Screw happy endings

[The Man]

If the ending fits the tone of the movie, I could not care less if it was happy or not. Naturally, it is naive to think that everything always works out in the end but only a stupid person would take a movie that seriously.

This. I just watched No Country for Old Men today and I'm pretty pleased that they didn't try to wrap up everything neatly because it wouldn't have worked for the material at all. I also agree with Pan's Labyrinth being cited as an example of a film with an excellent ending.

[Jiro]

If I want to feel ty about existing, I'll go and watch the news. If I'm trying to escape, a happy ending tends to be a better choice. Especially if it's something I like, and I'm invested in the characters - if a character has gone through hell, acted right, and then gets screwed over at the end, I'm just going to feel like they've been unfairly treated, and I'll dislike the movie.

[Jessweeee♪]

Sad endings are more moving but sometimes they really make me sad

[Tigmafuzz]

Honestly, I must confess that the title misled me quite a bit. At first I thought it might be an irony against "happy endings" as in a massage, with "screw" being the insult but adding hilarity because it a double entendre usually used to mean sexual intercourse, e.g. "I screwed that chick last night. You know, the one from the pantry?" "That was a vacuum cleaner."
Anyway, I think happy endings are used in most movies nowadays because of the child inside. Imagine yourself a child, and reading a story book about Batman that ended with Batman being ripped in half by the Joker and the Joker takes over Gotham City. You most likely wouldn't read Batman comics anymore, would you? It is about appealing to the good nature of humans, so as not to have riots, people burning movie theaters, et cetera.
Think about the movie The Princess Bride. The boy kept interrupting the story with suggestions about improving the story, and objections to what has happened so far, because he thought these things "just shouldn't happen" and that it couldn't be possible. It makes people upset to think about things that aren't happy. It makes people feel better at the end of the movie, like in the movie Life with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. At the end, (SPOILER)you think they die, but they actually escaped and went to a ball game.
It just gives a good feeling at the end of the story that makes you appreciate more what happened. Purely psychological.

[Shiny]

I try to stay away from heavily marketed movies that are geared towards the mainstream audiences because quite often they're not as good as films that you can see at film festivals and/or select theaters. What annoys me is not so much the cliche happy endings most of them have, but the fact that some people assume that just because it's number one in the box office, it's worth seeing and a great movie. Most movies in the top five in the box office are horrible. I mean Fast and Furious is number one right now...just food for thought... I recommend watching some Godard, Truffaut, Hitchcock and John Cassavetes films.