Bookends / Live-Action Films

aka: Film

In the early days, a projector would have a beginning and an end slide.

Note that some Bookends can be spoilers, so beware.

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• 1917 begins and ends with Lance Corporal Schofield resting under a tree.
• 28 Days Later: An alternate ending for this film has the protagonist dying in a hospital, having woken up in one at the beginning of the film. The movie has a bookend even without that scene. In the theatrical version the first line spoken is hello, which is also what the sign the survivors hold at the end says.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey has shots of the Earth, Moon, and Sun, accompanied by "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". There's a theory that the opening shot is actually from the Star-Child's perspective, and that the rest of the film is a flashback.
  • The first and last twenty-five minutes also have no dialogue and start and end with a two minute blank screen of just music.
• (500) Days of Summer: Has three, Tom examining his relationship with Summer in each. The Simon & Garfunkel song "Bookends" even plays during one of them.
• Advance to the Rear: The film begins and ends with a soldier reporting to Brackenbury that the day's quota of shots has been fired over the heads of the enemy.
• Akira Kurosawa's Dreams: the first dream features a wedding parade, and the last dream features a funeral parade.
• Alien Abduction (2014) begins and ends with a near-identical tracking shot of Riley's camera being carried through an alien craft and then dumped out a garbage chute to tumble from low-Earth orbit into a field. The second time, the footage continues, showing the military scientists recovering the camera for study.
• Almost Famous: The intro music starts with the sound of a record needle being placed, the end of the credits finishes with the sound of a needle hitting the lock-track.
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 begins and ends with Peter fighting against Aleksei Sytsevich.
• American Beauty: Begins and ends with an aerial shot of the residential street the majority of the story takes place at.
• Wes Anderson does this from time to time:
  • The Darjeeling Limited begins and ends with people running to get on a train as it pulls away from the station.
  • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou starts at the premier of Part One of the Jaguar Shark documentary, and ends at the premier of Part Two.
  • Moonrise Kingdom begins and ends with the Bishop children sitting in the house, reading and listening to opera.
• "The End" by The Doors is played in Apocalypse Now during the beginning, and during the end during the killing of Colonel Kurtz.
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.: The movie starts and ends with summer camp—at the start Margaret is coming back from it, and at the end is heading off to camp again.
• The Art of the Steal starts and ends with a character being a released from prison, accompanied by a voice-over narration that starts:
  Seasoned crooks swear you only remember two days about your stretch in jail: the day you get in...and the day you get out.
• Ass Backwards begins and ends with the two female protagonists dropping their pants to urinate in public.
• The Chinese film Assembly begins and ends with a crane shot of a war memorial (for the Communist/Nationalist civil war). In between is the battle in which the men died, and the sole survivor's struggle to have them recognised as dead and deserving a memorial, and not just missing in action.
• In the opening scene of Ava, the titular character is covertly followed by another woman. In the final scene, we see the same woman tailing Ava after she had killed her father.
• Avatar: Begins and ends with Jake's eyes opening. In addition to that, the last background shot of the credits before the fade to black is identical to the very first shot of the movie.
• The Avengers. Near the beginning Steed warns Mrs. Peel not to eat a macaroon when taking tea with Mother, because they're Mother's favorite. She does so anyway, which annoys Steed. At the end they're taking tea with Mother again and she declines a macaroon, showing that she's fallen in love with Steed and is showing her friendship for him.
• Back to the Future:
  • The first and third movies have a Fly-at-the-Camera Ending featuring a time-travelling vehicle: the DeLorean in the first, a train in the third.
  • After the DeLorean's first and last trips, its rear license plate spins around before falling down.
• Baahubali: The second movie starts with the flashback of the Devil Immolation Ceremony. This occurs once every 26 years. Sivagami, as the daughter-in-law of the royal family, walked barefoot to the temple of Lord Shiva with a trident in one hand and an urn of burning coal on her head, which is then used to set the effigy of a demon on fire. She completed the walk without breaking her stride when a rampaging elephant is on the loose. The movie ended with Devasena performing a similar walk, also without breaking her stride despite obstacles, and finishing it by setting Bhallaladeva on fire.
• In Beverly Hills Cop, Inspector Todd angrily orders Axel to go to the hospital to get his head checked out after Mikey Tandino is killed. At the end of the movie, Lieutenant Bogomil, in a much more friendly tone, tells Axel to go to the hospital and get his shoulder looked at after the shootout at Maitland's mansion.
• Beyond the Lights starts with Noni singing "Blackbird" by Nina Simone at a local talent competition and winning massive appeal from the audience but disappointment from her mother when she places second. The film ends with Noni debuting a song she has written titled "Blackbird" at a concert in London while her mother listens wistfully via a cellphone in America.
• Big Game begins and ends with a shot of Oskari's family's Trophy Room, although in the end, a photograph of Oskari with his "hunt" is added to the row of photos.
• The Big Red One: Begins with TheSargent (played by Lee Marvin) stabbing a German claiming that the armistice has been signed at the end of World War I, and returns to base to find out that it actually had. Repeated almost exactly at the end of World War I but when he finds out the war ended, he goes back and saves the life of the man he just stabbed.
• Birds of Prey (2020): At the start, Harley is bringing drinks to her "friends" and overhears them mocking her. At the end, Harley is bringing drinks to her new friends and overhears them complimenting each other.
• In the opening scene of Blade II, the titular character kills several vampires, and tells the single remaining one that he'll be back for him. As the scene goes on, the character doesn't reappear, but guess where it does?
• Blue Bayou: The film starts and ends with the Korean lullaby "Ja Jang Uri".
• Blue Is the Warmest Color: The hangdrum music plays when Adele sees Emma for the first time and it also does when she leaves the gallery which could possibly be the last time she'll ever see Emma.
• Blue Velvet: Begins with shots of rose gardens and smiling firemen and ends with the same images. The opening credits play over an extreme close-up of Dorothy's blue velvet robe, lightly swaying. The last shot is the close-up again, making it seem almost like opening and closing curtains.
• Bohemian Rhapsody begins and ends on July 13, 1985, the day of Live Aid.
• The Bourne Series:
  • The Bourne Ultimatum ends with Jason Bourne being shot at from behind, falling into water, and being lost and presumed dead by his pursuers. This directly mirrors the events preceding the first film, where we first meet Bourne being rescued from the ocean, having been shot in the back and left for dead by Wombosi and his men.
  • And like The Bourne Identity, it turns out that he's not quite dead although unlike TBI, Bourne swims away under his own power in TBU.
• The Breakfast Club: The opening narration is Brian reading an essay about the events that are about to unfurl. The closing narration is presumably the final version of the essay, with some differences and each of the five students in detention reading their description (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal).
• Bride of Frankenstein: Opens with Mary Shelley, played by Elsa Lanchester, telling the story of Frankenstein. As she begins relating the sequel, she spreads her arms wide... and at the end of the film, the Bride of Frankenstein, also played by Lanchester, makes the same gesture.
• Broadway Danny Rose: Uses a Framing Device to tell the story. The movie starts and ends with the story teller and his listeners at a diner.
• Bruce Almighty starts with Bruce recording a news report, annoyed at being there. The final scene is Bruce recording another news report, loving it.
• The movie version of Bye Bye Birdie begins with Kim singing the title song, lamenting how dull her life will become without Conrad Birdie. At the end, she sings a rewritten version, proclaiming that she's ready to get over Birdie.
• Burning Bright: Near the beginning, the tiger's owner tells John a horrific story, claiming the tiger paralyzed and started eating a circus horse in front of tourists. At the end, the tiger does the same thing to John.
• The 1991 version of Cape Fear begins with chilling music and a blood-red negative shot of a on the daughter's eyes zooming out into a positive shot of her giving a speech. The final scene inverts this, starting with a positive shot of her monologing An Aesop and zooming in on her eyes, turning the shot into a b/w and then red negative.
• In a meta sense, 20th Century Fox's history as a major film studio with that name begins and ends with adaptations of The Call of the Wild. The 1935 version was the last production by 20th Century Pictures before they merged with Fox to become, well, 20th Century Fox. The 2020 version was the first film released by 20th Century Studios, the name that was given to the former Fox studios following its acquisition by Disney.
• Captain Phillips begins with one woman (his wife) asking Phillips if everything is going to be OK, and ends with another woman (the Navy medic) telling Phillips that he's going to be OK.
• Centurion: My name is Quintus Daius. I am a Centurion of Rome. And this is neither the beginning, nor the end of my story.
• Charly, based on the book Flowers for Algernon, begins and ends with Charlie Gordon playing on a swing in a playground.
• Citizen Kane: Opens on a "no trespassing" sign before moving in closer to Kane's mansion. At the end, when the audience but not the characters learns the secret of Kane's final word "Rosebud," the camera retreats from the mansion and ends on the same sign, signifying that Charles Foster Kane will forever remain a mystery.
• Clerks: The first Clerks starts in black and white, with the guys opening the Quick Stop. At the end of Clerks II, the guys are at the quick stop, the color goes away and the guys are at the quick stop.
• Cloud Atlas opens and ends with old Zachry telling a story.
