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Bolivian Army Ending
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Bolivian Army Ending (trope)
SPOILER ALERT: He was fine.note 

"For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble."
— Butch Cassidy's last words, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

A Bolivian Army Ending is a type of Ending that occurs when the main character or characters are left facing seemingly insurmountable odds, which appears to spell their certain doom. However, the ending leaves out the actual demise of the protagonists, ending just as they face the fire. Thus, while all signs point to their unseen yet inevitable destruction, their actual fate hides behind the horizon evermore (unless there's a sequel, of course.) The trope is named for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — based on both the end of the movie, and the title characters' real-life ending.

This trope is commonly used for emotional impact, involving the audience's minds in a way a 'settled' ending does not. For typical heroic movies or action flicks, it lets the heroes "live on" by not showing their demise. For Horror/Suspense works, these endings create anxiety, giving the viewers a sense that the threat is still active even after the story ends. Leaving the characters’ fates seemingly sealed but stopping just short of a definite ending is a good way to engage the audience’s imagination and/or to turn it against themselves, whether they accept the Foregone Conclusion or cling to a shred of hope that the heroes were able to escape after all.

While some works end on unresolved Cliffhangers, these should not be confused with a Bolivian Army Ending. A cliffhanger is designed to maintain the audience's attention and is meant to be resolved later. An unresolved cliffhanger is an unintentionally suspenseful ending, usually caused by outside production circumstances that prevent a resolution. The Bolivian Army Ending, by contrast, is intentional, and is self-contained: while the outcome may be ambiguous, it is often heavily implied what it will be, and either way the audience is left with no doubt that the story is over. The Trope Namer, for example, ends on a freeze frame of our protagonists a bare second before the Bolivian army fires on them. We know what happens next, and the creators know we know, so there's no point in showing it to us.

A variation, the Bolivian Army Cliffhanger, can be used in TV shows and other serial media to raise the audience's tension over which characters survive to the next season or installment. See Uncertain Doom for scenarios in which a character's fate is left hanging in the middle of a work, season or installment rather than at the end.

Can be considered a variation of a Downer Ending, although it's ambiguous enough to give the audience some hope. When the camera cuts to a different scene unrelated to the battle right before the work ends, this overlaps with Charge-into-Combat Cut. Arguably scarier is an Offscreen Inertia ending. If history or the work the story is adapted from tells us the heroes met an ugly fate, but the work itself purposefully ends on an earlier high or neutral note but not the last moment they’re still alive, see Happily Ever Before.

As this is an Ending Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

Sub-pages

Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • In this Carl's Jr ad for Jurassic World Dominion, a couple are attacked by Atrociraptors while eating burgers, and hide under the tables. The girl begs her boyfriend to do something, to which he responds by scarfing down his burger as if it's what the dinosaurs were there for. The two of them find a raptor staring at them and the girl whimpers that it's not the burger that the raptor came for, just before the raptor lunges towards them and the ad cuts to the burger being advertised.

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Aldnoah.Zero's Grand Finale, the last that is seen of Sir Harklight, Count Barouhcruz and the remainder of the Stygis Squadron is them flying their damaged Kataphrakts in a final assault against the Deucalion.
  • The 1985 Area 88 OVA ends with Shin about to engage against the mercenary planes that have already annihilated the rest of the Area 88 pilots.
  • Subverted in Armitage III. The climax of the last episode has Armitage and Syllibus, already on the run with nowhere left to hide and no place for them in the new society formed from the union between Earth and Mars, deciding to go out in a blaze of glory while taking out as many of the authorities as they can. While the broadcast of their Last Stand ends on an ambiguous note, the denouement reveals that the two of them managed to survive and acquire new identities to live under as they happily ride off into the sunset.
  • The manga ending to Bamboo Blade has Tamaki finally having her first match with fated rival Ura Sakaki. The story ends right in the middle of the match, without revealing who won. It's more hopeful than most examples, because what matters isn't who won the match, but that Tamaki and Sakaki finally have proper rivals to test their skills against.
  • Subverted in Beastars. After arriving to help rescue Haru from the Shishigumi, Louis kills the boss and invites the other lion gangsters to eat him. Some time later, we learn that they made him their new boss instead.
  • In Captain Earth, it is unknown if Daichi and Hana escaped the destruction of the Blume or both died in it.
  • Chimamire Sukeban Chainsaw ends with one of these for the villain. The Big Bad, Ax-Crazy Mad Scientist Nero, has turned herself into the police to escape the hero's vengeance. However, she gets put in the same prison where most of her surviving experiments ended up, and the last we see of her is her cowering in the corner of her cell as they start to beat down the door.
  • Cowboy Bebop ends with Spike, being wounded, staggering down the stairs and reaching his hand out to the remaining Red Dragon members like a gun, says "Bang", and collapses. Whether Spike died or not is unknown to this day.
  • Dangaioh ends with Gil Berg being defeated but not killed, the war still going on, and Team Dangaioh unconscious and adrift in space inside their mecha compartments.
  • Side:Future of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School ends with a wounded Asahina being captured by brainwashed soldiers while Munakata fights off the brainwashed soldiers. Side:Hope reveals that both of them ultimately survived.
  • Devilman Lady: The manga ends with Akira and Ryou remembering their former lives and teaming up to prevent God and his angels from destroying the world. The end result of this conflict is not seen, but it's more optimistic than the Devilman series' usual blatant Downer Endings.
  • Dirty Pair:
    • The 8th episode ends with Kei and Yuri facing down an army (and an air force!). Unlike most versions of this trope, you have no doubt Kei and Yuri will emerge unscathed.
    • The 9th episodeinverts the trope. Kei and Yuri are attacking a small private fleet in space armed with only rocket packs and bazookas, but the implication is clear that it's the bad guys who are about to die.
  • Dirty Pair Flash has an Episode concluding with the pair facing an army of robots with armor support. Cut to their boss seeing a new report about a battle, ending with a visual of Kei and Yuri banged up, only slightly scorched, and standing alone amidst the ruins of the robot force.
  • The anime for Durarara!! leaves Izaya's fate up in the air. A lot. At the end of the second season, he's last seen being stabbed and falling unconscious in the middle of the street. However, we later find out he survived and is recovering in a hospital. At the end of the third season he is knocked unconscious by a possessed Sloan and captured. Then at the beginning of the final season he gets rescued. In the finale, Izaya is beaten and shot by Shizuo and Vorona, though Simon intervenes and the scene changes. His final appearance is in a car with Kine and Manami, having survived thanks to Celty temporarily patching his wound with her shadows. Kine tells him he only has a fifty-fifty percent chance of living and that they are going to see an underground doctor. Izaya replies that it's fine as long as they aren't in Ikebukuro, as he doesn't want Shizuo anywhere near his deathbed.
    • In the light novels, he gets his own series as it is confirmed that he survived, though not unscathed. In Durarara!!SH, no one ever references him as being alive and he is more of a ghost in terms of plot relevance.
  • A series of shorts referred to as Dynamic Super Robot Wars ends with this as Shin Getter Robo and UFO Robo Grendizer facing down Hades when Kouji Kabuto returns with Mazinkaiser...where the shorts end.
  • Elfen Lied (well, sort of): after Lucy is shot by an entire squad of badass soldiers, one of her horns can be seen flying up into the air. Though after sitting through the ending theme, one comes across the real ending, which shows a shadow that looks like Lucy/Nyu, arriving at the inn gate some time after the shoot-out...so chances are it was just a Disney Death. The manga on the other hand quite clearly shows her melting while fending off multiple battleships with her vectors.
  • Gakuen Taikutsu Otoko ends with the main characters surrounded by the students of Chimidoro and as Mondo orders his troops to fight, the manga ends.
  • Getter Robo Āḥ: As the original manga was Cut Short due to the magazine hosting it shutting down and Ken Ishikawa's passing, its 2021 anime decides to use this trope for its ending, having the Getter Arc team leaping at the rising Proto-Getter Emperor (implied to be the Shin Getter Robo evolved) to prevent humanity's destruction.
  • Highschool of the Dead:
    • This is the fate of Saya's parents. They're last seen telling the kids to escape while they defend their property against a massive horde. Not to worry, as her parents are shown to be pretty badass and could probably make it.
    • The anime ends with the protagonists, armed and confident, dramatically walking toward a zombie-infested highway, hoping to eliminate them all and escape on their vehicle.
  • Iczelion ends with the remaining Big Bad sending all his Robeasts after the heroines. A possible subversion, in that the tone of the scene is actually fairly upbeat. Supporting this is the fact that the OAV's trailer features a scene not found in the episodes themselves of what is apparently the heroines beating the ever loving crap out of the entire force.
    • Watch through the credits, and you'll see them doing just that. Of course, since Chaos clearly isn't cutting his losses, the implication is that the fight for Earth is still just getting started ...
  • Isabelle of Paris begins with the loss at the Battle of Sedan during the 1870 Franco-Prussian war and ends with Bloody Week, a year later. By this point, Victor is shot, Jean is shot, Irma commits suicide, Andréa dies attempting (and failing) to kill Thiers, Jules is executed, Geneviève is shot and her baby dies with her, Jeanne dies avenging Geneviève and Gaston is crushed to death. The remaining Parisians are massacred by the French army for being apart of the Paris Commune. Only the titular Isabelle survives, and starts a new life in another country (implied to be London).
  • Kite (1998) ends this way. Sawa waits for Oburi to comeback from the store with snacks for her and food for the cats, but he is shot and killed by a girl he pissed off earlier in the film. The door where Sawa is staying opens. She looks towards the door and the film ends without her fate being unknown. This was eventually answered in the follow-up film, Kite Liberator. Sawa, now older and with dyed hair, is a waitress at a diner and is a single mother. She figures out that the young girl she works with is the assassin vigilante going around killing criminals.
  • This is how Megazone 23 Part II ends for B.D. He flies off with the last of the Humongous Mecha to engage the aliens in seemingly hopeless circumstances after A.D.A.M. begins to destroy the Megazone.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi has had some personal Bolivian Army endings for several chapters. Starting with the end of chapter 311. Mauve shirt Johnny and Kaede took on far more than they could handle in 312. 313 took Kotarou, Asakura, Yue, and Makie out in similar fashion. Makie and Yue's being very much like the trope namer in that the pair talk politely on getting together with friends back home before the next page and they have been defeated.
  • The first arc of the manga adaptation of No Game No Life end during the chess duel deciding of the Imanity Kingdom's ruler, but we don't see rhe rest of the duel in the second arc, not even a sum-up.
  • The anime Noir ends with Action Girl Mirelle and Emotionless Girl Kirika renouncing Noir and the Soldats and literally just walking away. They always survive whatever's thrown at them, but by this point they're badly beat up, sick of fighting, resigning...and then the screen goes blank and two shots are heard. What actually happened is highly debated in the fandom.
  • One Piece:
    • This happens twice to Mr. 2/Bon Clay. First, at the end of the Alabasta arc, he distracts the Marines as a decoy ship, and is left facing a Marine captain and several ships, but he survives, ending up captured and sent to the high-security prison of Impel Down. Later, he faces Warden Magellan, a man made from poison, in hand-to-hand combat in an effort to buy Luffy enough time to reach Ace before Ace's execution. Bon Clay's final words as he faces down certain death are "I have no regrets" with his make-up smeared and a grin on his face, while a whole battleship of pirates weep for his sacrifice. It's revealed he did survive and is the new Queen of the Okama underground. It's implied he survived long enough for Blackbeard and his group to arrive and beat Magellan.
    • The end of the Whole Cake Island arc ended with the Straw Hats allies, the Sun Pirates and the Germa 66, fighting about some of Big Mom's pirates to give the Straw Hats time to escape Big Mom's territory. After getting confirmation they're out of the area, the groups about to retreat themselves... only for Big Mom to show up and ready to do battle. While we're not shown immediately what happened after that, it's revealed later in the Wano arc that the Sun Pirates did survive Big Mom with Jinbe managing to reunite with the Straw Hats in Wano. And as revealed in the "Germa 66's Ahh... An Emotionless Excursion" Cover Story, Germa 66 was not so lucky, having to save Niji and Yonji from Big Mom's Crew. They even took Cesar Clown with them whose fate until then was also unknown.
  • The 8th episode of Pokémon Generations ends with Kyogre about to eat Archie and Shelly's submarine.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica ends with Homura engaging a group of gigantic Grief Demons. Her Witch corruption has begun forming an incomplete barrier, trailing behind her in the shape of wings. She hears Madoka's voice, which is more of a sign that she's reached her end. The apocalyptic landscape suggests this may even be humanity as a whole's Bolivian army ending. Which is about as bittersweet as you can expect from the series.
    • The interpretation that this is the end of humanity is contradicted by Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion. The manga, however, explicitly shows Homura reaching heaven and reuniting with Madoka...Only for the Rebellion manga to show it was a dream.
  • Shaman King's original run ended in a manner similar to this. Hao earned the title of Shaman King, and was about to begin a ritual to earn the power of the Great Spirit. Yoh and co. are still far, far too weak to beat him. Before that, they have to fight seven more Patch Officiants in eleven hours. Everyone goes to sleep on the eve of the final battle, Hao says, "Goodbye"..And..That's where the series ends. Some might have considered this a Downer Ending before the series was Un-Canceled.
  • Shirobako has an in-universe example in the movie. At the end of SIVA, the anime movie the protagonists worked on over the course of the film, Raul and Hedwick manage to help Alte escape the massive ship with the children in a flying horse-drawn carriage, but then decide to fight their way to another escape route. A throng of soldiers closes in on them as the camera zooms out, then it cuts to the massive battleship exploding as Alte's ship escapes.
  • At the end of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Bison comes out of nowhere driving a truck toward Ryu, and Ryu jumps toward the truck with a punch as the credits roll.
  • Transformers

