History Main / SnicketWarningLabel

** Heck, the (in-universe) author from beyond the grave gives off the warning. It's also well known that he likes unhappy endings. [[spoiler: The second season is basicly two supporting characters saying [[ScrewDestiny "Screw you!"]] and [[EarnYourHappyEnding earning their Bittersweet ending.]]

* Books by Nicholas Sparks tend to be this way, and [[TheFilmOfTheBook their movie adaptations]] follow accordingly. If you're watching ''The Notebook'' and reach the part where Noah goes back to Allie, you have your happy ending. You can already guess who the old man and the old woman are, so there's no need for you to continue watching. Just walk out of the theatre. ''Really''.

* If you watch only the first 2-3 seasons of ''{{Supernatural}}'' (point of stopping will vary), you'll get a BitterSweetEnding: Jill and her mother live on fighting monsters, John's death is useful for his sons, and Dean and Sam will go on their quest, albeit with some brotherly ranting from time to time, but nothing too serious. And Sam will continue to be just a normal human killing demons with conventional means.
** A [[SadistShow sadistic]] variation of this trope will occur at the end of series 5 finale: if you stop watching minutes before the end of the last episode, you'll be left with [[spoiler:Dean being horrifyingly maimed, Bobby and Cass dead, and Sam fighting for eternity (or worse, the possibility of the Devil escaping) against the Devil, or being tortured by him.]] Fortunately, a HandWave makes most of the characters [[IGotBetter better]]. Jill and her mom are still dead (and implied to be in hell).
** Do you mean Jo?

* ''DarkAngel'''s first season ends on one of these. The scene were everyone (even the [[HeelFaceTurn newly-reformed]] ex-BigBad Lydecker) is together in the bar happily celebrating their victory of the evil Manticore MegaCorp and planning out their post-victory lives is actually all just a hallucination playing out in Max's head as she lies in the snow dying a slow death from a gunshot wound. Insult is added to injury when most of the people seen in the bar scene are promptly killed or PutOnABus and the show's second season turned out to be of [[{{YMMV}} dubious quality]] and was promptly cancelled. You could easily stop watching the show ''writ large'' at the instant before the dream sequence ends and call it a "happy" ending.

* A good place to stop it though is after the climatic battle the kids had. [[NeverTrustATrailer Assuming you are still thinking the movie was a fantasy the whole time]].

* ''MoulinRouge'' - In something that should come as a surprise to no one who [[ForegoneConclusion paid attention]] to the very first spoken line of the movie, Satine, the love of the narrator Christian's love dies of [[IncurableCoughOfDeath tuberculosis]] just after their [[ConcertClimax grand ending]] song is finished, "Come What May". If you stop the movie just as the curtains close, you'll be left feeling elated and a renewed belief in the PowerOfLove. Keep it going a second later, and all of it comes crashing down into a DownerEnding.

* ''[[MoulinRouge]]'' - In something that should come as a surprise to no one who [[ForegoneConclusion paid attention]] to the very first spoken line of the movie, Satine, the love of the narrator Christian's love dies of [[IncurableCoughOfDeath tuberculosis]] just after their [[ConcertClimax grand ending]] song is finished, "Come What May". If you stop the movie just as the curtains close, you'll be left feeling elated and a renewed belief in the PowerOfLove. Keep it going a second later, and all of it comes crashing down into a DownerEnding.

* For those that prefer a happy ending in their thriller/horror films, stop watching ''TheRing'' right after the resolution scenes of the little girl's remains being appropriately removed from her imprisoning well/deathtrap (before Rachel returns home to find Aiden waking from nightmares). There is a decently long black-screen moment between scenes (during which many theater audiences started to leave before realizing that the movie had not ended) in which to make a perfect escape from the movie still believing it to be nothing more than an incredibly creepy mystery story that has been well-resolved (as opposed to an even more creepy horror thriller that proclaims that sometimes evil cannot be redeemed and in fact, in its own subtle way, sometimes wins).

* In Nanashi no Geemu 2, the [[spoiler: secret ending is...well...ItGotWorse.]

* Episode 22 of ''{{Wolfs Rain}}'' is a perfectly good end to the show and even comes with epilogue scenes behind the end credits. If you keep watching, things [[ItGotWorse go downhill quickly]].

* As a short story, ''TheMist'' ended on a BolivianArmyEnding. The movie goes through that ending, has a couple minutes more of resolution, then turns into a completely unnecessary ShootTheShaggyDog (which incidentally would have been a happy ending if the main characters had decided to keep fighting rather than [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled end their struggle]].)

* The third Phoenix Wright game was intended to conclude the series and ends on a happy note. If you wanted to be sastisfied with the games, ''do not play beyond it.''[[/folder]]

*In Drakengard, every harder to achieve ending is more violent and depressing than the one before it.