Right off the bat, I have issues with this list. Not so much for the fact that almost all of the films are sci-fi horror/thrillers, but because they left off a film with such a depressing ending that it still haunts me to this day. But first off, Den of Geek has compiled a list of what they feel are the 10 most depressing movie endings ever. Before you click over and check them out, be warned that massive amounts of spoilers await you. Here's their top ten: Soylent Green, The Elephant Man, The Descent, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Spider, Nineteen-Eighty Four, A.I. and -- drum roll please for number one -- The Mist.

Yes, valid points are made on all of them. Yes, they are depressing. But what about The Last American Virgin? Now there's a film with the most depressing ending I've ever seen (and if you've watched that film, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Off the top of my head, No Country for Old Men had a pretty depressing ending -- as did Goodfellas. There's Untamed Heart, Venus, Requiem for a Dream -- pretty much any film where someone is dying of an illness, but gets one last chance at love. Though it served as a bridge film, I thought Empire Strikes Back had a pretty depressing ending. Check out their list, then tell us which films were left off.

In your opinion, which film has the most depressing ending of all time? (Dammit, now I have The Last American Virgin ending stuck in my head. Sigh.)

UPDATE: Here's another list from our friend Alex on the 15 Bleakest Film Endings of All Time. A lot of the films you folks talked about in the comments are on his list, so hop on over and check it out.

Warning: Spoilers for The Mist obviously follow.

Though it opened to an enormous collective yawn, I thought that Stephen King's The Mist -- just released on DVD -- was one of the very best films of last year. Perhaps more accurately, I thought it was a movie that Frank Darabont and Stephen King tailor-made for me. There were moments in it that completely embodied everything I love about the horror genre: when a disheveled, bloodied Jeffrey DeMunn barreled into the supermarket, yelling that "there's something in the mist," the terror in his eyes and voice chilled me to the bone. That intersection between the mundane and the fantastical, the film straddling the line between the world we know and some place far beyond our imagination, is what makes that moment, and many others in The Mist, so scary. It approaches its supernatural conceit with an unforgettable combination of horror and wide-eyed wonder.

The Mist
Through the sea of torture porn mania and Korean horror remakes came The Mist -- the sort of movie to attract those who like chills and thrills, as well as those who might only scare themselves with Stephen King, or like what happens when Frank Darabont tackles King's writing. A wet and sticky mist falls upon a small coastal town, but instead of just being eerie, it gets downright deadly as monsters come to prey on those left out in the thick fog. It's strange, completely out of this world, but still believable in that way that taps into your cautious fears.

Thomas Jane got to wipe Dreamcatcher for the minds, or at least dull the memory of it with this film, and he's joined by an intriguing cast that includes Sayles powerhouse Marcia Gay Harden (as a bible reciter no less), the fighter of Demon Knight William Sadler, the American Pie-wanting Chris Owen, and the Infamous-starring Toby Jones.

Instead of giving us one of those annoyingly bare-bones discs that makes you want to smash it into little pieces, The Mist hits hard with a 2-disc collector's edition. On the first DVD, you can check out the feature with commentary by Darabont, deleted scenes with optional commentary, some featurettes/webisodes about Drew Struzan and behind-the-scenes fare, and a trailer gallery. The second offers, get this, the full film in black and white, plus an intro by Darabont, some making-of nibbles and a few bits about the film's fx.

Check out James Rocchi's Review | Buy the DVD

The best movie year since 1999, 2007 offered a staggering bounty of cinematic delights. I keep track of all the movies I see in a given year and give each a letter grade, "A" through "F". Usually my Top Ten list consists of all of the "A's" and a few "B's." This year, "A" pictures made up my top twenty. With so many great films, I won't wallow through a "Worst of the Year" list, I'll simply present you with a few that didn't fully satisfy:

The Biggest Disappointment: The Darjeeling Limited -- A Louis Vuitton commercial stretched to feature length. The Darjeeling Limited is a perfect title for the film because it makes plain what a limited filmmaker the once great Wes Anderson has become. Hey Wes, people running in slow-motion while a Kinks song plays is always going to look pretty neat. But if there's absolutely nothing else going on in the scene, then that's all it is -- people running in slow-motion while a Kinks song plays. We all think it's really cool that you like The Kinks. Hell, I love those guys! The Rolling Stones are awesome, too! But I wouldn't ask them to do my job for me.

and...

