audience of the statistics of the lives Schindler saved.
- The HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero ends with many of the characters attending a funeral. Title cards are interspersed giving a summary of what happened to all of them in real life.
- Sleepers: For John, Tommy, Michael, and Carol in the movie. The book includes many more characters in this, including Father Bobby, Fat Mancho, and Marlboro, the one guard who stood up for the boys at Wilkinson. John and Tommy go back to their life as mafia hitmen while Michael retires to the English countryside, unable to let go of the past. Carol has a son with Jon and raises him in better conditions than both she and Jonh lived in. Marlboro gets a promotion and Father Bobby renounces priesthood.
- The Social Network had text overlayed at the end of the final scene mostly with a focus on the results of the two lawsuits that serve as a framework for the story.
- Done briefly in the Documentary Special When Lit with Koi Morris, a synthetic chemist and pinball tournament player who had earlier failed to qualify for the PAPA 8 World Championship.
- Stand by Me has sort of a variant of this, with the adult Gordie describing his friends' eventual fates toward the conclusion of his voiceover narration.
- Captions at the end of Starkweather tell what happened to Starkweather, Fugate and Sheriff Karnopp (execution, life imprisonment, and induction into Nebraska Law Enforcement Hall of Fame, respectively).
- Stripes — another Ivan Reitman film, showing magazine covers illustrating the fates of the characters.
- Both Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter finish with Jack Elam's characters Jake and Jug, respectively, detailing the fates of all the characters, including his. ("...one of the most beloved characters in western folklore." "...big star in spaghetti westerns.")
- Tetris (2023), the film about the wild history behind the international distribution behind the eponymous falling-block puzzle game, ends with Nintendo securing the rights to distribute Tetris, which becomes a Killer App for their new handheld console, the Game Boy, while the Soviet Union falls into rapid decline and eventually collapses. As for the major players involved:
- Henk Rogers, the game designer who worked with Nintendo to secure the rights to Tetris; and Alexey Pajitnov, the Soviet programmer who created Tetris, co-found the Tetris Company to distribute Tetris worldwide, allowing Pajitnov to finally be rewarded with royalties for his revolutionary video game.
- Maya Rogers, Henk's daughter, is eventually named CEO of the Tetris Company.
- Robert Maxwell, a British media mogul who tried to take the rights to Tetris from Rogers, was tried and posthumously convicted of fraud to the tune of over 900 million US dollars. He died in over 5 billion US dollars of debt.
- Kevin Maxwell, Robert Maxwell's son and CEO of his company, Mirrorsoft, was also tried for fraud, but acquitted when it was found he had no knowledge or participation in his father's crimes. He continued to run the company in his father's place until it eventually went bankrupt.
- Robert Stein, the Eastern European businessman who also jockeyed for Tetris rights, would continue to license and sell software, but would never get over losing out on Tetris.
- Tetris, meanwhile, has gone on to become one of the most popular and successful video games in history, with over 500 million units sold the world over.
- That Thing You Do!, the Tom Hanks-directed film about a young garage band turned one-hit Wonders, ends with a quick wrap-up of everyone's ultimate future over the closing credits.
- Jimmy formed a different band called the Heardsmen, made more hit records for Playtone, and now works as a record producer in Los Angeles.
- Guy and Faye got married, had four kids, and founded a music conservatory in Washington state, where Guy taught jazz drumming.
- Lenny manages a casino in Nevada (and got a divorce from the girl he married with in the film).
- T.B. Player (the unnamed bassist) was decorated for his service as a Marine in the Siege of Khe Sanh and is a building contractor in Florida.
- Not exactly this trope, but it uses the name: In This is Spın̈al Tap, the group hears a radio station play one of their very old songs, "Cups and Cakes", from when they used to be called The Thamesmen. After the song, the D.J. announces that The Thamesmen are now called Spinal Tap, and that they have been consigned to the "Where Are They Now File". The looks on the band members' faces when he says this are priceless.
- The Gulf War film Three Kings has a brief montage like this, mentioning that one character is now a Hollywood war movie consultant.
- Three Sisters: Searching for a Cure: The ending text shows that Jenifer Estess died after battling ALS for six years and Project ALS is still raising money to find the cure for the disease.
- The documentary Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball ends with brief descriptions of where the movie's various subjects ended up after the closure of Williams Electronics.
- Titanic (1997): Rose mentions that Cal killed himself when the stock market crashed in 1929. Photos beside her bed reveal some of the life Rose, herself, went on to lead after the sinking.
- Tombstone. The narrator describes what happened to various characters later in life.
- The Toolbox Murders ends with it a card stating the film was based on true events, and that the main character spent some time in an asylum before settling down and having a child; it's also mentioned her mother died in a car crash.
- Unbreakable: the character of Elijah Price is explained to be in a hospital for the mentally insane, once his crimes of mass murder are revealed.
- Unstoppable crosses this with Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- Vice (2018): Parodied halfway through the movie. After Dick Cheney rejects the presidential bid to protect his lesbian daughter Mary, an epilogue is shown that's obviously fake (it mentions that Dick Cheney never got into politics again and that he regularly wins Ironman competitions) where the Cheney family lived a happy, quiet life and never came back into the public eye. The credits even roll after that. Played straight at the end, where the actual epilogue is far more grim.
- Frankie Lymon's wives (and Little Richard) explain what happened to them in Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
- The World's End; Andy tells the story of the film to some kids, complete with what happened to each member of the gang, in the burnt-out remnant of civilisation; Andy's marriage has recovered, Steven and Sam are in a relationship, the android Peter and Oliver have essentially picked up where their originals left off, and Gary is now travelling the country with the android duplicates of the gang as teenagers.
- Young Doctors in Love ends with Simon August and Stephanie Brody wedding. A voice over a procession of guests tells what happened with each of them (with few exceptions). Then the camera switches to the assassin who obviously wasn't invited. And in the end, the duck that Dr. Bucky rendered aid to in the beginning arrives — with his own bride.
- Used at the end of the first Young Guns movie, which was kind of invalidated by the sequel (which also made use of this trope).
- Zodiac: Title cards explain what happens to the main characters.