    Asian Animation 
  • Simple Samosa: In "Comic Book", what happens to Dhokla, Jalebi, and Vada after they scream over the discovery that Samosa is the dinosaur who wants to take them, and whether they end up being taken by him at all, is never shown; the camera pans out to reveal Samosa writing the episode's events before it gets to that.

    Comic Books 
  • 300: played straight, with the Persian army standing in for the Bolivians. Followed by a short denouement of the one surviving messenger telling the story of Leonidas and the 300's BAE to the Greeks about to fight the Battle of Plataea. The sequel features Themistocles and Gorgo charging into battle aboard the decks of the ships at Salamis against their Persian enemies. Once again, historically, the Greeks win that battle.
  • Subverted in The Boys at the end of the G-Men arc. After learning about the lengths they go to, Hughie and the others prepare to march into certain death only to be interrupted by Red River showing up with More Dakka and doing their job for them.
  • Crossed: This is the fate of Thomas and Kelly in the finale, trapped between the Crossed and a cliff. It's implied they choose the cliff, but the conclusion is never seen.
  • Democracy ends by showing the Athenians charging towards an inclusive battle in Marathon. Historically, the battle was a greek victory. Word of God stated that the novel was concluded this way was not only to create suspense, but to show that the "battle for Democracy" never ends.
    Leander: If we stand for anything, it's the fact that it doesn't end. It never ends!
  • The Three storyline of Fantastic Four, with the Human Torch trapping himself in the Negative Zone with an enormous army getting ready to attack. He was initially implied to be dead, but was later revealed to have survived because this is a comic book, after all.
  • Halo: Blood Line ends with Spartan Team Black battling over a hundred Covenant in hopes of stealing one of their ships and flying home. Four years passed before the team was confirmed to have survived the battle...only to be abruptly killed off in Halo: Escalation a month later.
  • The DC comic Hitman ends with Tommy, having escaped an overwhelming horde of badguys with the girl goes back to make a final last stand with his wounded and trapped friend Nat.
    Tommy: I think it might be time for a Butch and Sundance.
  • New X-Men has suffered from this twice during alternate timelines. In House of M everyone was killed fighting off Mutant oppressors for how they treat humanity. In the timeline where David's mental block is removed, giving him access to all the skills of everyone he's ever met and ever will meet he slowly turns evil and kills everyone in a BAE.
  • At the end of Red (2003), Retired Monster Villain Protagonist Paul Moses kills the two CIA directors who sent a hit squad after him and leaves their office to find a legion of government hitmen waiting for him. The final panel shows Moses aiming his gun towards them and daring them to do their worst.
  • The final Occupy Avengers installment of Secret Empire has Red Wolf, a new Nighthawk and a bunch of citizens preparing to rise up against HYDRA. The last page shows Red Wolf and Nighthawk kiss before they run off. So far, only Red Wolf has been confirmed to survive as he shows up in Avengers: No Surrender.
  • Scarface: Scarred For Life is a What If? where Tony Montana survives his shooting and slowly claws his way back to the top. After he finally kills Sosa, he returns back to his mansion only to learn Elviria (who married Sosa when Tony was recovering) ratted him out to the Feds in retaliation and a flock of DEA helicopters are now outside. Tony raises his gun as her, telling her he's survived worse and the final panel cuts to black as a gunshot rings out.
  • In The Thanos Imperative, Nova and Star-Lord stayed behind in the collapsing Cancerverse to prevent Thanos from escaping. A memorial service for the two heroes was held, but their fates were never made explicit. Both Thanos and Star-Lord were revealed to have survived two years later, while the existence of a new Nova seems to suggest that his predecessor didn't make it. A few years afterwards, that Nova ultimately did come back.
  • The Warhammer comic Forge of War has the remnants of the defeated Empire army rally at a narrow mountain pass to hold off a massive Chaos army to buy time for the rest of the Empire to regroup and send reinforcements. The comic ends with barely a dozen men, a dwarf, and a mage on a gryphon mount charging thousands of Chaos warriors. The comic "Condemned by Fire" shows they won (reinforcements came)
  • Watchmen ends with something similar, with a worker at the New Frontiersman trying to decide on an item from the "Crank Pile" to run as a back-up story, and uncovering Rorschach's journal. If he makes it into a story, and it's taken seriously, it will expose Ozymandias' crimes — although the consequence of this might be global nuclear war. If he chooses something else, or it's not taken seriously, Ozymandias gets away with everything. This is the very last panel of the comic, so we never actually see which of these outcomes happens. The subtext (including the ending of the Black Freighter story-within-a-story and Dr. Manhattan's prophetic warning) suggests quite clearly that no victory will ever be complete or eternal...which means that either Rorschach's story will undermine Ozymandias' plan, or a nuclear war will start within a few years anyway. The implied tragedy being that Ozymandias essentially sacrificed millions of lives to achieve a peace that won't even last a single decade. Doomsday Clock ultimately reveals that the former is what happened.
  • The Marvel What... Huh? story "Mutant Beach Party" ends with the Muties finally being confronted with the mysterious consortium of their fiercest and deadliest enemies they've been warned about repeatedly. The story ends with Rimshot standing down the stampeding horde as the others run off to prepare for the fight, and we see those enemies: All of Marvel's other heroes, fed up of the X-Men hogging the limelight.
    Rimshot: ... help?
  • In a Marvel What If? issue, Nova arrived on Earth to warn various superheroes about the impending Annihilation Wave, only to run smack-dab into the middle of the Superhero Civil War. The issue ends with Captain America and Iron Man putting aside their political differences and joining Nova in an attack on the forces of Annihilus, from which it's implied they didn't survive.
  • The final issue of X-Statix ends with Orpahn and Anarchist rushing out to fight the terrorists who have just killed their entire team, with implication that the two heroes are about to go out in one final blaze of glory. They were confirmed dead in a later mini-series that dealt with the spirits of the team trying to stop a group of dead Marvel villains. Humorously, Doop, who was among those killed in the finale, later turned up alive.