• Color of Night: Begins and ends with a suicide attempt in Capa's presence. The first is successful, causing him to lose part of his color vision (the color red), and the second is interrupted, causing him to regain it.
• Colour of the Truth: The Deliberately Monochrome opening depicting Inspector Cola, then a child, pointing a Finger Gun is repeated in the final scene, where the now-adult Cola makes another finger gun gesture at the audience after killing the villains.
• Copycat starts and finishes with Helen being attacked in a bathroom.
• Cruz Diablo: Starts and ends with Cruz Diablo in the dungeon, panning to the coat of arms of the Count of Luna.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: A particularly sad example involving a clock.
• The Dark Knight Trilogy begins and ends with Bruce Wayne presumed dead.
• Darling Lili opens and closes with scenes of Lili singing "Whistling Away the Dark" at two different concerts. At the second concert, characters she met during the movie are watching from the wings and encouraging her.
• The Da Vinci Code: Begins and ends with a dead body in the Louvre. The first time it's Jacques Saunière's. The second time it's the corpse of Mary Magdalene, whose tomb was hidden under the Louvre by the Priory of Sion.
• Daybreakers: The first and last shot in this movie is that of a bat flying overhead.
• Day of the Evil Gun starts and ends with unarmed Retiredgunfighter Lorn Warfield attempting to walk away from someone who is trying to goad him into a gunfight.
• Dementia (1955): The film begins with a zoom in to the woman's hotel room from the street, and ends with a zoom out to the street from the hotel room.
• Il deserto rosso starts and ends with Giuliana taking a stroll near the production plant. In the beginning thу workers are on strike, in the ending the plant operates at full capacity.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Thin Elk is able to ambush Company Q while they're all busy gawping at some women bathing in a nearby river.
• Dirty Harry: This Clint Eastwood film begins and ends with Harry facing down a criminal and doing a version of the 'do you feel lucky punk?' speech. In the opening sequence he's phrasing it to intimidate the criminal and keep him from taking a shot. In the final sequence, he's phrasing it to get the killer to take a shot at him so he has an excuse to kill him.
• DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story: Begins and ends with a commercial for a successful gym, as well as the rivals' response to them: "Spare me."
• The opening monologue of The Duff is exactly the first sentences from Bianca's final article, which is also her closing monologue.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves starts and ends in a wintry prison, where the imprisoned characters try and plead their cases to a council that decides their pardons. Both times, they try to bust the aarakocra councilor out the window in hopes that his flight instincts will take them to safety. It works for Edgin and Holga at the beginning, but Forge's attempt fails because they bricked up the window.
• Eight Legged Freaks: Starts and ends with Harland's radio broadcast.
• Electra Glide in Blue: The story proper begins and ends with a man being fatally shot in the chest.
• Enchanted: A subtle one was that the first song sung in the film contained the lyrics "I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss." The last song sung by Carrie Underwood in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue contained the lyrics "I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss."
• Exam officially begins (post-credits) with a close up on feet. It ends with a close up on hands.
• The opening and closing credits of Eyes of Laura Mars play over a freeze-frame of Laura's face that turns into a negative.
• Fair Play starts and ends with Emily getting blood on Luke: in the first scene they have period sex and her blood gets everywhere, while in the last scene she stabs him in the arm with a knife.
• Fatal Attraction begins and ends with Dan going to Alex's apartment and tumbling over each other in the kitchen, but the context is different. The first time, he's having wild Wall Bang Her sex with Alex. The last time, the two are wrestling as she's trying to stab him with a kitchen knife.
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Starts and ends with Ferris in bed.
• Final Destination 5: Flight 180. Yes, the same flight 180. "Boy, it's a good thing we survived that whole bridge collapse and aftermath, now we can enjoy our flight to Paris. Hey, why are those students getting kicked off the plane...?" Ironically, given that the franchise appears to have stagnated after this movie, this means the series begins and ends on the same catastrophic plane disaster.
• Fingernails: The trailer opens on Anna singing a few lines from Yazoo's "Only You". The song then scores the rest of the trailer, which ends on the same scene of Anna singing the song.
• The bracelet of Neil Armstrong's daughter shows up twice in First Man. First is when Neil hides it away in his desk drawer shortly after Karen dies at the beginning and before the Gemini program. The second is at the end of the film when Neil takes it with him and throws it into a crater on the moon.
• The First Wives Club: Begins with the 3 women attending their friend's funeral and their all wearing black. It ends with them celebrating the opening with opening of a Crisis Center for Women dedicated to their friend and their now wearing white.
• Das Finstere Tal begins and ends with shots of Greider riding in and out of town, set to the song "Sinnerman."
• Forrest Gump: Starts and ends with a shot of a floating feather and Forrest waiting for a bus.
• The Fugitive begins with a shell-shocked Richard Kimble being put into the back of a police car to be taken to the station for questioning about his wife's murder. It ends much the same way, albeit on a far more triumphant note, as now Kimble has finally caught those responsible for her death and is in fact about to start the process of reclaiming his freedom.
  • On a lesser note, it also starts and finishes with him attending a hospital fundraiser at a hotel. The first time, he's content and thriving in his career. The second time, he's come to confront his treacherous friend Dr. Charles Nichols.
• The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight begins and ends with scenes of mob boss Antonio "Baccala" Vestrummo watching the morning news (which is airing a story about him and/or his business associates) over breakfast, then sending his wife out to start the car. As they both fear Baccala's enemies have booby trapped the car with a bomb, Baccala hides under the breakfast table while his wife winces in fear as she turns the key... only for the engine to start without incident. Baccala heads outside, kisses his wife goodbye, and gets into the car. At the end of the film, the car blows up when he closes the door.
• Galaxy Quest opens and closes with the main theme — Starting with the end of the last episode of the "Galaxy Quest" show and ending with the title theme of the renewed series.
• Gandhi begins and ends with Gandhi's assassination.
• Director Terry Gilliam is an obvious fan of this trope and uses quite regularly:
  • Time Bandits begins with the map of the timeholes being unrolled across the screen, and finishes with it being rolled back up.
  • 12 Monkeys begins and concludes with closeups of the main character when he was a child.
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas begins with Hunter S. Thompson (Raul Duke) driving to Las Vegas and ends with him driving from the city.
• Get Out (2017) begins and ends with the same ominous chanting music.
• The Ghost Ship: The film begins and ends with Merriam encountering an observant blind beggar on the docks.
• Gladiator starts with Maximus imagining himself walking through the fields of his home, and ends with him walking through similar, perhaps the same, fields in Elysium, reuniting with his murdered family.
• Glengarry Glen Ross: Starts and ends with a shot of a passing train.
• Godzilla (2014) has Godzilla's first appearance in the opening sequence come in the form of his spines rising from the ocean, while the film ends on Godzilla's spines submerging as he goes back beneath the sea.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019):
  • The film begins in 2014 where the Russell family are standing in the ruins of San Francisco and Mark calling the name of his son that he is trying to find amidst the chaos. Close to the end of this film, Mark finds himself in a similar situation, screaming for and trying to find Madison as Godzilla and Ghidorah fight in Boston.
  • During Godzilla and Ghidorah's first battle, Madison is in a helicopter with her mother, flying away from her father who is on the ground. In the last battle, Madison is yet again on a chopper, this time with her father, watching her mother who is on the ground.
  • The ending credits mimic the opening credits of the 2014 film, including white-out of various words that obscure the credits and scientific articles with photographs and headlines about the Kaiju.
• Going the Distance: has in the beginning and towards the end, Dan contemplating that there are no baby pigeons in New York and Garrett playing Pac Man at the bar.
• Good Burger: The film begins with Ed saying his signature line at the cash register in a dream and then saying it again at the register after the events of the movie have run their course.
  Ed: Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger! Can I take your order?
• Gran Torino begins and ends with a funeral.
• Grand Hotel: This 1932 drama opens with a character stating of the title locale: "People come, people go... nothing ever happens." At the film's end, and following numerous dramatic episodes, the same character repeats the line with unknowing irony.
• The Grand Seduction: The film begins and ends with the people of Tickle Head, Newfoundland and Labrador "celebrating" the town's prosperity, followed by puffs of smoke rising from the chimneys.
• The first and last word uttered in Green Room is "shit", albiet in a sentence in the end.
• The Guardian: Begins and ends with narration of the legend of the Guardian.
• Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers: The ending would have applied this to the entire series, had the film bombed and no more sequels been made. The theatrical cut of Zombie's Halloween II (2009) ends with Laurie committed to Smith's Grove, and having the same vision young Michael had at the beginning of the film.
• Hanna: Opens and closes with Hanna shooting her prey with a bow, running it down, saying, "I missed your heart" and finishing the job with a gun. At the start of the movie, it's a moose. At the end of the movie... it's not.
• Hard Eight: The movie opens and closes with scenes at the same diner.
• Harry Potter:
  • The music which plays at the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when Hagrid is waving off Harry, Ron and Hermione at the train station is 'Leaving Hogwarts'. The same music is played in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows Part 2 when Harry, Ron and Hermione are waving off their own children at the train station, as the movie ends. Cue tears/emotional breakdowns for anyone who watched the first movie as a kid and has grown up with the series.