The Biggest Question Mark: There Will Be Blood

Undoubtedly one of the year's most impressive technical achievements, There Will Be Blood is frequently stunning. It's so stunning, in fact, that it's easy to overlook how infuriatingly empty it all is. The film focuses on two main characters, and neither one changes a lick in thirty years and 158 minutes. How did Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of such deeply emotional rides as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love come up with a movie completely devoid of human emotion? (I'm not counting greed.) Beautiful, brilliant, and boring in equal doses, I've seen Blood twice, and I still don't know if it's a masterpiece or a mess. I just know I felt...nothing watching it. It's as hollow, as frustrating, as difficult to know as its "hero," Daniel Plainview.

On to my list. First, ten that didn't quite make the cut. Here's #20 through #11: (#20) Breach, (#19) Once, (#18) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, (#17) Sicko, (#16) Sweeney Todd, (#15) The Lives of Others, (#14) Eastern Promises, (#13) Zodiac, (#12) Atonement, (#11) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

And my Top Ten is after the jump...

With The Mist coming out this week, which just so happened to get a solid review from our James Rocchi, a new interview with Stephen King has gone up on VH1, via MTV News. The discussion focuses on his relationship with long-term collaborator and Mist director Frank Darabont. In his review, James says: "The plot is vintage King, placing ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance." This is precisely what King discusses -- praising why Darabont has been successful with his adaptations, via his "adult sensibility," and why some other directors aren't taking on his novels.

Specifically, he says: "A lot of times, filmmakers don't really seem to understand ordinary people. I think there's a reason that David Lynch has never made a Stephen King film, or John Waters, because they don't really get ordinary people. But Frank does." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's because they both do their own work, not adapt a popular novelist for mass appeal. Waters has made his career from unique stories about the quirks of society, so let's focus on Lynch. I presume King never watched The Straight Story, Twin Peaks, or most of his other work for that matter.

Reducing Lynch to someone who doesn't understand ordinary people is like someone reducing King down to a plebian, gory horror writer. Take Straight Story, Twin Peaks, or even the wilder works like Lost Highway. The two creators are much more similar than King would care to admit. The difference is that he tackles ordinary people with extraordinary happenings rationally and clear-cut, while Lynch is the postmodern artist of the theme. There's lots of "ordinary" people in Lynch's work -- it's just that he spins the arc in a different manner, one that's not always understandable. Alvin Straight is as "ordinary" as they come. As is many of the Peaks characters, or others. Most just go mad in maddening circumstances. Hmm. Sounds familiar.

I've said my peace, but what do you think? Is King the paragon of the ordinary, or are Lynch and he more alike than he realizes?

After mining the soft-and-fuzzy (and yet still kinda grisly) end of Stephen King's literary catalog with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, writer-director Frank Darabont may seem like an unlikely choice for tackling one of King's shorter, grimmer horror tales. After turning high-end King into Oscar statues and nominations, why go slumming in the shabbier-seeming sections of King's catalog? Darabont's proven he can warm our hearts with King's stories, but does he have what it takes to chill our blood with one of the author's less high-minded efforts?

The Mist answers that question with a firm "Yes," although you'll be hard-pressed to hear it over the shrieks and shouts coming from the screen and the audience. Darabont's made what can best be called a grade-A B-movie, full of jolts and jumps and classic monster-movie tricks played out with old-school showmanship and thoroughly modern special effects. The plot is vintage King, placing ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance and watching to see who dies and who doesn't, who discovers hidden strength and who displays hidden madness. And no, The Mist is nothing new -- but it's superbly executed, and far smarter than it had to be. Apparently, Darabont read The Mist when it was published in 1980 and longed to make a film from it; instead, his debut was Shawshank, with The Mist in development limbo for years. The horror fan in me thinks it was more than worth the wait.