    Fan Works 
  • The 75: Chapter 10 of the companion piece A Deck of 24 is told through letters the Someone to Remember Him By son of a dead tribute writes to his father (first due to believing he was Released to Elsewhere as a little kid, then as a means of venting stress and hoping for an afterlife). In his last letter, he says that the district is in rebellion and he ends the letter saying he hears gunshots on the bottom floor of his girlfriend’s apartment and has to go either flee or help out.
  • The short Fan Film Batman: Dead End would count (after defeating a Predator with much difficulty, Batman is faced with three more of them, plus a horde of xenomorphs emerging from the shadows behind him) if the Dark Knight wasn't so Crazy-Prepared for ANY fight.
  • Cheating Death: Those That Lived: Mercy, Honorious, Ron, Stallion, Jack, Tide, and Bear are all last seen about to fight with mutts or peacekeepers during the Rebellion. According to later chapters, none of those seven characters survive.
  • A Cure for Love: L bargains with Ryuk to spare Light for a little longer by challenging him to a game of tag, and when he finds them, he can kill them both. Just when it looks like they're in the free and clear and L and Light are just talking about maybe settling down in a nice cottage in the country somewhere, they open the door to their hotel room to find Ryuk waiting for them.
  • In-universe example: in Fallout: Equestria, Littlepip never finds out what happened to Rainbow Dash. Her last Memory Orb ends with a badly-wounded Dash being confronted by her old friend/rival Gilda. Nobody has heard from either of them since. Word of God is that Gilda killed Dash.
  • Chapter Two of Keep On Running, a Doctor Who fanfic, ends with Echo!Clara facing down a group of prison guards alone, unsure of whether she'll be rescued. Chapter Three ends with another Echo!Clara facing down yeti. An author's note makes clear she definitely dies in Chapter 3, and possibly Chapter 2 as well.
  • My Immortal ends with the Final Battle between Ebony and Voldemort (and possibly Snape, Draco and Vampire/Harry.) Ebony casts an "Abra Kedabra" spell, and the story ends there. The most common interpretation of this scene is that Ebony accidentally fired the spell at herself.
  • The Night Unfurls: Despite the fact that the original was discontinued at Chapter 33, the end of the chapter feels like one of these. The Alliance Expeditionary Force depart to Thorn, among the army are five thousand men including Kyril, his four apprentice hunters, Bergen, Claudia's Dawn Templars, Alicia's Knights of Iris, and Olga. Meanwhile, the forces of Thorn, clearly in a tight spot, is nevertheless fighting hard against the Black Dogs' hordes of mutants, with Sanada Yukimura as commander cutting a path straight through the horde in a cavalry charge. Ultimately, whichever side comes out victorious, as well as whoever survives (other than Kyril, of course) in this Big Badass Battle Sequence is unclear. Around 3 years later, the trope is ultimately subverted due to the release of Chapter 34, which signals the fanfic's continuation.
  • In Savior of Demons, Murai makes the brave decision to go down fighting, when Ratsura deserts him and leaves him to die at the hands of a mob of Saiyans.
  • Voltes V Versus Voltron The Godaikin Wars: Part 1 ends with Voltes V taking out Voltron for good, while Paul the Imjad laughs at it finally dying says that this is only the beginning. Meanwhile, Shaider battles the remaining Voltron members and throws them into a space-time portal.

    Films — Animation 
  • Animal Farm (1954) does this to the villains. Whereas the book ends with the animals of Animal Farm watching helplessly through the window as the now-corrupt pigs and the evil farmers gloat over their new alliance, the film ends with Benjamin the donkey rallying his fellows in a second rebellion. Thus, the film ends with the pigs cornered, trapped and cowering, their literal guard-dogs too drunk to lift a paw to come and help, as an army of other animals begins breaking through the windows and door and, it's heavily implied, trample and gore them all to death.
  • Batman: Soul of the Dragon: The film ends with Batman, Richard Dragon, Lady Shiva and Bronze Tiger stuck in the Naga's realm preparing to fight his demon horde with no plan of escape.
  • The short animated film Flight of the Kiwi is basically just one long Bolivian Army Ending
  • At the end of the fourth Futurama movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, the main characters are escaping with their spaceship, and see a wormhole. The Professor says that it could take them trillions of light-years away and there's no knowing if they'll ever return. They all decide to go in, and the movie ends here. However, Futurama was later Un-Canceled, and it turned out that they came out right next to Earth.
  • The ending of the animated film version of The Plague Dogs has the two protagonists swimming out into the ocean, trying to reach an island. While it at first seemed that there was likely no island at all, the film gives just a tiny bit of ambiguity to their fates by having the fog clear during the credits to reveal that there was in fact an island, albeit a distant one.
  • Porco Rosso ends with Porco and Curtis going against the whole Italian Air Force. It's implied that they did it, though. Curtis is seen on a poster, and writes a letter to the narrating Fio, while Marco's plane is seen parked outside Gina's restaurant.
  • Predator: Killer of Killers: Kenji and Torres manage to escape the Predators in a stolen ship, but this only encourages the Predator Warlord that he found worthy prey. The last shot of the movie is a massive fleet of Predator ships taking off to pursue the heroes while the Warlord rallies his minions to continue the hunt.