  • In the first book, Harry arrives at the Dursleys when he was just a baby, brought there by Hagrid on Sirius' bike. In the last book, Harry leaves the Dursleys when he was an teenager, being taken away by Hagrid on Sirius' bike. Hagrid even lampshades this.
  "I brought you here 16 years ago, when you were no bigger than a Bowtruckle. Seems only right that I should be the one that takes you away."
  • Also, near the end of the first movie, Harry hugs Hagrid. Near the end of the last movie, they embrace again.
  • Dumbledore says the the first line of the series, while Harry's son - who is named after Dumbledore - says the last line of the series.
• Heathers: Begins and ends with the song "Que Sera, Sera".
• Hellboy (2004):
  • Compare the opening monologue:
    Dr. Trevor Bruttenholm: What is it that makes a man a man? Is it his origins, the way things start? Or is it something else, something harder to describe?
  • To the ending monologue:
    Agent John Myers: What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.
• The first Hellraiser ends right where it started, with the Arabian man selling the retrieved Lament Configuration to another unwitting explorer of the boundary between pleasure and pain, just as he did with Frank:
  Salesman: What's your pleasure, Sir?
• her begins and ends with Theodore Twombly writing a heartfelt letter and sending it. At the beginning, he's writing a letter as somebody else as a part of his job. At the end, he's writing a letter of apology as himself for his ex-wife.
• The Hindenburg (1975) starts and ends with a shot of the eponymous airship flying across the sky and disappearing into the clouds, accompanied by narration.
• The Hitcher: The original Hitcher begins and ends with C. Thomas Howell's character lighting a match, although photographed in very different ways.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) starts with the dolphins leaving Earth and singing "So Long and Thanks For All The Fish." The movie ends with the dolphins returning to the new Earth and the credits playing a new version of "So Long and Thanks For All The Fish."
• In the Disney Channel Original Movie Hounded, this happens to the Van Dusens' show dog, Camille, when she is "dognapped" from their estate. It started with her going into the estate's pool house while Jay snuck in there to find his stolen presentation, then subsequently followed him home, and it ended with her being found in the pool house when the Martin brothers sneak her back in there and frame Ronny for her disappearance.
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 opens with Katniss waking up in a District 13 hospital after her rescue from the Arena. The movie ends on Katniss waking up in the same hospital after Peeta almost strangles and beats her to death.
• Identity: Opens with a recording of Dr. Malick's session with Ed Dakota, where Ed tells the doctor the "man going up the stairs" poem. At the very end, Timmy, Malcolm Rivers' only remaining personality, forces Malcolm to murder Dr. Malick, and whispers the poem just before the screen fades to black.
• The Impossible: Flying in and then out of Thailand.
• In Broad Daylight begins with Len Rowan burning down someone's house. The film ends with someone burning down Rowan's house following his death at the hands of the townspeople.
• Indiana Jones:
  • The first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, has Indy and Those Wacky Nazis on a quest for the Ark of the Covenant. The last film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, has them on a quest to complete the Antikythera.
  • Additionally, the first film has Sallah sing "A British Tar" as Indy and Marion board the ship containing the Ark. Sallah sings it again at the end of the last film just before he, Helena, and the kids go out for some ice cream.
  • Also, in the first film, while they're on the ship containing the Ark, Marion asks Indy "Does it hurt?" She asks it to him again at the end of the last film.
  • The first shot we see of Dr. Jones in the first film is of his hat (albeit from behind in silhouette). The last shot in the last film is also of his hat (albeit his hand grabbing it from offscreen to end the film).
  • The final film itself begins (after a lengthy prologue) with Indy in his New York City apartment. The last scene of the film begins the same way (only this time, it's after Helena knocks him unconscious).
    • Also, a chase sequence in the rain takes place in the prologue, and another one in the climax, just before the Antikythera takes everyone involved in the chase sequence to ancient Syracuse (and not, as Voller thought he had planned, pre-Second World War Munich).
    • Additionally, a Nazi, surname Weber, is shot in the chest by Basil Shaw. Another Nazi, surname Voller, is brought down the same way by Basil's daughter, Helena.
• Into the Woods begins and ends with a shot of the sky, as well as the narration starting the story over.
• The Iron Claw: The film begins and ends with a man, his two sons, and his pregnant wife. In the film's beginning, it's Fritz firmly laying out his wrestling ambitions to his wife Doris, who is stressed about their finances and the future, as Kevin and David look on silently. In the end, it's Kevin — who has decided to take a step back from wrestling and become a better father and husband — happily playing with his sons and wife.
• At the start of It Happened Here the SS are shown massacring civilians found in a restricted area. At the end of the movie La Résistance gun down unarmed prisoners from the British Legion of SS.
• Jason's Lyric: Begins and ends with Jason riding a bus and wears an orange shirt, only with the difference; in the beginning he rides alone, in the end he rides with Lyric by his side.
• The Jerk: Ends with the hero singing and dancing on their porch just like at the start.
• Juno: Begins and ends with a shot of a chair, with the narration explicitly pointing it out.
• Jurassic Park: In the first film, the primary conflict with the dinosaurs is caused when Dodgson pays Nedry to steal the embryos for him. Dodgson is absent for the next four films, but returns in Jurassic World Dominion as the main antagonist.
• Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie: Gavan first appears to the Gokaigers beaming down from his spaceship, landing on top of a flight of stairs. At the ending, for old time's sake, Gavan, with Battle Kenya and Denzi Blue, poses on top of those same stairs before saying goodbye.
• Kid Detective (2020): the story opens with Abe rolling out of bed and his parents coming over to see how he is doing. The movie ends with them doing the same thing.
• In The Kid Who Would Be King, the pose Alex and his knights are in near the end of the film after slaying Morgana closely resembles the one Arthur and his Knights were in during the prologue when they defeated Morgana.
• A Killer's Blues starts and ends with the protagonist, a Hitman with a Heart, killing his would-be-victim... in front of said victim's toddler daughter. In the beginning of the film, he ends up adopting the child as a foster daughter, and the ending, which is set 14 years later, is pretty much a Here We Go Again!
• Killshot: The opening and closing lines are both Mickey Rourke's character reciting/narrating the set of rules that he lives by as a contract killer, albeit in truncated form the second time around:
  You gotta know what you're doing when you go in. You gotta have it figured out. Those are the rules. How you get in, how you get out. How many shots you're gonna need. Make sure you know where everybody is. Make sure nobody sees you. Don't hang around. Don't get interested. And you don't make mistakes.
• The King and the Clown: Begins with Jaeng-sang and Gong-gil on a tight-rope doing their usual routine and ends with their final performance.
• Near the beginning of Kingsman: The Secret Service, Harry Hart beats up some of Eggsy's mother's boyfriend's Mooks in a pub. At the very end, the scene is repeated, with Eggsy emulating Hart's every action. The look on the Mook's faces when they hear "manners maketh man" again tells you exactly what happens after the credits roll. The film also opens and ends with a zoom out shot of a radio.
• Kingsman: The Golden Circle: In the previous film, Eggsy, wearing casual clothes, has his Kingsman journey begin when he is led to a mirror by Harry. There, he told Eggsy that what he saw in the mirror was a man who could become better, and do something with his life. The ending of this movie has the same thing happen, only Eggsy is wearing a suit for his wedding, and Harry is talking about the good Eggsy has achieved due to his time in the Kingsmen.
• Kisapmata begins with a shot of the house's exterior at night and ends on the very same exterior shot at night.
• In Knives Out, the movie begins and ends with a shot of Harlan's "My House, My Rules, My Coffee" coffee mug. At the end, Marta is the one holding the mug with only the words "My House" exposed.
• De Laatste Zomer (The Last Summer): The film starts with the main character at home during the start of summer vacation. After a fair bit of drama and adventure the film finishes with him sitting at home again and with his family returning from their vacation.
• Labyrinth: Begins with a barn owl flying into a park in time to observe the arrival of the heroine, and ends with it flying away after observing her and her newfound friends celebrating her triumph at her house. In the interim, this creature has been revealed as the villain's shapeshifted form.
• The Last Picture Show: Opens on a shot of the Royal Theater and pans left along Anarene’s main street. The closing shot of the film is the exact reverse — the camera pans right and pauses on the closed and shuttered movie house before fading to black.
• Lawrence of Arabia: Begins with Lawrence's death in a reckless motorcycle accident. The rest of the film, which is told in flashback, ends with Lawrence being driven along a road in a jeep, while a man on a motorcycle speeds by and recklessly passes him.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Near the beginning of the movie, Allan Quatermain shoots a villain at a long distance with a rifle, wounding him. During the film he teaches Tom Sawyer long-distance shooting. Near the end, Sawyer shoots the Big Bad with a rifle at long range, killing him.
• The Legend of Bagger Vance: The film starts and ends with the elderly Hardy Greaves in the present playing a game of golf as he remembers the golf tournament when he was a boy.
• The Legend of Frenchie King: It begins with a train robbery and the culprits riding across the prairie, and ends with their leader and her rival-turned-friend saving the rest of the gang by assaulting a train in the same fashion and the entire gang riding across the prairie again.
• Letter from an Unknown Woman: The film begins and ends with the male lead being escorted to/from his apartment in a carriage.
