Most Bittersweet Endings In DC Movies, Ranked

Summary

• Supergirl retrieves a Kryptonian artifact but leaves her love interest behind, ending on a bittersweet note.
• Batman Returns sees the demise of Penguin and Catwoman, leaving fans with a bitter taste.
• The Dark Knight shows Gotham losing two heroes, a dark and bleak ending with a devastated city.

The world of DC Comics has dealt with many highs and lows across the history of bringing beloved characters to the big screen. Although many characters receive the happy ending that audiences are rooting for, others fail to get that for themselves through acts of self-sacrifice or deep loss.

Even when the hero wins, it doesn’t always feel like a victory for them. This can come in many forms, but usually ends with the leading characters and the audience feeling torn emotionally. Bittersweet endings are much more a part of the superhero genre than some realize, and these DC movies prove it.

8

Supergirl

A Return Home, But For How Long?

• Release Year: 1984
• Directed By: Jeannot Szwarc

Although it wasn’t well-regarded at the time, the Supergirl movie is a great example of an early female-led superhero film. It was also a forerunner for the upcoming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow film, which is set for release next year. With a cast led by Helen Slater, this rendition of Supergirl ended with her successfully recovering a Kryptonian artifact needed to save her city, which still existed on her planet.

Unfortunately, her newfound love with school groundskeeper Ethan ended on an uncertain note, as Kara left Earth with no set intentions of whether she would ever return. Ethan ending the film breaking free from a love spell and being able to give his true thoughts on his love for Kara, only for her to leave, left the story on a bit of a depressing note for audiences.

7

Batman Returns

The Loss Of A Potential Future Together

• Release Year: 1992
• Directed By: Tim Burton

The infamous Tim Burton Batman films managed to blend the old-school comic book caper style with a much darker, more modern nature for a character like Batman, which has taken over as his main personality. Batman Returns featured a list of fascinating portrayals from Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader, to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, to Danny DeVito as the Penguin.

Batman doesn’t kill in most iterations, but the ending of Batman Returns was a bit troublesome for audiences in several ways. The grand finale resulted in the death of Penguin and saw Catwoman taking her brutal vengeance on Max Shreck as well, resulting in his death and Catwoman proving herself unable to work as a true vigilante like Batman. This ending left a bitter taste in the mouth, especially as this beloved version of Catwoman never returned to show whether she could grow and change.

6

The Batman

A Broken City That Must Rebuild

• Release Year: 2022
• Directed By: Matt Reeves

Although there are many great things about 2022’s The Batman, this entry in the long-running Caped Crusader franchise cannot be faulted for being too cheery. Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is a dark, brooding version of the character, and the ending is a dark one with a spark of hope. The destruction by Riddler’s followers of the Seawall around Gotham creates a major tragedy, dealing huge damage to the entire city as it remains flooded by the end of the film.

In addition, despite the chemistry and budding romance between Bruce and Selina, this is another version of Catwoman without a happy ending to her tale. She leaves Gotham behind, deeming it unfixable. Though Bruce continues to help with the cleaning-up of his home, The Batman doesn’t end on an overly bright note, and the sequel is taking an awful long time to show what happens next.

5

Wonder Woman 1984

Love Lost Once Again For Diana

• Release Year: 2020
• Directed By: Patty Jenkins

The sequel to one of the more beloved DCEU films, Wonder Woman 1984, came out at a challenging time when cinemas were struggling to stay open, and it featured a story that many fans saw as quite problematic in the reincarnation of Steve Trevor. Using the body of somebody else to grant Diana’s wish, meaning that she had intimate relations with Steve using this person’s body, was a topical point made by many fans.

Additionally, the end of the film saw Diana lose Steve once more, in a way that felt particularly permanent. While Diana knew that letting him go was the right decision, it was sad to see her villains have a happier, more fulfilling ending than she managed to get for herself. Also, the setting in 1984 makes it seem that Diana has remained lonely since losing Steve for several decades.

4

The Dark Knight

A City That Lost Two Heroes

• Release Year: 2008
• Directed By: Christopher Nolan

Not just considered one of the best superhero movies of all time, but one of the best movies, period, The Dark Knight remains a triumph today. Christopher Nolan’s greatest work featured Christian Bale’s Batman taking on Heath Ledger’s Joker, and it was a devastating film in many ways. It also had a bleak ending, whereupon Bruce Wayne allowed Gotham to turn on him instead of letting the truth about their beloved Harvey Dent come out.

After Dent turned on the city and tried to commit murder, Batman realized that the city couldn’t hear the truth about their shining knight. The crux of the film was that Batman believed Dent could be better for Gotham than he himself could ever be. Unfortunately, with the city turning on Batman and Dent’s death, Gotham lost two heroes in one, and entered a dark period during the eight years of Batman’s reclusive disappearance.

3

Watchmen

A Mixed Bag Of Endings All In One

• Release Year: 2009
• Directed By: Zack Snyder

The first major adaptation of the Alan Moore comic miniseries that took the world by storm was Zack Snyder’s ambitious film version of Watchmen. This Cold War-era superhero deconstruction epic was a fascinating look at the darkness of the superhero world, and it dealt with a sequence of moral dilemmas and horrible occurrences.

The ending of the film wasn’t a bright one for most characters. Rorschach is killed by Doctor Manhattan after refusing to withhold the truth of Ozmandias’s plan. Doctor Manhattan himself then accepts the need for him to leave Earth forever and seek out a new galaxy, and Silk Spectre is forced to come to terms with the reality of her parentage. Ozymandias himself gets away with the murder of thousands in exchange for world peace, making everything about the ending feel truly bittersweet.

2

Joker: Folie à Deux

Death And Immortality Forgotten

• Release Year: 2024
• Directed By: Todd Phillips

Given less than a warm welcome by fans of the first Joker film, Folie à Deux was a very different beast. It was part musical, part deconstruction of the genre, and a complete antithesis in many ways to the themes of the first film. Arthur, now imprisoned, meets Lady Gaga’s Lee while awaiting trial. She convinces him to make more of a spectacle of himself, pushing the Joker persona to the forefront of his mind.

While the film itself received a lot of pushback, the ending was one of the most puzzling ideas. After Lee rejects Arthur, having only wanted the Joker, he is caught and taken back to Arkham, only for another inmate to stab and murder him. This inmate concluded the film by carving a smile into his own face, signaling that he might be the real Joker and that Arthur was nothing all along.

1

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice

The Death Of Hope Itself

• Release Year: 2016
• Directed By: Zack Snyder

One of the more recent shocking endings in superhero movie history came at the conclusion of Dawn of Justice, which was meant to set up the rest of the DCEU and then, in a major twist, ended with the death of Superman. This was definitely a controversial decision, since Superman was brought back just a year later in Justice League.

It also didn’t leave the film feeling like much of a “dawn” of anything. Fans who expected to see the entire Justice League united by the end of the runtime were left feeling disappointed. Ending with a funeral, which is what it took for Batman to finally trust Superman, felt like it took a crazy series of miscommunications between them too far.