    Literature 
  • The Accusation: "Record of a Defection", the first story in the anthology, ends with the narrator telling his friend (via letter) about his plans to escape from North Korea with his wife, risking death or worse. Whether they succeeded in fleeing is left wholly unanswered.
  • The Adventures of Tom Rynosseros: The cycle ends on Rynosseros and the other six Coloured charvolants going into battle against a thousand tribal ships.
  • While the author has yet to actually write the sequence, Alatriste will, according to him, conclude with a French Army Ending at the Battle of Rocroi. The film adaptation replicates this in a fashion quite reminiscent of the trope namer, with the camera stopping as a wounded Alatriste charges into an incoming French assault.
  • Animorphs ends with Rachel dead, and Cassie pursuing a life of normality. Jake, Marco, and Tobias end up on a ship out in space, having just learned that Ax had been assimilated by The One, a new Big Bad. The final book ends with Jake giving the command to ram The One's ship, and whether they survive or not is left to the reader.
  • Simon Darcourt, the erudite terrorist villain/anti-hero of Christopher Brookmyre's novels A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away and A Snowball in Hell, has fates fitting this trope in both novels. In the first, he is sucked into a cataclysmic whirlpool in a power station, in the second he's shot in the spine, one of his eyes is gouged out and he's handed over to a gang of international criminals who've been after him throughout the book. One of the protagonists comments on how it's highly unlikely that he'll get out of this alive, although if anyone can, then it's probably Darcourt...
  • The non-ending of "The Birds", from which Alfred Hitchcock's similarly-titled film was loosely adapted, can be seen this way. After several days of reports of bird attacks of increasing severity around England, the BBC announces in the evening it is going off the air until morning to conserve resources, but when that morning comes it does not resume broadcasting, suggesting the situation has become dire, and the story ends that night with the protagonist still inside his house.
  • Black Man ends with the protagonist surrounded and outnumbered twelve to one. Given that he's a genetically engineered badass, his chances are pretty good.
  • The Butter Battle Book combines this with No Ending. The Yooks and the Zooks are in a Space Cold War over which side of the bread to put butter on, and the Yook agent and Zook agent keep getting sent to the border wall and trying to one-up each other with increasingly powerful (but still cartoonish and Seussian) weapons. At the end, the Yook agent is equipped with a "Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo" to annihilate the Zooks. With the Yook civilians sent into underground bomb shelters, the Yook agent marches with his grandson up to the wall...but surprise, surprise, the Zook agent has his own Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo! The book ends in a Mexican Standoff, accompanied by the following exchange between the Yook agent and his grandson:
    "Grandpa!" I shouted. "Be careful! Oh, gee!
    Who's going to drop it!
    Will you...? Or will he...?"
    "Be patient," said Grandpa. "We'll see.
    We will see..."
  • Cat Chaser: After Jiggs makes it clear he'll kill Moran and Mary whether or not they give him the money, Moran shoots him dead in cold blood. The book ends with the police drawing closer to the motel as Moran half-jokingly asks if he needs a lawyer.
  • The Cat Who Walks Through Walls seems to end this way, although a careful reading reveals their survival even before the follow-up novels. The mission they're on is successful, and they rescue the damaged computer, but they get ambushed on the way back. The main character, his wife, and their kitten are all dead or very close to it. It's possible the good guys could arrive at any moment and rescue them, but it's equally possible the bad guys will do it first. The main character uses his last breaths to break the fourth wall and chastise the author for writing the sort of story where kittens die. The drama of the scene is tempered slightly by Gretchen's claim that another character impregnated her in her past/his future according to the jumbled timeline of the story. In a later Robert A. Heinlein novel in that 'multiverse', it is explained that both happened. It is the only extant known occurrence of a timeline splitting where the protagonists could see it. The actual split? Whether or not the kitten would make a noise.
  • Coma ends with the villain in the operating room, with the police waiting for him outside (they cannot enter because of the sterile environment). He is already aware that his attempts to kill the heroine on the OR table have failed (she had discovered that he was poisoning his patients with carbon monoxide so as to sell their organs on the black market and so he had planned the same fate for her) and knows it's only a matter of time before he's arrested. But the book ends with him in the operating room and the reader is left to wonder if he'll surrender or go out in a blaze of glory.
  • Dinotopia: The three most ruthless pirates in the spinoff novel Dinotopia Lost, cornered by the mother and father of the young Tyrannosaurus rex they had kidnapped.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
    • The Doctor Who Missing Adventures series ends with a sequence set between Season 17 and 18, where the Doctor has been caught up to by the Black Guardian who has given him the choice between remaining in his TARDIS all his life or leaving and suffering a Fate Worse than Death. He finds the TARDIS emergency switch but from Romana's comment pulling it might make them 'fictional characters', a potential fate which (in addition to erasing the entire series after the point the writer stopped liking it) worries the Doctor enough that he finally goes in for that kiss. The book ends as he pulls the switch.
    • The Doctor Who New Adventures novel So Vile a Sin features the Doctor's companion Roz Forrester returning to her ancestral seat as a senior member of one of the Great Houses ruling the Earth Empire in the 30th century. The Doctor knows her House is going to get involved in a war and warns her repeatedly that if she becomes involved he will not be able to save her. The book ends with Roz making up her mind to join her family in the fighting and she ends up leading a charge "up the hill into history".
  • The Dresden Files: Peace Talks ends with Harry, Murphy, Lara, the Winter Fae, the Council and the rest of the Accords signers facing probable annihilation by Last Titan and the entire court of the Fomor. Unlike many of these examples the cliffhanger is resolved in Battle Ground (2020) where quite a few of those left imperiled at the end of the previous book die in the fight for survival.
  • Fatherland ends with Xavier March standing in the midst of what once was the Auschwitz death camp. Now knowing the truth about what his titular fatherland really did to the Jews, he pulls out his pistol as the pursuing authorities continue to close in on him.
  • The First Law ends almost exactly how it began, with Logen falling into a river from a huge height, his death implied but hardly confirmed. He survived and was one of main characters in next book.
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls ends with the protagonist, Robert Jordan, severely wounded and lying in wait for the enemy. Subverted in that he did include the first chapter of the sequel in the appendix.
  • From Russia with Love ends with James Bond having just been poisoned and passing out from the toxin. The next book reveals that the friend he was talking with, French agent René Mathis, managed to keep him alive with artificial respiration until doctors could get something into Bond to counteract the poison.
  • Discussed in Full Metal Panic! when Sousuke, Kaname, and Kurz are cornered by the enemy, outnumbered and outgunned: Kaname recalls seeing a movie that ended this way, and she and Kurz briefly discuss what is obviously Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, resolving to go out the same way. Of course, it's only the sixth episode of a series with twenty-four. Kaname also expresses a dislike of this trope, preferring movies with a Happy Ending. Unfortunately she says the last bit too loud, and nearly brings about the trope when a firefight breaks out then and there.
  • "The Hunter" ends with John being hunted by Byron and his wolverine, armed with a rifle that has only two bullets in the chamber and reveling in how the fear for his life makes him feel alive.
  • The Island of Doctor Moreau never reveals the final fate of its beast-men,after the protagonist's escape. Reverting back to normal animals is about the least Downer Ending one could expect for these pitiful creatures.
  • L.A. Confidential features a Bolivian Army beginning: the plots of the book and its prequel The Big Nowhere are bridged in a prologue, where the one surviving protagonist of the earlier book goes out in a blaze of glory during a shootout akin to a one-man Battle of the Alamo.
  • "The Landlady": It is heavily implied the old landlady is a serial murderer that killed and taxidermized her previous guests, and the ending suggests this going to happen to Billy as well, having drank her Bitter Almond-tasting tea. Tales of the Unexpected and Alfred Hitchcock Presents adapted the story and turned the ambiguity into a clear-cut Downer Ending with Billy succumbing due to the tea, though the Alfred Hitchock Presents at least says that the old landlady was eventually caught and arrested.
  • In the Lone Wolf bonus adventure "Aboard the Intrepid", if you make some truly terrible decisions, you can end up fighting your first mate and entire surviving crew, a total of 21 consecutive combats (and none of your opponents is a pushover). The book doesn't say what happens if by some unfathomable miracle you actually win, which is theoretically possible; presumably you drift aimlessly until your food runs out, you fall to a pirate attack or some other calamity you no longer have the manpower to prevent, or you decide not to put off the inevitable and take your own life. This doesn't count as a successful completion for the adventure, which is really too bad, as it's by far the hardest ending to get in the entire series!
  • The last Montmorency book, Montmorency's Revenge, ends with a gun to the back of the titular character's head.
  • Nightmares & Dreamscapes: At the end of "The Moving Finger", poor Howard Mitla has dispatched the finger that was poking out of the bathroom sink's drain, but he made such a commotion doing it that his fellow tenants called the police. As Officer O'Bannion is trying to figure out just what the hell went on in Howard's bathroom (there's blood, vomit and drain-cleaner all over the place), he and Howard hear a loud splash inside the closed toilet. Howard notes that a hand has probably got more than one finger on it, and warns the officer that it's not a good idea to lift that lid. Officer O'Bannion grasps the toilet seat lid... and the story ends.
  • Night Shift (1978): In "Gray Matter", a group of old men learn that the town tosspot became ill from a sour can of beer he'd bought at the local corner grocery store, and over the course of some weeks has become reclusive and started acting bizarrely. When they go to visit him, they find he's mutated into a grey, amorphous blob. The story ends with one of the old men staying behind to confront the creature, and he was last seen firing at it with a handgun — the other old men are sitting about the stove waiting to see if it's their friend or the grey blob who comes back, and the blob may be dividing and multiplying like an amoeba, spawning untold millions of horrors like itself upon the earth.
  • The Princess Bride ends with the heroes nearly dead and on the run from the kingdom's army. The movie ends before that.note 
