The Famous Final Scene: Memorable Movie Endings Quiz

Answer: The Italian Job

Made in 1969, 'The Italian Job' starred Michael Caine as the leader of a gang of British robbers who stole gold bullion in Turin under the noses of the Mafia. The movie's most memorable scene was probably the car chase in which the gang's Minis evaded the attentions of the Italian police.

As the robbers and their gold made off over the Alps, the converted coach they were in almost came off the road and was left swinging precariously over a steep drop. Not many people know this, but the movie was part-financed by the Italian car company Fiat, which insisted that all the helplessly failing 'police' cars were made by their rivals, Alfa Romeo.

Answer: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid

Paul Newman and Robert Redford starred in this very likeable 1969 offering, loosely based on the lives of two of the Wild West's most famous bandits. Surrounded by a Bolivian Army unit, Butch and Sundance decided to make a run for it. As they burst from their hiding place, volleys of gunfire were heard and the screen froze on their faces.. If the ending was spectacular, the music was memorable. Altogether now: "Raindrops keep falling on my head..."

Answer: Carrie

Brian De Palma's direction (released in 1976) of Stephen King's novel featured a bullied teenage girl who used her special kinetic powers to wipe out her tormentors, and herself, at a high school prom. The ending, was, though, just a nightmare for the flower-laying character. Sissy Spacek played the troubled Carrie, while other lead characters were played by Piper Laurie, Amy Irvine and John Travolta.

Answer: Planet of the Apes

In the 1968 movie, spaceman Charlton Heston found himself on a planet ruled by apes, but just as he thought he had escaped from them, the truth dawned; he was not on another planet at all, he was on earth. The closing clips showed Heston ranging against man's folly, with a ruined American icon, the Statue of Liberty, in the background.

Answer: Doctor Strangelove

"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (to use its full title) was a Stanley Kubrick 1964 movie that used comedy and irony to underline the madness of the nuclear Apocalypse that many people at the time believed the world was headed towards.

The movie featured Peter Sellers at his manic best, and closing shots of Slim Pickens riding a missile like a rodeo horse out of a plane.

Answer: Gone With The Wind

After Clark Gable had told her: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn", most people would have got the message, but not Vivien Leigh's character. The 1939 production of Margaret Mitchell's American Civil War epic ended with the heroine remaining optimistic. Gable played Rhett Butler and Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara in a love story set against the background of the Civil War.

The O'Hara family were plantation-owning southerners only slowly realising their whole world was nearing an end. Not that that mattered to Scarlett, whose whole aim was to win her man.

The movie won eight Oscars, including best picture, best actress in a lead role (Leigh), best actress in a supporting role (Hattie McDaniel) and best director (Victor Fleming).

Answer: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Steven Spielberg's 1982 movie was one of the most popular and talked about of the decade. It was the story of a young boy who encountered and befriended an extraterrestrial being, 'ET'. ET had been part of a group of aliens who had been panicked by humans on a visit to earth.

They fled, leaving ET behind. Together ET and the boy built a signaling device to send messages so that his own race could come get him again. The movie won four Oscars (for sound effects; special effects; music; and sound), among a clutch of awards.

Answer: Zulu

Made in 1964, 'Zulu' was the movie that Michael Caine has credited as being "my first proper part in a real film." (Source: interview with 'The Sunday Times', London, July 2008.) The movie was based on an actual incident during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, in which a small group of British soldiers defended an outpost called Rorke's Drift, South Africa, against thousands of Zulu warriors.

In the actual battle, fewer than 140 soldiers defended the post against an estimated 4,000 Zulus. Stanley Baker and Jack Hawkins also led the cast in a movie that was largely faithful to actual events, and which gave due deference to the eleven soldiers who were awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military award.

Answer: On The Beach

'On The Beach' was made in 1959 and directed by Stanley Kramer from the novel by Neil Shute. Gregory Peck, Ava Gardiner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins led the cast in this post-nuclear holocaust tale. With the rest of the world seemingly wiped out, the residents of Australia awaited their fate, knowing that the poisoned clouds of death would inevitably reach their shores.

The movie had time for a love story between Peck (as the commander of a US submarine) and Gardner. The movie was set at a time when nuclear war was all too real a possibility in the minds of many.

It examined the mindsets of those who would start such a war through the eyes of those who had (to that point) survived. Ultimately, some cinema-goers were left to contemplate the fact that the message of the movie - and perhaps for the world - was encapsulated in those last few moments of footage.

Answer: The Long Good Friday

Made in 1980 and directed by John MacKenzie, 'The Long Good Friday' saw Bob Hoskins transformed from bit-player into a leading man. Hoskins played a London gang boss (Harold Shand) who seemed to have his part of the East End sewn up, until, suddenly, he started to experience violent opposition from an unknown source.

He believed it to be a rival gang, and it was only after episodes of blood-letting that he realised it was the IRA. Shand set out to destroy the opposition, but in the end he was the loser.

Born in 1942, Hoskins played a lot of TV and movie bit-parts before 'The Long Good Friday'. Afterwards he was seldom out of work for long, and though 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' (1988) brought him great popularity, he showed his serious side in films such as 'Mona Lisa' (1986) 'A Prayer For The Dieing' (1987) and 'Nixon' (1995.) 'The Long Good Friday' co-starred a certain Helen Mirren, and it did her career no harm, either.