• Life Partners: The film starts on Sasha and Paige playing out a mock 'road rage' scene. Near the end, they have another one.
• The Lives of Others: Features a play written by Dreymann, one of the film's protagonists, at the very the beginning and towards the end. The first time, it takes place in Soviet-controlled Berlin and Dreymann's girlfriend has a lead female role. The second time it's shown, Communism has fallen, Christa-Maria has been Driven to Suicide and the play has gone a drastic change in tone and costume.
• The Lord of the Rings: Samwise Gamgee is the first member of the Fellowship to appear onscreen in the extended cut of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and the last member to appear in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
• Lord of War starts and ends with Yuri providing exposition standing in a war-torn and apparently abandoned village, the ground almost completely covered in bullet casings.
• Lost Highway begins and ends with a shot of the road while David Bowie's "I'm Deranged" plays.
• In The Lost Weekend opens with a shot of the Manhattan skyline and then pans over to the hero's apartment window. The last scene is an exact reversal of that sequence.
• Love Actually: Begins and ends with the arrival's gate at Heathrow airport, with shots of families and friends reuniting.
• Love Story: The opening and closing shot are the same, with the male protagonist at Central Park during winter.
• The Lovely Bones: Has Susie's narration of "My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name, Susie. I was fourteen years old when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973." said near the beginning and at the end of the movie.
• Madhouse (2004) The scene where Clark is seen walking to the Asylum in the beginning is almost identical to the last scene.
• In The Magnificent Seven (2016), Bogue's first and last scenes are in the Rose Creek's church. In fact, he is killed at almost the same spot where he first made his Blasphemous Boast in the beginning.
• The Maiden Heist: Begins with Christopher Walken staring in wonder at a beloved painting. It ends with a guard at the Danish museum looking at the fake painting and getting the same reaction.
• Mandalay: The film begins and finishes with a shot of Tanya's face where her beauty and state of happiness are highlighted. In the beginning, it's because she's idealistic and in love. In the ending, though more of an expression of tender hope, it's because she has just fought her way out of a hellish life.
• Marmaduke: The AV Club review of this movie notes that it bookends itself with a fart joke. Which pretty much sums it up.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • The Incredible Hulk (2008): We see green beverages at the beginning and end - the guarana sodas and that stuff General Ross keeps knocking back—which are, in fact, a real-life drink named "The Incredible Hulk."
  • Iron Man 3:
    • The Incredible Hulk ends with a cameo from Tony Stark. Iron Man 3'' ends with a cameo from Bruce Banner.
    • The movie begins and ends with narration from Tony.
    • The first and third movies end with Tony saying, "I am Iron Man."
    • The film begins with fireworks in 1999 and ends with "fireworks" in 2013.
    • In the first movie, Pepper has Tony's first chest-mounted arc reactor mounted in a glass case with a brass plate reading "Proof that Tony Stark Has a Heart". At the end of the third movie, after having the arc reactor housing surgically removed from his chest, Tony gives Pepper a heart shaped pendant made from the last fragment of shrapnel that was embedded in his heart. Proof that Pepper Potts has Tony Stark's heart.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier:
    • Cap jumps into the sea at the film's start as part of a rescue operation, a confident man with a plan. In the final fight, he falls into the Potomac from a destroyed Helicarrier, battered and nearly dead. S.H.I.E.L.D. is destroyed, and everything he fought for is put into question. However, it is a familiar friend who saves him in this time of need — Bucky.
    • Steve repeatedly tells Sam "On your left," while running laps past him. At the end, Steve says the same thing while lying in a bed to the left of Sam. Also, the Marvin Gaye song "Trouble Man", which Sam recommended, is playing over the ending montage.
    • Steve's first and last (not counting the part after where he doesn't fight back) fights in the movie end with him putting his opponent in a sleeper hold.
    • Also, in Steve's first major confrontation, against Batroc, he intentionally drops his shield and then takes off his mask. In his last major confrontation, against Bucky, he takes off his mask and then drops his shield. In both situations, he is doing so in order to prove that he is more than just the shield.
    • Natasha starts and ends the movie trying to find Steve a date.
    • Not counting credits scenes, the film opens at sunrise and ends with the Sun falling.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron
    • In Clint and Pietro's first encounter at the Sokovian HYDRA fort, Clint is injured by gunfire after Pietro distracts him, quipping "What's that, you didn't see me coming?". In their last encounter, Pietro sacrifices himself to save Clint from gunfire and says the same thing to him again..
    • The movie begins with the original Avengers already knee-deep in action and working as a team. At the end, most of the team has either left or is missing, leaving Steve and Natasha to assemble a new unit that's yet to work together before.
    • The movie's first and last setpieces are in Sokovia. However, the team is fighting against an existing enemy (HYDRA) at the start, and a new one (Ultron) at the end.
    • Pietro and Wanda start the movie with only each other in this world. At its conclusion, Wanda has lost her only surviving kin, but gained a new 'family' as part of the Avengers.
    • Falcon shows up at the start of the movie and is bummed about not being an Avenger. In the final scene, he shows up as part of the new Avengers line-up.
    • Ultron first appears to the Avengers in a badly damaged robotic body. Ultron's last body is confronted by The Vision, badly damaged.
  • Ant-Man: After an interlude with Baskin-Robbins and daughter's birthdays, the actual story begins with a convoluted chain of "I know someone who knows someone" that leads to the theft of the Ant-Man suit. At the end of the film, we have another convoluted chain of "I know someone who knows someone" that leads to the reveal that the Falcon is trying to locate Ant-Man.
  • Captain America: Civil War:
    • The film opens with Bucky being brought out of cryogenic containment to perform a mission as the Winter Soldier. The Stinger has Bucky willingly go into cryogenic containment until the Winter Soldier persona can be removed from his psyche.
    • The Captain America movie trilogy begins with Steve getting in a fight for his principles, picking up a makeshift shield, and saying "I could do this all day," when he gets beaten down before being saved by Bucky. It ends with Steve fighting Stark for his principles, telling him "I can do this all day" when he can barely stand, getting saved by Bucky, and at the end abandoning his shield.
    • The Captain America trilogy begins with Steve being discovered in ice, being a man trying to deal with the future. It concludes with Bucky going into cryogenic status to redeem himself from his Dark and Troubled Past.
    • Here's a rather strange one: The Incredible Hulk establishes that the title character's accident was intended to recreate Captain America, thus Foreshadowing The First Avenger. In this movie, Thunderbolt Ross from The Incredible Hulk appears, thus linking the latter movie to the rest of the MCU.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Peter and Yondu's relationship ends as it began: With Yondu whisking Peter away to safety after he watches a parent die. Peter is also picked up by Kraglin and the others just after Yondu, whom Peter has just realised was his true father figure, sacrifices his life to save him.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming: The film begins and ends with Peter failing a spot check and blundering his identity away to one of his loved ones in his bedroom.
  • Thor: Ragnarok:
    • The movie begins and reaches its climax with Surtur.
    • "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin plays during the fight scenes from the same beginning and climax scenes. The scenes themselves would quality, as they both involve Thor kicking all kinds of ass.
  • Black Panther (2018): The film begins and ends with kids playing basketball outside a California apartment, until one notices a Wakandan airship. In the beginning, it's the scene where Killmonger's father is killed, while the ship remains cloaked the entire time, only spotted by its emissions. In the end, T'Challa tells Shuri that he bought the apartment building where said murder happened as well as the neighboring ones, and plans to turn the area into an outreach center. Reinforcing this, the ship is completely decloaked to let the kids check it out, while T'Challa answers questions about it.
  • Avengers: Infinity War:
    • The film begins and ends with a distress signal, with an Asgardian demanding help while his crew are being attacked by Thanos in the beginning, and The Stinger involving Nick Fury successfully paging an old, powerful friend, just as he disintegrated into dust, due to Thanos' Badass Fingersnap.
    • In terms of Thanos's quest for the Infinity Stones, it begins and ends with the Mind Stone. In the first Avengers film, he has possession of the Mind Stone as part of the Chitauri scepter, only for Loki's defeat in New York City to cause him to lose it. When Thanos finally goes and collects each of the Infinity Stones personally, the Mind Stone is the last one he collects.
    • As Loki dies in the beginning of the film, he utters that Thanos will never be a god. In the next to last scene, Steve Rogers breathes out "Oh, God," signifying that Thanos has become one.
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: The film begins and ends with a superhero trapped in the Quantum Realm, with Janet van Dyne for the first instance, and horrifyingly, Scott Lang, due to the aforementioned fingersnap wiping out the people who were supposed to get him out.
  • Captain Marvel: Carol's first and last fight with Yon-Rogg ends with her blasting him away with her powers. The first time, it's because he bested her in hand-to-hand combat, and she reflexively escalated to photon-blasting him even after being chided that she'd be reprimanded with a lecture from the Supreme Intelligence over it. The last time is when she is unleashed from the Kree, and utterly apathetic to proving herself to Yon-Rogg anymore, essentially casually swatting him aside as inconsequential.
  • Avengers: Endgame:
    • The original six Avengers from The Avengers all survived the events of Infinity War, and reassemble (and team up with the other surviving heroes) to put an end to Thanos's conquest for universal "balance" that started with the Chitauri attack on New York City.