In a small coastal town, artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) huddles in the basement with his wife Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz) and son Billy (Nathan Gamble) as a storm rages. The next morning, with the power out and downed trees everywhere, David takes Billy into town to get some food, some hardware to fix up damage to the house; it looks like the storm has passed, except for the weirdly dense mist rolling towards town. ... But, as the mist rolls towards the store, a man races in -- bloody and frightened. "Something in the mist! ... Shut the doors!" He claims something in the mist "took" one of his friends. It sounds insane. It is insane. But it isn't wrong. ...

I'm about a week behind, but I wanted to talk this week about something discussed at the ShowEast exhibition convention, which was held October 13 - 18 in Orlando. That something is onscreen advertising, which I'll get to in a second; first I wanted to just outline some of the other somethings that were addressed. For those who don't know, ShowEast is one of four annual events where studios and theatre owners meet -- along with others involved in the movie industry, such as food concessions companies -- in order to discuss trends and issues, while simultaneously (and it seems primarily) celebrating upcoming releases and big stars.

This year, ShowEast awards went to John Cusack ("Star of the Year"), Frank Darabont ("Kodak Award For Excellence in Filmmaking"), New Line Cinema theatrical distribution president David Tuckerman ("Show 'E' Award") and National Amusements' Shari Redstone ("Salah M. Hassanein Humanitarian Award"), among others. Typically the awards, particularly those given to talent like actors and directors, are handed out as thank you notes to people who made the money for exhibitors this year. Obviously, giving an award to Darabont before The Mist even hits theaters is a little weird. And despite the surprise box office for Cusack's 1408, his award is also for not-yet-released movies Grace is Gone and Martian Child. As for Tuckerman's award: I don't get it. New Line hasn't been having the best year, and yesterday I heard through the grapevine that The Golden Compass is a mess. Then again, the grapevine has been wrong before ...

Oh man, this looks cool. There's a new trailer out for Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Stephen King novella The Mist, and you can check it out over at Yahoo. The novella first saw print in 1980 in a multi-author horror anthology called Dark Forces edited by Kirby McCauley, but probably reached its biggest audience as part of Skeleton Crew, a collection of King's stories. Those who have read the story will have plenty of ah-ha moments as the trailer bolsters the notion that the movie will be pretty darn faithful to King.

The story concerns residents of a small town trapped in a grocery store by an unnatural fog. To their horror they soon realize there are all sorts of things living in the mist, and this new trailer gives an up close and personal look at some of them, including some bat-winged gargoyle type thingies, insects too big to fear any bug zapper, and tentacles of unknown origin. When I first read The Mist I remember thinking the monsters were like something H.P. Lovecraft would have created, and sure enough these critters fit the bill. The scene with the soldier seems to be taking some artistic license, but I have to say I think the change is an improvement, providing a more believable bit of exposition. The trailer ends with several characters looking up at something with shock and horror, and I found myself cursing the fact that I will have to wait until the film opens on November 21 before finding out what they're looking at.

After the release of the trailer for The Mist, I think expectations for the Stephen King adaptation rose significantly -- at the very least, I know Scott's did. Now, Ain't it Cool News has an early look at a new poster for the film, and it's only a slight let-down. To be fair, it's not a bad poster, it's just kind of there. Written and directed by Frank Darabont, The Mist is based on King's story that was originally published in the 1980 book, Dark Forces.

The story focuses on a group of townspeople trapped in a supermarket when a unnatural mist rolls into town, and if you have ever read a Stephen King book, you can probably guess what happens next -- containing the usual 'motley crew' in so many of King's works; an artist and his son, a religious zealot, and a soldier. Eventually the paranoia and fear combine and the situation inside the supermarket becomes as dangerous as the unknown creatures outside. Casting was finalized last winter with Thomas Jane as the protagonist David Drayton. Joining Jane are Marcia Gay Harden as the bible thumping Mrs. Carmody and Shawshank alum Bill Sadler.

It was a long road for the production, starting back in the 90's when Darabont put Mist on the back burner to focus on The Shawshank Redemption -- and I doubt many would disagree with that particular decision. When you consider Darabont's previous successes with Stephen King adaptations, it's going to be interesting to see what he can do with one of King's more traditionally 'scary' stories. The Mist opens November 21st.