  • In the final book of Clive Egleton's early-'70s The Resistance Trilogy, about the British Resistance after a Soviet invasion, the Soviets pull their combat troops out, but Britain is still a Warsaw Pact satellite — and, thanks to a high-ranking traitor from the Resistance, the security forces at last manage to corner main character David Garnett. His lover Valerie Dane was wounded and evacuated aboard an American sub a while before, and the last words of the trilogy are "He had had a feeling for a long time that it would end this way, in a small back room, without Dane and alone."
  • William Harrison's short story "Roller Ball Murder" (less well-known than the film it inspired) ends with Jonathan E's team heading onto the playing field for the world championship, well aware that the latest rule revisions virtually guarantee that both teams will suffer a Total Party Kill.
  • The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea ends with Ryuji drinking the tea that Noboru's friends gave him to knock him out before killing him; we never get to see them actually killing him, but they've lured him far from any other people and he doesn't seem to have much hope of escaping.
  • Seed (Lisa Heathfield) ends with Pearl, Jack, Kate, and Sophie as the last survivors of the cult, broken from the experience but free and wondering what to do next.
  • At the end of Snow Crash, Enzo fights Raven to buy time for other characters. When last seen, Enzo has the upper hand, but the fight never concludes.
  • The A Song of Ice and Fire series uses this trope frequently. For example, in the fourth novel, A Feast for Crows, Brienne of Tarth is sentenced to hang for refusing to kill Jaime Lannister. The last the reader knows of Brienne's fate, the noose was tightening around her neck. It would seem likely that Brienne is dead, but given George R. R. Martin's tendency to thwart expectations about who lives and who dies, that's far from a sure bet.
  • Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina: Het Nkik, a Jawa who's sick of his species being everyone's Butt-Monkey, buys a blaster and goes after an Imperial patrol after they kill his brother (one of the Jawas who sold R2-D2 and C-3PO to the Larses). His story, written by Kevin J. Anderson, ends with him jumping out of hiding and repeatedly firing at the stormtroopers. The next story, written by Anderson's wife Rebecca Moesta, makes it into a "Shaggy Dog" Story with The Reveal that a fellow trader stole his blaster's power pack. And then the story after that goes straight into Shoot the Shaggy Dog when one of the stormtroopers kills Het Nkik for, essentially, being annoying. But at least that's the last straw for Davin Felth, who decides to defect soon after.
  • Tales for the Midnight Hour: Multiple stories end with the protagonist alive but still in danger.
    • "The Ten Claws": The brothers wound the mysterious creature that killed the town drunk and barely escape with their lives. However, neither of them know that the creature is the grandmother who stays in their house, and it's uncertain whether she'll decide to attack again.
    • "The Jigsaw Puzzle": A young lady puts together the self-proclaimed "World's Strangest Jigsaw Puzzle", which begins to bear an unsettling resemblance to her house. When she puts the last pieces in, it reveals half of a non-human face in the window. Turning to look, she sees the face in her window too.
  • The Thief has the main character pulling a fast one on the mob boss who’s blackmailing him and getting stabbed and left to die in an alley. He does have one more trick up his sleeve, throwing a coin to get the attention of a passerby, but the novel ends before the reader can find out if it worked.
  • Begbie causes them at the end of two of the Trainspotting sequels:
    • In Porno, Begbie is in a coma while Simon explains how he was manipulating him. The book ends with Begbie opening his eyes and grabbing Simon's hand as he's drawing a penis on his face.
    • The Blade Artist ends with Begbie on a plane swearing to renounce his violent ways. He immediately notices a man who's strongly implied to be Renton, who stole thousands of pounds from him in the original novel.
    • Both get resolved in Dead Men's Trousers:
      • It's an Immediate Sequel from Renton's point of view, where he runs and locks himself in the toilet—but it turns out Begbie really has renounced violence and isn't angry.
      • His apparent waking from his coma turned out to be an involuntary spasm. Simon wonders if he faked it and is planning a delayed revenge, but nothing comes of it.
  • Villette: Lucy tells the reader that M. Paul's ship back to Villette was caught in a storm, and then basically tells the reader to pretend that their love had a happy ending. Word of God had it that Paul did indeed die. Charlotte Bronte reputedly considered it a kinder fate than life with Lucy Snowe.
  • In the tenth book of The Wheel of Time, Egwene tries to sabotage the Tar Valon port defenses when she's captured by someone channeling Saidar. Of course, this being only the tenth novel in a series of thirteen, we find out later that she's actually okay, and her captors are not gonna kill her.
  • In Zone One, the main character Mark Spitz has survived untold horrors and countless encounters with the zombie hordes that have overtaken America. The frame narrative has Mark working in a newly cleared area of New York City that they plan to clean up and open to re-occupation, AKA Zone 1. Things seem to be going great, but by the end zombies are overrunning the city, and when a close friend dies, Mark exits the building they were hiding in and wades out into the mass of zombies now swarming the streets. And that is where the novel ends. When the author was asked if Mark survives in the end as he had so many times before, he just shrugged.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Angel (1999) ended its long run with the death or abandonment of several long-running characters. In "Not Fade Away", an entire army of demons is sent against the remaining characters who have reunited in an rainy alley. The series ends just as the eponymous character delivers the first blow of the final battle. It was later stated that was intended to symbolize one of the show's themes, that being that the fight never ends. The Angel: After the Fall comics continued the story and are Canon according to the Word of God. For the curious; all the alive characters at the end of the show are still moving. Then some died and came back.
  • ALF had this ending, with him being surrounded by the Alien Detection Squad of the USA. Of course, this one actually had a planned sequel, which NBC screwed them out of. Ironic, though, since ALF mentioned the Trope Namer itself in an earlier episode when police trapped him inside the neighbors' house. It wasn't until Project: ALF came out in 1996 when Alf was shown alive and well, though not without new problems.
  • The final episode of All My Children during its run on ABC ended with the entirety of Pine Valley gathering at the Chandler Mansion to welcome home Back from the Dead Stuart, only for a drunken JR, who had ostracized himself from everyone, to sneak between the walls of the currently being remodeled parlor. After Erica pushes Jack to far he storms off, with her determined to win him back. JR aims, as the likes of Erica, David, Marissa and others come into view. Erica defiantly recants Opal's comment that she's never getting Jack back. "Just watch me!" JR continues to aim the gun, BANG, cut to black.
    • This was Subverted as the show was meant to be picked up by new online network, Prospect Park, alongside One Life To Live, and the show would continue from where it left off, however plans fell through, leaving fans in anger on the question "Who did JR shoot?"
    • Later partially averted, as thankfully, in 2013, The Online Network revived Prospect Parks plan, however as the Revival of All My Children began, five years had passed, and the reveal that Marissa had taken the bullet and David had shot JR in retaliation for his daughters death. Though too many the final episode on ABC remains the Soaps Series Finale.
  • Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Tale of the Dangerous Soup ends with our heroes Locked in a Freezer again with the demon / Eldritch Abomination / whatever.
  • In the Banshee finale, an army of well-armed hitmen marches on Kai Proctor's home. He calmly meets them head-on, guns blazing, but the outcome is not shown.
  • In the series finale of Battle Creek the father of a boy who blames the boy's death on FBI agent Milt Chamberlain shoots Milt right in the heart. Milt falls to the ground, his partner presses down on his wound and says "you'll be OK, you'll be OK" as a large blood stain spreads on the shirt; Milt laughs and it's unclear if he laughs because he knows he's dying, or because he's relieved he'll be OK.
  • This was a recurring theme in the Blackadder series: The first series ends with everyone but Percy and Baldrick getting killed, the second series ends with everyone, including the Queen, getting killed. The third series is the exception, as it ends with only one of the main characters the Prince Regent getting killed, and Blackadder himself presumably taking his place as the future King George IV. Finally, Blackadder Goes Forth, the fourth in the Blackadder series, ends with Captain Blackadder and the rest of the characters about to make the "final push" on the Germans, although the audience knows full well that the war still has a year left to run. The series ends with shellfire and a fade to a field of poppies, and an implication that they all died. However, some versions released on video show the characters dying bravely but uselessly, making a comment on the obsolescence of individual heroism in a new age of industrialized warfare. Many viewers found it one of the most touching endings to a comedy program ever written. It was first aired in the UK 10 days before Remembrance Sunday, without a single complaint.note 
  • The Black Mirror episode "Crocodile" ends with Mia watching her daughter's recital, unaware that police are about to arrest her for multiple murders.
  • Blake's 7: The final episode ends with Avon surrounded by Federation soldiers and everyone else on his side apparently dead (with Blake, at Gareth Thomas' specific request, killed off). The sound of a firefight is played over the closing credits. This was done deliberately with the intention that, if the series was renewed, they could easily kill off any character whose actor did not re-sign their contract while having the characters of returning actors survive the shoot-out. The fact that the series was not renewed for another season means that the fate of every character is intentionally ambiguous - and never resolved.
  • Bottom habitually goes one step further — the punch is thrown, connects, freeze frame, roll credits. In the finale of the TV series, the pair are surrounded by an SAS squad, speak on the phone to the negotiators, repeat the line once quizzically, then again more confidently - and A Squad burst in, start firing, bullets connect...roll credits.
  • The USA Network series Burn Notice uses this trope frequently as part of its season finales, for example the season four summer finale that left Michael shot and bleeding out, with seemingly no one around to save him.
  • The HBO series Carnivàle ended its last season with a climactic showdown in which protagonist Ben and Big Bad Brother Justin each stab the other in the chest. It's implied that Ben survives due to his Healing Factor, but Sofie makes a Face–Heel Turn once she finds out that she has avataric powers and heals Brother Justin after apparently killing Jonesy.
  • One of the episodes of The Comic Strip Presents ends this way. It's the episode "Fistful of Traveller's Cheques" where the ending is a homage/parody of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There is a wonderful pause before the ending where the viewer wonders whether it's really going to happen...
  • The final episode of Cybill ends with Cybill and Maryanne being arrested for the apparent murder of Maryanne's husband, Doctor Dick.
  • In the classic British comedy Dad's Army, set during WWII, the final episode sees the Walmington-on-Sea platoon called up to stand watch over the local coastline during an alert. The main characters, at this point a band of old men and one soppy youth, watching and waiting in the cold night and facing the threat of imminent Nazi invasion across the English Channel, nevertheless stand together, resolute, and think of their comrades all over Britain doing the same. They then toast the Home Guard - who faced the same hardships and threats with the same reaction, in real life - and the credits roll.