    • Character design-wise, Captain America and Iron Man, the MCU's two biggest players, whose stories are wrapped up in this movie, wear outfits that look almost exactly like their classic comic book designs instead of the MCU's signature "modernized" look. Tony doubles up by having a similar black tank top to the one he had in the original Iron Man.
    • Tony Stark's iconic "If we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it" line goes full circle considering they indeed couldn't protect the Earth, but are now seeking Thanos to avenge the fallen.
    • Iron Man is back in the same kind of dilemma he was in at the beginning of his first movie: trapped in a prison on borrowed time, with his only hope for survival depending entirely upon someone else helping him out, surviving only off of materials that he has within his prison. As an added bonus, he's even wearing the same kind of shirt that he did when he was in that cave in Afghanistan.
    • Cap is wearing the same S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform that he wore in Captain America: The Winter Soldier — the first film in the Russo Brothers' MCU run. Endgame happens to be the last in the Russos' MCU run.
    • Tony's last words, and the ones that finally mark the end of the battle, are the same words that ended the first movie: "I am Iron Man".
    • Spanning back to Infinity War, the earlier film ends with Thanos watching the sunrise, as he smiles in pride having accomplished his goal. This film ends with Thanos watching the sunrise, as he bows his head in shame and acceptance having failed, and about to turn into dust due to Tony's Heroic Sacrifice.
    • Moments before his death, present-day Thanos defiantly proclaims "I am inevitable" to the Avengers. In the final battle, before he realizes that Iron Man has the Infinity Stones, Past Thanos arrogantly proclaims "I am inevitable".
    • The song that closes out the film, "It's Been a Long, Long Time", was previously used in Joe and Anthony Russo's first Marvel movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
    • After the credits, the sound of Tony hammering together his very first suit from all the way back in the opening act of Iron Man plays.
    • Tony begins the film recording a potential Apocalyptic Log / Video Will for Pepper in case of his death. His final scene has the cast viewing another one he made five years later for her and Morgan at his actual funeral.
    • While Thanos has gained and lost a multitude of archnemeses in his 46-years-and-counting comic book history, he was first introduced in the pages of Iron Man Vol. 1 #55. Therefore, it is only fitting that Iron Man himself would see him out. Bonus points for having his creator, Jim Starlin, make an appearance for this event.
    • Captain America: The First Avenger — Steve Rogers' MCU debut — had him begin his career as Captain America and fight the Red Skull, who was wielding an Infinity Stone (the Tesseract/Space Stone), and then get frozen into the 21st century. Endgame — which is meant to close out Rogers's Character Arc — ends with him traveling back in time and returning the Infinity Stones to their proper eras, including Vormir in 2014 — which was where the Red Skull ended up after The First Avenger.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home: This film, as well as the first film in the entire Infinity Saga, ended with a hero's secret identity being revealed to the entire world. In Iron Man, Tony did it willingly in front of a press conference, with the last shot being him smiling with what he said. Here, Peter's secret is forcibly leaked online by Mysterio and the Daily Bugle's machinations, and he can only react with a Curse Cut Short.
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    • Near the start to the film, Shaun and Katy are telling their friends about how they first met over drinks. In the last scene before the credits, they tell them about their exploits in the Final Battle.
    • Immediately after parting ways with their friends at the start of the movie, Shaun and Katy briefly consider doing the responsible thing and getting some sleep before their next day at work before instead doing karaoke all night. In The Stinger, after Wong tells them about what the future has in store for them, he recommends that they get some rest... but they end up doing karaoke again.
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: This serves to bookend Phase 4, which began following Avengers: Endgame, which saw Tony Stark / Iron Man making the Heroic Sacrifice, and the the following film kick off the Central Theme of grief and Passing the Torch. Wakanda Forever ends with Riri Williams becoming Iron Man's In-Universe Spiritual Successor as Ironheart.
• Mary Poppins Returns begins and ends with Jack singing "(Underneath the) Lovely London Sky".
• The Mask of Zorro: Begins and ends with a man recounting his adventures to his baby, seeing his wife, and saying that he never did anything that foolish again.
• The Matrix: The movie begins with Trinity in the Heart of the City hotel. One of the last scenes is Neo's fight with Agent Smith, which occurs in the same hotel.
  • The Matrix Reloaded: In the beginning, one of the Agents described Neo as the anomaly. In the end, the Architect explained to Neo why he is the anomaly.
• Max Keeble's Big Move begins with him dreaming about being chased on his bicycle by the ice cream man. In the end, he's being chased by the ice cream man for real. Also overlaps with Here We Go Again!.
• Maze Runner: The Death Cure:
  • Lampshaded by Newt, as the group plan to get into the Last City.
    Newt: Three years we’ve spent behind walls trying to break out, and now we're trying to break back in.
  • The first movie's opening scene (before the titles) had an Orbital Shot of the Maze, while zooming out from Thomas, where he is seen from the back. This is meant to convey his uncertainty of being in a far, unknown place. The last shot of this movie is yet another Orbital Shot, only with the camera zooming into Thomas's face instead, as he contemplates his brighter future in a place where all the Immune can be safe.
• Memories of Murder: Starts and ends at the corn field where one of the bodies was found.
• The Men Who Stare at Goats: Begins with a flashback of General Hopgood attempting to run through a wall... and failing. At the end, it features Bob attempting to do the same thing... and succeeding.
• Metropolitan: The plot is set in motion when the protagonist shares a cab with the other main characters, after they refuse to steal it from him. Late in the movie, he hails a cab, in the process stealing it from another person he barely notices.
• The first entry in The Mighty Ducks trilogy begins and ends its hockey-related plots with the Minnesota State Pee-Wee Championship tied at the end of regulation with a kid with a Disappeared Dad awarded a penalty shot after being taken down illegally from behind on a breakaway. The kid gets one last pep talk from the coach who had become his surrogate father, before going out and taking the penalty shot using the triple deke, sending the puck straight for the nearside post. The difference is that Bombay's shot in 1973 bounces out and he falls to his knees in devastation, while Charlie's shot in 1993 glances in for the winning goal to jubilation. The only thing that remains the same afterwards is that both times the Hawks lose.
• Milk begins and ends with a shot of Harvey Milk sitting at his table with a tape recorder.
• Mission: Impossible (1996): At the beginning, Jim Phelps receives his "This Page Will Self-Destruct" mission orders from a flight attendant on an airplane, who enquires whether he would like to watch an Eastern European film: a reference to the location of his next mission. The movie ends with Ethan Hunt on a plane, being asked if he would like to watch a film: "Would you consider the cinema of the Caribbean? Aruba, perhaps?"
• The Monster Maker begins and ends with Anthony Lawrence giving a piano recital in a concert hall.
• Frank Stokes briefs President Roosevelt on the need for The Monuments Men, and President Truman on what they achieved.
• The Mouse That Roared: Actually begins with the Columbia Pictures Torch Lady being scared off by a mouse on her pedestal and dropping her torch, and ends with the same scene shown in reverse.
• La Moustache: Begins and ends with Marc shaving off his moustache. The second time he doesn't cause any problems.
• Mr. Jones (2019): In Gareth's first scene, he gives hot revelations about the Nazi regime to a group of British politicians, who don't believe him. At the end of the movie, Gareth publishes hot revelations about the Soviet regime in the British press, and the British population don't believe him.
• Mutiny on the Buses begins and ends with Stan proposing to a clippie while making out with her on the top deck of his bus.
• Mystery Team: Begins and ends with the eponymous trio getting a new case.
• A rare one that doesn't span the entire movie occurs in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. After it switches from cartoon to live-action and the opening credits song fades out, we hear Clark and Ellen singing the last two lines of "O Come All Ye Faithful" while in their car. As the scenario ends with their car driving away, not only do we hear an instrumental version of the same song, it's only the last two lines.
• Next of Kin (1982): The shot near the end of a bloodied and distraught Linda leaning against her ute ^note pickup truck to non-Aussies also opens the film.
• No Such Thing: In the first half of the film, Beatrice regains her ability to walk in a painful operation that requires her to be restrained in a rotating surgical cradle. At the end Dr. Artaud reveals the machine that is designed to euthanize the un-killable Monster. Its construction deliberately mirrors the movement and shape of the surgical cradle.
• Nope:
  • A balloon kicks off Gordy the chimp's rampage in the beginning of the film, and another, much larger balloon is used to kill Jean Jacket at the end.
  • The Haywood's conflict with the UFO starts when it spits up a coin that lands in their father's eyeball and kills him. Their relationship with it ends when Emerald uses some fallen coins to activate the hand-cranked well camera in Jupiter's Claim to take a photo of the UFO right before it's killed.
• Notting Hill: This film begins and ends with the song "She". There is also a walk through the seasons scene which starts with a pregnant woman and ends with the same woman holding a young child.
• The Novices: The movie opens on a religious ceremony attended by Agnes and led by a young, handsome priest who seems rather distracted by her. The movie ends with an identical ceremony led by the same priest, who's now distracted not only by Agnes, but also her friend and hooker-turned-nun Mona Lisa.
• Most of the films in the long-running Danish Olsen-banden series opens with criminal mastermind Egon Olsen being released from prison, and ends with him returning to prison.
