What movie puts the protagonist through the absolute ringer for it to all pay off in the end?
Shawshank Redemption
Maid
Uncut Gems
Dredd (2012) would be somewhere at the top of my list. I don’t think there are too many movies nowadays that have such a classic “mission accomplished”-style ending.
Vanilla Sky! It’s a mind bending movie about a lucky man’s life that many of us could only dream of. That life quickly turns into a waking nightmare when the man’s jealous lover takes her own life with him inside the moving car. His nightmare of a life then melds into an actual dream. That dream then slowly transforms into a nightmare. All the while the main character doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t.
This all leads to an absolutely spectacular cathartic release for the main character when he finally understands what’s happened to him in the last 10 minutes of the film.
Did I mention it was mind bending? One of my favorite movies by far.