  • The prematurely canceled Dead at 21 ends with the lead's time-bomb brain-chip seemingly killing him - at 20 - followed by his girlfriend facing a firing squad.
  • Dead Man's Gun: "Death Warrant" ends with John Pike riding through the mountains, being chased by half-a-dozen men with their guns blazing.
  • In the finale of Dead Set Kelly, after becoming the last remaining survivor of the group alongside an infected Space, makes an attempt to fight her way through the zombie horde outside the door in front of her...It fails.
  • Dinosaurs: Believe it or not, this ABC series pulls this ending in the final episode, implying that a self-inflicted ecological disaster wipes out the dinosaur civilization, including all of our main characters.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "The War Games" ends with the Time Lords capturing the Second Doctor, retrieving the TARDIS, sending the Doctor's companions back to the time and place he picked them up from with their memories of their adventures wiped (which, for Jamie, was an almost guaranteed death in battle) and then exiling the Doctor to Earth after asking him to pick a new face, which we don't see thanks to Jon Pertwee having not been cast yet.
    • "Orphan 55": Estranged mother and daughter Kane and Bella are last seen facing down a horde of Dregs as the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions are teleported away, with their survival looking unlikely.
  • Farscape loved ending season finales with some or all of the main characters in some kind of mortal danger.
    • Lampshaded in The Peacekeeper Wars.
      Crichton: I hear Bolivia is nice for a honeymoon.
  • Golden Boy, due to the series being cancelled at the end of its first season. The finale ends on a cliffhanger of a cut to credits at the sound of the fugitive ex-deputy mayor shooting either Walter, the protagonist, or his girlfriend (also the deputy mayor's ex-wife).
  • The Trope Namer is parodied in the House episode "Bombshells", along with everything from revue musicals to zombie movies.
  • Invasion: Earth ends with a Fade to White as humanity decides to nuke itself in a last-ditch effort to deter the invading aliens.
  • Prior to the point when it was Un-Canceled, the final episode of Season One of Jericho (2006) ended with one of these - Jake ordered the men and women of Jericho to open fire on the invading New Bern soldiers, and the credits rolled over sounds of gunfire. The cliffhanger was one of the chief factors in spurring the save the show campaign that brought it back for an abridged second season. This trope was actively averted in the second season. The finale was originally going to end with Jake going on a suicide mission to rescue Hawkins, who had been captured during the escape from the Allied States of America, but at the behest of CBS, a second ending was also written and shot in the event the series was cancelled; it was, so the series ended with Jake and Hawkins both safely escaping into the Republic of Texas. However, both versions of the finale also ended with America entering into a civil war.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • "Episode Final", the alternative reality movie of the TV series Kamen Rider Ryuki, ends with Yui dead and Knight and Ryuki as the last remaining Riders facing down an army of Hydragoons intent on wiping out all of humanity. The TV special 13 Riders (set in another timeline) finishes with Shinji as Knight Survive preparing to fight the remaining seven Riders at once. (As a footnote, the ending of the TV series proves that both of these go on to be Reset Button Endings.) As for the likely outcome, the Episode Final version is survivable, as mass-produced monsters tend to not be that tough, though this was the biggest crowd of them we'd seen. As for 13 Riders...all the Riders were setting up their "final vent" attacks, so even with Survive Mode, Shinji was pretty much screwed.
    • In Kamen Rider Kiva, Wataru's Kid from the Future Masao interrupts Nago and Megumi's wedding to warn everyone of the Neo Fangire. The series ends with Wataru, Masao, Nago, Taiga and the Arms Monsters transforming and flying off to face the threat. Since this was the final episode, there was no apparent conclusion, but it was widely speculated that the Neo Fangire are members of Great Shocker, enemies of Kiva's successor Decade.
    • Kamen Rider Decade "ends" with eight of the original Heisei Kamen Riders, plus the alternate Kuuga (brainwashed, crazy and in Ultimate Form) trying to kill Decade because his actions have apparently doomed the multiverse. In the middle of the fight, Diend runs in and sticks his gun right in Decade's face. Cut to Natsumi screaming out for him as a gunshot is heard. And then cut to a teaser for a second movie in December that will be the Grand Finale; Tsukasa's clearly shown having survived the skirmish. Thus, a subversion with the true question being why everyone's out for his blood. This initial airing also showed a movie trailer that has nothing in common with the eventually released movie (to the point where it seems like a spoof trailer). In repeats the ending was (for reasons unknown) altered to become an inversion/subversion: the battle between all the riders and Decade plays out exactly as shown in the dreams Natsumi has been having since the first episode, not just the nine from the first version of the episode. Decade suddenly uses powers he had not so far shown (glowing with power and being able to float in the air) and destroys all the riders, fulfilling the evil destiny he spent the entire series trying to avoid. It's implied that by killing the riders he has also caused the realities they come from to be destroyed. So either way, Decade will not leave you on a happy note.
  • Law & Order: UK: The final episode "Repeat to Fade" ends with a cliffhanger. Will Ronnie accept the new position he's been offered, despite being fully aware of and offended by its Kicked Upstairs status? Or will he resign/retire outright? The episode ends with neither question answered, but with Bradley Walsh leaving the show, it would have had to be one or the other...except that the show has ended as well, meaning that we'll never know.
  • The French and Saunders series Let Them Eat Cake. It was about French aristocracy just before the French revolution. You can guess how it ends.
  • The Longest Day in Chang'an has a villainous version that isn't actually the end of the series. Long Bo dies when he charges into the soldiers gathered to kill him.
  • The Mortal Kombat: Conquest series has such an ending. Throngs of extra-dimensional shadow priests march to conquer Earthrealm and kill all the heroes, Raiden is defeated by Shao Kahn, and Kung Lao's championship medallion is shown strewn on the floor. The plan for the 2nd season was a literal Deus ex Machina, with the Elder Gods pushing the Reset Button, as Shao broke rules by using the shadow priests.
  • Season 4 of Person of Interest ends with Samaritan taking complete control over the city with the Machine out of the picture, Control herself getting kidnapped, and Reese, Harold, and Root fighting their way through waves of Samaritan's followers while carrying the Machine in a storage container.
  • Sea Monsters ends with a pack of Tylosaurus surrounding the ship while the crew is asleep.
  • The first season of BBC Sherlock ended with Sherlock, John and Moriarty at a swimming pool, surrounded by Moriarty's snipers, with Sherlock's gun aimed at a bomb. The cliffhanger was resolved in the subsequent season.
  • The final episode of Soap showed Jessica seemingly executed by a Central American firing squad and Burt walking into a drug dealer ambush. And Chester preparing to shoot Danny (Chester had a pistols duel with El Puerco the next morning that would probably see Chester in the ground as well).
  • The Son of the Beach finale ended with the whole cast being blown up by a stray missile.
  • The famous ending of The Sopranos finale "Made in America" uses this somewhat. Fans have long debated whether the cut-to-black means somebody shot Tony, or if a deeper symbolism is in play. Even if the viewer doesn't buy the "Tony was whacked" theory, his situation at the end of the series is still bleak; the DiMeo crime family is a shell of its former self, and the FBI has a strong enough case against Tony to put him in prison for the rest of his life.
  • In Stargate Universe:
    • The film is referenced in the episode "Time", where an Apocalyptic Log from another timeline shows Rush flippantly uttering Butch's famous last words before jumping through a malfunctioning gate to his death, seeing it as a better alternative than being killed by the illness that the team is suffering from or the nocturnal bugs native to the planet. Later in the same episode, Rush utters this phrase once again, after they discover that the real cause of the illness is a parasite in the drinking water and that the nocturnal bugs might hold the cure, forcing them to go to the planet again. The episode finally ends with the team being wiped out again except for Scott, who decides to send a second Kino with their own Apocalyptic Log back in time, so both Kinos will provide enough clues to save themselves the next time around.
    • The final episode after its cancellation. After being hounded repeatedly by a force of hostile robotic drones, the Destiny crew decides to go into a long term hyperspace jump and flee to another galaxy. However, to conserve power, they must put themselves into hibernation pods and shut down life support. Unfortunately, one of the pods malfunctions and Eli volunteers to try and fix it while the rest of the crew go into hibernation. The series closes leaving it uncertain whether Eli manages to fix his pod in time or not, much less whether the Destiny is able to escape the galaxy and its robotic pursuers.
  • Star Trek:
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "Once More Unto the Breach" ends this way, as Kor fights the Dominion fleet. We never see his ship destroyed; we only get a play-by-play until the Rotarran gets too far away for the sensors to pick up what's happening. Earlier in the episode, Worf discusses the trope from his romantic perspective when discussing Davy Crockett at the Alamo: If you believe in the legend then you can simply accept he died a hero's death. If you don't then he was just a man, and it doesn't matter how he died.
    • In Star Trek: Voyager episode "Think Tank", this is done to the villains. Voyager takes off to find a whole new Monster of the Week, leaving the villains stuck having to fend off numerous Hazari ships. Too bad, so sad.
    • In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "E Squared", the last we see of the alternate timeline Enterprise is the vessel charging into a fleet of hostile alien ships while the "real" Enterprise escapes through a wormhole. Archer and T'Pol discuss this later, speculating on whether or not they could have survived or even if they were erased from history.
  • Strike Back: Lampshaded and discussed in the finale of Legacy when on multiple occasions Scott and Stonebridge consider simply charging the bad guys with guns blazing. We even see an Imagine Spot of them doing it and dying riddled with bullets. Ultimately subverted as they instead let the bad guys come to them and both men survive the ensuing firefights.
  • Teen Wolf uses it in the Season 2 finale, with the already-weakened werewolves, Erica and Boyd surrounded by the Alpha pack, who appear to be itching for a fight.
  • Parodied in That '70s Show, when Eric and Donna rush out of a fancy restaurant after all their friends ditched them with the bill, right down to the freeze frame fade to sepia tone.
  • The Wire episode "Bad Dreams" ends with Frank Sobotka walking to a meeting with the Greeks, not knowing that they plan to kill him.
  • The Wrong Mans features the two main characters surrounded by several armed men, plus a few vehicles and helicopters. Since this is the fifth episode and there's one more to go, Sam and Phil manage to escape.