• The Other Boleyn Girl: Starts and ends with 3 children playing in a meadow. In the opening scene it's the three Boleyn siblings, in the ending it's Mary Boleyn's two children and her niece, Elizabeth.
• Outlander (2008): Averted Trope, where even though the final version of the film ends with a Viking Funeral, a deleted alternate opening was actually originally going to begin with one too.
• The Ox-Bow Incident: Begins with two men riding into the town and ends with them leaving the same way.
• Pacific Rim: The beginning and the ending of the film involve Raleigh being Not Quite Dead despite everyone else thinking otherwise.
  • The end of the Jaeger era began with Gipsy Danger being brought down by Knifehead, proving that Jaegers weren't invincible. The end of the Precursors began with Gipsy Danger self-destructing and destroying the Precursors' labs and Kaiju production facility, proving that they aren't untouchable. The movie starts and ends with one side realizing their finest weapons have failed.
  • Also the first fight in the film has the Jaeger's arm on Raleighs side being ripped off/damaged. Guess what happens in the last fight?
• Parasite (2019): Opens and closes with a shot of socks hanging out to dry that moves down to reveal Ki-woo.
• Pauline at the Beach: Opens and closes with the same shot of the gates leading to the summer house.
• Pearl Harbor begins with Rafe and Danny taking a joyride in a biplane. At the end, Rafe does the same with Danny's son.
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • It ends its original trilogy with Jack Sparrow in a one-man dinghy, having lost the Black Pearl to Barbossa; as an echo of his iconic introduction in the first film. And the trilogy really opens (before the title) and ends (after the credits) with a child singing a song about piracy.
  • Near the start of the first movie, Pintel finds Elizabeth in a closet, and growls a menacing "'Ello Poppet." In the end, as Elizabeth is saying her goodbyes, Pintel waves with a sorrowful "Goodbye Poppet."
  • The first film alone begins and ends with young Elizabeth and Jack Sparrow respectively singing "A Pirate's Life for Me" to the sea.
    • Even more applicable to what Elizabeth's son is singing in the third film's Stinger, as he's about the same age his mom was at the start.
  • The first time we meet piratical Mr. Gibbs, Jack is waking him with a bucket of water. At the close of At World's End, Mr. Gibbs is once again, passed out and Jack wakes him with a cup of... Grog?
  • In the first film, it's mentioned that Jack was marooned on a remote island by Barbossa with only a pistol with a single shot. In the fourth film, Jack does the exact same thing to Angelica.
  • In the first film, Elizabeth's first encounter has her giving Barbossa Will's surname as her own, to which he responds by excitedly repeating it to the whole crew: "Miss TURNER..." When they part company for the final time in At World's End, he respectfully (and a touch affectionately) greets her as "Missus Turner," after she has become Will's wife.
  • Similarly, in the first film the pirates ready a boat to take Elizabeth to Isla de Muerta, saying "your chariot awaits, Highness" as a sarcastic and condescending remark. By the time of the third film, Elizabeth is elected Pirate King, and Gibbs says this line quite earnestly as he presents a boat for her.
  • In the first film's opening scene, Elizabeth finds a piece of the Aztec gold around Will's neck and, shocked, says, "You're a pirate." At the end of the film, her father notes that Elizabeth is in love with a mere blacksmith, but Elizabeth tells him he's wrong, then proudly says, "He's a pirate."
  • The first film begins with a young Elizabeth singing, "A Pirate's Life For me." The film ends with Jack humming it.
• Poison Ivy: Begins and ends with the title character "flying" — on a rope swing over a small ravine at the beginning, and off a third-story balcony at the end.
• The Prestige: Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts...
• Pretty Woman: The Happy Man walks by both near the beginning of the film and at the end, telling us that this is Hollywood, the Land of Dreams, and asking, "what's your dream?" The first time his appearance is ironic, the second time it is meant to be taken at face value.
• Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy starts with Elizabeth introducing her roommates in narration, and it ends with the same song and a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
• Pride & Prejudice (2005) begins and ends with a sunrise.
• Privilege opens with a short clip of Steven saying, "I would just like to say to you all how happy I am to be back in Britain after my American tour." The credits play over an extended version of the clip, in black and white and with the sound removed.
• Pulp Fiction: Begins and ends with Pumpkin (AKA Ringo) and Honey Bunny.
• Quest for Fire begins and ends with the same long-shot pan of the fire.
• The Raid: A pistol runs out of bullets near the beginning and near the end. The consequences are different.
• Raising the Wind starts and ends with Jill running her car into a cab.
• Rambo: The first installment of this franchise, First Blood, opens with Rambo walking along a lonely road to visit a friend. Rambo IV ends with him walking a road which will lead him home.
  • As Rambo IV became a Series Fauxnale, the advertised final movie, Rambo: Last Blood, ends with a Rambo Riding into the Sunset on horseback. To contrast the first movie, Rambo is bleeding out from a gunshot wound and is riding away from his late father's horse ranch, aka his home, in contrast to his younger, cleaner self travelling to see his friend on foot.
• Ready to Rumble begins with Sean Dawkins talking to some children at the Lusk Stop 'N Shop about Jimmy King, before he and Gordie Boggs get verbally abused by the Jerkass shopkeeper. At the end of the film, Sean is back at the shop talking to the same kids, and the shopkeeper gets thrown through a glass door by Gordie, King, and Goldberg.
• The Red Violin: A musical version. The first music of the film is a woman humming a few notes — "Anna's Theme." The woman's voice changes, gradually, to the tone of the violin playing that same melody. That melody becomes the basic theme for the violin's long journey through the years. Then, the End Titles music is the violin returning to that simple melody, for it to shift back gradually into Anna's voice.
• Richie Rich: Has the titular character wanting to play baseball for a group of kids but is pulled away before he could in the beginning of the movie. The end of the film has Richie playing baseball with that same group of kids.
• In Road to Morocco. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope's characters start out and end up on rafts in the ocean. (For a certain definition of "ocean" in the second case..)
• King Richard is shot in the neck during the battle at the beginning of Robin Hood (2010), and Godfrey ends up shot in the neck by Robin during the final battle.
• The film The Rookie (1990) (the one with Charlie Sheen and Clint Eastwood) begins and ends with a cop being called in by his boss to partner with a rookie. Much of the dialogue and action are the same.
• A Room in Town begins and ends with strikers demonstrating against the police, which turns violent.
• The 1985 film of A Room with a View ends with Lucy and George returning to the same pensione in Florence where the story began, where they encounter a stranger who is upset about not having a room with a view. George echoes his father's line from the beginning of the story: "We have a view..."
• The Rose begins and ends in the garage of the title character's childhood home.
• Rurouni Kenshin film series:
  • The second-last, slow-motion scene of Rurouni Kenshin consists of a worn-out Kenshin carrying an unconscious Kaoru in his arms, as he walks away from a dark forest to the right of the screen. For Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends, a similar camera shot is used for Kenshin and Kaoru. Only this time, Kaoru is walking away with a wounded Kenshin, arm-in-arm, to the left of a sunny beach.
  • The ending for both aforementioned movies mirror each other. Kenshin and Kaoru are the last ones to speak at the Kamiya dojo, but while Kenshin's last line in the first instance was declaring that he was truly at home; here, he asks Kaoru to watch over the new era with him.
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno begins and ends with a confrontation between a hero and Shishio in a location belonging to the latter. The hero shouts out Shishio's name, and fails to stop the villain in the process. To hammer home the similarities, the first instance takes place in a flaming lair, while the last scene is set on the Rengoku, where a torrential downpour occurs.
  • If one has watched the Rurouni Kenshin film series in chronological order. Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning and Rurouni Kenshin: The Final concludes with Kenshin walking away from a single grave. In the first case, the grave is metaphorical, being the sword that took many lives during the Bakumatsu. And Kenshin can only stumble away into the snowy forest. In the second case, the grave is literal, being Tomoe's. As for Kenshin, he peacefully leaves with Kaoru, holding hands in a sunny forest.
• Rush (2013) begins and ends with Niki Lauda Flipping the Bird to James Hunt. In the beginning he does it in anger after James calls him a chicken in Formula Three. By the end, they're both Formula One World Champions and finally regard each other as equals worthy of respect. James had just joked that Niki's burns from a horrific accident actually made him look better and Niki grins as he flips him off, so it could almost be considered affectionate.
• Saving Private Ryan opens and ends with a shot of the American flag.
• Saw: The series begins and ends in the same Disgusting Public Toilet. In addition, the first shot of the main character in the series is also the last via the last of the series' trademark flashback montages.
• Scanners: At the beginning is a psychic fight between Darryl and a scanner that results in body horror, and at the end is also a psychic fight between Darryl and a scanner that results in body horror.
• Scream 3: When Sidney is first introduced, she is seen meticulously locking up her cabin after a walk outside, representing the fact that she is now Crazy-Prepared thanks to surviving two films' worth of terror from serial killers. She is also alone, having cut off relationship with people because she is aware of her status as a Doom Magnet. In the ending, she leaves the door open before going to watch a movie with Gale, Dewey, and Detective Kincaid, indicating that she feels safe enough to not only forgo precautions but welcome people to her life back.