    Music 
  • R. Dean Taylor's 1970 hit "Indiana Wants Me" ends with the narrator, who's on the run for a murder he committed, being surrounded by the police and then engaging in a shootout with them.

    Music Videos 
  • The music video for the L'arc-en-Ciel song "Driver's High" ends with the band driving off a cliff while evading the police, Thelma & Louise style.
  • The music video for Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" ends with the band being tied up in the back of a van and about to be set on fire.
  • The music video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Party in the CIA" ends with the protagonist captured and tied to a chair by one of the targets he'd been sent to kill, who flashes him a malicious grin and points a gun at him, at which point it's implied but not quite shown that he's shot in the head.
  • The music video for "The Wolf" by SIAMÉS ends with one of the three protagonists charging head first into a pack of demonic wolves.
  • The music video for Karma Police by Radiohead ends with the running man exhausted and the car on fire. The driver could easily kill the running man, but even still, he would die himself. And Nigel is gone, so there's even less of a chance for him.

    Podcasts 
  • The Books of Thoth episode “Rituals” ends with the burglar standing outside the protagonist’s bedroom door. We never find out if the protagonist survives.

    Roleplay 
  • The Ballad of Edgardo
    • The story ends in an inversion, as the roleplay itself freezes in the exact instant when Edgardo is about to punch Xer0, the Big Bad and generally biggest dick in the forum, in the face with literally infinite power. Everything after that was the forumgoers going completely berserk on the out of character side of the board. The next day, the entire board was shut down due to "popular opinion".
    • On a smaller scale, there is the fate of Goldnharl. After he betrays Xer0 and promises to help Edgardo on his quest, a huge horde of angry players catches up to the heroes. Goldnharl stays behind to fight the players alone while Edgardo and Squid make their escape. Edgardo never found out whether Goldnharl survived that battle or not.
  • JoJo's OC Tournament: Crispin Freeman's story ends this way in the Epilogue of The Grand Tour: having been brought back to life alongside everybody else who had perished in the hunt for the Artifacts, he's next shown in the shared headquarters of the Stormbringers and the Perfect Strangers after he offered to join them: once they're all together, he reveals it was a ruse to slaughter them all even if it costs him his life. Last he's seen, he's about to begin his Last Stand by summoning his Stand, Red Sun, right as the narration cuts away.]] If Ryder Wyland's reappearance in Sirentide Odyssey is anything to go by, things did not go well.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In chess, this trope is exemplified in checkmate. The game ends when one player places an inescapable threat upon the opponent's king, even though it would take one more move to actually capture the king.

    Theatre 
  • Black Friday ends with the cast waiting as a Russian nuke drops.
  • While we never actually see them die, Finale ends with the cast singing about how they accept the fact that the world is going to end tomorrow.
  • The one-act play San Juan Todavia Vive ends with boots thumping up the stairs to where two Venezuelan revolutionaries are hiding without revealing whether it is the Secret Police, there to kill or arrest them, or their long-missing comrade San Juan (who also wore boots that made such noises), back on the anniversary of his disappearance after a protest was broken up.
  • The second play in Tsukipro's SQS series ends with Shiki, an oni leader, sacrificing himself as an angry mob of humans rushes against him.
  • Urinetown ends with the townsfolk presumably dehydrating to death after their water runs out.

    Visual Novels 
  • Sparks Liner High, a bad end of Fate/stay night's Heaven's Feel route, couples this with an Exact Time to Failure. Shirou has defeated Saber Alter, but became braindead in the process due to overusing Archer's arm. Meanwhile, Saber Alter isn't dead, but needs ten minutes to regenerate from her injuries, at which point Sakura will summon her to defeat Rin, so Rin needs to defeat Sakura before that happens. The last scene is Saber Alter quietly reflecting that Shirou's fate will make this a Pyrrhic Victory for the winner. The Tiger Dojo session afterwards can't bring itself to chastise Shirou too much because he did his best.
    Taiga: This end is peaceful in a way.
  • Walter's "Forsaken" ending in Love Lock has him simply not come back after the events of the route's second day. While the protagonist is still alive at the end and it's listed as a neutral ending and not a death one, things aren't looking bright for them, considering they're chained up in an isolated location with no access to food or water.
  • EP7 of Umineko: When They Cry ends this way, with Will and Lion facing an army of Bernkastel's demonic cats about to tear them apart.

    Web Animation 
  • In 1 Minute Melee, after the fight between Link and Sora, Dark Link shows up and summons an army of Heartless that Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Link proceed to fight.
  • Flipnote Warrior: The animation ends with Mome determined to fight Anti-Sakuga despite it being clearly out of her league to buy time.
  • The Madness Combat canon side episode DedmosRebuilt.fla ends with Deimos and 2BDamned facing down a group of Half-Mags that followed Deimos to Nevada.
  • Meet the Formans: Meet the Vegans ends with Kaiden and Mason about to be obliterated by a dreadnaught bombardment in Roblox game Trenches: Beta.
  • The last episode of Xionic Madness ends with Xero and his disciple Enid being cornered by an army of soldiers that they subsequently decide to engage with — despite Xero knowing that he will most likely die and thus leave his cause in Enid's hands.
  • Zatanna Trial Of The Crystal Wand: Zatanna is seen defeating playing cards while Damon and Klarion are trapped.

    Webcomics 
  • Fite! originally ended with the start of Lucco and Ricci's rematch, but the author eventually added one more comic showing that Lucco wins.
  • Homestuck has one in the form of Nepeta vs. Gamzee, which switches the narrative as Nepeta is knocked to the ground by Gamzee. This means that the cat was neither alive nor dead. Ultimately subverted, as Nepeta turns out to have been killed.

    Web Videos 
  • The final episode of Carmilla reveals that the eldritch abomination under the university was not slain but is apparently waking up, possibly from having eaten Carmilla's century old vampire mother. The episode ends with Carmilla, Laura and LaFontaine looking at the camera as the town meeting alarm sounds out ominously...
  • The short film Hit It ends with John ordering Matt under the table and engaging in a giant Mexican Standoff with the "resources" sent to hunt him down.
  • This Minecraft video ends with the hero surrounded by ghasts in a field of flames. Ironically, he actually ended up dying ten minutes after filming to a Zerg Rush by some Pigmen.
  • Solid jj's "Gangster SpongeBob" ends with the police storming in while SpongeBob and Patrick are ready for them with their guns cocked.

    Western Animation 
  • In the American Dad! episode "Escape From Pearl Bailey," Steve and his friends are trapped in a bus with an angry mob that wants to beat them up. Steve, who had been having problems with his friends thoughout the episode, offers to make up with them. They accept, and they decide to go out in a blaze of glory, jumping out of the bus and trying to take a few of the mob with them. The image freeze-frames when they make the leap, but the trope is ultimately subverted because the sound continues and you can clearly hear Steve and his friends getting pounded and bemoaning that they are NOT taking anybody with them at all.
  • In the Batman Beyond DC Nation short, after dealing with a robot duplicate of the original Batman, there turns out to be several more ready for battle (each based on a different version of him). Bruce's response is to simply put on the last robot's utility belt before joining in.
    Terry: Seven against two, pretty bad odds.
    Bruce: ...For them.
  • Ben 10: The non-canon "Goodbye and Good Riddance" ends with Ben and Gwen running off to fight Dr. Animo and his army of mutants before they reach the school. Given that the two of them had just defeated Vilgax the previous night, they're more worried about having to miss class than the imminent villain attack.
  • Carol & the End of the World ends a few months before the planet hits the earth, with the final shot being it hanging large in the sky.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation T.R.I.P. is a Villain Episode about oneshot villains Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain tailing Numbuh 3 across Japan, thinking she will lead them to the Japanese KND branch. At the end of the episode, the trail is a dead end (Numbuh 3 was visiting her grandmother, actually her fellow Sector V agents) and the twins have a Villainous Breakdown that ended with them falling from the top of a mountain. They just had to say that things can't get any worse until they are greeted by the four "extras" they ran into earlier in the episode, who then reveal themselves to be the actual Japanese KND. The episode ends with the Japanese KND surrounding the Twins (who look like they are too injured to move) ominously...
  • El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera: The Evil Ending to "The Good, The Bad, and El Tigre" ends with the now elderly Manny saving his now obscenely old father and grandfather from the death trap he left them in for sixty years, just in time for Sartana and Django to return to Earth with an army of Moon Men. Manny, Frida, Rodolfo, and Granpapi gear up to fight them, even though all of them are Feeling Their Age, and the episode ends as the clash begins.
  • Futurama: Parodied in the episode The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz; at the end of the episode, two penguins are seen picking up the hunting rifles of their late hunters (don't ask). They glare daggers at each other as they take aim and cock their guns. Cue Smash to Black and Last Note Nightmare before any firing takes place.
  • At the climax of the Looney Tunes cartoon "Hare-Way to the Stars", Bugs escapes Mars after stealing one of Marvin's spaceships, but accidentally takes the container of dehydrated "Instant Martians" with him, splash-landing into a sewer in a large city. The Martians begin to grow as Bugs climbs out of the sewer, frantically replaces cover and warns the audience to "Run for the hills folks, or you'll be up to your armpits in Martians!" before taking his own advice as the ground shakes with the aliens underneath.
  • Jolly Roger, a pirate story Played for Laughs, has the bad guy pirate ship sink with a loss of all hands. The good guys—Captain Roger, Estelle, and Roger's simple-minded mate Hugo—are left bobbing in the water, seemingly doomed after their ship also sank. The Pirate Parrot perches on Roger's head and sings a sea shanty. The camera pulls away, and the cartoon ends.
  • ReBoot: The series ends with Megabyte, who has been the main antagonist for the first four fifths of the show, suddenly reappearing and taking over Mainframe. This cliffhanger was resolved years later in an official webcomic. The good guys escape and flee to the supercomputer, and Megabyte ends up becoming The Dragon to a new villain.
  • Found in the Post-Credits Scene of Rick and Morty's "Get Schwifty" as Ice T goes to "crunch the numbers."
  • Stroker and Hoop ended its only season with both title characters, Doublewide, and C.A.R.R. being dropped into a ravine. However, the creators did have the courtesy to explain how the cliffhanger would have resolved itself in the planned, yet aborted, second season premiere.
  • The Transformers: At the end of the season 3 episode "Ghost in the Machine", Starscream, in his new body, is catapulted through space by the explosion that gets Unicron's head away from Cybertron, which Unicron wanted for his own new body. He passes by the Decepticons, and Galvatron immediately starts firing at him.
    Galvatron: It's STARSCREAM! BLAST HIM!
    Cyclonus: But he's a ghost!
    Galvatron: DIE YOU WORTHLESS-! (fires and lands at least one hit on Starscream)
    Cyclonus: Wait a minute. Since when do ghosts tumble uncontrolled through space?
  • In the Taz-Mania episode "Dr. Wendal and Mr. Taz", Wendal gets exposed to Gamma Rays that turn him into a monster whenever he gets angry. By the end of the episode, Mr. Thickley gets tired of constantly trying to appease Wendal and finally says, "Oh, go ahead and hit me!" The camera freezes as Wendal turns into a monster and grabs Taz to do just that! All we hear is the sound of Taz screaming and whacking noises.
  • Teen Titans pulls this on a villain. Dr. Light bows out of the final battle of the Brotherhood of Evil versus all the teenage heroes. He tries to pull off a heist on his own, but there's a massive team of Titans (and all their honorary members) waiting to pounce on him. The outcome is not shown, but obviously the odds are not in Light's favor.
  • TRON: Uprising - Despite some heavy losses and struggle, it's looking like Beck might just be getting a rebellion underway, but then Clu himself is seen leading an army of Recognizers, Light Jets, and tanks and closing in on Argon City. There has been no mention of Argon outside of this series, and in January 2016, the third movie was canceled (before TRON: Ares would become the final product). Thus at the time, the Bolivian army ending to the storyline was a Bolivian army ending to the franchise.
  • The Xiaolin Showdown finale, where the entire Rogues Gallery appear at the outskirts of the Shaolin Temple, ready to begin a mass assault.

 
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Video Example(s):

Good Luck Everyone

Blackadder Goes Forth ends with Blackadder and his comrades charging across No Man's Land to their presumed deaths.

Example of:
Downer Ending

★★★★★ 5 (13 votes)
(Leave a comment)

Fist of Fury En...

Blue Collar

Getting away wi...

Race with the D...

Let's Keep Going

“You have...

Heading back

Blake's 7 Ending

Butt-Head's Hea...

No longer a day...

Butch Cassidy a...

Anchovie Pizza

Together in Ave...

Showdown at the...

Bluey - Shadowl...

Spawn's ending

Kamen Rider Kiva

"This is how ou...

"Run For the Hi...

Evil Tim has Be...

Zombies & Shotguns

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Good Luck Everyone

Blackadder Goes Forth ends with Blackadder and his comrades charging across No Man's Land to their presumed deaths.

(Leave a comment)

How well does it match the trope?

5 (13 votes)

Example of:

Main / DownerEnding

Media sources:

Report

1:56

Good Luck Everyone

 0:26

Fist of Fury En...

 2:30

Blue Collar

 1:52

Getting away wi...

 2:27

Race with the D...

 1:34

Let's Keep Going

 1:35

“You have...

 0:13

Heading back

2:26

Blake's 7 Ending

 2:29

Butt-Head's Hea...

 1:11

No longer a day...

 1:02

Butch Cassidy a...

 0:47

Anchovie Pizza

 1:38

Together in Ave...

 1:43

Showdown at the...

 0:21

Bluey - Shadowl...

 1:45

Spawn's ending

 1:50

Kamen Rider Kiva

 1:55

"This is how ou...

 0:31

"Run For the Hi...

 0:25

Evil Tim has Be...

 0:29

Zombies & Shotguns