• The Searchers: Begins with the camera moving from a darkened interior, through an opening door, to the spectacular vista of the Utah desert. The reverse happens at the end.
• In the 1993 film version of The Secret Garden, Mary mentions at the start that she didn't know how to cry. At the end of the film her closing narration says that her uncle learned to laugh and she learned to cry.
• Played for Drama in The Seduction Of Mimi: The film begins in rural Sicily, with a scene of a man driving up to a group of quarry workers — one of whom is Mimi, the film's main character — to do some political canvassing, or so it might seem to the viewer. However, it soon becomes clear that the canvasser was actually a picciotto threatening the workers that they'll never work in this town again unless they vote for the local Mafia's preferred candidate. Furthermore, the ballots cast in the election are not actually secret, so they're able to follow through on their threat, thus forcing Mimi^note who voted for the opposing candidate, in defiance of the threat to move to Turin in search of work. The film's ending sequence starts with a shot-for-shot recreation of the opening scene, with one key difference: this time, it's Mimi himself who's threatening the workers into voting for the Mafia's candidate.^note This serves to show just how much he's betrayed his earlier (politically left-wing) ideals, due to the Mafia having used "carrot and stick" coercion tactics on him, in order to get him to join them.
• Serenity:
  • Starts and ends with majestic, sweeping shots of the ship, quickly interrupted by a part falling off the ship and Mal asking "What was that?"
  • Before the opening credits, The Operative makes a short speech about The Power of Love. At the end, Mal makes a short speech about the importance of love.
  • In the beginning, Mal is telling Simon that River has to go on a job to earn her stay on the ship. Simon, of course, says that what he does should pay for both of them, and then Mal says that she should learn from his fine example. She winds up being his new pilot since their previous one died.
• Shane: Begins with him riding into the valley on a clear morning and ends with him riding away in the middle of the night.
• Shaun of the Dead: This film is bookended with shots of the title character shambling in a zombie-like fashion after waking up in the morning.
• Shinjuku Incident: Has Jackie Chan's character save detective Kitano from drowning in the sewer near the beginning, and ends with Kitano trying to save Chan from dying in the same way.
• Short Term 12 is a story about a foster care center for troubled teens. It begins and ends with the line staff telling stories about the kids before they are interrupted by Sammy sprinting out of the facility. They then have to chase him down the yard.
• Shot Caller: The film opens with Jacob writing a letter to his son Joshua apologizing for failing him as a father and advising him to get on with his life. At the end, Joshua sends him a letter back, telling his father that he has finally forgiven him.
• Side Effects begins with a helicopter shot zooming in to the window of Emily's apartment, and ends with a helicopter shot zooming out from the window of her new residence.
• Sightseers: "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell plays when Chris and Tina are driving away from Tina's mother's house. "Tainted Love" by Gloria Jones plays over the end credits.
• Sin City begins with an unnamed hitman claiming his victim before the opening credits. He is not seen again until the end of the film when a character who turned traitor encounters him in an elevator. He introduces himself to both of them the same way.
• Sling Blade: Opens and closes with the protagonist in a mental hospital, gazing out of the window.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) begins and ends with a character being sent to another planet, unable to return, and going a bit crazy from the isolation. It's Sonic at the beginning, who is sent to Earth by Longclaw to keep him safe, whereas Robonik is exiled to the Mushroom Planet to get rid of him.
• The Social Network:
  • Begins and ends with a more grounded female character assessing Mark Zuckerberg, specifically whether he is an "asshole".
  • An Ironic Echo version - the movie begins with Mark working with Eduardo on Facemash after being dumped by Erica. The movie ends with Mark trying to friend Erica on Facebook after seeing how much of a chasm had grown between him and Eduardo.
• Sound of Freedom: The movie begins with the camera zooming in on the window to Rocío's bedroom as she's singing and beating a makeshift drum. It ends with the camera zooming away from that same window while she sings playing on a real drum gifted to her by her father.
• The Sound of Music opens with panoramic views of the mountains, then zooms onto Maria (Julie Andrews) singing ecstatically how "the hills are alive with the sound of music!" before she rushes back to the nearby abbey. The movie ends with Maria and her new family, having escaped the Nazis at the same abbey, hiking through the same mountains towards the safety of the border. As the soundtrack sings "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", the camera pulls back to another panorama of those mountains.
• Spotlight begins and ends with silent young children who have been abused by priests sitting and coloring as they wait for a lawyer - twenty-five years apart.
• Starship Troopers: The movie, begins with Rico watching the ad to enlist as soldier, and ends with him starring in an otherwise identical ad.
• Star Trek
  • At the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock gives Kirk a copy of A Tale of Two Cities as a birthday present. Kirk opens it and reads out "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." At the end he recites from memory, "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before. A far better resting place I go to, than I have ever known." Bones is confused, but Kirk just says that he understands Spock's message.
  • Similarly, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier uses the scenes of Kirk, McCoy and Spock at the campfire (singing "Row, row, row your boat...") as bookends to the movie.
  • In Star Trek (2009), a scene near the end of the first act features a special assembly of the Starfleet Academy, then immediately cutting to a scene of the Captain of the Enterprise addressing his crew before the depart. The end of the movie features another special Academy assembly and once again cuts right to the Captain of the Enterprise addressing his crew before they take off.
• Star Wars:
  • The binary sunset in A New Hope also serves as a bookend with a scene near the end of Return of the Jedi, where Luke is watching his father's funeral pyre, down to similiar musical cues.
    • That scene in A New Hope is once again reflected in The Last Jedi some forty years later where Luke's journey ends with him contemplating under a binary sunset.
  • Likewise, the first line of A New Hope and the last line of Revenge of the Sith are both spoken by C-3PO aboard the Tantive IV, the first ship ever seen in the Star Wars universe.
  • In the original trilogy, the first and last lightsabers activated onscreen were both Luke's: Anakin's former lightsaber in A New Hope (the first ever activated in the Star Wars universe), and his own in Return of the Jedi.
  • The Last Jedi begins with Luke Skywalker callously tossing his former lightsaber off a cliff, and ends with him wielding it in battle against Kylo Ren to save the entire Resistance.
  • The family saga chronologically started on Tatooine for the Skywalkers in The Phantom Menace. The last scene of the Skywalker saga in The Rise of Skywalker happens on Tatooine.
  • The first released Star Wars film, A New Hope, also started on Tatooine, with Luke's life-changing adventure starting at his home, the Lars homestead. The last scene of The Rise of Skywalker happens at the abandoned Lars homestead, with Luke's Force spirit watching as Rey takes the name "Skywalker".
  • A fairly subtle one with all three trilogies — they all end with Leia and Luke.
    • The prequel trilogy ends with baby Leia being taken to Alderaan to meet her new family, and baby Luke being taken to Tatooine to meet his new family.
    • The original trilogy ends with young-adult Leia and Luke (having discovered they are twins) celebrating with the others while the Force Ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin look on.
    • The sequel trilogy ends with elderly Leia and Luke, as Force Ghosts, approving Rey adopting the Skywalker name, under the twin suns of Tatooine.
  • The prequel trilogy ends with a Skywalker (Anakin/Darth Vader) and a Palpatine (Sheev/Emperor) coming together to bring ruin to the galaxy and the eradication of the Jedi. The sequel trilogy ends with a Skywalker (Ben Solo) and a Palpatine (Rey) coming together to save the galaxy and begin a new generation of Jedi.
  • Solo: In the beginning, Han and Qi'ra lose each other and also the blue star jewel that he was hoping would fund the start of their new life together. At the ending, Qi'ra abandons Han and he gets back the jewel again, which he uses to win the Millennium Falcon which will start the new chapter in his life.
• State Fair has both versions of the film begin and end with a billboard advertising the titular state fair.
• In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968), the story begins with Dr. Jekyll presenting his theories about good and evil at his operating theatre. The climax has George Devlin confront Mr. Hyde in the exact same theatre.
• Take Shelter: Begins and ends with similar dream sequences.
• At the beginning and end of Tammy and the Bachelor Tammy drops a key down the front of her dress. It falls to the floor during the former instance due to not having sufficiently developed her... assets yet.
• Taxi Driver: Begins and ends with Travis Bickle driving his cab on depressing, nighttime streets.
• At the start of Team America: World Police, Lisa says "Terrorize this!" when gunning down a terrorist during the battle in Paris. In the climax, she repeats the line before kicking Kim Jong-Il off the balcony.
• Temple Grandin: This film begins and ends with Temple looking right into the camera and saying "My name is Temple Grandin!" While in the beginning, she was standing in front of a closed room, at the end it's in front of a wide-open sky.
• The Ten Commandments (1956): Began and ended with "So let it be written. So let it be done".
• They Shall Not Grow Old: The film begins with black-and-white archive footage in a small, square screen, accompanied by the sound of a film reel. When the war starts, the screen grows and colorizes. At the war's conclusion at the end of the film, the screen shrinks back down, fades back into black and white, and the film reel sound returns.
• The film version of A Thousand Clowns begins with Murray hollering at his neighbors, followed by a montage of New Yorkers walking to work. It ends with him attempting to holler at his neighbors, then joining the throng.
• Tintin and the Golden Fleece begins and ends with the mailman delivering a letter to Captain Haddock, waking him up from a nap in a hammock outside of Marlinspike Hall.
• Titicut Follies: The documentary film is bookended by footage of a grim, disturbing talent show at a state hospital for the criminally insane.
• Tomboy: Near the start of this film, Laure introduces herself as a boy named "Michael" and at the end as "Laure".
• Tommy: The movie based on the book opens with a shot of Captain Walker on a cliff, looking at the sunrise. The final shot is Tommy on the same cliff, watching it set.
• Total Recall (1990): The original film begins and ends with Quaid and Melina looking towards the Martian horizon.
• Trainspotting: Renton's "choosing life" speeches. The speech at the beginning is bitter and cynical, with Renton explaining that he chose heroin instead of life. The speech at the end is sincere and hopeful, as he expresses his intention to choose life for real.
• Transformers Film Series:
  • The live-action Transformers films actually does this twice: In the first film, we see two Decepticons named Scorponok and Barricade, who only appear during the first half of this film, and they both disappear about halfway. However, Scorponok eventually returns during the climax of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, and Barricade does the same in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where they are both immediately killed off (albeit Barricade returns in the fifth movie).
  • Each film also begins and ends with Optimus' narration. Had the line not been cut, the ending of the third film would have even reflected the closing line of the first (the Dark of the Moon line survives in the novelization):
  Optimus: [Transformers] I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars. We are here. We are waiting.
  Optimus: [Dark of the Moon] I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message out into the universe. We are here. We are home.
• TRON : Another one that crosses sequels: The first film ends with the city skyline fading from daylight to night, the contrast of neon and darkness making it almost indistinguishible from cyberspace, and carrying the message that humans are not so different from their Program creations. TRON: Legacy ends with the second movie's protagonist shutting off the computers, hopping on his Cool Bike and taking Quorra for her first sunrise, acting as an Ironic Echo: "We are very different."
• The Ultimate Gift: At Red's funeral, a series of statues framed by dark clowds are shown to set the scene in the graveyard. When Emily dies, the same statues are seen from the same angles, with a clear blue sky in the background.
• Undercover Brother: At the beginning of the movie Undercover Brother jumps from the top of a building and deploys a parachute to drift to safety. At the end of the film he jumps from the top of a cliff, but one of the other characters says that he doesn't have his parachute! Not to worry, his bell-bottom pants act as a parachute.
• Underworld U.S.A. begins and ends with Tolly in the same alley.
• V for Vendetta: Begins and ends with a British landmark getting blown up to the tune of the 1812 Overture on November 5th. The fact that everything else is so different between the two events shows just how much can happen in a year.
• Walkabout: Has Bilingual Bonus Bookends. The film opens with the sound of a roulette wheel, and the croupier's call to place bets "Fait vos jeux, mes sieurs, dames." (Make your plays, sirs, madams.) It ends with the printed text "Rien ne va plus" (Nothing goes any more), the croupier's call for no more bets. Perhaps a reference to the way that the protagonists lives were thrown to the whims of fortune by the events at the start of the film, and to the way that this has now reached a conclusion, and perhaps not the happiest one.
• *War Machine
• War of the Worlds (2005) begins with the camera zooming out of the DNA of a microbe in a puddle of water and ends with the camera zooming into a drop of water, into a microbe, and into its DNA.
• Two scenes in the beginning of The Way He Looks are given a callback to at the end. The first being The "Take That!" Kiss this time however displays the Character Development Leo has undergone. The second with a New Transfer Student is more of a Here We Go Again!.
• Wedding Season opens and closes with a dating profile-like spiel about Asha's life and interests over a montage of the truth. At the beginning it's Blatant Lies, but at the end it's an ironic wink as she enjoys her life with Ravi.
• We Were Soldiers: Also averted in this film, where an alternate ending actually shows a lizard emerging out of its hiding spot just right after the Americans leave Vietnam (when the Americans arrived there at the very beginning of the film, the lizard ran away).
• Doubles as a Meaningful Echo in What Dreams May Come. At the beginning and end, Annie and Chris meet at a lake when their boats crash into each other. At the beginning as adults with actual boats, and at the end as children with remote-controlled toy boats. Both times sandwiches are being shared. Chris even says the same line from the beginning of the movie.
  Chris: "When I was young, I met this beautiful girl at a lake."
• When Trumpets Fade: Begins with Manning giving his wounded friend Bobby a piggyback ride. The film ends with Manning being given a piggyback ride by Sanderson.
• White House Down: Opens and closes with President Sawyer requesting that the Marine One helicopter pilot do "the thing", a flyover of Washington D.C. ending with the helicopter skimming over the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
• The restored Final Cut of the original The Wicker Man (1973) begins with a Christian Mass and ends with an pagan bonefire.
• William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet: Begins and ends with a news broadcast on TV.
• In the British Thriller A Window in London, the main action begins when the protagonist (Michael Redgrave) witnesses from a train window what appears to be a man stabbing a woman in a nearby apartment. He rushes to the scene, but it turns out to be a false alarm - an illusionist rehearsing with his assistant-wife. The last scene shows the protagonist travelling to work the next day on the same train, looking out the window at the same apartment, and laughing about the fact that all is normal within... except that this time the illusionist has really shot his wife dead, but her body can't be seen from the passing train because she is slumped on the floor.
• Us opens with a Hands Across America commercial, and ends with the Tethered doing such a human chain.
• Valentine starts with Dorothy Wheeler framing her classmate Jeremy Melton for sexual assault. It ends with Jeremy framing Dorothy for murder.
• Waves: The film begins and ends with a shot of Emily cycling.
• Wayne's World 2 starts and ends with live performances by Aerosmith.
• Wings: Begins with Jack and Mary repairing a car. Mary paints a shooting star on it, and tells Jack that when you see a shooting star, you could kiss the girl you love. Jack then drives away to visit wealthy Sylvia. At the end of the movie, Jack and Mary watch a shooting star in the sky from inside Jack's car. Mary again reminds Jack what a man could do after seeing a shooting star, so he gives her a kiss as the film fades to black.
• Winter Kills: The movie begins and ends with Nick leaving a message for Yvette Malone on her answering machine.
• The Wizard of Oz: It begins and ends in a sepia toned Kansas.
• Wonder Woman (2017): Steve Trevor is first introduced flying a plane into Diana's line of sight before crash landing into the sea. His last action is flying a plane away while Diana looks on, before he blows the plane up to destroy the chemical weapons without harming anyone.
• Working Girl begins and ends with sweeping helicopter shots of New York City. In the first, the heroine is an overworked, unappreciated secretary sporting 80's hair and makeup. In the second, she's a polished executive.
• World's Greatest Dad begins with the words "THE END" mirrored, it ends with the words the right way round.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X2: X-Men United: It closes with Jean Grey (in narration) giving the same speech about evolution that Professor X did in the opening of the first film.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand: Both the first scene of the first movie and the final scene of the third feature Magneto. Or in a more technical way, feature Xavier: the original trilogy begins with his opening narration about mutation, and The Stinger of The Last Stand has Xavier awakening in his comatose twin brother's body.
  • The Wolverine: Yukio tells Logan, "I'm your bodyguard."
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
    • The film opens and closes with narrations from both the old and young Charles Xavier, respectively; the former contemplates the future while the latter reflects on the past.
    • Logan waking up in a daze to Roberta Flack's 1969 cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" in both 1973 and the new Alternate Timeline (playing on an oldies station on Internet satellite radio).
    • The mutant boy who is about to be fried by a Future Sentinel just before the main titles unexpectedly reappears in the Alternate Timeline as one of Professor X's students, safe and sound.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: Because this is the conclusion of a 6-movie saga (or at least Bryan Singer's tenure), the first shot of X1 can be compared to the final shot of Apocalypse. In the former, we hear Professor X's voice, but he's not seen; in the latter, Xavier is staring straight at the camera, but he does not speak (although his Icy Blue Eyes do convey a message—"Do not mess with me or my X-Men"). By starting and ending the hexalogy with the same character, it designates that Charles is the most important one (even if he doesn't necessarily have the most screen time).^note It's deliberate because Professor X is Bryan Singer's favourite X-Men character, and In-Universe, the X-Men wouldn't exist without Xavier.
  • Logan:
    • Funerals/burials are shown at the opening, middle, and endpoints of the film.
    • Logan's first appearance involved giving a ride to a young mutant running away from her home (Rogue). His swan song involves him doing the same for another young mutant (Laura).
    • The movie begins with Logan waking up from sleep. It ends with him going to sleep for good.
    • In a Call-Back to X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Logan's journey to becoming one of the X-Men started with William Stryker shooting the mutant in the head with an Adamantium bullet. What helps Logan end his journey is his clone, X-24, getting shot in the head with an Adamantium bullet.
• A Year and Change: The movie begins and ends on New Years, with Owen ruminating on a saying "They say what you are doing on New Years Eve is what you'll be doing all of the next year." The first time he says it, he's in an emergency room, drunk and hurt. By the end of the movie, he's sober, in a happy relationship with Vera, has found a new family, and has bonded with his son. The last line of the movie is "I really hope that's true."

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Remember that any and every film has both a beginning and an end.

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